Where is RF2 Going?

[demerzel]

Is there anybody who can enlighten me about the future of rf2.
I bought a copy of the game. But It's not my cup of tea.
So now I'm thinking about the refund.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Its going great, just got a second wind due to a confluence of more content, more updates an RF2 Car Setup guide written by a genius of the art and some great deals on offer through RF1 owners.
So we are entering a golden era for RF2.
Personally I am having more fun per race than ever before driving amazing cars against the best sim racers in the world.
Very Very happy here

You haven't elaborated why its not your cup of tea so I cant say more.

 

[ouvert]

it is going to Steam which could be good thing.. I aksed for refound months ago, eventhough I consider it has best physics and ffb .. but it didn`t worked so I`ll guess I`ll just wait

 

[Tal]

@David O'Reilly I'd love to get a link to that setup guide you mentioned

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

@David O'Reilly I'd love to get a link to that setup guide you mentioned

http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/r-factor-2-advanced-car-set-up-guide.110995/

 

[Craig Stevenson]

some great deals on offer through RF1 owners.

Point me in the direction of these?, I gave up on rF2 some time ago but wouldn't mind having another look at it.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Point me in the direction of these?, I gave up on rF2 some time ago but wouldn't mind having another look at it.

Have a look here.
Be qick it expires tonight USA time.
http://www.racedepartment.com/threa...s-out-this-weekend.111388/page-5#post-2111008

 

[Craig Stevenson]

Yeah I got that email offer. I purchased rF2 when it was originally released and before they brought in the Subscription for Online, which is when I gave up with it. The offer gives me 10% off a years Subscription so I get it for £8 instead of £8.99 or I can BUY THE GAME AGAIN for £34.19 which includes a Lifetime Subscription!

 

[Craig Stevenson]

I re-installed the game last night, I'm sorry but I think they are living in cloud cuckoo land asking what they are for this with the default content, which is nothing when compared to something like pCars. I paid £29 originally which I was quite happy with, then they brought in the £8.99 per year Subscription or I could buy the game again for £59.99 which I thought was ludicrous for the default content back then and still is.

rF1 had loads of Mods, I've not looked at the rF2 scene yet but another reason I quit was the idea that many Mods would be paid Mods, so on top of the £60 is that cost, WTF happened to the rF1 ethos?

Where are all the Mods after 3 years?, at RFC for rF2 I see 46 cars (inc the default ISI Cars) and 43 Tracks (inc the default ISI Tracks).

 

[Mat Holloway]

Hi Craig,

It may be you've stumbled into territory you are unfamiliar with.
rFactor is not meant to be an off the shelf racing game(Series, careers etc). It's a sampler of technologies provided by ISI to promote and guide modders/teams to create these assets.

rF1 had loads of mods after it was out for some time yes.
rF2 has been slow off the mark, well according to most, yes.

However, what you are most likely unaware of is that RFC is a horrid site, with horrible practices and should be avoided at all costs.
If you want content, there are plenty of free websites or you can do what we all do and use getmod to your advantage.
Online is where you are going to find most of the work, not buried in some paysite.

There are paymods yes, not many though. I certainly don't mind throwing a few bucks towards someone who has worked for hundreds of hours for my enjoyment, in fact it makes me happy to know that it will spur them on to make even more content.

I honestly wish someone would just kill RFC, it does far more harm than good while it has a pulse.

 

[Gijs van Elderen]

Where are all the Mods after 3 years?, at RFC for rF2 I see 46 cars (inc the default ISI Cars) and 43 Tracks (inc the default ISI Tracks).

Try the multiplayer. All content is downloadable upon server login. Just login to the Racedepartment server and all content needed will be downloaded and installed for you.
Actually there is no need for a rFactor 2 download section.

 

[Craig Stevenson]

I can't try the MP without paying the £8.99 to renew my Online Subscription, or am I missing something?

 

[Emery]

Nope, you're not missing anything. You chose to go that route initially and now, well, you can always choose to upgrade to lifetime... be aware that the upgrade route is going away with the Steam release, so choose wisely.

 

[William Wester]

@Craig Stevenson, if content is the primary purchase driver then maybe rFactor 2 may not be for you. rF2 seems to attract those where FFB, physics, great AI, car/event setup, and MP are a priority. With that said, I have quite a bit of content (ISI and mods) and the only mod I spent a few dollars on was the URD EGT mod, and new content releases are starting to pick up lately.
I have pCARS and while I won't knock it as it has a place in virtual racing, and it has a lot of content but I still drive rFactor 2 much more than pCARS - content is only part of the story.
To each their own, rF2 is far from perfect but for me I don't get the same feel from the others (I'm still glad I own all the other racing games to tinker with).

 

[tpw]

The beauty of having multiple sims is that between them there is a new update/mod every day or two, so there's always something interesting and new to try. rF2 might not be your cup of tea at present, but a new feature just down the line might just enable the flavour.

