Is Racer still going?

[Mr Whippy]

Is it just me or has Racer just stopped being looked at or developed.

All the "physics" people left town a long while back, and I can see artists and enthusiasts slowly migrating to greener pastures!

Any projects I do for Racer just end up with hair pulling, and at best if they get released (ini's etc) they can't even be properly appreciated


I can see a future, but I don't think Ruud is so interested anymore, there was a time when Racer was ahead of GT3 and even now visually it's on par with GT4, but soon with GT5 and PGR4 it's just going to be left behind.

MMORG will take off soon too, and we just get left behind even more.


Maybe if we got the sounds and gfx finalised in their current state, and more physics added we'd get back some serious car simmers, but then again we need multiplayer too to get people playing it actively.

Just in a hole, bit depressing as Racer was the best thing going back in 2001>2004, where what you worked on was the best stuff going, the cars handled really badly with even naff pacejka, but there was a drive to get somewhere, and Racer changed thick and fast, I couldn't keep up! Back when Ivo Franic's RS6 was better than anything we'd ever seen on a PC, but the last 4 years have shot by and suddenly our BEST is only just good enough, worst of all Racer has essentially become a HQ screenie program
But now there isn't anything new to get my teeth into, and I'm left frustrated at the bugs that are piling up and up slowly but surely... I just can't get the results I want and there are so many small reasons why!


Just wondering what other people think... really tempted to just start learning how rFactor works and make things that just "work" and can be enjoyed with others etc.

Dave

[rotary_turbo]

I don't know....at the reliese of 0.5.3b 2.1, Ruud said he was working on Racer more "these days". It's a work in progress, yes, and when Ruud relieses another version it may spark interest again(if the updates are really significant). The "yet unused code" for hitting of movable objects will make tracks more realistic(granted, with lots of updating...). All of this requires many lines of code to be written, and for someone to make somthing of this stature in their spare time is amazing in itself . I don't know how he gets it done! I might check on other sims as well(as an auto enthusiast ), but I think there is hope for Racer.

[Pzailokyba]

rvangaal Last Activity: 27-07-2006 14:40

Where is Ruud?

[-TiberiuS-]

I've been thinking the same thing too, since I joined the forums in February I've noticed an exodus of people and things become much quieter on here.

I enjoy this car creation thing and it seems now I'm starting to get competent at it and starting to understand many of the complexities of Racer I look around and it's like

Where is everybody going?

Its a shame too that many projects get started and the authors lose interest at an early stage, the work in progress forum is littered with threads with one or two updates then...silence...

I'm not saying that everybody keeps going 24/7 on projects, I have stuff on my comp I've lost inspiration with but it doesn't mean that it won't ever get finished.

I like this sim, I spend far more time on it than I ought, just seems a shame that it seems to be dying now. I do my round of forums most times when working on my computer, I'm normally active on here most nights and I see other parts of RSC getting busier and this quieter.

Just my thoughts, TiberiuS.

[Bumper]

I've also been thinking about this...
Sure, Ruud's been offline for quite a while now. I have no idea whether he has a reason for that or what the reason for that could be...
But I'd imagine that if I ever created anything as big and great as Racer, I simply couldn't let it go... If I didn't work on it all the time, I'd at least check the community every once in a while for some inspiration, or new, fresh ideas.
So, I still have no idea if Ruud has actually been around here. Maybe he's been around but "logged-off" and he's just working silently on a new version. And then bang, he logs on and lets us all know about it. I may be daydreaming, but that's just the way I try to think about it.


I for sure haven't lost any of my interest for Racer. Racer has so much potential, that I just can't stop thinking about creating new content... And it's not only about creating new content, as I love the already existing things too, and I try to play Racer almost every day.

I've just started on too many projects now... I mean I've got many projects going on all the time and I'm also participating on some other people's projects. That's kind of hard, and I got to admit - I've slowed down a lot. I'm not working as hard as I used to be, and for now I'm actually focusing on getting the most-finished projects out and then get back to working on the less-done ones. But, I'm still quite active. I've got a few cars coming out soon and I'm starting new ones frequently.

But yes, it's still true that this forum is less active than it used to be. And that is sad. I'm hoping to see more people finishing things, including me. It's sad to see so many WIP threads die.

