Le Mans Ultimate: Monza & Customer Porsches in the Spotlight

pz666 said:

I'm one of many who got sick of the modders having a better handle on the tyres than S397... Search engines exist, I'm sure you'll find plenty of whinging about the tyres on S397s work being far too slidey for years...

Hell even the Formula E drivers thought it was such a joke that one of them subbed in a sim racer to race for them during the COVID esports replacement series with real drivers... Formula Edrift was what the drivers called it as the fastest way around the corner was to drift the Formula E car... Even on hairpins...

What Reiza has done with the Madness engine is a huge achievement... Give them something that actually worked in where rF2 was when ISI had it and they'd of taken the rF2 project a lot further...

Taking something broken and making it work and taking something that worked and breaking it is vastly different...

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It's delusional to say that rF2 "worked" when ISI left it in limbo. How do you come to such a conclusion? The sim had barely 100 players on average per day at that time. As said, you can read all that went wrong on the forum written by the ex community manager. The main reason why the UI took so long was because of the infamous spaghetti code. Breaking the AI and rule system happened when ISI released the Stockcar plugin. I really have the feeling that people have a very selective or bad memory. That people whine about cars being too slidey or physics being questionable is nothing new. You can read the reviews on Steam and you will notice why people stopped playing rF2. What are we gonna bet that bad physics is one of the least points? Negative Steam reviews about rF2 allways focus(ed) on poor UI and accessibility, dated graphics or MSG in recent times.

And I won't even touch the topic of Reiza in detail because their track record in recent times speaks a completely different language. If the sim was that good, it's physics that great and Reiza that much better, then why in gods name is nobody playing the damn game?

tr1v1um said:

And I won't even touch the topic of Reiza in detail because their track record in recent times speaks a completely different language. If the sim was that good, it's physics that great and Reiza that much better, then why in gods name is nobody playing the damn game?

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Cause Reiza has not touched the MP which nowadays makes a big component of the players' numbers.
Also, Reiza spent exactly $0 on streamers, influencers, mega events to push the sim whereas MSG is going bankrupt spending every year many more millions than the entire Reiza yearly revenues on marketing only. Let alone other overheads and general costs plus the cost of production.
The net result is that many millions later RF2, has roughly the same player count as AMS2 and that shows how unsustainable is the MSG/RF2 trajectory atm.
Also, Reiza has cleaned up a step after the other the mess SMS left behind in Madness Engine and the improvements are becoming so undeniable that even some bigger streamers are taking note recently. And v1.5 is safe to say that will raise the bar quite a lot again, having already driven it quite extensively. Hopefully with Le Mans looming at the horizon there will be breakthroughs in the functionalities related to MP and endurance.
Even with all this, player counts are not very dependent on the quality of the physics in particular of a product given the mostly "tribal war" oriented mentality of the simracing community, where people seem to be attached to their sim like if it was a religion and often will not look at facts but rather to what they are used to, marketing and influencers.

Topic of subject.....yep gone again, I hope the game is great....period

This has the potential to be a great title. Take the very best FFB in the business the best or one of best physic engines and focus the game on a single series. This will make the developers life much easier I see this project very similar to KS ACC.

It could be a great thing for rF2 if the improved code makes it back.

S397 has done great things with rF2 and I have no doubt they will pull it off.

Looking forward to.

tr1v1um said:

You know that this game isn't just about Le Mans, it's about the whole WEC season with all cars and tracks. I mean, you will still be able to enjoy Le Mans in AMS2 with a few cars that run the real event, but it's like doing a Bathurst 12 hour race or Spa 24 with Raceroom while you have ACC sitting in your Steam library. I am actually more looking forward to the historic stuff that they are planning for AMS2, but for the modern content there might be no way around LMU. And from my perspective it might be much better if Reiza flesh out their historical content alot more because that's actually really their niche and what they are good at.

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Why do they call the game “Le Mans Ultimate” when Le Mans is only one of many tracks/events then? Confusing title IMHO…

MadDriver11 said:

Cause Reiza has not touched the MP which nowadays makes a big component of the players' numbers.
Also, Reiza spent exactly $0 on streamers, influencers, mega events to push the sim whereas MSG is going bankrupt spending every year many more millions than the entire Reiza yearly revenues on marketing only. Let alone other overheads and general costs plus the cost of production.
The net result is that many millions later RF2, has roughly the same player count as AMS2 and that shows how unsustainable is the MSG/RF2 trajectory atm.
Also, Reiza has cleaned up a step after the other the mess SMS left behind in Madness Engine and the improvements are becoming so undeniable that even some bigger streamers are taking note recently. And v1.5 is safe to say that will raise the bar quite a lot again, having already driven it quite extensively. Hopefully with Le Mans looming at the horizon there will be breakthroughs in the functionalities related to MP and endurance.
Even with all this, player counts are not very dependent on the quality of the physics in particular of a product given the mostly "tribal war" oriented mentality of the simracing community, where people seem to be attached to their sim like if it was a religion and often will not look at facts but rather to what they are used to, marketing and influencers.

