Who Was Your Sim Racing Developer of the Year?

[E304LIFE]

Um, I always use PayPal. Did you see this part, near the bottom of the thread?
"Do you have more questions about our premium membership package? Want to know what other perks there are? Please contact us via email."

Yup, thx Denis. Ya, you can still go through Paypal and use a credit card. (me dumb)

 

[Shovas]

None of the above. Mine personally goes to Ilja and the rest of the ContentManager and associated co. dev gang that pretty much developed an entirely new UI for AC, a feat that is taking some other developers an eternity to accomplish and adding features through CM to a AC like day/night and (wip) weather effects that Kunos themselves wouldn't ever have implemented thus giving AC a proper second wind and a much needed mid-lifecycle refresh. Massive respect to those guys for the pace at which they operate for literally no money.

Missing poll option: Modders?

I would totally agree with that. It's my impression that a lot of first party released content is actually contracted out to other companies or frequently mod teams.

 

[Wayne Hutchison]

Lol, as a fan of both, how long did it take Iracing to add day/night transition? weather? real road?

Over 25 years if you start counting with Indy 500 back in the late 80's. But why does that matter? iRacing has dynamic surfaces, dynamic weather, time of day transitions, etc. and they've done it quite well IMO. And they had a Pro GT3 series years before ACC - does that mean ACC is automatically crap just because they're late to the game?

 

[Shovas]

Sim racing developer of the year has to be SMS for Project Cars 2 for me, unpopular here I know, but they created a sim that works equally well on PC and console, huge amount of licensed content, day night cycle, real endurance racing, changing weather true 4K graphics and stable framerate.

The problem with SMS/PC2 is: How far did they come *this year*?

When I look at their Steam News page, actually they did *a lot* but it was mostly bug fixes and some new content.

But they've left PC2 in a broken state for AI, FFB, Real Weather, some say physics, etc.

I'm a fan of PC2 but I can see they didn't progress in 2018 with PC2 they just kept the status quo.

This poll, given the way it's worded about this year in particular, is about progress and SMS didn't progress PC2.

The fact that they've already announced PC3 shows you they've long lost their focus on fixing and improving PC2 in the key problem areas.

 

[Shovas]

all s397 have done is release expensive dlc

why is everyone gushing over that?

It's because every DLC release includes many changes in their release notes with significant improvements.

If it's not your main game I can understand why you wouldn't be familiar with it but all the devs do this: Their releases highlight the main features and the release notes contain all the boring bug fixes, physics improvements, tire model changes, etc.

By this logic all iRacing did this year was... day/night? But, no, of course they made a lot of improvements this year.

 

[Shovas]

LilSki gets a vote/mention for the Outstanding Watkins Glen, I still need to donate

EDIT: Oh, Paul started it over here in the past hour!

This got me thinking: RD should do another poll about top modders/mod teams of the year

Why not, they feature articles on mod projects a lot.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Kunos Simulazioni (AC, ACC), they are amazing.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Missing poll option: Modders?

I would totally agree with that. It's my impression that a lot of first party released content is actually contracted out to other companies or frequently mod teams.

Peter and x4fab. Guys are amazing, AC was never so good thanks to all their hard work and dedication.

 

[welshy46]

36 votes for SMS. I didn't know they had that many staff members.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Surprised rf2 got so many votes, nothing against the title but considering minuscule player base... almost like someone just spread the word about the poll on their forum.

 

[James Nance]

Even though I do iRacing, I had to vote for Studio 397, really turned around RFactor 2, keep up the good work.

 

[DaytonaGreen]

Milestone RIDE3.

 

[OZ67]

It will be. Probably in 2025.
.

At least their ahead of I-Racing

 

[iwn]

One more vote for modders of original AC. This year I have had best immersion moments in game ever thanks to mod tracks and especially DRM Revival and RSS GT cars. Number of retro tracks is also rising steadily to race in Can Am, Interserie, Group C and F1 from late 60ies, 70ies etc Great time to play sim?

 

[Denis Betty]

Surprised rf2 got so many votes, nothing against the title but considering minuscule player base... almost like someone just spread the word about the poll on their forum.

There must be a reason. Maybe people actually think that S397 are having a tremendous attempt at breathing life into rF2?

 

[marvelharvey]

Surprised rf2 got so many votes, nothing against the title but considering minuscule player base... almost like someone just spread the word about the poll on their forum.

I've done a search on the forums for 'racedepartment' and see no mention of this poll.

 

[MarcG]

Although slightly biased for reasons I won't go into I voted for Studio397, the GTE & GTChallengers Packs are truly epic, Sebring is an absolute masterpiece and the "under the hood" changes have been very much welcomed. In that the VR performance improved greatly earlier this year and this has been my Go To Sim for VR racing, the future looks very bright indeed for RF2.