[Silver Ranger]

I've been thinking the same thing too for a while now, it seems that Racer has just hit a wall at the moment. It seems like the only time we get new cars anymore are when andreil starts a car competition, but even this latest competition hasn't turned out nearly as well as they used too, i've hardly seen any posts in the WIP thread for the competition. I have seen loads of cars started that would be great fun to have in racer but they are never completed and I think that's a shame. As for Ruud not being active lately, well he could simply be really busy and might not have had time for racer for a while, but whatever it is I really hope that Ruud comes back with some good updates and hopefully that will spark more interest again. I hate to say it but if Ruud really has given up on Racer then he could release the source code so we could try to update it, but I hope that dosen't have to happen. I really love Racer it has to be the favorite game I have, I play it for hours at a time and I love to drift and I never want to see it die because that would be a big loss for the whole sim racer community.

[Charence]

Originally Posted by Silver Ranger

I really love Racer it has to be the favorite game I have

ditto

There have been fewer releases for Racer recently, but that's probably due to the good weather this summer? I have spent much less time on the computer this summer holiday and very little time on my projects for Racer. Hopefully things will improve during winter?

Even though I've spent less time on Racer this summer, I've not lost interest. Eventually my WIPs will be finished, but I don't think that's going to happen too soon; the reason I'm not spending much time on my earlier cars, Alphard & Colt, is because I'm finding parts of them hard to model...so I continue with another car....

Charence

[some1]

I just had to express my opinions here too...

Firstly, regarding the releases of new cars, I feel that it has something to do with the fact that the newest Racer version we have is a BETA, and releasing new content for a beta version is somewhat not the way to go. I would like a more concrete base to build stuff on.

Secondly, although Ruud may not have any time at all for Racer, it would be very kind of him to at least let us know he can't do development. It would only take like 5 minutes say so... Afterall, I think that without the community, there is no project too.

Let's all hope that He will return one more time and we can sort things out

[pyllin]

Originally Posted by some1

Let's all hope that He will return one more time and we can sort things out

After some months of silence, new beta could appear soon Ruud, do it for us!

[Lipton]

I`ve been with Racer for almost 3 years now and this is by far the saddest period in its history.

If ruud has lost interest and stopped developing racer it would be really rude of him not to give the source code to someone capable of updating it and taking comments and ideas from the forum and making racer better.

cheers

[Engine Of Darkness]

Even though I'm not a part of this community since the the beginning, racer is great fun, and I don't think it's just ruud wo lacks updating. See, we got so much great looking cars out there (maybe even riced cars too), and honestly some people like riced cars, some like stock cars... The Point I'm trying to make is, we got all these cars, but most of them have very bad inis or are archived and not even playable on the new version.

Ok you could rework them, but for what if you don't know if racer carries on, and if there are huge changes in the next version which blasts all effort to dust.

And there are different tastes of cars, and if we just say "bah ricers, leave" (just as an example) we loose community members in the long run.

Multiplayer is fine to play on lan if you configured your racer.ini right (I did it myself and It was great, without any doubts). But as many people say, its no solution to let people work in game files to get a decent gameplay. I may sound harsh, but thats not acceptable. There are people out there who just want to play (and there is nothing wrong with it).

It's not like I'm not trying to learn the mechanics of racer, but I just stop because some things just do not work properly, which makes me think why I'm doing this. Honestly, I'm not trying to get into racer to find out how to work around "bugs" to get it working properly ingame.

Anyway, I'm happy about every new version which is released, but it's to quiet about new features and stuff. Actually I found an old topic where ruud was speaking about learning AI and I'm still hoping this will be added into racer someday. Everyday without ruud saying a word my hope shrinks about new versions with new features/fixed bugs (I would be more pleased about fixed bugs than new features).

That's my Opinion on this.

[FL!P]

I really hope Ruud won't drop it! It would be even more disappointing for us Mac users who paid to help him support the Mac version and only got one build of a buggy beta, so far.

[nihil8]

Originally Posted by -TiberiuS-

Where is everybody going?

Um.... GPL. Racer has just become less and less rewarding for me to drive. The notebook I run it on struggles to keep up. I still run some old favourites every now and then, but the newer tracks and cars tend to be such frame rate hogs.

Then I installed GPL... Even the gplea cars run really smoothly: decent frame rates, good looking graphics, 400 tracks... AI... I can run maybe two cars in Racer (three or four low-poly cars). In GPL? A full grid of twenty with a barely perceptible hit on the frame rate. Its just more fun.

Racer doesn't seem to do race cars very well. No ones really interested in them here and the physics seems to get a bit woolly when dealing with extremes. But I have to also add, that the GPL community doesn't rely on RSC as its sole means of distribution and communication. For me, this site is excruciatingly slow and buggy, a place I only want to drop into once in while these days.