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Haha, now it's the marketing or that company ABC didn't fix component XYZ of their product. It's ridiciolous. Where are all those big influencers that boost rF2 and trash AMS2? In recent years and especialy after the last installment of the Le Mans Virtual I have seen nothing but praise for rF2, S397 and MSG. The last positive videos that "might" have had some impact were published in the early days of rF2 on LFM, when the BTCC races had a quite solid fanbase. And all of this has nothing to do with Reiza doing a better job or not. What about that is even opinion or fact? Are you the one to judge it? How about Reiza not meeting their set deadlines on a regular base and not fixing their DLCs as promissed for years while still selling them at full price?


Maybe wait and chill and see how S397 does their work before getting to fast conclusions before the title is even released? This community is so fast to trash anything before it's even released and the abillities of some very talented people are questioned as soon as some screenshots appear. How do people know that LMU will be a dissapinment or that Le Mans in AMS2 will be much better? What the hell are you guys smoking?

Mike1304 said:

Why do they call the game “Le Mans Ultimate” when Le Mans is only one of many tracks/events then? Confusing title IMHO…

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That's something that you will have to ask the marketing guys at MSG. It's the same problem as with ACC from my POV as people who aren't into sim racing don't really know what to do with such a title. Obviously a title with Le Mans in the name might sell better than a title like "WEC - The official game" or something along those lines. At the end it might just be the "best" they came up with to keep the product open enough for future DLCs. As there is a potential for Le Mans cup, Asien Le Mans Series or European Le Mans Series DLCs going forward the title might be not that bad afterall. There are also events like the Road To Le Mans or Le Mans Historic that are options for future DLCs. Today the tag "Le Mans" stands for alot more than just the track or the event itself. Car classes are named after the location aswell.

tr1v1um said:

Haha, now it's the marketing or that company ABC didn't fix component XYZ of their product. It's ridiciolous. Where are all those big influencers that boost rF2 and trash AMS2? In recent years and especialy after the last installment of the Le Mans Virtual I have seen nothing but praise for rF2, S397 and MSG. The last positive videos that "might" have had some impact were published in the early days of rF2 on LFM, when the BTCC races had a quite solid fanbase. And all of this has nothing to do with Reiza doing a better job or not. What about that is even opinion or fact? Are you the one to judge it? How about Reiza not meeting their set deadlines on a regular base and not fixing their DLCs as promissed for years while still selling them at full price?


Maybe wait and chill and see how S397 does their work before getting to fast conclusions before the title is even released? This community is so fast to trash anything before it's even released and the abillities of some very talented people are questioned as soon as some screenshots appear. How do people know that LMU will be a dissapinment or that Le Mans in AMS2 will be much better? What the hell are you guys smoking?

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I've not judged at all LMU. You guys are doing it. I just said I have some expectations of realism through tools that today are not available in RF2 and I'm expecting them to be included in LMU. Time will tell what choices will be made on that.
I will refresh your memory on some of the investments MSG has done in marketing/advertising:

1. Does Romain Grosjean ring a bell?
2. Does the virtual Le Mans series with 250k prize ring a bell?
3. Facebook and any remotely related site banners with ads? Ever seen them

The fact of the matter is that when you see the SEC deposited balance MSG spends 6-8M$ a year in marketing for basically what is a single sim portfolio since Nascar was dead after a week and other games aren't even close to be advertised. That amount is bigger than Reiza's entire budget likely. This is a recorded fact, not an opinion.
Influencers and streamers are instrumental in pushing big numbers: Kunos got it earlier and better than many others together with iracing. RF2 is trying to get a place under the sun through all of these events but when you tune in the reality is that no one is watching them: official channels are in the tens or max 1-200 viewers and similar numbers are made by the streamers/esport drivers participating to the events. A bit too small to justify a 250k prize.
Among the many things that Reiza probably made mistakes on, deadlines aren't really what kept the number of users down at all.
Anyway, hate AMS2 as you want, last month the average daily users was 383 vs 408 for RF2. Without signifcant MP and without LFM supporting and with no marketing whatsoever.
So really counting users (even assuming for sake of argument like you say that RF2 is the bESteSt sIM EVaH for physics) just proves exactly what I am saying: quality of physics doesn't sell in itself.
What I can tell for sure is that AMS2 will move the bar up by a lot with v1.5 and Reiza is setting to keep going for the years to come after the good success of the ongoing reopened backing campaign.