Special mention to Kunos for releasing ACC into Early Access, I've not played it much but from what I've seen it's steadily becoming a very good Sim. Even though I don't own iRacing I've enjoyed seeing them progress with new features, I look forward to re-subbing next year with the AI Patch especially.

 

[roadyroad]

There must be a reason. Maybe people actually think that S397 are having a tremendous attempt at breathing life into rF2?

Indeed, the point in this topic is whether this is the right way for a developer? I personnally don't think so. As people are hyped with roadmaps, why s397 don't stop updating rfactor2 to work on a rfactor2.5 official release with all the job done once for all? With a good communication to launch the game and by charging the rfactor2 owners with 10$ and the new owners with full price, it would be at last a window to a finished and polished product. Those who like rfactor2 as it is will use it until this release and they will support its roadmap as they've been doing for many months. Just stop selling rfactor2 when the 2.5 is released and create a new workshop (if modding is still a thing with this new version ; I hope it would be, considering it would be a finished product). Or call it rfactor3 if necessary, a new UI and better graphics are more than sufficient nowadays to justify a new title.

Updating rfactor2 more or less regularly, even if the job is well done (there is no doubt about that and that's why s397 get votes), is imo killing the game : current players like the game and won't stop using it, but there is not any appeal for potential customers for whom it's an old game with last gen graphics and confusing critics everywhere. I would vote for s397 if they just have taken the decision to say "rfactor2 is going to stay as it is, you can buy dlcs.we release from time to time, but we're going to release a new version with all the features we want to implement, and you'll be charged for it. Your dlcs will be fully integrated in the new game as the old official content". This would deserve my vote.

I'm speaking about s397 because I have the same thing to say about raceroom (which I think is easier to manage as the UI doesn't need an overall redesign and the content does not relies on mods). I would rather pay a dlc for a weather system implementation than for gt4 cars. Is Raceroom still in beta? I even don't care anymore, although I have been really enjoying raceroom.since its release (less in 2018), so obviously it's a no vote. Has sector3 done a good job on raceroom in 2018? Yes, the updates on the gt3, gt1, and gt2 were phenomenal, but what aboit the other former content? Well we get DLCs instead. Should raceroom be abandoned and a new game sold with all the new physics at one time? With the implementation of the weather and other missing features? I think it's.less critical than rfzctor2 but it could be done.

Project cars has done it. People still buy it, and the even the first game has as much olayers than rfactor2 or raceroom. Pcars2 has more than the double of users. Yes, there are flaws which remain unfixed, but each package is complete with a huge amount of content and lots of features, good UI, and excellent loading times. The difference between pcars1 and pcars2 is justified by the new UI (awful in the first game), the much more interesting content, better default setups, dynamic track conditions, and puddles. It's not that much when you read it but it renewed the experience and obviously it was sufficient to sell the new version. Yes, competent marketing and communication teams are required.
For that SMS could have received my vote but their stupid cheap behaviour with the real weather (not paying the subscriptions to get the real weather data) and their annoucement of a pcars3 game although pcars2 could be an excellent base to expand, have killed it. they should do what rfactor2 and raceroom have been trying to do but without having the base right, and they should do what pczrs2 is doing with pcars3. Well it's just my analysis, I may be wrong. I just wished them all success.

Kunos I think took a more interesting decision. They decided to move on, although assetto corsa could be updated with new features (modders are proving it), trying a new approach, an official title with limited content but with full well done features. They are taking a huge risk (I personnally don't like the gt3, and it's nothing original nowadays) but with a good finished product, even without a hit (which seems to be really far as the critics are really strong currently but we never know), I'm sure they'll have a solid base to expand the sim (as simbin did with race07). I would almost give them my vote for that but ACC is still in development and kunos' strategy around this title is still unclear for me, maybe in 2019. But at least as a developer, I think they are closer, than the others sim developers, to what I would call a leading behaviour in the sim industry.

In the racing industry, my vote is still with the forgotten Bugbear with its almost pheonix title Wreckfest. This is a story to wish to kunos with ACC.

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

Scawen

 

[Vince Wheel]

Voted Sector3 for their continuous improvement with physics, they're making bit by bit multiplayer experience more pleasant and consistant, cars and tracks dlc's created in 2018 have been great:
WTCR 2018 class, DTM mercedes complement, GTR4 class, lauching Group 4 with the excellent Porsche 934 turbo rsr- They have been quite busy and creative on their own way during 2018.

Recently, I'm also enjoying AMS, which is great too, but I found more logical to vote for Sector3 regarding the big quality stuff they provided this year with their old engine.