Sim Racing: The Big Mid Season Review - Part 1

[David Wright]

IrFactor for crying out loud had car buying and upgrading to the point where a mod crew could've seriously built an entire career progression into their mod (though no-one did)..

Very few mods actually had any progression within them - the typical mod was just one car, and those with more than one car usually had cars similar in nature. Also a career mode presumably needs a set of tracks to be run on, and again very few mods came with a set of tracks. Finally, designing a career which works well and isn't just a grind is quite a skill, one which few mod teams would have. Finally there are those who hate career modes who will attack a mod for having one, while if you leave a career mode out, those who like career modes are not going to attack you for it.

 

[Paul Bennett]

@Chris Stacey

Edit: Anyway, we're straying off topic here. Let's head back in the right direction

Good luck with that

 

[Kakusso]

I also think that reviewing the games/sims together enhances the SIM forum battles. Where more often people stay on trenches attacking other SIMS. Allowing users to rate them side by side does not help either.
I would love to see a continuous wish list poll for each SIM in order to (who knows), try to influence the developers in their choices and priorities.
New options being added to the poll as users sugest them. Not a static poll, but an evolving poll with growing number of features for voting.

Edit: An evolving poll should allow for multiple voting, limited to one person voting only once for each feature.

 

[Austin Ogonoski]

>mfw mods on a racing simulator forum want to ban the phrase "simulation value"

??????????

 

[Brandon Wright]

Nice article @Paul Jeffrey, but (and take this as friendly criticism and not bitching) it's not up to your current standards. Full of typos, grammatical errors, and there were even a few parts I gave up on trying to understand what you were trying to say. I mean, last I checked AMS is not a flight sim. I'll presume you were probably in a time crunch so mistakes are understandable. But if you ever need a proof-reader I'd be happy to help.

Anyway, still appreciate your dedication and effort, keep up the good work.

(I also agree with the others that going forward it might be best to have just one sim featured in each article to avoid infighting amongst the natives.)

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

No offence taken @Brandon Wright . On reflection not my best work

It was one of those where I took several hours out of the day to get it written, did a few sections from later on in the series and then started this one fairly fatigued. Spent about 8 hours solid writing and I think it starts to show. I even got the wife to proof read it !! Ideally could do with Word or something to copy / paste the text into for checking, as I'm relying on the spell checker in Edge when I don't have the luxury of using the facilities at work

Anyway moving swiftly on..... Part 2, American Truck Sim and DiRT Rally upcoming within the hour

As for putting them out as single articles many people have mentioned, its simply done as two at a time (in alphabetical order) so I'm not flooding the site with too many articles! Not intended as a sim war people! Good luck everyone with the ATS vs DiRT Rally argument

 

[Brandon Wright]

No offence taken @Brandon Wright . On reflection not my best work

It was one of those where I took several hours out of the day to get it written, did a few sections from later on in the series and then started this one fairly fatigued.

That's exactly what I figured, because I've done the same thing so I know that look! Happens to the best of us.

Anyway moving swiftly on..... Part 2, American Truck Sim and DiRT Rally upcoming within the hour

Good luck everyone with the ATS vs DiRT Rally argument

Oh, that's an easy one. ATS gets the win because (unless they've added it in a recent update) you can't pick up Lot Lizards in DiRT Rally!

 

[ears]

Many new content items and feature updates have brought AMS truly into the realm of top flight simulations.

So how does it handle with a HOTAS?

 

[Matt Orr]

And yet games with "lower game value" like AC has many more players than DR.

Dirt Rally is also largely a single player game, head to head MP is a half hearted tacked on mode at the end of the day. Dirt Rally's player count is also hampered by a lack of stages (and no modding) in a rally game. AC may have more current players, but I'll point out it comes down to some of the features of AC that make AC, AC - and not talking about physics / simulation at all.

Well if simulation doesn't matter then what's the purpose of simulations? Make the same games as Forza and GT but with 1/10 of their budgets? Sorry but the way you are talking is like if you were doing a review of a typical online shooter and you came with a "but who cares about the mp"?

Maybe it was regarded as one of the best ever also because it was built in one of those games that push forward the simulation aspect? For sure it wouldn't have been considered one of the best if it was built with the typical Milestone physics engine, let's say.

David, I think you are being too absolute in interpreting my words. If I didn't care about the simulation aspect why wouldn't I just play Forza already?