MadDriver11 said:

I've not judged at all LMU. You guys are doing it. I just said I have some expectations of realism through tools that today are not available in RF2 and I'm expecting them to be included in LMU. Time will tell what choices will be made on that.
I will refresh your memory on some of the investments MSG has done in marketing/advertising:

1. Does Romain Grosjean ring a bell?
2. Does the virtual Le Mans series with 250k prize ring a bell?
3. Facebook and any remotely related site banners with ads? Ever seen them

The fact of the matter is that when you see the SEC deposited balance MSG spends 6-8M$ a year in marketing for basically what is a single sim portfolio since Nascar was dead after a week and other games aren't even close to be advertised. That amount is bigger than Reiza's entire budget likely. This is a recorded fact, not an opinion.
Influencers and streamers are instrumental in pushing big numbers: Kunos got it earlier and better than many others together with iracing. RF2 is trying to get a place under the sun through all of these events but when you tune in the reality is that no one is watching them: official channels are in the tens or max 1-200 viewers and similar numbers are made by the streamers/esport drivers participating to the events. A bit too small to justify a 250k prize.
Among the many things that Reiza probably made mistakes on, deadlines aren't really what kept the number of users down at all.
Anyway, hate AMS2 as you want, last month the average daily users was 383 vs 408 for RF2. Without signifcant MP and without LFM supporting and with no marketing whatsoever.
So really counting users (even assuming for sake of argument like you say that RF2 is the bESteSt sIM EVaH for physics) just proves exactly what I am saying: quality of physics doesn't sell in itself.
What I can tell for sure is that AMS2 will move the bar up by a lot with v1.5 and Reiza is setting to keep going for the years to come after the good success of the ongoing reopened backing campaign.

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There is no issue with having certain expectations, but at this point I see no reason why S397 wouldn't be able to implement hybrid support for the hypercars, when they allready did it for the BTCC content. FE also uses regen systems, wich are modeled pretty advanced within rF2.

About marketing: Grosjean does ring a bell, same as Rubens Baricchello, same as René Rast, same as Antony Hamilton. If you really care about how much money certain publishers spend on marketing, then you are touching a completely different subject and most likely moving on thin ice if you are trying to use it as an argument. I hope you are aware where all the money for the foundation of AMS2 came from. AMS2 wouldn't be where it is now without the holy saints of EA games or Bandai Namco.

Anyway, don't take my posts the wrong way. I have no reason to hate AMS2, Reiza or any other game or studio. I just try to look at all this without a tinfoil hat and judge what happened and not what will happen in the future. Le Mans in rF2 with 60 cars is a blast, that's for sure. And that's partially due to MSG spending sh*t tons of money on lisences and marketing, or ISI developing their first F1 titles for EA games over 20 years ago. Who cares?

tr1v1um said:

About marketing: Grosjean does ring a bell, same as Rubens Baricchello, same as René Rast, same as Antony Hamilton. If you really care about how much money certain publishers spend on marketing, then you are touching a completely different subject and most likely moving on thin ice if you are trying to use it as an argument. I hope you are aware where all the money for the foundation of AMS2 came from. AMS2 wouldn't be where it is now without the holy saints of EA games or Bandai Namco.

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Crazy expenses in marketing are not the same as cost of development.
Paying big cachets to testimonials that add nothing to the actual product, running leagues with totally silly prizes that are obviously not financially sustainable just make a big noise around your sim are different matters.

As for the BTCC hybrid it is very far from what has to be implemented in LMH. It is precisely the type of black box boost that I think is insufficient for the task. You are talking about 15s of 40 Hp, the consequences in terms of braking and overall systems are negligible. Think now about 272 Hp sitting on the front axle with a differential attached to it and think about the impact on brake bias during each event of car retardation (that is why IRL there is such a thing called brakes migration), car handling under acceleration and energy storage management and you can figure how a small boost of torque treated as a black box will not cut it.
But like I said a couple of posts ago, let's wait and see what they really will include in LMU.

MadDriver11 said:

Crazy expenses in marketing are not the same as cost of development.
Paying big cachets to testimonials that add nothing to the actual product, running leagues with totally silly prizes that are obviously not financially sustainable just make a big noise around your sim are different matters.

