PC1 Pcars: A community divided

[Nathan Robinson]

Continuation of Part 1: http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/banned-for-no-reason.47384/

Its hard to believe a game has taken a community over like this. Now with legal proceedings, its kind of become a joke for simmers. I have been at this a while now and have never seen a game invoke so much negative and positive reaction. May the discussions continue


Ps. While i continue to support pcars, i respect RD for allowing the freedom of expression to all its members.

 

[Marco80]

Chronus, no point in even discussing this with you, engineers in the field know that there is still much unknown about tyres and their behaviour, therefore they still consider it a sort of black art, Kunos said this, kaemer has, and I have read about it and heard about it being still very much unknown (relatively speaking) in formula 1 from engineers, articles, documentarys, etc etc etc, and i have been watching racing including every F1 race for 14 years, so no I haven't just watched a race or 2.

 

[Chronus]

You are entitled to your opinion, but 2 things:
- you don't really read what people post
- you base your opinion (about tires, pCARS, SMS) on what others say or what somebody says they said

Engineers on the field wrote books. Scientists on the field made their thesis and published their works. Read them. That simple. Don't base your opinion on "they say", read/learn about this subject first. Make up your mind afterwards.

Then talk. Or don't talk. I for one have ZERO interest in further discussing this with you.

Subject here is pCARS. You've made several statements about it. Some object to it. That's all. No point in getting personal just because people see it differently than you.

-------------------------------------

On to more interesting and relevant matters, an interesting article can be found here:

http://ravsim.com/2012/10/17/treading-right/

Are racing sims treading the right path?

There has been a trend emerging in vehicle simulation software over many years now, where a simulator is seen as a “platform” and thus an ongoing project that never ends. This allows many benefits; not only can media portals not review a sim without being told that “it isn’t finished yet”, but it also allows developers to completely redefine the word “beta.”

[...]

So, before long, and ignoring the petition signed by 100,000 people to bring back MSFS, Microsoft announced their new foray into Flight simming: Microsoft Flight.

“Putting the fun back in flight sims” was the line. I paraphrase, but this new release aimed to stop the keen hobbyist in their tracks and bring in a whole new audience by pushing more “game” than “sim” into their product. No more checklists and being serious about handling aircraft, this was to make flight sims less daunting and complex and more a jolly fun time gambolling around in the skies.

[...]

But on the whole I have to wonder where SimRaceWay fits into the simracing arena. I am not one of those that thinks simracing is “too crowded” and I encourage new simracing products entering the marketplace, especially those that enrich the genre by presenting new features and a different slant on the hackneyed “here are some tracks and some cars, go and crash… <ahem>.. race on them.” But is SimRaceWay doing this?

Of course, just like seemingly everything in the world now, it is in beta, and so is easily defended with a “Well, when it is released it will have magic, and spoons, and jumping monkeys and simulated cars that drive at least a bit like real cars.” But if you take this stead then iRacing is still in beta, for the last 5 years! The PC gaming industry is tied into an “always on” web-connected world with every sim being developed, be it a flight, train, bus, lunar lander or ice cream van sim, it is touted as being in constadev.

[...]

Where modders in the past kept games going for years with updates and add-ons, the developers want that pie to themselves. When you start asking people to pay for these add-ons, when they are professionally made, they need to be up to scratch with, if not better than, everything else out there.

Offering up a product that adds no depth, no innovative features, and nothing to separate it from the racing sims of five to seven years ago should not be satisfactory to this community. Dumbing down of simulation or just finding new ways to make people pay more money over a longer term is not an answer to increase the audience for simulators. A free-to-play sim will be played by people, for free, once.

- http://ravsim.com/2012/10/17/treading-right/

The article is worth the reading, it's fair and balanced in how it views the actors in main stage - devs, publishers, modders, end users.

Obviously, some will (already have) try to infer from this article the wrong conclusions. But read it first, people. Judge by yourselves.

 

[Marco80]

I am talking about the mysteries of tyres, and not saying anything bad about PCars or to you personally, not sure why you keep referring to that.