Let me make this hopefully more clear : Assetto Corsa is now going on tire model version 10. Yet we can still play around and make many of the same exact comments about the physics as we've always been able to make. Is Assetto Corsa now better than ever because physics, or is it better than ever because the MP is far more stable and capable of handling >100 ping finally? Is it better because physics, or the fact you can now do longer races and have AI pit stops? How about the massive improvement to the AI? Physics are important don't get me wrong, but so little of it IMO has to do with physics.

(or let me fire some shots - iRacing is still more popular than any other sim even though it's incredibly hobbled in so many ways comparitively)

GTR2 didn't push forward the simulation aspect any more than GTR1 did before it, or rFactor shortly before it. The only notable advantage for GTR2 was out of box experience and rain - which was pretty poorly implemented even then. Rain and the "Live Track" aren't the reason GTR2 is such a well regarded game.

You could also add in NR2003 as another proof of this concept - or does a real 2003 cup car drive like it has wet bars of soap for tires? It was real enough even if it wasn't perfect for the wonderful AI, solid netcode and full season roster - and moddability - to take it forward.

 

[JeffL]

Hopin' for one of the sims to get a backend like iracin' with lower cost. Won't tell ya which one

 

[yusupov]

what makes AC AC is content, official & otherwise, & there's no shortage of discussion about it on the boards. for the console release, itll be (or presumably has been) 90% of the marketing, with the other 10% being largely generic "this is a real simulator" statements & demonstrations. i don't think there will be any bragging that the tire model has advanced thru X iterations since launch, for sure. (edit: more precisely, what makes AC standout in its genre is its content; its foundation is being a competent enough simulation to appease the heads, & that does = physics)

at the same time, on official forums, i fail to see how disappointment when a team's physics guy announces to the hardcore fans who populate those places he's made or making progress on the sim's physics is a reasonable response. and i fail to see how "it still has some root problems, so this progress is, in reality, pointless" is a logical line of thought.

i'm very curious what path you think reiza (or any team you'd prefer to use as an example) should take with their platform that would steer them right, or at least righter... where you see a community/genre being laid to waste i see a lot of progress, diversity of options & more widespread interest than i gather there has ever been in simracing. (also a relative newcomer; so i can't be sure of these halcyon gtr2 days you point to) @mattorr

 

[Hash_V8]

Fast forward to IL2 : Battle of Stalingrad

Hmm, Im a flight simmer first and foremost, but I, and a lot of the flight sim community and old IL players universally despised Stalingrad.

Stalingrad was a major step backwards, content was woefully lacking, instead of full scale land warfare adn shifting front lines like in prevoius flight sims, in Stalingrad it was just a little bundle of units at waypoints, the (apparently dodgy) devs appeared to off been targeting the Free to play flight gamers, and butchering the authenticity in the name of bloody "balancing" for MP, and god forbid ruddy "unlocks" in a military sim? this even was locked in SP,SP was nothing but random "quick" missions one after the other with zero sense or even feel of one of the most insane battles in history, annnnd the physics was a step back too in alot of areas,it was received alot worse than Pcars was in race sim land,because they basically said F U to flight simmer in exchange for casual players, and ended up not getting much of either, if any one asked me (and others I know) for a good IL2 game it would be COD with team fusion patchs, or even '46,seems a odd comparison, Stalingrad STRIPPED EVERYTHING back to basics in the name of casual appeal and graphics, and unlike race sims, it couldnt even claim at least better physics.

And to be fair, Flight sims in general all fall into a RF2 type category (il2 the exception), where devs make the engine and you provide content,exactly what you are arguing against in race sims it seems, and yet flight simmers dont constantly bag DCS or Prepar3D (FSX) for this approach, despite us paying 60-100 dollars for a plane or small piece of gorgeous scenery or maps, I think the reality is, sim racers are cheap arses when comes to software, spend thousands on hardware but theyll be damned if gonna spend more than 50 bux on software, hell even iracing is cheap as chips compared to much popular sim scene of flight, I think flight sims are a bad example for what you are trying to say, look how long DCS 2.0 is taken, or hows the WW2 map for DCS going?

AC-7
AMS-8

 

[David Dominguez]

but I'll point out it comes down to some of the features of AC that make AC, AC - and not talking about physics / simulation at all.

Neither is about "game features". Like @yusupov said AC popularity comes down to 90% official content and 10% "this is a simulator".

David, I think you are being too absolute in interpreting my words. If I didn't care about the simulation aspect why wouldn't I just play Forza already?

...

AC has got better but its popularity is lagerly down to content, as I said. You put iRacing's example, I put you another one; why is rFactor nowadays way more popular and played than the awesome GTR2? Again, content. Content is what makes your game alive, is what makes your players keep playing. Kunos guys saw that and they constantly bring new content.

