Is Classic Content Overlooked in Simracing?

[Andor]

The older cars (older 15-20 years) ,or classic/vintage is real racing.More difficulty ,more sound and more experience,the real experience.I like old F1 cars,and GT Cars see:GT Legends.But this cars have best feeling with old tracks or old layout tracks.
I like historic cars

 

[andy wan]

Must respect the classic car pioneers who set the trend they are always a part of the future even 1950s trends are making a come back on new cars, sometimes it's good to immerse yourself in older classic racers and embrace the experience of what it was like in the past going back in time per say.

 

[Enthilzha]

The first one is not that ugly, the second one is horrible.

This is MUCH better.

Heathen!

 

[Neville Roberts]

Love the old classics, in fact that's just about all I drive in AC now that there are several mods available and you can cobble together your own championships.
But there's a decided lack of the historic circuits needed to go with them.
I'd love to have 1967 versions of Watkins Glen and Mexico but although they were available for RFactor no one has done the AC conversions and I don't have the ability to do it myself.

 

[JonathanBenn]

Thanks for this post.

I way prefer historics to the GT3/GT4 scene; the cars and the culture mean much more to me.

I have decades of sim experience but I'm still finding it hard to get a foothold in online racing.

Can anyone recommend rF2/AC leagues or private servers?

Thanks!

 

[Denis Betty]

I have decades of sim experience but I'm still finding it hard to get a foothold in online racing.

Can anyone recommend rF2/AC leagues or private servers?

What is stopping you from getting a Premium Membership and racing here at RD?

 

[Patrik Marek]

if it's done well, it can be great fun.
I definitely enjoyed games like GT legends ,
remake of GT legends into AC engine would have been amazing!

 

[Davide Nativo]

Eh sim racing is already a niche, any niche within it is always going to struggle for content.

Best bet - make it yourself.

Well yes, but doing one car, one track, or even a car and track pack is totally a different thing from doing a new sim that works around the concept of replicating a vintage racing series, for example, which is something lacking in the market right now. That requires you having a company basically, rather than just modelling, physics, texturing and audio skills.

 

[Leynad777]

I know, most of the people does. For me they are ugly and slow.

You don't seem to know that the fastest race-cars ever were driven in the early 70's with the 917k (1969-71) performing over 400 km/h on Le Mans and the 917/30 since 1973 with the strongest engine and best power-to-weight ratio ever been seen in a track-racer (up to 1500 hp on 845 kg, 2,4 sec. from 0-100 km/h). Today's cars are ridiculous heavy and slow.

 

[Ghoults]

I'd also like to see more depth when it comes to historic race cars. For some reason historic single seater is basically limited almost completely to historic f1 cars with some recent indycars thrown into the mix as mods. But there is so much more to just historic single seaters alone than the f1 cars. The f5000 cars, vintage f2 and f3 cars and all the smaller national series. All cars with great handling and ability to provide much better racing than the top of the line f1 cars with their razor edge handling and power combinations. Same thing with things like group c cars. All the sims want to do the same porsches with the occasional other very high profile jaguars, mercedess or nissans. The c2 class cars look pretty interesting to me and there is also a lot of variation with the european, american and japanese series. I get that lemans is special but maybe look elsewhere too.

Another pet peeve of mine is that for some reason there is this desire to always go for the highest performance highest horsepower versions. Like with porsches you have the everywhere 3.0 rsr and the nowhere 2.8 rsr. Or the fascination with the high power group b race cars when the kit cars with less power but practically unrivalled handling get overlooked. Or the plethora of interesting one make series. I get it that the imso gto cars for example on the surface are more interesting than the gtu cars but the latter ones have never been done for example. And there are lots of cool old single make series with all kinds of cars. Why not do one of those instead of yet another gt40 or cobra?