On a final note, complex scientific and engineering books don't mean that something is 100% fully understood. If that were the case, than all tyres built for a specific task would all be the same between manufacturers. If that were the case then tyres would never do weird things like a hard tyre actually being faster than a soft tyre (very basic example). If that were the case then tyres would not have to be tested in the real world as they would work exactly as intended on paper due to all the theoretical knowledge that's been obtained about them.

We understand lots and lots about tyres, we also understand lots and lots about planets, the universe, general physics etc, it doesn't mean we understand everything about them.

Tyres still need to be real world tested and their real world tests analyzed because they do things we don't fully understand yet.

Human beings always think they know everything, remember, what is seemingly non existent or impossible today, may very will be existent or possible tomorrow

p.s. I base my opinion of any sim from trying it, not from what others say, as you so wrongly accused me of.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

The article is worth the reading, it's fair and balanced in how it views the actors in main stage - devs, publishers, modders, end users.
.

With over a 1000hrs on GTR EVO{recorded on steam} I have no problem paying for good quality content as not only is sim racing fun to me, it's value for money is better than any other game I've ever played, so I'm happy to pay for HQ cars/tracks.

One of the problems sim dev face is a lack of money, so little games like GSC 2012 are known to some sim racers and probably only a handful of casual racers, but what would happen if Reiza, Kunos and Simbin joined forces and tripled their budget and started producing HQ sims with larger car and track lists and worthy GFX, weather, lighting etc.

If a 100k people buy RACE07{a small game by itself}, would 500k buy a sim with 50 cars and 25-40 tracks and DX11 GFX, or are sims limited to a certain no of sales regardless of 10 cars or 50 cars...?

Common sense suggests that the bigger the game, the more appealing it'll be, but the dev must risk a sizeable outlay to ensure the extra content, so it might be the case that unless some of the various sim dev combine, we'll be stuck with small sim games and weird gaming models.

pcars is ok content wise, but that's mainly thx to BMW and Fords, although if it becomes a worthy sim, then I'd be prepared to drive all the other cars, but the ones in the current package are unusual.

I'm pretty sure one of SMS staff said that a car list of at least 50 cars was the minimum it'd take to pique the average gamers interest, and we see Ferrari/Atrari with 52 cars, and pcars with 50+DLC......personally I have no idea of what the career mode entails, but I hope I don't have to suffer thru it to unlock cars and tracks.

It's a crying shame that the base game engine governs any additional content, otherwise, SMS or any dev could build GT5 physics, and then sell pro sim physics DLC cars to the sim market, so 1 million sales of the base game, and potentially 100-300k pro sim sales from DLC.

I also modded Shift1 with juls tyre mod, and whilst a huge improvement, the car handling still didn't feel right, so if SMS don't get the base game right, it may not be possible to mod or DLC it into sim status.

Another thing that I'm curious about{though I'm not assuming the casual gaming market is rational, lol}...why would a GT5 owner buy pcars on PS3 if it wasn't a proper sim....

 

[Chronus]

We can dream, can't we?

But that (Reiza, Kunos, Simbin, together) is not gonna happen. Small companies (by comparison to bigger gaming studios) and fighting in the same market. Lets not forget the Father and Mother (i.e, Dave Kaemmer and Gjon's ISI).

The more cars and tracks, the better. Particularly cars. Commercially wise. If one picks a review of GT5, that is all they talk about, the sheer encyclopaedia-level number of cars - with or without cockpits and high standards of quality.

Given the budget for Forza and GT, in my opinion pCARS cannot compete via the sheer volume of numbers (cars, tracks). The one thing that can provide a clear cut edge to pCARS is physics. Well, what about social networking and race management? I seriously doubt it that Turn 10 or PD will continue to overlook these aspects. Massive studios will always swamp the end user with feature rich games, there's no way for smaller devs to compete with them.

Some people at WMD refuse to understand this. They're too busy playing the manager type (Have Money, Will be Manager) when they should be thinking about doing things right. Obviously, I'm not referring to Ian Bell or programmers & artists.

So, you see, I am posing the same reasoning you formulated into a question: unless there is something totally different in pCARS, something that clearly makes it stand head & shoulders above GT and Forza, the multi-million dollar river that flows with bigger audiences (casuals + common gamers) will not head pCARS' way. And it's not going to be via gfx, sounds, social networking, thousands of features and hundreds of car licenses.

