What DLC do I own?

norbs

Premium
I'm going to apologise straight up, because I feel like this is a stupid question, but has me completely stumped.

I was licking my lips at some of the specials in the Summer Sale.

Saw the GT3 packs and thought I would grab them both. Then, I remembered, I was certain I already owned one.

I did what i normally do and looked at my library under RF2. It only has Lifetime Access to Online Services for rFactor 2 listed in the DLC.

So I thought I would add both GT3 packs and hope STEAM would tell me I already owned 1. Nope.

So, go ahead, make me feel like an idiot and explain how I tell what DLS I actually own. :D
 
Further to this. I know damn well I own the Reiza Pack. And yet it looks like I can still buy it.
SDkkxbn.png
 
Let me explain how to check what content you own in rFactor 2. The easiest way to establish that is to open your Steam Client and from the menu that is labeled with your nickname in Steam, choose the "inventory" option. On that page, you will see a tab for each title you own on Steam for which you have ever bought (or been gifted) items. Choose "rFactor 2" and you will see little square tiles show up, each marked with a small image of the actual item you own. You can click on those to get more details, as seen in the image below.

gZiSk0W.png


If you buy a bundle, for example the Endurance Pack, you will end up with the 5 items for the cars. This does mean you need to figure out what bundle contains what items in the store before you go out and buy it, to prevent you from buying something you already own.

On the topic of buying something again: yes, you can buy an item more than once. We can't technically prevent that, unfortunately. It won't cause problems. If you end up with two copies of an item, everything will work fine and rFactor 2 will only install the item once.

So to be clear, content you buy in rFactor 2 technically is not "DLC" which is why it does not show up there. We use the "item store" that Steam provides, and everything you buy there ends up in your "inventory".

I hope this answers your questions.
 
Answers it perfectly. And the only part I have any issue is is this...

On the topic of buying something again: yes, you can buy an item more than once. We can't technically prevent that, unfortunately. It won't cause problems. If you end up with two copies of an item, everything will work fine and rFactor 2 will only install the item once.

It might cause problems with my Chief Financial Officer if she finds out I am donating my money. :D

Thank you Marcel.
 
Let me explain how to check what content you own in rFactor 2. The easiest way to establish that is to open your Steam Client and from the menu that is labeled with your nickname in Steam, choose the "inventory" option. On that page, you will see a tab for each title you own on Steam for which you have ever bought (or been gifted) items. Choose "rFactor 2" and you will see little square tiles show up, each marked with a small image of the actual item you own. You can click on those to get more details, as seen in the image below.

gZiSk0W.png


If you buy a bundle, for example the Endurance Pack, you will end up with the 5 items for the cars. This does mean you need to figure out what bundle contains what items in the store before you go out and buy it, to prevent you from buying something you already own.

On the topic of buying something again: yes, you can buy an item more than once. We can't technically prevent that, unfortunately. It won't cause problems. If you end up with two copies of an item, everything will work fine and rFactor 2 will only install the item once.

So to be clear, content you buy in rFactor 2 technically is not "DLC" which is why it does not show up there. We use the "item store" that Steam provides, and everything you buy there ends up in your "inventory".

I hope this answers your questions.

It does (others of us have the same issue). Why on earth did you pick this awkward approach instead of using the normal Steam DLC procedure that is perfectly transparent and clearly the one Steam supports in their normal UI?

And, the items in the inventory show up individually, not in the packs that they may have been purchased within--so there is no way to see directly what you have actually purchased.

upload_2019-6-29_8-39-47.png


I also get the annoying unknown base mod error Martin Joubert mentions in the comments above--though my cars are installed and working in the sim. It is only the launcher that goes through a failed procedure every single time for all the cars in the pack that I bought (can't remember which one it is due to the similar naming of the GT3 packs, but I only own one of them).

And in case you are going to reply, I also have a subscribed track that was removed from the Workshop (by the author or Steam?). There appears to be no way to unsubscribe or uninstall or delete it. It also goes through a failed update/reinstall procedure every single time I run the launcher. How do you get rid of something in this situation?
 
