There was no smack talk in that thread, just a few users asking legitimate questions, getting a very poor answer from Mr. Bell, them calling him up on it and then him playing the victim card rather than answer the questions in a professional manner.
Problem is almost all of the participants in that thread were too focused in winning to notice all those bridges burning. What chance reconciliation after that? What chance you'll end up with a respectful community, both in the forum and on the track? Actually it sounded to me that the argument had been going on for some time, over other things probably, and they were all up for a fight, whatever the pretext. Lots of pointy words being bandied about, real bareknuckle stuff, just not cricket old boy.
I believe the quick flareup was based on previous hard feelings or resentment from the past. It seemed to have started when the RD moderators removed some links Ian had added to his post (to pCARS forums posts), a post in answer to someone else's question. It also sounded like there may have been some talk behind the scenes (private posts). Who knows the whole story but depending on what you want to believe some of those posts can lead to strong opinions. I like RD, but in "my opinion" Ian didn't have a chance, and didn't help himself with a couple his rebuttals.
All those who disagreed with this post should remove their blinkers. This game isn't even being played, let alone bought, and the reasons stated above are probably correct. R3E, on the surface doesn't look like value for.money. PCars is a complete package, whereas R3E is still miles behind, with no chance of catching up any time soon. Development is continuing at a snail's pace and features are promised 'soon' when in reality that could mean months. Meanwhile they have to keep churning out tracks and cars to keep some sort of income going. I can't see S3 lasting to Christmas unless there are rapid and dramatic improvements to the pricing structure and features. Maybe if you disagree with this post you can -sensibly- explain why R3E isn't being played...
Out of curiosity how did you determine "This game isn't even bring played, let alone bought..."? I'm not disagreeing as I wouldn't know how R3E is doing (sales, number of those playing).
As was posted a few pages back, R3E's active player numbers are pitiful: http://steamcharts.com/cmp/211500,234630,244210,8600 Why isn't R3E being played? I don't want to keep banging the same drum but first and foremost I believe the issue is price. This sim is expensive. I own most of the game's content and must have spent around twice the RRP of a console game, maybe more, and that's taking advantage of some sales and getting some free vRP too. I don't regret it at all, but for most this expense is hard to swallow when PC games are generally much cheaper than your average console game. R3E has priced itself out of the market. I appreciate F2P isn't popular but I don't think the end-user cares so much if the content is reasonably priced. Secondly - content: I think it's awesome. Loads of fantastic touring and GT cars with a few endurance prototypes, no road cars. Great. Sadly I'm in a small minority. The mass market wants a variety of road cars from hot-hatches to two-seater sports cars to grand tourers to supercars. They also want some open wheelers - F1, F3, Indycars etc.... R3E only caters for a narrow market: the fan of the thoroughbred tintop race car. Finally I believe the lack of a career mode is an issue. I couldn't care less for one myself as all I want is full race weekends and championships, but again I'm in a small minority. The wider market expects some form of career mode that offers progression. Not having one simply doesn't compute. I don't agree that R3E is moving at a snail's pace and I don't believe the lack of many key sim features is holding the title back. The game has come on a long way over the last year or so, and we know that plenty of improvements are in store. R3E is paying the price for a poor start in life (a year as a hot-lapper), a mid-development change of direction as well as the studio closing and re-launching. I'm sure R3E will come good in the end but can it survive until such a time on a such a small player base?
Great and very accurate post James, pretty much sums up my feelings and fears entirely. This game is specialising in all the things I want in order to make it great, but there's a mass market out there that it can't cater for and a mod scene out there it can't cater for and it is very expensive (relatively speaking). To me, it's specialised in the areas I want it to be (racing GTs and touring) and that's something PCARS undoubtedly (game-wise, but not sales-wise) has suffered from not doing, in my opinion. I honestly believe the pricing structure/model is the main barrier to R3E entry at this point; the game itself seems to meet with almost universal approval among all who comment on it on other sites now, which speaks volumes over how far it's come in a year. I know this pricing structure can't be suddenly overhauled, but hopefully there is a way to attract more people onboard without detracting away from its core values.
It will be interesting to see if dedicated servers boost the player count. I'm sure there are plenty of communities out there that would love to run leagues or just casual race meets with all the great content in R3E. It's the only game that's offering a range of full series with well-balanced cars, so it's all there for communities looking for a platform to run a league, whether it be DTM, WTCC, ADAC GT, DTM '92 or G5. This brings us on to another thing: customs skins. Most communities will overlook R3E without them.
yeah, i think james' analysis is the most thorough & correct, but i hope it starts with a review/overhaul of the pricing structure, most important thing first off is making it easy to get into, & imo f2p is just THE worst format for this. as i posted earlier its designed by nature to have things unlock over a long period of time; most simracers dont like this to begin with, but theres also the fact that, since there is no grinding for rewards, you can only 'slowly unlock' the content by metering out payments for the content. theres just nothing about that that is appealing. and there are so many choices out there, id many just decide instead of bothering with which trackpacks, sales, etc to jump on, theyll just pass. so while i love the specialization, & i would THINK it mustve done them some good as far as cutting a niche & getting some simracers, judging by those #s its hard to say it has. hopefully sales, but not more people playing. i do fear they'll need to broaden the spectrum for that in addition to re-examining the price model to see that happen. if its cars theyre passionate about i dont have a problem with it per se. i just hope they will be; i think dtm '92 came from a place of passion & no thought of sales; i thought it was such an odd decision but its some of their best content for sure.
Ahh, I didn't catch the post regarding the Steam charts, actually I didn't know this was even available... very interesting.
Good point. We cannot keep paying for skins, not being able to create them. The lack of dedicated servers from day 1 (after the hotlap days) was a huge mistake. The number of active players ATM, is almost the same that one of the main brazilian leagues deal with in a Reiza based championship (more than 160 simracers). Well, this same league used to be based on Simbin titles...
If you mean the recent(ish) thread over at RD then no you're wrong, someone called Ian Bell a coward, that's out of order and If thats the sort of tone RD condones then I'm frankly not surprised that Ian and SMS have issues with the way RD is run.
I must admit the pricing of R3 is off putting, I've managed to pick up a lot of content (both DTM exps, ADAC 13 pack ADAC14 exp) for just over 30 quid. Still a bit light compared to other games but not too bad (albeit with sales). Is that Active players thing for MP only or does it include everyone playing the game?
As for poor R3E total player count I'd say that Race Room is mostly suffering from very bad reputation it gained in the early days. That legacy is still visible on Steam reviews, lots of them no longer valid, so if you care and want to change how things are go ahead and write some positive review on Steam (I did . I hope it can bring more players to Race Room. I know that there are many out there, who are avoiding R3E mainly because they've read somewhere that it's just some arcade rip off.
Good point about Steam reviews. I've yet to review R3E and will do so soon. I think all of us who love this game should leave a few positive words.