Simbin has published a very interesting Q&A regarding their upcoming RaceRoom Racing Experience free to play title.
In the Q&A, Simbin’s Diego Sartori shares some details on the title’s driving model, the studio has also revealed an interesting new preview showing off the title’s car setup screen.
How would you say the hardcore-simracers will experience this game?
In order to be able to answer this question one must question what a hardcore simracer really is.
We have seen many so called hardcore simracers not really being all that hardcore and we have seen some, that at first appeared to be relatively casual racing game players, only to turn out as absolutely hardcore racing gamers.
It is worth mentioning that we have seen super serious racing gamers on console as well as on PC. The game they play may not be all that hardcore but their approach, their skill and the level of dedication they display surely places them right next to any other hardcore simracer.
So, ask yourself this please, am I automatically a hardcore simracer because:
- I wear a helmet when playing a racing game?
- I play my racing game with controllers and a racing frame worth 1000 Euro or more?
- I only play my racing game using cockpit camera?
And then ask yourself this, can I call myself a hardcore simracer when:
- I play the game with a Joy-Pad?
- I only play the game using the Amateur difficulty level?
- I play the game using driving cameras other than cockpit?
A simracer to me is a player that loves real racing and racing games. Playing racing games is their hobby and the approach to the racing games they play, is one of dedication and determination to improve their race-craft.
How one player experiences full immersion should have nothing to do with how hardcore they are allowed to think of themselves.
I think racing games (any game really) are a little bit like running shoes, they are made for running, but you can use them for walking too, when you try to choose between one shoe over another it is not the brand or the tech that matters, ultimately it is about how the shoe fits and the one that fits perfectly is the one you will end up wearing.
RaceRoom Racing Experience will in some way or another fit most of the players out there. We are aware that it will not fit all the players, and we know that some might label it as less hardcore than other racing games.
I can live with that because I know that to be in the top 100 on any RaceRoom Racing Experience leaderboard, or to be on the podium of a ranked multiplayer race, will require an extraordinary talent and a huge amount of dedication and that to me, that is the real definition of a simracer, hardcore or not.
What changes in the driving experience can we expect?
For the most part, the changes we have made will come across as subtle, small refinements where needed but also with the aim to keep the SimBin DNA intact.
For now we have announced the availability of two difficulty levels and matching driving models, Amateur and Get Real???
The Amateur driving model is designed to cater for casual gamers and seasoned racing gamers alike and this is done through the careful use of two driving aids, ABS and traction control, nothing more.
At our booth at this year???s GamesCom, we had visitors performing 1 minute 29 sec laps around our track, coming out of the simulator stating that they would have wanted less driving aids, and some have come out saying that it was spot on, at GamesCom we only used the Amateur driving model.
Fact is that the current delta time with that car on that track is 1 minute 22 seconds, the challenge factor and difficulty level changes a lot over a span of 7 seconds per lap and that is worth having in mind.
The premise for the Amateur difficulty is that is runs the Amateur Driving model, tire wear, tire heating, ambient temperatures and fuel use disabled. Damage is kept to visuals only and the cars are using fixed setups.
In order to make sure players can get the feel they want from the controls when playing the game, we have moved the steering lock from its normal place in the car setup menu to a new location within the controls menu, this allow for personal tweaks of how the car and controller inputs interacts even with fixed car setups.
The Get Real??? driving model feels and drives much like you would expect a SimBin game to drive, it is immersive, dramatic and challenging.
A new aspect of the Get Real??? driving model is that we do not treat traction control as a driving aid, we simply treat it as part of setting up the car, just as any team would if they are racing in a series that allows the use of traction control, and those there are plenty of.
This presents the player/driver with a completely different challenge when it comes to setting the car up for a given track and a given discipline, they have to 6 traction control positions and for each of these the player can assign any amount of traction control between 0 and 100%.Now some may think that adding 100% traction control to the car will make them win races, or be fastest on a leaderboard, that is not the case, a skilled driver will be faster with no or very limited traction control values, it will be about finding the right compromise between your driving style, the cars mechanical and aero dynamical grip and then of course the amount of ???safety??? you are willing to sacrifice in order to get the lap times you are looking for.
-Diego Sartori
As reported earlier, the first version release of RaceRoom Racing Experience is pretty close if hints by Simbin employees are anything to go by.
Currently, the content of the free base version has not yet been revealed but looking at what was included in the GamesCom demo is probably a good guess of what players can expect from the initial version.