Anyway, the thing is that you are twisting simracing's history a bit (or a lot). Sims aren't worse now as a games than before, rF1 was far worse as a game than rF2, LFS had almost nothing as a "game", iRacing is arguably far better as a game than ever, and the only games that had more "game" appealing like Simbin games didn't really have much more stuff than let's say AC.

 

[David Wright]

I put you another one; why is rFactor nowadays way more popular and played than the awesome GTR2?.

I know this question is aimed at Matt, but first how do you know that rFactor nowadays is way more popular than GTR2?

Second, the popularity of a game ten years after release is primarily about the games that came out subsequently. Why does hardly anyone play GTR1 today? Because GTR2 came out subsequently. Same for Nascar raciing 2002 - Nascar 2003 came along. If rFactor1 really is still so popular today it says much more about rF2 than it does about GTR2.

 

[David Dominguez]

I know this question is aimed at Matt, but first how do you know that rFactor nowadays is way more popular than GTR2?

Go to Youtube, search "rFactor" and "GTR 2", filter by date and compare the amount of videos.

Second, the popularity of a game ten years after release is primarily about the games that came out subsequently. Why does hardly anyone play GTR1 today? Because GTR2 came out subsequently. Same for Nascar raciing 2002 - Nascar 2003 came along. If rFactor1 really is still so popular today it says much more about rF2 than it does about GTR2.

GTR2 doesn't have any natural succesor, and whatever that came after should also apply to rFactor, but still rFactor is more popular.

 

[Chris]

I think the reality is, sim racers are cheap arses when comes to software, spend thousands on hardware but theyll be damned if gonna spend more than 50 bux on software, hell even iracing is cheap as chips compared to much popular sim scene of flight, I think flight sims are a bad example for what you are trying to say, look how long DCS 2.0 is taken, or hows the WW2 map for DCS going?

100% Agree.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Go to Youtube, search "rFactor" and "GTR 2", filter by date and compare the amount of videos.



GTR2 doesn't have any natural succesor, and whatever that came after should also apply to rFactor, but still rFactor is more popular.

I think GTR2 is more popular for offline racers while rFactor is better for online racers. Funny enough rF2 can have them both together in the same sim but then ISI happens... oh well, that's another topic.

 

[David Wright]

Go to Youtube, search "rFactor" and "GTR 2", filter by date and compare the amount of videos.

Thanks for you explanation but this isn't a reliable way of judging popularity. especially when rFactor has an inbuilt facility to convert replays to video which GTR2 doesn't, so its far easier to make YouTube videos with rFactor.

 

[P*Funk]

and yet flight simmers dont constantly bag DCS or Prepar3D (FSX) for this approach

I wouldn't say that about DCS at least. Having been involved with that community there are two sides to it. The staunchly pro ED end of the forums and the much more middling attitude of those who speak in private because when they spoke as honestly on the ED boards as we're all speaking here they got banned, or at least many of them did. Its not ED's fault of course, they don't really care about the forums, especially the english forums, but the admin who run that board are kind of fanatic.

The only reason anyone plays DCS is for the flight sim equivalent to hot lapping or because there's no other game in town. If someone presented Falcon 5.0 I think you'd find DCS would immediately pale. Many would happily take inferior simulation for a better simulation of the actual environment of modern combat. Some do which is why BMS isn't dead yet. BMS is like the GTR2 of modern combat flight sims. DCS is the best simulation of modern combat aircraft you've ever seen with the most unrealistic sandbox to operate in making most of those systems pointless. The mission making process is also painful with most people having to rely on third party scripts to get anything even half realistic to happen. Then updates can break this and your 70 hours invested in a mission require an additional 10+.

The reason you never see many missions for DCS is because the number of man hours required to make a mission versus the number of hours you can enjoy it are horribly skewed, and then you get the endless breaking of it with updates. I have friends who're obsessed with flight simming who grumble through DCS, and then I have others who have quit it out of frustration because they have better things to do and games like Arma offer much better mission making capability.

In fact that's the best argument against the issues with flight and race simming. Arma 3. There's a game with great realism and even better game quality and with Arma 3 it broke into the mainstream better without alienating the hardcore nerds. In fact making it better for casuals made it better for the hardcore people. Its fame with casuals is also a direct result of its great game and mission making potential ie. DayZ.

 

[ears]

my 2 cents:

Assetto Corsa:

Automobilista:

I enjoy both, but for me AMS is nº1 pound 4 pound sim.

Well I get the sentiment but maybe it should look more like this.

Assetto Corsa

AMS