 

[Peevee88]

I have fired up most sims over the past couple of years - I have just about all and do try them for sustained periods of time - some I try for a while then start laughing at how incredibly unrealistic they are eg. pCars beautiful graphics and for a while awesome unitl pushing the envelope on track and realising I can do things in the sim that are not physically possible.
RaceRoom similar thing and despite cool graphics etc the limitations eventually get to me, and also after sustained use the physics for me are not there - basically I get the feeling of the same physics for every car just power or grip dialled up or down depending on car.
I have all the Rally sims but they don't do it for me, maybe because I am a road racing guy...

So imo that leaves four very good sims out there to tuck into - and each of these does certain things very well for simmers like me.

• rFactor2 is getting better and better in terms of physics, AI etc but the graphics are dull and seem to lack punch despite my ongoing attempts to improve this. Also impotant if you test a new car or try it out for the first time (or after a layoff) you must do it on the right original track - my suggestion is Portugal (Estoril) and use that as a benchmark, then try the cars and decide from there.... in the early days my go to track in rF2 was Lime Rock and that was just an awful rendition of that great track, and after half an hour of trying it out I would pack it in. Thus important to choose a track you like and looks reasonably good. My favourite cars believe it or not are the Megane Trophy, and if you want to splash out on mods the URD EGT, T5 and PX are excellent on this platform.
• Assetto also gets better and better, imo the physics and graphics have always been pretty awesome and in the latest release for sure the once awful AI is very much improved. Again a good original track is important to benchmark test the cars. I am a fan of Mugello for this and now Barcelona Moto. I run a dozen different cars in Race Weekend mode (using practice or qualifying) and then test cars back-to-back which makes for interesting time and for sure you can have fun with the AI since 1.3 dropped.
  My favourites at the moment are a mix of mod and original content the McLaren M23 which I run with the Ferrari 312 and a Brabham BT55 mod I found somewhere. Also really enjoy the GT2 BMW and Ferrari original content - very sweet.
• GSCE is always great to come home to - easy to fire up and get going. Few tintop mods compare to the Brazilian V8s - imo the best tintop sim mod ever. The karts (125) are very good once you get the hang and most of the Formula cars are a blast. AI great, physics great, multiplayer is good (race my son on our own server) but in our timezone multiplayer is deserted. If I was allowed only one sim on my machine it would be GSCE.
• iRacing simply unparalleled when it comes to online racing system and community (despite many dickheads pretending to be race drivers). The license system and leagues are trend setting for the online genre. Very serious (maybe too serious that's why I gravitated away) and probably the closest to a pro racing community you will find although the variety of cars pretty limited relative to the above mentioned sims. If you have the time and your goal is to make a 'career' out of sim racing then iRacing is the big cheese.

Now back to the original question of where is rF2 going - interesting question as it is ever improving and has huge potential.
Despite all the good stuff rF2 has the multiplayer areas are deserted and not only in my timezone - apparently everywhere. Thus perhaps rF2 can refocus and establish itself as the premier offline sim as I do believe there are definitely two elements of simming: offline and online - both attractive options for drivers in this niche world we play in.
In rF2 the AI and offline race setup is superb right now and throw in several cool tools (eg. rFactor2 Log Analyzer ver. 2 with offline and league Championship Manager) to enhance the experience and now need to be maximised.
I believe there is a big offline sim racing crowd - and I would propose rF2 bosses find a way to leverage the offline racing guys into some form of community where results can be uploaded, times compared, challenges met, leaderboards etc - all properly policed of course.
Offline simming in this manner has not been evolved - offline has not moved on at all since the early days of simming with Crammonds GP sims and Papyrus stuff and I think there is room for development here which rF2 could lead by thinking out the box to enhance and grow the offline experience.
What springs to mind for me is the GPL Rank system which could form the basis and further optimised so that offline race results, lap times, championships etc are run to some sort of "rule book' and can be shared/publicised on a community style website or portal where racing offline has some sort of ranking and/or points value, so that offliners do not race in an empty cocoon.
For lack of better explanation let's call it an offline iRacing style system for rF2 - this might well be an area where they can lead into the future...

Truth be told the abovementioned could be embraced by any sim developer: pCars, Assetto, GSCE and even iRacing should they want to capture a chunk of the offline market. IMO developers are missing a trick not developing an offline simming system and maybe rF2 can be smart enough to take the lead in this area.

 

[Craig Stevenson]

Nope, you're not missing anything. You chose to go that route initially and now, well, you can always choose to upgrade to lifetime... be aware that the upgrade route is going away with the Steam release, so choose wisely.

IIRC When I bought the game originally there was no online Subscription, the only cost was £29, the Subscription was brought in later.

 

[Marco Versele]

There's a site http://rf2.gplrank.info/ to view or upload laptimes.

 

[Craig Stevenson]

[QUOTE="Emery, post: 2114250, ... be aware that the upgrade route is going away with the Steam release, so choose wisely.[/QUOTE]

Don't tell me, they want us to pay AGAIN to get to the Steam version?

 

[Emery]

IIRC When I bought the game originally there was no online Subscription, the only cost was £29, the Subscription was brought in later.

Nope, the two subscription models were implemented at the beginning of the open beta: http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/1206-Pricing-and-related-Open-Beta-information

Initially, Tim Wheatley had relayed pricing for the subscription model and feedback persuaded ISI to include the lifetime option.