The Big Assetto Corsa Competizione Interview (Part 2)

[Paul Jeffrey]

Catch part two of our exclusive Assetto Corsa Competizione interview with Marco Massarutto and Ste'fano Casillo of Kunos Simulazioni...

Causing a mass panic of excitement from the sim racing community following the announcement back on February 21st, it is probably fair to say plenty of people are excited for the upcoming Assetto Corsa Competizione racing simulation, and with a potential Early Access release coming to Steam this summer, we answered the community call and sat down with two of the men behind the simulation - Marco Massarutto and Stefano Casillo, founding members of Italian development studio Kunos Simulazioni.

If you are interested in learning more of about the official racing simulation of the Blancpain GT Series, check out part 2 of our exclusive interview at the head of this article.

If you missed it earlier, part one can be viewed HERE. Oh and please consider doing us a favour by subscribing to our YouTube channel if you enjoyed this coverage and are looking forward to more of the same in the years ahead...


Assetto Corsa Competizione should be available on Steam Early Access Summer 2018.

Check out the Assetto Corsa Competizione here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussions regarding this exciting upcoming sim. We intend to host some quality League and Club Racing events as well as hosting some great community created mods (we hope!). Join in the discussion today.

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Enjoy the interview? Looking forward to ACC? Learn anything new? Leave a comment below (and subscribe to our YouTube page too!)

 

[melanieuk]

That's garbage dude. 600k+ Steam users have AC. http://steamspy.com/app/244210

Most downloaded mod track in RD (Donington Park v 1.15) downloaded 42k times.
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/donington-park.3031/history

Most downloaded mod car in RD (Mazda 787B v. 1.4) downloaded 53k times.
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/mazda-787b.4608/history

Downloading mods is a small circle thing.

Yes agree, example for me, 87 friends on steam own Assetto Corsa, and I can say only 4% of them use mods, the rest probably don't know it can be modded, or that mods exist for it.
Or they don't care, and would rather stick with the default content and dlcs by the developer.

 

[pafe]

Some live Rain+Night action. Handling looks fun indeed.

 

[motoliser]

That's garbage dude. 600k+ Steam users have AC. http://steamspy.com/app/244210

Most downloaded mod track in RD (Donington Park v 1.15) downloaded 42k times.
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/donington-park.3031/history

Most downloaded mod car in RD (Mazda 787B v. 1.4) downloaded 53k times.
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/mazda-787b.4608/history

Downloading mods is a small circle thing.

There can be quality, that makes up for the lack of quantity. Which I think will happen with ACC. For example DCS Black Shark 2 costs more than entire AC and simulates just one heli (Ka-50). People aren't crying that it needs more helis.

LoL...nice equation!! What math grade did you achieve by the way?

Total AC users 600k
1 track mod 42k
1 car mod 53k
...what about the rest of the mods dude???

I'm out!

 

[ShredatorFIN]

LoL...nice equation!! What math grade did you achieve by the way?

Total AC users 600k
1 track mod 42k
1 car mod 53k
...what about the rest of the mods dude???

I'm out!

If you download mod tracks, you get several high quality ones, not just one or two. Don't fool yourself. It's a small circle "enthusiast" thing, not the most common way to use Assetto Corsa.

Take any other popular, high quality mod track. They have even less than Donington. For example LilSki's work, the person who's track mods you should download, if you gonna download just one guy's track mods: http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/authors/lilski.218202/

Not many downloads. Bridgehampton has 92k but the latest version 2.0 has only 14,803 downloads. So it's just mainly people re-downloading same track after an update. Not unique users.

 

[Terry Rock]

This title is exciting. It offers everything some of you guys have been 'begging' for...night, rain, a new efficient gaming engine. What is there left to complain about?
I plan on purchasing it at release...if for no other reason than to say 'thanks' to KS for being fair in pricing.

 

[delpinsky]

yes that's also totally a possibility.
Drive your stint, stop, save the game.. send the save file to your friend, he'll pick it up and to his stint then send a new save state to you.
This could be a very interesting and fun new scenario to race against the AI.

Using this approach, could be theoretically possible to drive with two (or more) different teams in the same Race/Championship, instead of swapping driver for the same team? — offline multiplayer, so to speak —

For example I want to drive a Ferrari and my friend a Bentley, but we can't play online. We select two or more profiles (if we are 3 or 4 friends) for the Single Race/Championship, and each friend drives his own car, until we pause or save. When my friend drive his car, my car is driven by AI and so forth. — a turn based offline multiplayer —

 

[Blamer]

Will there be a multi page motec lcd?
I don't know if it's the right name, I mean the in car lcd where you can see laptime/tires pressure/fuel/...

 

[motoliser]

If you download mod tracks, you get several high quality ones, not just one or two. Don't fool yourself. It's a small circle "enthusiast" thing, not the most common way to use Assetto Corsa.

Take any other popular, high quality mod track. They have even less than Donington. For example LilSki's work, the person who's track mods you should download, if you gonna download just one guy's track mods: http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/authors/lilski.218202/

Not many downloads. Bridgehampton has 92k but the latest version 2.0 has only 14,803 downloads. So it's just mainly people re-downloading same track after an update. Not unique users.

What r you talking about??? 600k game users
Nearly 100k downloads of 1 track+1car mod!
Do you have any idea of how many mods are out there??? Not even mentioning how many mod share websites with their own links.
Even Kunos recognized that mods were that important to make AC popular.
Please....

