Hoping this is not a sign of things to come

[Kevin Watts]

Like most other virtual racers I eagerly awaited the release of Assetto Corsa and purchased it the day it was released. I was stunned by how polished it was as an alpha/beta/early access game and enjoyed not only the superb visuals but the crisp believable handling of the cars as I threw them around the laser scanned tracks. As each week went by I looked forward to the next batch of fortnightly content and was happy to see each new car and track was crafted as well as the last. Not even the silly bickering on the Steam forums over whose game was better could dull my enthusiasm or the banal criticism’s by the console gamers because you couldn’t ‘pimp’ your car with gaudy body-kits like Forza Motorsport or that the game didn’t already have 1000 cars like Gran Turismo. Each new announcement via their web-site or Facebook page brought more excitement – a new manufacturer license, a laser scanned Nordschleife – the future looks bright…

Then it happened. The first quick and dirty conversion quite literally ripped from another game. News spread and this track suddenly became the hot topic, the ‘must have’ despite it being taken warts-and-all from a game released nearly 10 years ago. Rather than herald this new ‘mod’ it left me despairing for the racing sim community. While many virtual racers and racing simulation sites rightly shunned discussion of this ‘rip’ there were many more making asinine excuses for the author essentially taking this work without permission and grafting it into a new sim. Theft is theft no matter if you ‘get away with it’ or not or even that you give it away freely. It reminded me of rFactor and how when it was released it showed so much promise. For months we saw 3d meshes being shown by talented mod makers working their magic on new cars and tracks made from scratch.

It all seemed so exciting and then conversion tools reared their ugly heads. All of a sudden sites like rFactor Central were awash with poorly ripped work from Grand Prix Legends, Geoff Crammonds Grand Prix 4 among others. Far from pushing the genre forward it felt like we were now going backwards. The same racers who argued over the radius of a hairpin in Simbin’s rendition of Macau were suddenly silent when rFactor became awash with low poly conversions of 10 year old games complete with poorly defined racing surfaces, low resolution textures and cardboard cut-out tree’s and track side objects which screamed ‘FAKE’ as you sped past them. Questionably legal content appeared and then disappeared from the net as lawyers and mod makers played cat and mouse.

Is this really where we want to go with Assetto Corsa? - A step backwards porting generations old content complete with all their imperfections into a next gen simulation? There was a ‘gold rush’ in rFactor when the conversion tools appeared to be ‘the first’ to bring a popular track to rFactor, be it Spa or Brands Hatch for example so why would someone spend time carefully building a track from scratch when others are just ripping it from another game and fudging it into this new sim. Have our expectations really been lowered so far that we’d accept the grave robbing zombification of old content like this?

 

[MRX]

A three to four year old gaming pc is still immensely more powerful than XBox One or PS4.

Funny post.. I doubt a 3-4year old PC is going to get past 30FPS in The Division when it's going to be released. Compared to PS4 or X1

 

[Tobias Kluge]

Trademark law is not limited to selling products with trademark infringements. It is whether it causes confusion to the public over the source and the damage that can do to the owner of the trademark which can include the implied endorsement of a product by the trademark owners.

In most cases with sim racing that isn't worth bothering with but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen - e.g. if a car manufacturer felt that rival games to the ones they do endorse and have license agreements were having a negative impact on their marketing strategy with games depicting their brands.

Nope, that is just plain wrong. The height of creation of a private person purely for his and others enjoyment, outweighs the commercial interest of a company. Nevermind that a company lawyer would have a hard time explaining the court, in which way their trademark got damaged, by a cheerful skin on a car in a game.
Some companies tried to sue some "modern" artists (selling their goods), because they felt that their trademark/reputation was damaged. They lost every time.

 

[Simon Roberts]

Funny post.. I doubt a 3-4year old PC is going to get past 30FPS in The Division when it's going to be released. Compared to PS4 or X1

Wow! Thanks for bringing that to my attention, never heard of it before! Just watched the E3 trailer and looks brillian

 

[MRX]

Wow! Thanks for bringing that to my attention, never heard of it before! Just watched the E3 trailer and looks brillian

You welcome! now that's what i call a REAL next-gen engine. (unlike CoDGhosts "next-gen" lol)

 

[Kristóf Kerekes]

Funny post.. I doubt a 3-4year old PC is going to get past 30FPS in The Division when it's going to be released. Compared to PS4 or X1

And best thing is. We still can't emulate late-PS2 games with the our current household PCs and that technology was more than 10 years ago now. I wouldn't go about comparing the consoles and PCs, just cause of the strict functioning of all the game consoles. Let's hope in 10 years of time span we'll be able to have the same gaming performance as PS4.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

You realize that the E3 demos are rendered by PC's right?