Even with the canam cars the offerings are all the big engine cars. I get the affection of the 1500hp porsches but after you have rolled it couple of times you'd surely want something more raceable which does not need kilometer long straights to be enjoyable experience? Canam also had group 2 cars. Just saying. The world sports car which became group c also had some really nice cars before the ground effect monsters. The matra ms670, the alpine renaults and alfas etc... Or the...

I do understand that group c porsches and group b audis and whatevers were spectacular cars and if you want something from those classes then it makes a lot more sense than getting some totally obscure rondeau, dome or lola instead. But it somewhat pains me when the choice is almost always the most obvious most already done many times cars in their highest power level. I'd already be happy if the next lemans prototype wasn't a one of the three, the next touring car wasn't the sierra or the m3 or the next historic single seater wasn't an old f1 car.

 

[Patrik Marek]

Well yes, but doing one car, one track, or even a car and track pack is totally a different thing from doing a new sim that works around the concept of replicating a vintage racing series, for example, which is something lacking in the market right now. That requires you having a company basically, rather than just modelling, physics, texturing and audio skills.

True, and when you do that, you have to pay people to create the work, which means that it's no longer free
which in return means that you get a ton of backslash for making money of other people's hobby

if you do it for free, it takes many years, which is also something some people can't swallow

(some) people are finding it hard to realize that to make a car/track, takes easily 10 times longer then it id, so if you had a mod - full series with cars - that took a year, you are looking into 10 years of development, which is much harder to stay motivated , then if you have to do it only for a year

with the demands for quality are going to be increasing, modding will become smaller and smaller segment, where most people would just convert stuff, or do rips from other games
with only small teams trying to make stuff from scratch, which we already see in AC

 

[Patrik Marek]

I'd also like to see more depth when it comes to historic race cars. For some reason historic single seater is basically limited almost completely to historic f1 cars with some recent indycars thrown into the mix as mods. But there is so much more to just historic single seaters alone than the f1 cars. The f5000 cars, vintage f2 and f3 cars and all the smaller national series. All cars with great handling and ability to provide much better racing than the top of the line f1 cars with their razor edge handling and power combinations. Same thing with things like group c cars. All the sims want to do the same porsches with the occasional other very high profile jaguars, mercedess or nissans. The c2 class cars look pretty interesting to me and there is also a lot of variation with the european, american and japanese series. I get that lemans is special but maybe look elsewhere too.

Another pet peeve of mine is that for some reason there is this desire to always go for the highest performance highest horsepower versions. Like with porsches you have the everywhere 3.0 rsr and the nowhere 2.8 rsr. Or the fascination with the high power group b race cars when the kit cars with less power but practically unrivalled handling get overlooked. Or the plethora of interesting one make series. I get it that the imso gto cars for example on the surface are more interesting than the gtu cars but the latter ones have never been done for example. And there are lots of cool old single make series with all kinds of cars. Why not do one of those instead of yet another gt40 or cobra?

Even with the canam cars the offerings are all the big engine cars. I get the affection of the 1500hp porsches but after you have rolled it couple of times you'd surely want something more raceable which does not need kilometer long straights to be enjoyable experience? Canam also had group 2 cars. Just saying. The world sports car which became group c also had some really nice cars before the ground effect monsters. The matra ms670, the alpine renaults and alfas etc... Or the...

I do understand that group c porsches and group b audis and whatevers were spectacular cars and if you want something from those classes then it makes a lot more sense than getting some totally obscure rondeau, dome or lola instead. But it somewhat pains me when the choice is almost always the most obvious most already done many times cars in their highest power level. I'd already be happy if the next lemans prototype wasn't a one of the three, the next touring car wasn't the sierra or the m3 or the next historic single seater wasn't an old f1 car.

I imagine some of the issues are that it's pretty impossible to get any proper data for these , more unknown , cars / single seaters

 

[elloLeo Kinnunen]

As I see it the underlying problem is that there is only ever a handful a current series to focus on compared to hundreds of possible historical series across the last 100+ years. Even if a sim has roughly the same amount of classic cars as modern, it will seem like classic are underrepresented because there are so many more to choose from - 1928 formula libre anyone? So, what I'm trying to say is that it's a false comparison between historic and present day.