[camsinny]

Years ago, i downloaded racer, not knowing what this program was, it ran pretty badly on my old computer, and that's saying something, when the best car and track were the ferrari 312 and some track in the middle of the desert.

Years later, i stumble accross racer..."OH MY GOD, THAT'S THE GAME I PLAYED YEARS AGO!!!" everything has improved so much you couldn't describe it...it was a completely new game.

These days, my computer's a few years old, its an old P4 (2.4GHz), Nvidia Ti4200 and it's not the best, racer runs pretty smoothly...with one...possibly two cars.
Sure, I enjoy playing by myself, for a couple of laps, but when I try to play with AI, it just really isn't a challenge, possibly it's how its set up for me, that's a bad point, there should be a global standard for AI, making it easy for cars to be a challenge, and for cars to be added to a track without copious amounts of work making a file in which ONE car works badly.

I tried multiplayer once, with a mate over the internet, i believe we both had ADSL internet and it worked ok, for 2 cars on my computer but it REALLY needs to be improved if we want some serious racer people in this community, there just isn't enough pull atm.

Addmittedly i'm one of those people who start cars and rarely finish them, the only 2 cars i've released are my concept cars, which sucked haha. But I can't really perfect the cars and finish them if people don't care to look at the thread, I don't know if it's just me, but I rarely get anyone looking at what i'm doing, wether it's commenting on their work or if i want some C&C on my work, I just don't think the community really cares. That's a major problem for racer.

Sorry for the long post, but as long as racer is a highly moddable program, i see massive potential for this game, I used to be more about eye candy, but now i'm getting more into physics and I see some of the problems people have, there aren't really that many sources that can help you to create pacejkas (especially!!!) or realistic ini's, sure, we can make the car look better than any game out there, but does that really matter if we can't drive the car like the real car should drive?

I hope racer isn't dead...i really do, i hope it lives on and becomes a benchmark for other games.

Not sure where to put this, but with what nihil8 said...

Originally Posted by nihil8

... AI... I can run maybe two cars in Racer (three or four low-poly cars). In GPL? A full grid of twenty with a barely perceptible hit on the frame rate. Its just more fun...

that's so true and one of the bigger problems, I can't run probably...more than 3 maybe 4, if i'm lucky, cars in racer, but then in lfs, i can have a full grid of cars racing me, it really just isn't the same.

[Alex Forbin]

[quote=
Just wondering what other people think... really tempted to just start learning how rFactor works and make things that just "work" and can be enjoyed with others etc.

Dave[/QUOTE]
It's odd that you mentioned rFactor, I just downloaded all of the mod tools for
it the other night.

I too think Racer has just about run it's course. I became concerned when
we saw less and less of Ruud, and updates slowed to a crawl but now it
seems that the development of Racer has finally stopped. I'm grateful
to Ruud for providing years of creative entertainment and wish him the best in
whatever fields he persues.

Alex Forbin

[rotary_turbo]

There is no direct evidence that Ruud has stopped...You all may be over-reacting...I say most of you are partialy right, though...I haven't been here that long and I have seen this slow decline, also. I guess I have more hope in the future than most.

[Alex Forbin]

Originally Posted by rotary_turbo

There is no direct evidence that Ruud has stopped...You all may be over-reacting...I say most of you are partialy right, though...I haven't been here that long and I have seen this slow decline, also. I guess I have more hope in the future than most.

Hi Rotary,
That's the problem, Dave and I HAVE been here for many years. While there
may not have been an announcement declaring that Racer has stopped, the
evidence of not having a bug fix for the latest version after six months would
qualify in most circles.
It's been quite some time since we've done any real development as a
community on Racer and it's merely obvious to those of us close to the project
that things have ground to a halt.

Alex Forbin

[Harey]

There is no direct evidence that Ruud has stopped...You all may be over-reacting...I say most of you are partialy right, though...I haven't been here that long and I have seen this slow decline, also. I guess I have more hope in the future than most.

yeah you are right that there is no direct evidence that Ruud has stopped personally I think he is working on it, as much as he can, because I can imagine that the source code for this game is pretty complex by now, but in the about 3 years Ive been here this is definantly the quietest its ever been, and lots of modelers seem to stop posting because of a lack of comments, even I've become a little worried about the decreasing # of people in the Racer community, it seems that less, and less cars are made, I can remember a time when we could actually do a Car of the Month Poll becuase we would have like 5-6 cars released in a month, sometimes even more than that.
I just hope we will hear from him soon, at least tell us whats going on

[E.J.]