And both the PS4 and XBox one has slow, ineffective CPU architectures and three year old GPU tech. For reference, see XBO running Ryse and dipping to 12 frames per second. Next gen right there!

And of course a two year old high end pc will crush The Division, as it is a PC running the E3 demo and the above... At 60fps, as 30fps in anything fast paced is a joke and an insult.

So. No.

And to bring in emulation is a joke right? Sarcasm? To emulate a different architecture has a lot more overhead, than just matching the power of said system.

 

[Richard Eriksson]

Only reason for purchasing one of the consoles is simplicity and price. Mostly simplicity. You will never get to play anything complex on them and never above 30 frames per second if you want some eye candy.

So for me, i'll pass.

This my honest opinions, you may disagree i believe

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Guys please return to the topic of this thread. If you wish to discuss consoles feel free to start a new discussion.

 

[MRX]

I guess there's not much else to discuss. In these 11 pages everyone said their own opinion about this. Meanwhile the RBR files are still there for everyone to download. Cant wait for AC official mod tools to see which kind of mods will flood the forums. Original or conversions.Or both.

Im bored now. Time for some CoH2. see y'all.

 

[Simon Roberts]

Great debate! 11 pages and no one insulted anyone?

 

[Turk]

I haven't read through the entire thread so I don't know if I'm repeating people. I said before in another thread that Kunos (and probably the rest of the sim makers) have raised their game this year. Mod makers aren't going to be able to make laser scanned tracks or have the kind of access that Kunos have to the actual cars. I think this allows modders to make whatever mods they like for fun but when it comes to serious content that'll be used in leagues it will be Kunos content only.

I think this allows for mods of all kinds without upsetting the sim makers bottom line. I also think there's a bit of people buying into companies made up loses. Companies often make up bizarre numbers based on sales they never intended on making as a way of hyping up their losses, especially when solicitors are involved. Solicitors over value everything for their own gain and always plan to meet somewhere in the middle and settle.

The RBR stage was a bit of fun, I raced it maybe two times and got excited about the possibilities but over all the stage is just too bland in the great scheme of AC tracks and I haven't gone near it since.

 

[Ben Lee]

I don't know. I just think when you've had laser scanned tracks, it might be hard to go back to traditional methods of track creation.

Original content is always best.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Laser scanned tracks are amazing but I think only having 10 or 11 of them for the foreseeable future leaves the door open plenty wide for modders. If you only plan on running 1 or 2 league races a week then 10 tracks is plenty to keep you occupied. If you plan on running several small races pretty much every day the more variety the better.
The great thing with mods is that you don't have to even bother with them if you don't want to....or conversely you can try every one you can get your hands on and spend a few minutes decided if the quality is good enough for the mod to live on your hard drive or not.
I'm sure that when the mod tools are released at first most of the mods are going to be conversions of the mods that have been in circulation for what seems like forever. It's just human nature that it will be much easier to convert a track that has already been made than to start from scratch. The projects that are brand new and scratch made will take considerably longer before they are ready also. I predict that this little rally stage and the moral choice it presents to download it or not is only the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Simon Roberts]

Laser scanned tracks are amazing but I think only having 10 or 11 of them for the foreseeable future leaves the door open plenty wide for modders. If you only plan on running 1 or 2 league races a week then 10 tracks is plenty to keep you occupied. If you plan on running several small races pretty much every day the more variety the better.
The great thing with mods is that you don't have to even bother with them if you don't want to....or conversely you can try every one you can get your hands on and spend a few minutes decided if the quality is good enough for the mod to live on your hard drive or not.
I'm sure that when the mod tools are released at first most of the mods are going to be conversions of the mods that have been in circulation for what seems like forever. It's just human nature that it will be much easier to convert a track that has already been made than to start from scratch. The projects that are brand new and scratch made will take considerably longer before they are ready also. I predict that this little rally stage and the moral choice it presents to download it or not is only the tip of the iceberg.

But id most definitely do what iRacing do and run the same track for at least a week, gives you a chance to really get to know the track and have fun rather than just run it for a day.

 

[Tobias Kluge]

I haven't read through the entire thread so I don't know if I'm repeating people. I said before in another thread that Kunos (and probably the rest of the sim makers) have raised their game this year. Mod makers aren't going to be able to make laser scanned tracks or have the kind of access that Kunos have to the actual cars. I think this allows modders to make whatever mods they like for fun but when it comes to serious content that'll be used in leagues it will be Kunos content only.