If @leon_90 is not just asking whether classic content is overlooked but actually asking how to promote classic content creation and racing then historics fans should start a conversation about what classic content we'd most like to see and what we'd be prepared to do/give/crowdfund/pay to make it happen. Because content creation takes so much more time and effort these days compared to last gen sims, I think only a focused and collective effort will make it possible to see a whole historic series produced any time soon... let alone several.

At the moment though, we're all over the place: divided by choice of sim, choice of exactly what historic content we like, divided by whether we race here at RD or in league somewhere else. What I'd really love to see is a dedicated historic section here on RD so people who share this affliction can at least gather together more easily to achieve that critical mass to make historic content more viable.

2c

 

[garyjpaterson]

Well yes, but doing one car, one track, or even a car and track pack is totally a different thing from doing a new sim that works around the concept of replicating a vintage racing series, for example, which is something lacking in the market right now. That requires you having a company basically, rather than just modelling, physics, texturing and audio skills.

Yes but like i said, sim racing as a whole is already a niche market. In order to get the investment needed you have to be convinced of its success, hence why the most ‘trendy’ content is largely focused on.

Would more old stuff be cool to see? Absolutely. Could a dev take a risk and be successful? Sure. But its just that, a risk. A bigger one than if they stick to something with guaranteed success.

So in the end we are left with few options.

Why not start a crowdfunded project? see how many people are really willing to put money down for vintage content.

 

[Dobermann92]

Classic cars are nice for time trials and record breaking attempts, but for online racing GT3 or GTE is much better because you can concentrate on consistency because you don't have to fight as much with the car itself. I like both content.

 

[Nick Gregory]

Classic cars are nice for time trials and record breaking attempts, but for online racing GT3 or GTE is much better because you can concentrate on consistency because you don't have to fight as much with the car itself. I like both content.

The best drivers can still race with old cars.

 

[KittX]

Say you're radio DJ
Classic cars = vinyl gems from all the different eras, from Miles Davis, to Jimi Hendrix, to even some deep techno/ambient recordings from all the various years, some hidden gems
Modern cars = pop culture music, or anything that's relevant now.

To play the former you have to develop a lot of feel/taste to fit them all together.
To play latter you can just concentrate on being popular DJ... which are kinda different purposes, there's no better or worse.

 

[Yetch]

Sounds like plenty of people would like historic content, yet there is a Sim out there that just released a great version of the 934, complete with crossplys and has 3 other classics landing soon™, very soon™, of course these are joining some pretty special cars already available, DTM'92, Touring Classics, GTO & GR5 and with 2 of the next cars being the 962 & R90CK, yep, Group C is joining the party and with @anthony monteil on the decks, where's me glosticks & whistle, things are about to get insane over at Raceroom, Twin Turbolicious.

 

[Patrik Marek]

Why not start a crowdfunded project? see how many people are really willing to put money down for vintage content.

haha! btw. this is something that already corssed my mind btw, to see if Kunos would offer licensing of their engine, getting people like XFAB to add their bits to it , and then build a full on game on it !

but obviously, it would be properly licensed game, with licenses payed to the trademark holders, so it would be probably full price game , and that increases the risk of getting your money worth

 

[cnuk]

Quoting Steve Smith in “Four Wheel Drift (A Car Guys Guide to Papyrus’ “Grand Prix Legends)”:
“The true significance of 1967 was that it was the last year before “wings”, “spoilers”, “foils”, “fences”, “air dams”, “tunnels”, “chin whiskers”, “lips”, and other aerodynamic accouterments were added to the cars, and thus, the last year that the driver was doing more to hold the car on the road than the wind disturbed by its passage”.
Continuing: “the time when raw driving talent trumped mere technical embellishments”.
That about sums it up for me! I prefer classic content.