Last edited:
I would like to know the reason behind this choice too...

This decision was made roughly 3-4 years ago. At the time I was still assisting ISI in the migration of rFactor 2 to Steam and supporting its features. We had a few goals back then.

First of all we wanted to mimic as closely as possible the model that was popular with rF1 and rF2 outside of Steam, which was starting with a "minimal" or "lite" install and then installing whatever content you wanted. This meant our main install should just be that minimal install with the game code and all base components, no content. Related to this goal, we also needed some system that would allow us to let users pick exactly what content they like, so ideally each individual piece of content needed to be selectable.

Second of all, we wanted one generic way of dealing with content, free or paid, so you did not end up with different ways of handling things. And it would be even nicer if the same mechanism could also span both our content and that of third parties, as modding is an important part of our community.

Naturally, since a lot of games on Steam use DLC, that's the first thing we looked at, and we found two issues:
  1. It's impossible for third parties to add DLC to a game, meaning there would be no way for us to stick to the principle that all content is installed in the same way.
  2. At the time, when you published a game on Steam, you got 10 pieces of DLC to go with that. We contacted Valve as we would need "hundreds". We explained what we wanted to do, and they basically told us they would not allow us that many pieces of DLC (free or paid) and they advised us to look at the workshop which at the time was scheduled to allow free and paid content.
So we ended up looking at the workshop and found it more nicely fit our needs. It solved both issues and users could easily pick what they wanted by subscribing to it.

Now roughly 6-12 months after we had made this decision, Skyrim mods happened and if you were playing Skyrim at that time you probably remembered that they were the first game to have "paid" workshop items. I'll spare you the details, but it was a bloody mess and within weeks Valve shut down the paid workshop for them and communicated to everybody else that they would discontinue this feature. Naturally that threw a spanner in our wheels, even though at that point we were not ready to start selling content. We contacted Valve again to ask for a clarification and alternative solution. They then advised us to handle paid content via the "item store" and use your "inventory" to keep track of who owns what. They even made a link from those items to workshop items so we could use our exact same handling for content and we were happy again!

Granted, the item store does get some getting used to as most games use DLC. Granded too that apparently currently this 10 item DLC limit does not seem to exist and there are games with hundreds of DLC packs (even though third parties still can't publish those).

So where to go from here? Well first of all, explaining this to users maybe helps a bit (if people understand why something is the way it is, they might still disagree with the decisions but at least they know the thought process behind it). Secondly, I think we can do a much better job of integration the item store, workshop and how to figure out what content you need to participate in a certain race. In fact, that is one of the things we're focussing on now as part of the new UI.

Hope this helps. :)
 
I can only speak for myself, obviously, but I've often wondered why rF2 is using such a weird system that seems to only cause endless issues and barely anyone else is using it, so thank you for taking the time to explain the thought process and reasons behind it, it's much appreciated.
 
This thread reminds me of the January steam DLC experience update that caused me to drink many beers.
It just wasn't a pleasant experience from a consumer usability standpoint, but I guess once you figure it out it's like riding a bike.
 
Have never found it hard to use albeit a bit cumbersome given that you need to add funds to buy stuff (it's just another click in Steam which seem to like clicks..).

Thanks for explaining the reasons and it seems to me that given your goals you've made the right ones. Also, it's great to see you responding so often to users' questions Marcel and not just stick to your official forums.
 
  • Deleted member 197115

Workshop items make sense for mods, wish AC went that route, but official content packs could have been DLCs easily, you don't need "hundreds" of them, at the moment there is only 10.
Middle ground solution would be to have that kind of inventory management inside RF2 launcher, so you can see which packs you actually own so you don't buy twice, even if it does not create problem for game or developer (hey look, free money :p)
 
I'm hoping for a day when I can easily go back and clean-up my cars and tracks folder of the various versions.
When ever I try to select a car, I have to 'whittle' through a bunch of versions numbers just to see which is the latest.
 
