Longevity Concern

[Kadafi]

I've done a bit of searching, but haven't found an answer (which could just be poor searching technique, so I apologize if this is obviously stated and addressed somewhere).

I really like this sim, and would likely be interested in investing in some store content in the future, but I'm concerned with the longevity of any investment I'd make. I see several posts from others (both here, and on Steam) stating that they lose access to the game and any purchased content when the server is 'under maintenance,' which tells me you're not buying the content, but rather the 'access' to that content - unless, of course, I'm simply misunderstanding the infrastructure in place.

So, my trepidation stems from the question: when development and support for this game inevitably stops at some point in the (hopefully far) future (or the 'server' goes down permanently), do you also permanently lose that content, and any invested funds are just gone (like a subscription to...well...anything)?

It may be possible that no one who looks at this has the 'definitive' answer to this, and it may just be an 'at your own risk' situation that I have to decide for myself whether to make or not. Either way, to any and all who read and answer, thanks for your time!

 

[amsterDAN]

While it may one day be the case that servers are shut down and the game can no longer be played, I don't think it's something to particularly concern yourself about. If it did occur, we're talking so many years down the line from right now that you probably wouldn't still be playing Raceroom anyways. I sometimes wonder with other games I play which make extensive use of the Steam workshop, what will happen on the day those workshops are shut down? But it's a concern that sits so far in the future, it really just isn't a valid excuse to avoid enjoying yourself right now. If Raceroom is attractive to you, I say jump on in; it'll be at least like half a decade before the decision to do so might turn around and bite you.

However, one thing I might add is that if your main concern is "longevity", you might simply want to look into a newer and more popular sim. The community for this game appears to be down to a few handfuls of regulars at this point. I watched an official Raceroom stream yesterday and only about 70 people were present; I could arbitrarily turn my webcam on at any time of day and draw a similarly sized audience. I'm not sure I've ever seen more than 400 concurrent players. There's a fair bit of reason to believe R3E is on its last legs right now; if longevity is the concern, there are at least five other sims you can very confidently expect to outlast this one.

 

[Kadafi]

Thanks for the response, Dan! Certainly valid points!

My concern with 'longevity' is strictly monetary: do I get to keep what I've paid for? If a game has even the slightest hint of single player capacity, I can enjoy my time in a ghost town many years later if the overall game is enjoyable enough that I don't notice that I'm simply playing against AI at that point. (I recently booted up Reiza's 'Copa Petrobras de Marcas again, and had a blast all by myself!)

But, I've certainly noticed the truth in your point that the active community is threadbare at the moment, and I'm assuming, for Sector3 Studios, that active community participation is a large factor (if not the defining factor) as to how long they will continue to allow access to their content.

And your point about potential future degradation is also very valid. I noticed on Steam that the game was originally published in 2013, and didn't know (when combined with the small community) if perhaps that descent had already begun, and I was simply too late.

Thanks so much for your response!

 

[Kenny Paton]

It's true that atm the game is server dependent, and yes it must be taken down for updates, fixes etc.
But it's seldom down for long and considering that they still maintain the Race 07 servers I think they're in it for the long haul.
The devs are responsive and helpful I believe if it came to it they will make sure that the game is playable.
All the content is on your pc so it shouldn't be to difficult to do.

 

[Kenny Paton]

My concern with 'longevity' is strictly monetary: do I get to keep what I've paid for? If a game has even the slightest hint of single player capacity, I can enjoy my time in a ghost town many years later if the overall game is enjoyable enough that

At the risk of being controversial I would say that it is in SP that it really shines, the AAI is very good and the more you use it the better racing you will get.
Any content you buy is yours just like any other game and you can test drive any car before you buy it.
The devs update with improvements and new content on a more or less bi monthly schedule and are quick to post hotfixes for any issues.
If it is MP you're interested in the check out our club.

 

[Kadafi]

Hi, Kenny! Thanks for your reply!