Obviously, in the grand scheme of things for investors and some managers, sales can be predicted to become similar to this (I don't know if these are the very latest numbers (the site says it is), but it serves to give us an idea.):

• Gran Turismo 5 (7.97m)
• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (4.11m)
• Forza Motorsport 3 (5.11m)
• Forza Motorsport 2 (3.99m)
• MotorStorm (3.75m)
• Need for Speed: Shift (2.53m)
• Forza Motorsport 4 (2.43m)
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2.27m)
• Midnight Club: Los Angeles (2.01m)
• Need for Speed: ProStreet (1.95m)
• Need For Speed: Undercover (1.88m)
• Burnout Paradise (1.73m)
• Need for Speed: The Run (1.72m)
• Ridge Racer 7 (1.31m)
• F1 2010 (1.23m)
• MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (1.23m)
• F1 2011 (1.07m)
• Need for Speed Carbon (1.05m)
• GRID (1.01m)
• DiRT (1.01m)
• ModNation Racers (0.97m)
• DiRT 2 (0.91m)
• Pure (0.80m)
• DiRT 3 (0.76m)

- source: http://www.vgchartz.com

My opinion.

 

[Marco80]

I can't believe those figures, so sad, look at the crap in that list. Only ones I have decent respect for are gt5 and forza 4, so sad, the stupidest racing games for 9 year olds make the money.

Half the battle is image and marketing, that's the problem. Project cars is doing good in that area, it's what all sims need. The cool factor (especially in marketing campaigns) to attract all the idiot buyers, is what all sims need. It's those ppl, and the general car or car game fans that allow you to sell millions of copies, not us hardcore "racing is our lifetime passion, it's all we think about other than girls" sort of guys, not enough of us type around unfortunately.

Very surprised at how low forza 4 is, very surprised.

 

[Chronus]

I had read somewhere that FM 4 wasn't as strong as FM 3 in sales. DLC problems?

Sadly, hardcore simmers (flight and racing simulation fans) don't buy 10% of the massive numbers gobbled up by the casuals and gamers. I'm sure investors and some manager level members at WMD want nothing but to count the dollars/euros piling in. It's the sad nature of the business nowadays, companies need funding and any person with money can invest and expect good returns, at whatever cost.

We shall see how it goes. If promises are kept and the end result is a true sim (as I expect), then the genre and the community wins; if the end result is not what was promised, the genre loses and SMS will erode whatever community backing it has. If that happens, mark my words, some of those manager level members that cause problems (flame wars, bans, etc) will fall off the radar for a while and finally will show up again saying they "knew all along" or they "tried their best to help the company make a true sim".

 

[Kazumi]

I also modded Shift1 with juls tyre mod, and whilst a huge improvement, the car handling still didn't feel right (...)

Juls tyre mod just modifies tires not chassis or suspension. So data which is off by 500% or more is still there. On the other hand Overhaul mod modified chassis and suspension but left tires more or less original. It's not easy to mod (or develop) a game with 100+ different cars and upgrades.

In the end everything must be approximately 100% right to fully evaluate the quality of an engine

Obviously, some will (already have) try to infer from this article the wrong conclusions. But read it first, people. Judge by yourselves.

What makes you think that?

There's not much to conclude from my point of view, if you analyze this years racing sims (and so on) then it really looks like everyone tried to build one classic open wheeler, the Zonda and mix the whole stuff into one sim (so to speak ) . I don't really need that but of course (at least for me) if the content is good, and the vehicle dynamics are very good I'm interested, while others search for online competition or offline content (career modes and so on) and are okay with sacrifices in other areas. While the simraceway concept sounds interesting there's nothing new to it, except they sell cars for like 50$. I don't think people really expect a full package that does everything from whichever of the upcoming titles.

 

[Chronus]

What makes you think that?

I know what I'm talking about.

I had read the article and arrived at some conclusions from it. Some time later, at two other sites (one of them obvious) "some" people read that article and concluded from it that
- DLC's were indeed the way to go for pCARS, and
- therefore no modding for pCARS is also proven to be the right choice,
- and finally the bet on several platforms, several audiences and the content decisions were also the right path to follow

No critical analysis of the choices made, just a confirmation of the choices made: that's what "some" people took from the article.