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Wierd, I have heard that before about games that were not under the MSG umbrella.

And the main reason why Reiza isn't doing the same is not because they wouldn't like to do it but AMS2 is quite frankly not up to the task with terrible netcode, col detection, insufficient stability, the lack of the forementioned endurance features like driver swaps and the complete absence of broadcasting tools or a somewhat acceptable replay system. If you want to know why S397 spend months if not years of work on stuff like that, then there is your answer. And that's actually stuff that attracts big organizations like Indycar, the ACO or BTCC more than a mid 90s McLaren having two brake pedals. It's questionable what is right or what is wrong about that and what it tells us about where sim racing is going, but sometimes it's also one way to get a healthy MP ecosystem with a lobby with more than 20 people playing the game at the same time.

MadDriver11 said:

Crazy expenses in marketing are not the same as cost of development.
Paying big cachets to testimonials that add nothing to the actual product, running leagues with totally silly prizes that are obviously not financially sustainable just make a big noise around your sim are different matters.

As for the BTCC hybrid it is very far from what has to be implemented in LMH. It is precisely the type of black box boost that I think is insufficient for the task. You are talking about 15s of 40 Hp, the consequences in terms of braking and overall systems are negligible. Think now about 272 Hp sitting on the front axle with a differential attached to it and think about the impact on brake bias during each event of car retardation (that is why IRL there is such a thing called brakes migration), car handling under acceleration and energy storage management and you can figure how a small boost of torque treated as a black box will not cut it.
But like I said a couple of posts ago, let's wait and see what they really will include in LMU.

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You are still drumming this "Promotion" thing after all this time?

AMS2 has been reviewed, positively now, by every youtuber and their mother. It doesnt lack exposure at all when even Jimmy Broadbent is singing its praises now. Hell AMS1 was raved by all youtubers and simracers (even gamermuscle) and nobody played it.

You can't expect the virtual LM to use a game that doesnt support even driver swaps, nor LFM to pick it up with all its MP problems. Me and others have been saying this to you and others for years now, how physics, core game bugs and MP and AI need to be fixed, and you insist on this "promotion" nonsense. The game gets a lot of promotion everytime it brings out some DLC because its not good content that the game is lacking, its a lot of other crucial things, and none of them is promotion. Thats why it spikes, and then quickly drops users like a stone when hotlapping with Senna's mp4/5B by yourself wears off. A lot of people were enthusiastic about driving Ovals with CART cars there, but physics, and crucially AI are still needing fixing for that to be any form of proper experience.

Richard Wilks said:

You are still drumming this "Promotion" thing after all this time?

AMS2 has been reviewed, positively now, by every youtuber and their mother. It doesnt lack exposure at all when even Jimmy Broadbent is singing its praises now. Hell AMS1 was raved by all youtubers and simracers (even gamermuscle) and nobody played it.

You can't expect the virtual LM to use a game that doesnt support even driver swaps, nor LFM to pick it up with all its MP problems. Me and others have been saying this to you and others for years now, how physics, core game bugs and MP and AI need to be fixed, and you insist on this "promotion" nonsense. The game gets a lot of promotion everytime it brings out some DLC because its not good content that the game is lacking, its a lot of other crucial things, and none of them is promotion. Thats why it spikes, and then quickly drops users like a stone when hotlapping with Senna's mp4/5B by yourself wears off. A lot of people were enthusiastic about driving Ovals with CART cars there, but physics, and crucially AI are still needing fixing for that to be any form of proper experience.

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You are completely mistaken again. You are interpreting my words to a concept I never expressed. I don't want any virtual LM in AMS2. I actually want a more "democratic" set of servers for everyone to join in splits like in iracing not an elitist invitational/exclusive event no one really watches. As I mentioned many time AMS2 is not ready for that and its MP requires work before the sim can become more popular. However you can be assured that while it will overtake surely RF2 it will never get close to ACC not even one third of their users. And the reason isn't the quality of physics. It is mostly the amount of advertising they got in several ways.
You built a wall of text on a completely wrong assumption of my thinking.
And yes marketing matters, that is why Kunos and iracing spent big money on it (and looking at the broader picture promotion through twitch, YT and socials through influencers exactly like the known simracing streamers is becoming increasingly big in all types of businesses from fashion onwards).

tr1v1um said:

And the main reason why Reiza isn't doing the same is not because they wouldn't like to do it but AMS2 is quite frankly not up to the task with terrible netcode, col detection, insufficient stability, the lack of the forementioned endurance features like driver swaps and the complete absence of broadcasting tools or a somewhat acceptable replay system.

