PC1 Will Project Cars support community mods?

[sti228]

I am sorry to ask this here... Hope it not wrong topic for question like this.

Maybe it's very late question, but i will ask. Game will support community mods and tracks ? I mean it's possible to import my own track in game (after release) ?

 

[Andy_J]

We had the Falcon series, we had the Flanker series. We had Jane's F-15, Jane's F/A-18 (what a great great great community we built), F16 Aggressor, Mig Alley (another great community and development team built), BoB and Oleg's IL-2. All prodigious study sims (perhaps BoB and IL2 not so much). Then the era of study sims was terminated by the usual excuse (costs and profits) and on came the multi-aircraft sims era (LO:MAC the most obvious).

Damn Chronos, now you have got me started again on combat flight sims.

I have always had a soft spot for them and they take pride of place in my study still.
When I have time I still dabble with a few of them (I recently built a retro pc just to keep them going, Win98, old voodoo card and pentium 500 and 16mb ram and my old CRT monitor)
My current playing one is BOBII and its super mod multiskin.

Love em I do.

 

[Mark Quigley]

SMS must believe modders can produce quality content good enough to put a dent in their DLC sales.
Does allowing mods even have an effect on DLC sales?
I am trying to think of titles that can be heavily modified but still sell DLC packs, i tend not to do DLC so can not think of any.

 

[Chronus]

Mark, the reasons why modding was given the RED CARD (to borrow from european football) run deeper than that. Anyone believing that (i.e., "modding affecting DLC's") or stating that, is either naive or intentionally deflecting the real reasons. Given how hot discussions about CARS and modding have become in the past (the exponent being NG's infamous threads on the issue), I'll won't go deeper than that. Others believe whatever they wish to believe.

-----

Andy, Andy!

I have all of DiD's sims (EF2000 and TAW among them), all Falcon series (up until the F4UT stepped down and gave way to...to...that), all of Jane's (including the gunships), all of Oleg's sims, all of Rowan's, Third Wire's P1 and WOV, LO:MAC, even Microsoft's civilian and combat sims, Aggressor, Red Heat (iirc), Extreme air racing...even Microprose's Top Gun ...and a few others.

But my list pales in comparison to yours. I humbly bow before your sim-lib.

 

[Andy_J]

But my list pales in comparison to yours. I humbly bow before your sim-lib.

This is just my boxed air combat sim collection. Just a mere fraction of all my PC software collected since day 0.1 of PC gaming.

Back to Air Combat sims, Janes USAF is my all time favourite on PC. Prior to that, Digital Integrations F-16 Combat pilot on the Amiga was the best. Boy that was a great. Remember Flight of the Intruder? Good ol'e days eh?

Back in the early days you needed your imagination to see external views and action and no such thing as multiplayer. AI was king. .

Cheers Chronos.

 

[Chronus]

Forgot to mention EAW - great great great, with damage physics already quite detailed. I remember Microprose's M1A1, A10 Warthog, and a submarine sub (can't recall if that was your 688 attack sub or not).

Looking back to those really early days of PC gaming...we had Wing Commander (had to use a little prog to use extended memory...ahahah), Dave Kaemmer's Indy 500, DiD's Retaliator (I doubt anyone remembers that one...) and a couple of submarine sims (already 3d). And 4D Sports (Stunt Driving)...vector graphics and all...

With all the fancy glitter and social networking we have now (all candy smell and little substance), it feels like an opportunity has been lost to make computing (and computer games) into something beyond belief.

[USAF and F/A-18 are still in my HDD's. How'bout that? Great seeing a fellow flight simmer here, Andy!]

AI was king.

Yep! So true.

 

[Andy_J]

[USAF and F/A-18 are still in my HDD's. How'bout that? Great seeing a fellow flight simmer here, Andy!]

Hey Chronos, you wouldn't believe it, but I regularly spend hours/days just trying to get old Flight sims working on modern PC's. (and old race sims). Just been tinkering with Mig Alley and Janes F/A 18 on another PC and boy that was good for the day.