There's not much to conclude from my point of view, if you analyze this years racing sims (and so on)

On the contrary. There's much to conclude. This is not just simracing, it's also flight sims related. The various trends have been at work in this genre (simulations) since 1997 with the arrival of study sims that brought advanced physics/gfx/sounds. What we have now in simracing is a branch evolution of things we all predicted years ago would happen.

The article touches on several things and is a fair, objective assessment of the expectations and actions of all actors.

It's up to people properly understand the article and avoid glossing over certain aspects in order to promote an agenda or their personal preferences.

Simraceway: they have both the conditions (financial backing, place, machines) and the personnel (programmers and modders but at least 1 pro driver willing to put in time to improve the physics) to make a good product. It will succeed if quality is more than satisfactory across the board (physics, gfx, sounds, netcode) and prices remain acceptable. Is the business model a positive factor? It depends on the prices. Too steep a price per car (even if it's just for a few cars), and people will drift away.

Maybe SRW can survive and make a mark if they appeal to those people that are not very happy with iRacing and do not want to go down the DLC avenue with GT/FM/pCARS.

I don't think people really expect a full package that does everything from whichever of the upcoming titles

What makes you say that?

Who is claiming that these sims will "do everything"? All people expect is that these sims fulfil the promises made. Is that unfair in any way? Why?

Do people expect a full package from AC or pCARS? Why, yes. A full "game", or better said, a full "simulation". Not a beta-something, not a beta-beta-beta-something that is under continuous development for 10 years or so. And a few of us expect a product that can be modded - Kunos seems to point in that direction, a full sim, with a Y number of cars and a X number of tracks, expandable via modding or, should Kunos decide so, via extra payable content. Yeah, sounds good and a very natural expectation. If Kunos decides someday to produce AC 2 or some other sim, then people will probably buy that one too while still maintaining some ties to AC - just the way it is happening with rfactor and rFactor 2.

Do you expect full packages, expandable or not via DLC or mods? Or do you expect a basic package, beta on many ways, under continuous development? Or do you expect a very skeletal-like game with the rest of the content accessible via expenditure of hundreds of euros for premium content?

For me the choice is obvious. From what I see, many think this way too.

You decide on what you feel is acceptable, obviously.

 

[Kazumi]

I know what I'm talking about.

I had read the article and arrived at some conclusions from it. Some time later, at two other sites (one of them obvious) "some" people read that article and concluded from it that
- DLC's were indeed the way to go for pCARS, and
- therefore no modding for pCARS is also proven to be the right choice,
- and finally the bet on several platforms, several audiences and the content decisions were also the right path to follow

No critical analysis of the choices made, just a confirmation of the choices made: that's what "some" people took from the article.

I see. Haven't thought of a specific title while reading that article at all tbh, just that some things sum up the situation we have since a few years and for me the concept of iRacing and SRW isn't that interesting but as I said when content + physics are good I wouldn't mind and probably buy / subscribe / drive them

What makes you say that?

Because that's beyond realistic expectations. Look at GTR2, iRacing (current version) or GT5 - that is what can be produced in 2 - 5 years in terms of a "full" racing game package.

Who is claiming that these sims will "do everything"? All people expect is that these sims fulfil the promises made. Is that unfair in any way? Why?

No, that is fair.

I think it's natural that a game doesn't offer everything. A new Call of Duty will have a short campaign and an online mode. What's important for me is how good is it, not that it doesn't feature the 1st and 2nd world war or an alien invasion, of course it also would be awesome if a game really features anything you can imagine, but that is what they have to focus on.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

It's not easy to mod (or develop) a game with 100+ different cars and upgrades.

I agree, and this is why I'm skeptical of games with large car lists these days, and also why I have no issues with staggered DLC releases.

 

[Chronus]

Because that's beyond realistic expectations.

Well, look at that, how very wet this water is.

That is obvious, isn't it? Expecting a "full package that does everything" is idealistic if not unrealistic, but again, who expects that? No one. And that is not the issue.

But this is: if you say you're building a car with 4 wheels, an engine, don't sell a car with 3 wheels and a horse pulling it.

Devs promise a number of features for a sim and that is all people expect. Expecting more than they promise is silly, but hoping they fulfil their objectives is not.