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The reason they don't do it (and they won't do it even once those feature will be added) is simply that they are not a big corporation or backed by a big (in simracing terms at least) corporation like SRO, S505, MSG etc.
Amyway, as mentioned, something must be enjoyable other than MP features since the same amount of users choose AMS2 every day as the accomplished, honed and 10 years true and proven RF2. It might even be that AMS2's physics is getting better at every update come to think of it..

MadDriver11 said:

The reason they don't do it (and they won't do it even once those feature will be added) is simply that they are not a big corporation or backed by a big (in simracing terms at least) corporation like SRO, S505, MSG etc.
Amyway, as mentioned, something must be enjoyable other than MP features since the same amount of users choose AMS2 every day as the accomplished, honed and 10 years true and proven RF2. It might even be that AMS2's physics is getting better at every update come to think of it..

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How do you know they wouldn't do it? There is a reason why Reiza went for a strategic partnership with S4studios. On one hand it opens the door for content trading wich saves considerable development time and costs and on the other hand it also opens the door to get picked up by a bigger publisher. The whole idea behind developing a racing sim is to make it accessible to as many people as possible or do you think that Renato wouldn't like to see more people enjoying his title? I guess this doesn't need to be discussed any further and it's THE reason why publishers spend those big amounts on marketing these days. Big events attract more people. On top of that, those big events are good testing grounds. It seems a big backwards but it's actually true.

As for if AMS2 will easily have more player than rF2? I have no idea if it ever will, if they don't find a way to hook people over a longer time. As Richard allready explained, the content isn't really the issue here, it's the execution. I am not sure if it is a good or a bad sign if a somewhat new platform really struggles to have more players after three years than a platform that had barely 100 players in 2016. And this is something that can't be linked to one single factor. To get me hooked, they would need to find more focus with their title, wich doesn't seem to be their plan. They haven't even delivered or finished what is in the works right now and showcase offroad content and promote their upcomming endurance features. For me as a customer it feels all over the place and I just think for myself: why aren't they finishing what they have in first place before creating new constructions sights?

tr1v1um said:

How do you know they wouldn't do it? There is a reason why Reiza went for a strategic partnership with S4studios. On one hand it opens the door for content trading wich saves considerable development time and costs and on the other hand it also opens the door to get picked up by a bigger publisher. The whole idea behind developing a racing sim is to make it accessible to as many people as possible or do you think that Renato wouldn't like to see more people enjoying his title? I guess this doesn't need to be discussed any further and it's THE reason why publishers spend those big amounts on marketing these days. Big events attract more people. On top of that, those big events are good testing grounds. It seems a big backwards but it's actually true.

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Yes attracting more people is what they surely want to know, but I don't think we will ever see Reiza going the MSG or Kunos way where they put so much amount of money into streamers/influencers/esports and the relevant event. As Renato explained in their forum they want to reach users by the force of their product not by almost organically enrolling streamers and the likes in online and on track events that ultimately cost millions but never pay back those costs. The alliance with S4 is very doubtful to be a "commercial boost" strategy. I doubt it has anything to do with that.

As for AMS2 I'm not sure what should have been "finished" by now that would hook you up and is finished in other sims other than MP.
You are also contradicting yourself when you say RF2 is alive and well and then you say matching their player count isn't a healthy signal.
Physics, graphics, FFB, AI and such are constantly changed in much older sims: ACC, iracing, RR, RF2 all had very significant changes applied recently after many more years activity than AMS2.
If you are talking about "finished" classes, then which sim has an entire class apart from ACC (and for long periods not even them since GT3s get evo versions that took many months to reach ACC).
RF2, iracing, RR etc don't have complete classes by no means either.
Personally I think the old story of AMS2 being a heavy WIP is growing a bit worn as its physics, FFB and roster of high tier tracks and cars is slowly completing, now things do lend far less to this argument.
And now RX coming and Endurance content are enlarging the horizon sitting on a more solid package for AI and general racing options and features, down to AMS2's own spotter and solutions to ease modding process.
There are indeed things that are WIP (for instance rolling starts and some mechanism of mandatory pit stops and some MP and endurance features as well known) but also others that are not even included in most of the other sims like FCY.

TeddyBearx said:

you have rF2 and mods, and it's the same

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Yeah, but in rF2 there aren't youngtimer mods as there are in Assetto Corsa (RS5 GT, URD GT1 cars,...). In fact, the WSGT2 was abandoned.