I am a long term member of Combat ACe and Combat Sim.com to name a few. I miss Frugals world as much as I miss Blackhole Motorsports.

Yes, nice to see you are of the old school too.

 

[Lawndart]

Wow, what a pleasant time warp... i think flight sims were responsible for every hardware upgrade I did in the 90's... Another great sim series is Silent Hunter... EF2000 and Longbow 2 were favorites but both EF2000 and F4's dynamic campaigns really ruined mission based sims for me.

Fighter squadron was a labor of love but made under massive pressure... The publisher was sueing the developer while it was being developed and really limited it's potential... "Open plane" was the result of heavily modified CFD that enabled us to apply physics to every single object of the planes...

"Dynamic padlocking" was also a fun design that later became standard in a lot of sims... It's when the pov zooming in the closer an enemy plane got to the reticule, simulating tunnel vision.

Some great past times, but sims disappeared nearly all at once when there was a "call" put out by the government to game developers to help make, or borrow existing game tech.

What's baffling is back in 95-99 flight sims were a solid 10% of the market, the same as sports games... Then almost over night, poof! Marketing people never liked them...

At least driving sims are getting more and more popular.

(Pardon my typing, I write posts on my phone :/)

 

[Andy_J]

What's baffling is back in 95-99 flight sims were a solid 10% of the market, the same as sports games... Then almost over night, poof! Marketing people never liked them...

The reason for that...consoles.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

Unbelievable collection of games/sims Andy

 

[Andy_J]

Unbelievable collection of games/sims Andy

They are just my air combat ones David.
Cheers.

 

[brandonmx]

it will it has the wireframes into it to use

 

[Birddogg66]

That's why i don't believe too much on this game, if it's not modding friendly i don't see it becoming "the simulator" for the coming years... (if in fact it is a simulator which i doubt, lol)

If it's like Raceroom or iRacing where you have to pay for this, pay for that i can't see it in the long run...

SMS needs to make the best of the release of their new platform as far as profitability and don't want to give away a lot of what has been put into it off the get go. I for one respect that approach so it's is in their best decision not to allow modding of their title at this time but they did not rule it out for the future and as a team that started with modding still thinks highly of those with the same creative ambition. Just give it time and see what the future brings?

 

[Grega Zorc]

SMS needs to make the best of the release of their new platform as far as profitability and don't want to give away a lot of what has been put into it off the get go. I for one respect that approach so it's is in their best decision not to allow modding of their title at this time but they did not rule it out for the future and as a team that started with modding still thinks highly of those with the same creative ambition. Just give it time and see what the future brings?

Modding should be done like ED did with DCS. 3rd party payware which must be approved by SMS to meet the PCars standards in licence, handling, detail, ffb, physics,...
That's the only way to make it work in this game.

No illegal rips with fake names or made-up handling by some geek who never raced a car before.

 

[Micas_WMD]

As for lining the pockets of the dev team - sim racing is as we all know a relatively small market. Whatever helps the developers to produce games at a higher quality I am fine with. So if they need to put out paid DLC a few months or a year after release, that's no skin off my back. Everyone has to earn a living, they shouldn't be persecuted for trying increase their income. After all, its not as if it is some sort of scam that leaves us broke and without any benefit.

That's really well phrased. I've struggled to describe exactly that when monetary issues are raised. It's not just about earning a living but rather standard business practice. In order to stay in business, SMS needs to be able to afford development which includes attractive salaries to staff in order to attract top talent, and solid returns for investors, not to mention funds to obtain new licenses. Games get more and more expensive to create and dev studios close regularly, so if SMS were not to meet their fiduciary responsibilities, the studio would be at risk. Besides, why shouldn't an SMS dev want to be able to afford a super car? Who here has asked for a cut in pay at their own job just so the consumers of their product get it slightly cheaper?

Modding should be done like ED did with DCS. 3rd party payware which must be approved by SMS to meet the PCars standards in licence, handling, detail, ffb, physics,...
That's the only way to make it work in this game.