EDIT:

I had written originally a response to several points. In retrospect, though, this whole debate is but one pointless circular revisiting of same old arguments. The article I posted above is but one among several by people who have noticed these trends. I, myself, wrote an article about the future of flight sims for a reknown flight sim website in 2002, that was 10 years ago. Nothing changed - no, actually, the rate of change changed, making things happen faster still.

Some people will accept being milked away for a pack of cars or tracks. Others will not.

All there is to it.

I the midst of all this, here's to hoping SMS, Kunos, Reiza, ISI and SIMBIN continue to give us something worth of our time and money.

 

[Kazumi]

Well, look at that, how very wet this water is.

That is obvious, isn't it? Expecting a "full package that does everything" is idealistic if not unrealistic, but again, who expects that? No one. And that is not the issue.

But this is: if you say you're building a car with 4 wheels, an engine, don't sell a car with 3 wheels and a horse pulling it.

Devs promise a number of features for a sim and that is all people expect. Expecting more than they promise is silly, but hoping they fulfil their objectives is not.

Probably

What are realistic expectations? In a simulation as you said you want at least one car that is as good as possible without a horse pulling and a few tracks. But most titles focus on more then this, 500 cars, graphics, online competitions, offline modes and so on. I think some of the devs you mentioned are searching their place here, SimBin for example pushes its F2P game with online competitions, SMS are doing the community funding thing. And so on. So while the arguments may be the same, the situation is changing continuously.

I had written originally a response to several points. In retrospect, though, this whole debate is but one pointless circular revisiting of same old arguments. The article I posted above is but one among several by people who have noticed these trends. I, myself, wrote an article about the future of flight sims for a reknown flight sim website in 2002, that was 10 years ago. Nothing changed - no, actually, the rate of change changed, making things happen faster still.

I believe you and the article about flight simulations, but I can't really say much about it. Maybe there's an analogy, on the other hand racing and cars are very popular and there are still new ideas and "innovative features" possible in the future. I wouldn't count payable DLC or microtransactions as a "feature" though

 

[InsaneOzzie]

I approached pCars for a refund within 6 weeks of purchase, and was informed they have no refund policy. After searching WMD's site from end to end I found no such policy on refunding of moneys in any way shape or form.

I have an email from them stating that the only time a refund is considered is in the 1st week and only for the reason that the PC does not have the requirements to run the game.

So if you wish to gain a refund from them, I wish you luck.

They were quick to keep my $136.00Aud, so I guess I'll have to WAIT and HOPE they improve the standard of the FFB and PHYSICS in time for gold release

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Six weeks isnt really realistic to ask for a refund. You dont get that in any retail shop either when you purchase goods.

Buy, Try, Fail = refund. Six weeks is almost a lifecycle of gameplay imo.

 

[Chronus]

I approached pCars for a refund within 6 weeks of purchase, and was informed they have no refund policy. After searching WMD's site from end to end I found no such policy on refunding of moneys in any way shape or form.

I have an email from them stating that the only time a refund is considered is in the 1st week and only for the reason that the PC does not have the requirements to run the game.

6 weeks for a full product would be stretching it a bit far. After 2 or 3 weeks of trying something new, one should KNOW if it is a failed product or not.

But CARS is not a finished product, it is still in development, so to be fair any attempt of gauging how good it is ends up being a somewhat useless exercise - any dev company would tell you that a number of features aren't finished or that key areas are to be improved.

On the other hand, maybe 6 weeks is good enough for some to get a good idea of the potential or lack of it.

 

[Andy_J]

I approached pCars for a refund within 6 weeks of purchase, and was informed they have no refund policy. After searching WMD's site from end to end I found no such policy on refunding of moneys in any way shape or form.

As you are a WMD member on their forums, just start a few threads saying how bad you think the development is going. I can assure you that you will get removed and given a refund.

 

[Mapu]

oh no... the old topic again

 

[byverter]

Community on WMD is such a Circlejerk with Ian the cock on top that I'm starting to hate this game and SMS company.

 

[Tom]

Community on WMD is such a Circlejerk with Ian the cock on top that I'm starting to hate this game and SMS company.

Although you don't have to agree with everything that's going on there you don't have to insult Ian and the WMD members either. Warned.