 

[Marko-13000]

That's garbage dude. 600k+ Steam users have AC. http://steamspy.com/app/244210

Most downloaded mod track in RD (Donington Park v 1.15) downloaded 42k times.
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/donington-park.3031/history

Most downloaded mod car in RD (Mazda 787B v. 1.4) downloaded 53k times.
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/mazda-787b.4608/history

Downloading mods is a small circle thing.

There can be quality, that makes up for the lack of quantity. Which I think will happen with ACC. For example DCS Black Shark 2 costs more than entire AC and simulates just one heli (Ka-50). People aren't crying that it needs more helis.

Yeah, that's the download count just on racedepartment - there are several other sites dedicated to just Assetto Corsa mods.
Modding in Assetto Corsa is huge - especially when it's made as accessible as it is.
In the end, we don't know the exact numbers so there's no point to argue about it, but I would guess that it's a much larger chunk of it than just about these 10%.
And the Nordschleife has 112k downloads on the only version released on RD.
Something as simple as a 2015 Blancpain skin for the Audi R8 got 92k downloads - And I don't have most of the "most popular mods", because there's so much variety that I am more interested in the F1 mods and there's plenty to choose from there.
Also don't forget that something as implicit as Sim Racing System also got huge consisting of almost 20k users and mostly having races in Assetto Corsa. Some basic facebook site dedicated to AC mods has 25k likes - the official AC page on FB has 112k likes; it all adds up - Just wanting to point that out.

 

[motoliser]

Put it simple:
There is much more Mod content then the official one.
Every release of DLC or Mod gets someone to buy the game just to play that particular content.
Now do your math!!!!

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

I'm out!

We all know you are far from it....

Please....

Yep.

Every release of DLC or Mod gets someone to buy the game just to play that particular content.

Except that it doesn't.

-------
Not really sure what you are on about anyways, modding isn't happening and crying about it over and over isn't going to change that.

 

[Marko-13000]

modding isn't happening and crying about it over and over isn't going to change that.

I think that's a good way to end this pointless discussion lol
Now let's appreciate that Huracan GT3 in the rain

 

[David Peres]

After watching the interview I'm more convinced that this is a wrong move from Kunos!

I think the opposite... this seems like a logical move after AC. What should they have done instead? Should they have started AC2, redoing 150+ cars with the new engine so that the game would be ready somewhere around 2020 and anyway it would have been just a graphical upgrade? What would be the point?

Instead they have separated themselves from the pack by offering a laser-focused motorsport experience, with a popular exclusive license that will grant them the opportunity to spend time on features and gameplay improvements that would have not been possible if they had to built another "PC Gran Turismo" instead.

I think AC is the best Top Gear/Chris Harris simulator in the market, but as a motorsport experience it was a huge mess, so I couldn't be more happy about their decision.

Also, by doing this focused sim they will learn the engine and develop the motorsport features AC was lacking, so that if they ever choose to make AC2 in the future they will have the ground work to make it more than just an AC Remastered with new graphics

 

[Brownninja97]

People are lying to themselves if they think modding has no effect on sales.

However its also questionable to say that modding is the only selling point.

Its more questionable to say a game is a failure based on it not having modding,

Just to throw out some numbers lets compare GTR2 vs Race 07. Yes both have mods however race 07 very clearly has way fewer mods. However its sold way over a million and its worst dlc has sold more then gtr2 in digital sales. You are out of your mind if you think they matched it in physical sales.

Sure that one is a bit of a dodgy comparison so lets go a bit further.

Raceroom and iracing have found success without mods.

Grid, Dirt, NFS, Burnout. Its goes on and on, they were sold on the word that mods arent supported, some of them got mods later even without support but they first got sales for that to happen.

 

[paracletus]

Agree about the safety car mentioned earlier. Live restarts in endurance races would be a highlight.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

So when a full course caution comes out for the turn1 carnage (along with the carnage that will happen while the field comes back around for a lap and a half to pick up the pace car), how many laps do you guys want to crawl around behind the pace car before rinse and repeating the procedure?

 

[Marko-13000]

how many laps do you guys want to crawl around behind the pace car before rinse and repeating the procedure?

Yes - the answer is yes.

But on a more serious note - we all want immersion, and that's quite an important one for me and many others I can imagine, and as always with these features, you should be able to turn them off if you don't want them. At least that's one of the things on my wishlist.

 

[Brownninja97]

So when a full course caution comes out for the turn1 carnage (along with the carnage that will happen while the field comes back around for a lap and a half to pick up the pace car), how many laps do you guys want to crawl around behind the pace car before rinse and repeating the procedure?

personally the only reason i want a safety car is so I can have rolling starts but we dont even need a safety car for that.

 

[Metla]

Sorry, but I must say: I hate when people bring up the AI subject!! Gzus Christ, in the internet era, where multiplayer is the key point of particularly every single new game that comes out, and specially in a simulation environment, AI is totally dispensable!!!

Yeah, 3000 in game, 120 in servers....its all about the multiplayer....

 

[ronniej]

As usual we'll make the best we can, if that's good enough fine, if it's not, fine anyway, we'll be sleeping without problems knowing we gave 120%.

99.9 percent of us that love this genre know it too. Thanks for for chatting with us as always and for keeping it real.

*Besides, we already know if you guys hit any speedbumps along the way, it's all Aris's fault anyway.