I think this allows for mods of all kinds without upsetting the sim makers bottom line. I also think there's a bit of people buying into companies made up loses. Companies often make up bizarre numbers based on sales they never intended on making as a way of hyping up their losses, especially when solicitors are involved. Solicitors over value everything for their own gain and always plan to meet somewhere in the middle and settle.

Thats a general thing in modding nowadays, the closer you get to (photo)realism the assets you have to create take exponentially more time. But I'm not worried by this, when the community stays open to fantasy tracks a lot of the time consuming reproducing problems go away and talented mod makers can still create awesome content, which matches or outperforms the quality of the chosen sim platforms.
Real tracks are also living entities. I would really welcome mods which take care about future changes to originally provided AC tracks, without the monumental task to create an entire track from scratch.
I hope AC is providing a possibility to create game modes/challenges with its scripting interface, for instance create an awesome interface for league racing inside the game, with the chance to connect (streamlinied chat/VOIP) to new people.
If something really new sticks, the sim devs can further develop into that direction, everybody wins.

 

[Baldrick]

Nope, that is just plain wrong. The height of creation of a private person purely for his and others enjoyment, outweighs the commercial interest of a company.

I said it was very unlikely but if a company feels they have had their reputation or revenue damaged and can prove a case they may choose to do so. There are plenty of examples of cease & desist letters being sent to modding outfits, including the Porsche vs Enduracers sim racing example.

Unlikely yes, plain wrong? no

 

[Tobias Kluge]

I said it was very unlikely but if a company feels they have had their reputation or revenue damaged and can prove a case they may choose to do so. There are plenty of examples of cease & desist letters being sent to modding outfits, including the Porsche vs Enduracers sim racing example.

Unlikely yes, plain wrong? no

I missed that, its a shame they didn't have the financial backing to go to court with that silly Porsche claim.
I might just change my avatar in the future.

 

[Dazmaniac]

10 cars alone would be close to $150 minimum on iR

DC,

Don't know if you sub @ iRacing but you're obviously not familiar with their prices.

iRacing's pricing structure:-

• Additional cars cost a one-time fee of $11.95.
• Additional tracks cost a one-time fee of either $11.95 or $14.95 (depending on the track).
• If you buy 3 pieces of content (cars or tracks) at once you’ll receive a discount of 10%.
• If you buy 6 pieces of content at once you’ll receive a discount of 20%.
• If you own either every road OR oval car (plus any 25 tracks), every new car or track you buy gets discounted at 25%.
• If you own all the cars and tracks, every new car or track you buy gets discounted at 30%.

So as you can see, your claim of 10 cars being close to $150 minimum is a little bit out (plus apply the bulk purchase discounts and you're well below). 10 x £11.95 = $119.50 less at least 20% bulk discount = $95.60.

PS. I am an iRacing subscriber. Last car released was the RUF (3 versions) for $11.95 (which I got 30% discount as I'm in the 100% club).

 

[Tobias Kluge]

DC,

Don't know if you sub @ iRacing but you're obviously not familiar with their prices.

iRacing's pricing structure:-

• Additional cars cost a one-time fee of $11.95.
• Additional tracks cost a one-time fee of either $11.95 or $14.95 (depending on the track).
• If you buy 3 pieces of content (cars or tracks) at once you’ll receive a discount of 10%.
• If you buy 6 pieces of content at once you’ll receive a discount of 20%.
• If you own either every road OR oval car (plus any 25 tracks), every new car or track you buy gets discounted at 25%.
• If you own all the cars and tracks, every new car or track you buy gets discounted at 30%.

So as you can see, your claim of 10 cars being close to $150 minimum is a little bit out (plus apply the bulk purchase discounts and you're well below). 10 x £11.95 = $119.50 less at least 20% bulk discount = $95.60.

PS. I am an iRacing subscriber. Last car released was the RUF (3 versions) for $11.95 (which I got 30% discount as I'm in the 100% club).

It's still whale fishing, those prices won't get any average consumer on board. Its like F2P, P2W without the free playing part.

 

[Dazmaniac]

It's still whale fishing, those prices won't get any average consumer on board. Its like F2P, P2W without the free playing part.

Not the point of my post. Don't care how many consumers it attracts or doesn't attract.

I was just showing DewCrew88 how far out he was with his $150 estimation for 10 cars in iRacing, that is all.