Interesting Discussion....

Well first of I think you guys are missing a few major points:

Racer is FREE. Sure, it's not complete but it's open to the community, everyone can contribute to its development etc..
Perhaps even more important is the fact that it is a sim that is not focused purely on racing. I have been looking for a very long time for a sim whcih is not focused on pure racing on the track and Racer is so far the only thing which fullfills this spot in the game industry. It's a game where you can just drive around a bit with no particular purpose in a regular street car or supercar or race car in a variety of settings. That in itself is an achievement. Most of the sims available today are focused on race cars on the track and that's fun, but what's missing is a sim which is just for the heck of driving around. I thought that Test drive unlimited had great potential for this but apparentely it's just another arcade.. =(
So yes, I think Racer still has much promise and potential.

Now about the lack of posting:
Well, currently there's a bunch of really high quality stuff that's a wip and it's all waiting for release.. What Whippy was saying about keeping to other games.. well just as a few examples, the two M5's that are Wip's the carrera GT, the Audi RS4, the Ferrari F430.. and many others, all these are very good creations that keep Racer up to date with other games. But it takes time.. I myself am working on a project, but i dislike posting stuff that are not in some semi-complete stage. What's bad however is the invasion of this forum by rude and incosiderate people and we've seen plenty of examples of that, but i don't want to start discussion about that... point is that keeps some people from posting.

Physics, hmm, well fair enough that's a problematic issue. There's very few people who truly understand the ini's.. and yeah an update could help things, but even as it is, it's quite good. But then again, racer is also a wip, and i'm positive that there will be more updates coming. It's just that as the game develops, updates are more complex and require more time... or so I think. I do however agree, that it is diffucult especcially in the physics stuff. I mean, if a car is to be any good in the game it needs a proper ini, and there's just not enough people for the amount of cars that are being worked on... Heck, even myself, I will be in need of an ini for my car...

well this is really getting too long,
but in essence, Racer is great and if everyone puts an effort in it it will only get better =)

by the way, alex forbin aren't you working on a Ferrari...??? whcih i read somewhere was handed over to you or am i mistaken?

[rotary_turbo]

Originally Posted by E.J.

........ Sure, it's not complete but it's open to the community, everyone can contribute to its development etc....

Everyone can contribute to the development of it's CONTENT. Shure, we comment on potential changes...but Ruud does the coding. This is part of the delima.

As far as you guys(Alex) being here longer, I guess Ill just have to trust your judgement. You can see my join date for this forum and I just found Racer 2 years ago.

[E.J.]

indeed, ruue does the coding, but look at it this way. Ruue, started from sctatch and brough it to what we have today, which is pretty impressive... So give it time, and it will improve further.
and perhaps we are all jumping to conclusions about ruud. I mean I was into Racer since about 2003, and visited the forums very often but never became a member until 2005. Point being, you don't have to log in to check on the forum =)

[Boomer541]

I've been around about four years now and watched Racer get better and better or should I say buggier and buggier.

When developing software there are bound to be bugs, I understand that.

There are things that work extremely well that get screwed up and that should not happen. When it works right don't _ _ _ _ with it, unless you can improve it!

I just finished a tutorial to make tracks with Blender as I have noted that there is a big decline in the tracks being made. There are still a lot of tracks to be made and also drives through the country side (like Polish roads) that can be very enjoyable.

I would hope that Ruud makes a final version that is bug free even though multiplayer or ai isn't up to snuff.

There is still a lot to do to make Racer the best driving sim!

[Lipton]

Is there something to do about it?

I sent ruud an email like 2 months back asking if he has quit developing racer, tho i haven`t gotten a response for it....

what are we going to do we can`t just let this die if ruud doesn`t come back.



andrei

[L.B.]

Great you brought it up Dave, I also think this is going into a ridiculous situation...its been too long...getting too tiring.

[-Daytona-]

First thing - Racer is free, so we can improve it, by putting into it a new, better quality addons (tracks, cars)

Second thing - Ruud have a personal life - he can`t sit 24 hours on week, and programming Racer - be patient, i'm sure the newest beta will be released..

Third thing - Authors of cars and tracks are lazy - they don`t release FINISHED projects, and that makes Racer users really sad...

Fourth thing - I`m sure, if Ruud stop upgrading Racer, we get a source code - Racer now is a game for people who like experimenting etc. - it`s not user friendly...

So, be patient, wait and hope we can enjoy the next beta in future... (or maybe final version? )