Sure, I'm perfectly fine with the server maintenance situation. It is what it is, and I can always go back when they're done and keep trucking along!
I still enjoy Race 07, myself, so if Raceroom's future situation were even remotely similar, I'd be perfectly comfortable paying into it. If you go the VRP route from the Raceroom website, you seem to get a ton of content for a decent price, at the moment.

Haha! You're opinion on the AI is extremely valued! But, I understand the water you could be treading!

 

[Kenny Paton]

I'd be comfortable paying into it.

Remember you can download the free content which is several cars and tracks and play around to see what you think.
There's plenty of tips and guides here in the raceroom section of the forums.
Check out the store.

 

[UMC 22]

When the R3E servers eventually go offline I'm 99% sure that S3 will simply patch the game to be playable offline. As Kenny said, all the content (including the stuff you do not own) is already on your PC. Server access tells your game what content your account has access to, among other things. All of that can be patched out if required.

But since R3E has been going since 2013, is showing no signs of being abandoned, and with S3 mentioning they have various long-term plans for the future, I think we still have some years of online racing in the sim yet.

 

[amsterDAN]

At the risk of being controversial I would say that it is in SP that it really shines, the AAI is very good and the more you use it the better racing you will get.

I don't think that's a controversial statement at all; the Adaptive AI is absolutely a standout feature of this sim and really is one of the main reasons that I can't give up on Raceroom no matter how frustrating I find many other aspects of it. Once you've fed that Adaptive AI enough information to properly adapt to the way you race, you're in for a lot of spectacular battles that you simply wouldn't get into in most other singleplayer racers. To me, the Adaptive AI is actually one of the things that makes the online-only nature of Raceroom so darn aggravating; it's a cruel irony that players are often prevented from racing with the best AI in the business because the online servers that aren't at all necessary for said race against the AI can't be contacted.

 

[Kenny Paton]

because the online servers that aren't at all necessary for said race against the AI can't be contacted.

But that's a very very rare occurance, and is normally dealt with quickly.
I agree that if your Internet is dodgy then you can have problems but the servers (apart from maintenance) are pretty stable.
I honestly can't remember the last time I went to play and found them down.
You may not know that when R3E first launched it didn't have multiplayer as it was designed to be a lan racer used at racetracks, some legacies from that still remain.

 

[amsterDAN]

But that's a very very rare occurance, and is normally dealt with quickly.

While I agree that it's usually dealt with quickly, it is absolutely not a "very very rare" thing at all. If you simply go to the Raceroom discord and search the phrase "server down" you will see beyond any doubt this is not a rarity. In July it was down for periods on the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 17th, 18th, 22nd, and 31st, and this month was down for a time on both the 2nd and 3rd, including one overnight outage for those in American timezones. I have only about a month of Raceroom under my belt so far, so perhaps it used to be far more stable and I just chose the unluckiest of all months to join in.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Is always online really necessary for SP experience?
Same thing that ruined DR 2 with their spotty Racenet.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I honestly can't remember the last time I went to play and found them down.

R3E DLC Wiped Out

I moved in late June. I have not done any sim racing since the first week of June. This evening, I booted my sim racing PC and proceeded with updating all my sim racing titles. In Steam, I saw an ad from Sector 3 Studios stating that they are having a Summer Sale. So, I proceeded to the R3E...

www.racedepartment.com

Took 2 days to recover IIRC.

 

[Kenny Paton]

In July it was down for periods on the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 17th, 18th, 22nd, and 31st, and this month was down for a time on both the 2nd and 3rd, including one overnight outage for those in American timezones. I have only about a month of Raceroom under my belt so far, so perhaps it used to be far more stable and I just chose the unluckiest of all months to join in

Took 2 days to recover IIRC.

I must be lucky but I just haven't had issues.
I can't argue with your experiences though, hopefully you'll give it another chance and if there is a backend problem I'm sure the devs will be working on it.

 

[Majuh]

The community for this game appears to be down to a few handfuls of regulars at this point. I watched an official Raceroom stream yesterday and only about 70 people were present; I could arbitrarily turn my webcam on at any time of day and draw a similarly sized audience. I'm not sure I've ever seen more than 400 concurrent players. There's a fair bit of reason to believe R3E is on its last legs right now; if longevity is the concern, there are at least five other sims you can very confidently expect to outlast this one.

