Thanks for the feedback so far folks
Understandably lots of questions too, I´ll try to shed some light with a few answers:
And what about people who dont have powerful rig to run Automobilista (Still dont know HW requirements, engine etc). Its little bit sad I think. Luckly im getting new laptop so I hope I will not have any problem to run that
The new sim looks stunning. However, I'm not too sure about how Automobilista would run in not so powerful PC rigs (I'm not running a powerful PC (unable to run Project Cars due to weak video card)). I understand a couple of members stated that the minimum/recommended requirements should most likely be similar to SCE (I have the specs to run SCE). But considering the upgraded graphics and the screenshots of the game I've seen, it looks like I would need a powerful PC (which I don't really have) to run the game.
There is no significant performance loss or change in minimum / recommended specs relative to SCE, with AMS being what it is, that has been one of the guidelines we have adhered to. Some might even experience a minor performance boost.
Thanks
@Renato Simioni! Exciting times, whoohoo!
But in what way will Automobilista differ from the current SCE and content? Will it be updates to FFB, graphics, new content, and/or anything else? Thanks again!
The main points are already covered in the press release and includes all that was proposed in the campaign: new 1080p UI; new HUD system; dynamic track conditions; advanced tire and transmission modelling; new content and updates to all existing content.
There is (a lot) more to it though, some of it we´ll share as we approach release, some we´ll let you discover for yourselves. Too much dev chest-thumping wears out the magic factor
Well, for SCE owners this is pretty cool, but I'm not interested in something looking so outdated.
A shame that they're not making this in a modern engine.
Wait, Automobilista will still use the 10-year-old rFactor engine?
If we had a penny for every time someone said that
It uses the "same" engine taken on our own tangent. It happens to be a very reliable game engine, and one of the most advanced physics engines out there - great enough for several top level racing teams and drivers (some of which using our own software), but not so advanced that we can´t even figure out what might be missing with it let alone do something to address it. It does a lot of what we want it to do and what it doesn´t we´re adding / changing ourselves. It would be great if people would snap out of this preconception that just because it´s based on an engine they´re familiar with makes it inherently dated or limited - it is quite the opposite.
The choice to stick with ISIMotor has been a conscious decision taken over a long time as we believe it is the best path to deliver the sims we want to make - starting with AMS. The code under the hood is not the be-all end-all - a substantial percentage of the same codebase can be found in at least 3 other supposedly modern products out there, yet they´re all vastly different.
Naturally we only have had this code since july and there is a limit to what can be done in 6 months vs 1,2 or 3 years of development, specially for a team and a budget our size - if we were magicians to develop a brand new graphics engine in this time, you can bet we´d not be giving it out for free to owners of our 2-year old release. But it is an all around substantial enough step to warrant a new release under the terms presented.
It´s been said before: it would be easier for us to take the cars and tracks and licenses we have, roll it up with UE4 or whatever to deliver another fancy-looking-but-ordinary racing game. It would cost us less, take less time, the screenies from such hypothetical game would look fantastic and it would most likely sell a lot more too. It´s just not the kind of product we´re interested in making.
Don´t get me wrong we believe graphics are important and the extent of the updates we have done and energy we have spent in this front demonstrate that. We´ll post some comparative screenshots in due time to better showcase it.
But no, it´s not "next-gen" of course so surely it won´t be for everyone´s tastes, but my take on that is: you may wish for next-gen graphics along with everything else on the same level but my opinion is that such complete simracing package does not currently exist. I also think there will be nothing out there quite like AMS. I´m sure many of the skepticals will agree when they come to try it; others may feel differently and have different tastes and priorities - in which case there are plenty of great alternatives out there. Do check out AMS upon its release though - you might be pleasantly surprised
Sorry to be "that guy" ....
So there won't be a non-steam version of the new title?
I love my non-steam GSCE.
AMS will indeed be Steam only. Your Non-Steam GSCE will continue to work just as it does now though.
Will it have VR Oculus Rift or Vive support? This was mentioned in the campaign.
It will eventually, not in initial release. We´ll look into it after the consumer units hit the market.
What I mean is they need to earn some money, right ? 124 all time peak on Steam - WTF ? I wonder if they even sold 1000 copies there. The rest of community, a couple 1000 more, I presume, is off Steam and hasn't paid a buck for 2+ years.
I´m mistified by people that take Steam peak players as an absolute reference as to how much the title has sold. That stat is just that, peak players at any given time - sure there is a correlation to the extent the more a title sells the higher that stat is likely to be, but it can be easily skewed if a given title is more sparsely played, or in our specific case if there is another distribution channel predating Steam release by 15 months which still retains over 50% of the userbase.
To give you an example, our free Marcas on Steam has 300 or so peak players, but 700k Steam users downloaded it - obviously because it´s free (we wish SCE had even a fraction of that
), but it demonstrates how that stat is not particularly relevant. Dont worry we did sell more than 1k copies, as evidenced by the fact we´re still in business
They may have been a bit overly generous over the years. The updates/dlc has never been substantial enough, though, to warrant asking money for it. Or maybe they could charge a couple of bucks every now and then. It is what it is now... SCE has been in a sort of limbo, with the devs seemingly not being quite sure how to make the best transition to their new title/new tech/new projects and wrapping up SCE for good.
GSC2013 / SCE has seen 10 major updates since it´s original release (excluding the smaller ones such as the last v1.52). It has doubled in content over its lifetime. I believe that´s substantial by any measure
You are right to an extent about there being somewhat of a limbo period during SCE´s lifetime in which the direction forward was still being decided. This is no longer the case - we have a solid roadmap for the next 3 years, and it starts with AMS.
The business model we adapted with SCE wasn´t a matter of lack of direction or purely generosity - part of it was indeed the belief on the long term value of ensuring user satisfaction by giving them more than they bargained for, as again evidenced by AMS being free to the existing SCE userbase; and part of it was because we simply sold more copies of SCE with every update, enough to warrant its continuing development.
Part of the reason why it might not feel substantial is we´re not forcing you to reach your wallet every time we release something. Unfortunately we have also found that over time it has led the userbase to take these updates for granted, diminishing the returns. There are more users now and they have different, higher expectations which can no longer be maintained under the approach we had with SCE. This all factors into AMS coming to be and the model we´ll be adopting for it from now on: bigger updates at a less frequent rate, with extra content sold via small DLC packages at a very reasonable price.