You most certainly can see exactly what you have bought. All those details are actually in your "Purchase History" that you can find here:

https://store.steampowered.com/account/history/

Another awkward UI drill-down that the normal DLC procedure does not require.

Regardless, I am much more concerned about the other issues I raised about the orphan workshop items and errors about base packages. The DLC thing is a just an annoyance. The launcher issues delay and aggravate every single time you try to run rF2. A reply with some tips how to resolve would be much appreciated.
 
Another awkward UI drill-down that the normal DLC procedure does not require.

Regardless, I am much more concerned about the other issues I raised about the orphan workshop items and errors about base packages. The DLC thing is a just an annoyance. The launcher issues delay and aggravate every single time you try to run rF2. A reply with some tips how to resolve would be much appreciated.

Delete the files you don't want...\Steam\steamapps\common\rFactor 2\Installed\
 
This decision was made roughly 3-4 years ago. At the time I was still assisting ISI in the migration of rFactor 2 to Steam and supporting its features. We had a few goals back then.

First of all we wanted to mimic as closely as possible the model that was popular with rF1 and rF2 outside of Steam, which was starting with a "minimal" or "lite" install and then installing whatever content you wanted. This meant our main install should just be that minimal install with the game code and all base components, no content. Related to this goal, we also needed some system that would allow us to let users pick exactly what content they like, so ideally each individual piece of content needed to be selectable.

Second of all, we wanted one generic way of dealing with content, free or paid, so you did not end up with different ways of handling things. And it would be even nicer if the same mechanism could also span both our content and that of third parties, as modding is an important part of our community.

Naturally, since a lot of games on Steam use DLC, that's the first thing we looked at, and we found two issues:
  1. It's impossible for third parties to add DLC to a game, meaning there would be no way for us to stick to the principle that all content is installed in the same way.
  2. At the time, when you published a game on Steam, you got 10 pieces of DLC to go with that. We contacted Valve as we would need "hundreds". We explained what we wanted to do, and they basically told us they would not allow us that many pieces of DLC (free or paid) and they advised us to look at the workshop which at the time was scheduled to allow free and paid content.
So we ended up looking at the workshop and found it more nicely fit our needs. It solved both issues and users could easily pick what they wanted by subscribing to it.

Now roughly 6-12 months after we had made this decision, Skyrim mods happened and if you were playing Skyrim at that time you probably remembered that they were the first game to have "paid" workshop items. I'll spare you the details, but it was a bloody mess and within weeks Valve shut down the paid workshop for them and communicated to everybody else that they would discontinue this feature. Naturally that threw a spanner in our wheels, even though at that point we were not ready to start selling content. We contacted Valve again to ask for a clarification and alternative solution. They then advised us to handle paid content via the "item store" and use your "inventory" to keep track of who owns what. They even made a link from those items to workshop items so we could use our exact same handling for content and we were happy again!

Granted, the item store does get some getting used to as most games use DLC. Granded too that apparently currently this 10 item DLC limit does not seem to exist and there are games with hundreds of DLC packs (even though third parties still can't publish those).

So where to go from here? Well first of all, explaining this to users maybe helps a bit (if people understand why something is the way it is, they might still disagree with the decisions but at least they know the thought process behind it). Secondly, I think we can do a much better job of integration the item store, workshop and how to figure out what content you need to participate in a certain race. In fact, that is one of the things we're focussing on now as part of the new UI.

Hope this helps. :)
So the issue is the dev team want all DLC released in the same way and believe third party DLC cannot be released for a product.
In reply to that:
1: Assetto Corsa, Flight Simulator X, X-Planes, and around a thousand other titles all have official DLC, third party DLC, and workshop items. Some of those titles have had this ability for longer than rf2 has been on Steam.
2: Third Party DLC is allowed. It is quite literally the model used for all flight simulators on Steam.
 

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