WTF... When you compare the average number of players during each July since the game was launched, you can see that the player base is steadily growing:

July 2013	103.7
July 2014	133.1
July 2015	199.7
July 2016	237.1
July 2017	256.8
July 2018	258.4
July 2019	327.4
July 2020	448.2

That doesn't look like a game on its last legs to me...

The point about the special events is that everybody can actually participate in these races. People obviously won't watch the stream when they're driving at the same time.

Took 2 days to recover IIRC.

No, the content server went down two nights in a row, but it was up again after a few hours each time. This started happening only 1 month ago, it might be related to the recent DDoS attacks.

 

[Case_]

I watched an official Raceroom stream yesterday and only about 70 people were present; I could arbitrarily turn my webcam on at any time of day and draw a similarly sized audience.

You sure about that? Getting 70 viewers takes a lot more than just randomly turning on camera.

(Then again I guess it kinda depends on what you're showing on that camera and what site are you streaming on. But let's stay with simracing, or even just generally gaming.)

 

[Kenny Paton]

Although I've posted this elsewhere I thought it might go well in this thread.
It was posted today 11th August by the studio head at Sector 3. J-F Chardon.
This an excerpt the full post can be found here.
The next steps

"While the recent public updates may appear slim in features, we’re not slowing down behind the curtains.

We’re almost ready to deliver some pretty solid sound improvements. The update will make the cockpit atmosphere feel so alive, you’ll wonder how you could ever like it before. Word from the beta testers was they can hardly force themselves to drive with the old sounds now that they have had a taste of what’s to come. Expect those improvements to ship with our next update, along with the Audi and BMW DTM 2020 cars. In the meantime, I’ll try and make some preview videos.

Our currently active tasks for the Sector3 programmers are:
Move the remaining Scaleform menus to web (so far car setup and replay menus are done, and the most complex of all is in progress: the options menu). This is part of the steps towards a more modern UI that will allow faster iterations and development of features such as signing up to ranked multiplayer races, etc.
Gameplay modifications to Push to Pass and DRS in preparation for DTM 2020 cars. As you know we currently have a unique button mapping for both DRS and PtP but the DTM 2020 cars have both systems. They also come with specific regulations such as one unique PtP activation per lap or DRS allowed in qualifying that we need to replicate.

Then we do have more long term tasks that have been started, but here we venture into features that I can’t currently put a binding ETA on, as we’re on and off those tasks at the moment. We will try and finish some for our December 2020 update. Those end of the year updates are traditionally more feature oriented, since the holiday break also means a break in esports competitions and community league racing and we are then free to make deeper changes to how the game behaves.

Engine mapping - Ability to prioritize power over fuel efficiency from the cockpit.
Manual inlaps - AI no longer taking control of your car at the end of a race. We currently have this working in single player but still needs work for multiplayer.
Manual rolling starts / formation laps - Still needs a lot of work as we only have a prototype of it right now for single player mode only.
Investigation of driver swap feature - So far it does look like a difficult one for sure and one that will require network code improvements.
AI’s in Multiplayer - We have made some good progress on this but currently still have to add quite a lot of data communications regarding non player cars. This feature will probably have to be on hold as well pending network code improvements.

There are also many things that don’t make it into public changelogs but still occupy us. Things like allowing our servers to force showing certain packs of objects on the track for partners and sponsor logos, or spending some time with our colleagues over at SimBin UK to answer some questions and assist on physics and sounds.

On the content front, we are obviously focused on DTM 2020 cars at the moment and the liveries are being painted. It should only be a handful of weeks before they are released. We also have physics improvements in the works as well as brands new content that is better announced at a later date."

 

[PiotrGT]

I was actually concerned about it as well! I love RaceRoom, bought the Premium Pack, hopefully it will last and if they eventually end development the game will be patched so it can still be played. I also love to return to old games. At this point I think I'll be playing GTR2 and Race 07 in some capacity for life.