No illegal rips with fake names or made-up handling by some geek who never raced a car before.

Reasonable in theory, but difficult in practice. If SMS signs off on a mod and it's payware, they're legally on the hook for the license fees. SMS isn't going to do that.

To me, the cons to modding outweigh the pros, and it's not just a financial issue. The integrity of the game becomes and issue. I remember after the release of Shift 2, somebody modified the pak file for an Audi and gave it some absurd horsepower. It worked in on-line games and wreaked havock. If anything is exposed by those types of 'mods', which I'll see posted for download on race sim forums, I'll send a message to Andy Garton and ask him to patch it out of the game.

pCARS, as Ian has said many times, is not a 'fire-and-forget' project. There are plans for the future, and it'll be very cool. SMS will be able to afford that support and creation of new content if their customers want it and financially support the continued work. I don't see why anyone would want to create a fractured mess of a game with an open platform which does not financially support new development. Do many of the SMS staff have a sim-racing modding background? Absolutely, but then they turned pro and feed their families with their work. It's not a hobby anymore.

 

[SnappyDEe]

Well put, Micas. Support pCars or don't. It's up to you. SMS isn't being "money hungry" because they are trying to turn a profit. I will be buying whatever DLC interest me. I like the product and for the small cost...guess what?...I get my money back with hours upon hours of time spent racing, testing, tweaking and sometimes....just ogling the cars in the garage. You know you do it too!

 

[SternLX]

My 2 cents... there are plenty of moddable Race Sims out there. One less isn't going to affect the people that want to Mod one iota. They'll just carry on and keep plugging away at their rF's, AC and anything else that allows it.

At least we can design and use our own Liveries in pCARS. Better than nothing.

 

[spankthemunkey1]

hi guys and galls, i have recently got into adding mods to my games and really enjoy adding good cars and tracks and having fun with them, i no nothing about how to mod and do not want to learn as it would be too difficult for me with all my illnesses. just wondering is, what is sms's thoughts on allowing modding???. i know there are car skins but what about full on modding??. and why do they think the way they do, i hope they allow it as it would make a good pc game even better.
your thoughts please.

 

[Kyle Pearson]

pCARS will not directly support modding. I'm sure the modding community will figure out (if they already haven't) how to unpack and repack the game, but it won't be directly supported.

 

[William Wester]

Modding can be a good thing and a bad thing. Take Assetto Corsa, which I do like, some mods are pretty good some are not, not a lot of consistency though. While time (AC maturity) may improve this consistency, as it is now mods many times break when AC is updated and the AI is terrible on mod tracks in many cases. I'm not trying to beat up on AC but its a reality of modding.
Also, mods don't always work well for multi-player as it now becomes a requirement that all have the same content. A number of times I tried to join an online race only to find that I don't have the right content or the liveries of others are not correct.
Modding sounds great, but you better be accepting of bugs and lack of consistency - pCARS is getting beat up for just these things and modding would not help. If I had a choice, I would like my games to support modding but I'm also tolerant of bugs and inconsistencies.

 

[spankthemunkey1]

Modding can be a good thing and a bad thing. Take Assetto Corsa, which I do like, some mods are pretty good some are not, not a lot of consistency though. While time (AC maturity) may improve this consistency, as it is now mods many times break when AC is updated and the AI is terrible on mod tracks in many cases. I'm not trying to beat up on AC but its a reality of modding.
Also, mods don't always work well for multi-player as it now becomes a requirement that all have the same content. A number of times I tried to join an online race only to find that I don't have the right content or the liveries of others are not correct.
Modding sounds great, but you better be accepting of bugs and lack of consistency - pCARS is getting beat up for just these things and modding would not help. If I had a choice, I would like my games to support modding but I'm also tolerant of bugs and inconsistencies.

thanks for that, i do not mind that project cars does not at the moment allow modding, it needs to progress and sort out their own bugs and issues. assetto corsa's mods are ok but like you say some are quite buggy and some of the tracks are terrible. this was my first game i used any mods in so it's all new to me as is sim racing.