Pour ceux qui n'auraient pas suivi cet été, une interview du responsable com de ISI est sortie.
Dans cette interview, ils indiquent que le jeu est actuellement en Beta fermée et que la Beta ouverte devrait bientôt être lancée.
Ils indiquent également que les screenshots montrés jusqu'à présent ne montraient pas le rendu réél du jeu étant donné qu'aucun post-processing n'était activé et qu'ils vont commencer à diffuser des screenshots montrant le rendu réel.
Ils donnent aussi quelques baffes aux forumeurs qui bavent sur leur gestion de la com, sur leurs screenshots, etc...
rFactor 2 – Tim Wheatley Progress Blog
The rF2 side of the fence
I know not many people will follow my site for rF2 news, but whatever, here's an update.
Firstly, I want to talk a little bit about how it feels to be on this side of the development fence, and why sometimes it can be frustrating and confusing seeing the reaction of potential customers. I've worked with seven different developers in one form or another over the years, and whether I was marketing, selling or just beta testing I always felt I had a pretty good understanding of how development worked and I always tried to keep this in mind when I reacted to news or dealt with an update I didn't agree with.
Unfortunately it does seem like the vast majority don't understand the development process and this leads to an awful lot of assumption, confusion, negativity and over-reactions. Here's a list (with my tongue firmly in my cheek) of interesting tidbits:
1. Nothing ever really goes to plan. You can sometimes keep to a rough timetable, but that's as good as it gets.
2. If something does go perfectly to plan, be ready for it to go wrong. Be ready for that ugly bug to surface and make you look foolish on the day of your big release. If you set yourself a date, be ready to miss it, or, be ready to release a patch fixing it.
2b. Don't roll-back on a bad release. You'll get killed for that. For some reason people like it better when they have to use something which is broken rather than go back to an older version. They also seem to be a lot more grateful when you fix it.
3. The public doesn't usually get to see software in the early stages, and no amount of “WIP” mentions seems to help them understand that the visuals you're giving them don't represent what they'll be potentially buying. But, with that said, many of them truly appreciate the insight you gave them once they have their hands on the software.
4. Big companies don't show WIP graphics, ever. If you're a small company and all you've got is WIP graphics, be prepared for the comparisons.
6. Soon isn't soon enough.
7. Just because you label something as being about one thing, don't think conclusions aren't going to be drawn about everything else.
8. Any connection with something the community surrounding your company doesn't like will be leaped upon and lead to large assumptions. Good example of this is a game I regularly play called X3 Terran Conflict: They did a deal with Steam so that if you did something on the Steam release you got an extra bonus. This was a simple marketing exercise but it has lead the community to assume that the companies next title will be a Steam exclusive, completely ignoring the fact that the publisher of that developer has never done a Steam exclusive and wouldn't make anywhere near as much money that way.
9. It doesn't matter how out-of-date the work-in-progress preview is, it's still going to get compared to a recently released, final version.
10. It doesn't matter how many new genre-changing features you add if your software doesn't have that small thing you didn't think mattered.
11. When you don't have something ready to show, don't be surprised if that is the one thing someone keeps asking for every time they communicate with you.
12. Few of your customers like each other.
13. Very few of your customers like any other companies customers.
14. Few of your customers like any other companies products.
15. Nobody likes to share their developers. If you have another product line and have to work on it, be sure to not tell the customers of the first product. They want their product to be sole focus, even if that would harm you financially.
16. Almost none of your customers realize that you have respect for every other developer and every other product, or that you understand every product has it's purpose. Even fewer realize that it's the competition and the moving back and forth of customers and staff from one developer to another, along with those differences in the software being produced, which keeps the entire software industry alive.
17. It's both a game and a sim. Developers will probably call it both, because it is both. Customers don't usually agree.
So, now that I have borderline offended everyone that I possibly can, let's talk about rFactor 2.
I've been with ISI for a year starting September 1st. When I first visited the ISI offices last year I was shown some of the technology that these guys had been working on (and off) with since 2008. Some of the features were in, but all needed a lot of work, some features hadn't really been started and obviously rFactor 2 wasn't the only job these guys had… They've done an incredible job to get rF2 into it's current stage of closed testing. I'm just excited to see more members of the community getting their hands on it this year (I'm thinking both the testing and initial release will be 2011), and if I can remind you of something Gjon said a loooong time ago on Twitter , it should give you an indication of how the public hands may touch it first:
rFactor2 will probably have a decent open beta period is we get a new internal structure in place which I'm hoping for.
Gjon is always one to downplay the importance of his software. For him, rFactor was just “an update” on previous racing game engines, and rFactor 2 is something he talks similarly about. I disagree, but that's because I think more like a customer than he does. I think that some of the features of rF2 can really change the genre for the better, but when you look at software development and how it actually works, he's right. rFactor 2 is essentially an evolution of whatever it's oldest piece of code is from, and while that might sound like a bad thing to those who don't understand software, why do you need to re-write code that still works the most effective way it could be written?
Now don't get me wrong: rFactor 2 is new software. It's as new as iRacing was to Grand Prix Legends or rFactor 1 was to Sportscar GT. It breaks barriers, and so many of them, that in a way I'm fearful of them being overlooked: I still look back at Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 3 and think about the rain effects and the drying line, thinking how massive it was, and rFactor 2 is really the first software to try to do that effectively since then, while also adding many other “massive” feature elements to that same experience. I guess I'm just fearful we'll see one feature talked about while everything else that I think makes rF2 fantastic (as a package) won't get a mention, just like how I only think of the rain in GP3… If that makes any sense, and it's probably good for someone from a developer to be a little fearful of good stuff not being thought about in the right way years in the future, right?
That's probably another good point to mention about rF2: There's nothing short-term in the planning the company has. They intend for this product to get a lot more support than rFactor 1 in terms of updates, new features, new content and access to the team via the forums and Web site. Infact I've been responsible for a couple of really juicy pieces of content being licensed that will both be released as addons likely sometime in 2012. What's nice (although admittedly it sometimes does mean time melts away while projects are done) is that every project ISI has is mutually beneficial, so new features brought into rF2 make it into other commercial products we have, and vice-versa. It's also often nice to be able to get good solid data from some partners, even if that isn't something the rFactor 2 community thinks they benefit from, they do. The tire model, for example, greatly benefitting from the knowledge the ISI team has on different types of tires.
Anyway, enough personal rambling. It's time to bring you up-to-speed with what else is public on the various places I give out information… Firstly, it's worth noting again what Gjon posted on Twitter back in 2009 :
rFactor2 will probably have a decent open beta period is we get a new internal structure in place which I'm hoping for.
So, be ready.
Next? Well the most recent thing I posted otherwise was that finally, FINALLY, we're getting some of the graphics effects plugged into the development build of the software. This means that finally, FINALLY , we'll be able to put out some shots which are more representative of the looks of rFactor 2. This has probably been one of the hardest things for the community to understand, because most of them have never seen base art from a game before.
Before that, I posted an awesome update on the tire model to rFactor.net . The videos are great, I'd recommend reading it (closely and carefully) in it's entirety. When you consider that this tire model is working on conjunction with a fully fledged weather system, track surface, etc – awesome.
Before that, there were some new screenshots (which are base art, as I said above), and some extra-cool rendered desktop wallpapers of just some of the car content you'll see in rFactor 2.