RaceRoom’s FIGHTBACK plan with studio lead Jean-François Chardon - Podcast INTERVIEW

00:00 - 01:43 Introduction
01:43 - 03:50 J-F Head of Studio
03:50 - 04:40 RaceRoom dev team
04:40 - 07:49 The current state of RaceRoom
07:49 - 11:44 New UI
11:44 - 13:30 New back-end code
13:30 - 18:20 History of RaceRoom
18:20 - 22:31 Taking back control
22:31 - 24:35 GTR3
24:35 - 25:40 KW's involvement
25:40 - 27:24 Night driving, new engine
27:34 - 28:09 Expanding team
28:09 - 31:18 Engine sounds and tracks
31:18 - 42:00 DLC roadmap
42:00 - 44:14 WTCR and DTM rights
44:14 - 47:10 Anti-cheat protection
47:10 - 50:04 New online structure
50:04 - 52:50 In control

 

Oh wow, that's unexpected but great news! Makes me confident in Raceroom's future. Can't wait for new features and improvements!

 

Didn't see the interview yet, but I've known that there's something going behind closed doors. What choice do they have anyway ?Simracing is a niche, contenders (AMS2, AC2, rF2 a.s.o) are busy all over the place. For example I just had to laugh when some one called a popular Horror Survival Shooter (also kinda niche) "dead" I once loved to play - with plus 20 000 folks online ...numbers even ACC can only dream of... kudos to all Simracing Devs in this regard, you're always close to the edge

 

Nice to hear this game still has a future. Looking forward to see what the devs will bring us in following years.

 

So what I got from the interview is, the team is in control of Raceroom and will be pushing forward with plans for the future.

Also, I did not realize how small the team at Sector3/KW Studios was. Only 6 in house full time members? Wow! What theyve done with Raceroom deserves much respect.

 

A question about the backend programmer and the changes we'll see. Will their efforts only appear in the menus, web shop, and multiplayer areas, or will their work be able to allow updates to something like the in car dash displays and on screen HUD?

 

Backend is about servers and databases. Car dashes and HUD is an entirely different area.

 

It´s good news but I feel the ship has sailed and it will be very hard to win back players especially as by the time these improvements are done, Rennsport and AC2 will either be out or in the beta stage.

These last 2 years of induced coma with only new DLCs and a few minor game improvements have been really bad for player numbers, especially online.

 

Honestly, I've heard this way too many times over the last years to take it seriously. All predictions of the game's near death failed so far.

The drop is about 40% through 2022, which is significant, but also in the last 12 months the playerbase was still surprisingly stable.


Plus, when I said it makes me confident in the game's future I didn't mean it will thrive in numbers. I only meant that the game will continue working and being improved even more extensively, and I personally am pretty happy about that.

 

When I saw the interview and the talks starting with UI optimization I was thinking myself why?
To me it works
just the background being too bright in the main menu

but then dark in submenu was doing it again for me

then I thought about rf2
What brought me back to this Game was the much improved UI that came up last year
And reading comments on the forum there I was not the only one
At the end of the day that’s your first connection to the Game right?

maybe that’s KW strategy to bring back users in RRE?

 

Anyone actually going in game and looking at the MP lobbies and number of users present can see there has been a big hit. Single player fans may not care about that but any online racing game lives and breathes by the community and there is only so much hot lapping and racing against AI that one can take before getting bored.

 

I don't think multiplayer is as big of a factor as you put it. It's an important part, but it's not everything, and with new developers in the team it will be improved as well. If ranked servers get sign-up system and automatic splits, I don't see why people wouldn't use it. LFM in rFactor 2 was enough to bring attention to that game.

 

True but this is not the work of a moment. AMS2 is just about seeing the end of the tunnel after 3 years of development AFTER release. RRE already lost almost 2 years and the market is only going to be more cannibalised next year.

 

It lost X number of players over 2021 and the first half of 2022, but after that the playerbase was stable. So far situation looks good. New games? It won't be the first time when new games rise in popularity but R3E managed to survive nonetheless. Neither Rennsport nor AC2 look like direct competitors of Raceroom, so I expect other games to be hit the most.

 

This comparison would work if both games were in the same state and same situation, but it's hard to find games more different than these two.

 

I don't think it's too late.
If graphics, gameplay and ui will improve, user will come back. There is so much positive in this sim. Cars, tracks, sound, ai, ffb or physics. For none of these rr has to hide.
Multiplayer I can't judge, but it's reputation is not bad, I've heard.
And new players have an extraordinary possibillity to get a bunch of content with vrps an the premium pack.

Just let it happen.

 

@GregoryLeo

 

Indeed no two game are alike, but how many of us own multiple titles and are forced to choose which to play in our limited gaming time? The more choices, the more the player base gets diluted apart from the small groups of hardcore players who support each game and will never change.

RRE has a number of basic non-graphics engine issues that are always going to limit its success despite the F2P USP; no mods, no customisation of liveries, the need to have a dedi server to run a MP lobby are among the main ones I can think of. It´s the Apple of racing games in this sense as it is beyond hermetic. In that sense it really is hard to compare it to any other game.

 

Listened to the podcast a few weeks back and although it was interesting, I was slightly disappointed tbh, because I naively thought the things about to get started/investigated have been in development already. But anyway, looks like 2024-25 could be interesting years for sim racing with so many titles being worked on atm.

 

I had bought the premiumpack back in 2018 and been back and forth in the Game since
Enjoyed it, hated it and currently happy with it again since i fixed its poor VR behavior
To the point that i am almost considering to buymore content
But yes the podcast as much as it was in deep still missed day&night transition as well as weather changes perspectives where all other major Sims have it

Not being paranoid or maybe a bit, but i am also worried if at some point RRE is abandonned then we would not be able to play any of our content due to the way it launches as ONLINE only.

Is that a valid concern to have?