Automobilista 2 December 2022 Development Update

Believe S397 signed their deal to be acquired by MSG to ensure more funding towards their development.

 

A video game publisher is like a movie producer. Provides the $ up front to develop the product and then takes profit share (usually a lot or even all) once the sales start.

Reiza is highly unusual in that they are independent and "self-publish." Check every game you have heard of or own and 99% will have a publisher and perhaps other corporate/money interests in the background.

 

The former owner (Luminis) of S397 signed the deal to separate this kind of business from their portfolio...this is how such things normally runs in business environments....

 

bruh

 

Right, just wanted to jump in here and mention something about the multiplayer, its been mentioned quite a bit here and in the Version Release thread aswell, so I'll be putting the same post in both, so don't no one moan about spamming because its relevant! Not only that, we need as many folks to see this as possible as its a real good show of what AMS2 can do when things work well! And if it helps sales thats good for us all as mo money, mo resourse for Reiza, cause we love them!

Ok so as many of you know I run quite alot of Livestreamed servers, but i've been quiet on that front for a while due to all sorts of problems that have occured over and after Christmas, including getting demonitised by Youtube for the time being as I can't provide I.D. atm (becuase gov agencies over here are worse than awful! DVLA, Passport Office, in fact just F this gov all together!).
Anyway, im still getting involved with the racing and still wanna support all my fav sim devs, so!

In the meantime i've been racing alot with MetzVR, who also runs great community livestreamed servers, most nights of the week and sometimes has to get help with opening to it gets so busy. Its great! And this is all run off of the ingame server not the dedi, which im starting to look into, but i've only got the one PC.

Between the two of us we are very used to all the problems with multiplayer & all the bugs when they occur as our community will report back to us either in ingame chat, or if they experience a crash, random disconnect and are out of the game, they then type to us through our livestream Youtube chat so we know whats happened straight away.

Last Sunday MetzVR ran an endurance server to coincide with the Daytona Rolex race IRL. 24 hours is a bit long so he ran the race for 80mins or 1h20m, It was so busy a second server had to be started to cope with the overspill. Now there were problems with the second server but I did'nt know about that till after the race as I had the stream turned off whilst racing so as not to get distracted.
Apparently the problem was with the rolling start and the game not keeping correct order if folks drove through each other and picked up a place (on that note: I hate the cars going ghost, wether its under FCY, pits, rolling starts, and respawns... Especially on respawns, which we should have the option of turning off altogether! This is a SIM, not Mario cart, its confusing and causes all manner of problems).

Anyway the point is, that in the first server, we had no problems! No random dissconnects (AFAIK), nothing! It was absoloutely amazing! The event was just awsome! Really showed just how god AMS2 can be!
We had a full day to night cycle, watching the lights come on on the ferris wheel was stunning! Seeing the mist as the sun came up was almost etherreal!
Feeling the grip move around certain areas of the track throughout the 80mins as more and more rubber got laid down, feeling the grip suffer from dirt being brought onto the track were there were the most offtracks, catching the draft from other cars, coming up on backmarkers (It was multiclass with DPI's & GTE's), pitting for tires, fuel damage.
I could go on and on about all the element of the race and the sim that just made this experience one of the best Sunday nights any of us have ever had!

Now its not like that all the time, we've had races where i've finished in 2nd (as the game shows me, and of course I know), yet on MetzVR's stream, which I can alt tab to straight after finishing the race, his games showing him i've finished in 3rd!

Random dissconnects are regular.

Rolling starts are a problem.

People show up in the server to find they have no mirrors.
Heavily damaged cars pit, get fixed, and then come out fixed from the drivers perspective, but to everyone else they are driving round with a totalled car, which makes the racing suffer as its confusing because you think you can just fly past a stricken car, but give extra room as it might be crabbing, and then you end up neck n neck cause they are actually fixed, when you don't expect to be. This also is confusuing for anyone spectaing either ingame or in a livestream, and just makes AMS2 look bad!

FCY have a similar problem to Rolling starts so we can't use them.

Cars go ghosted even when server has ghost cars turned off. And for serious racing we need the option to have ghost cars turned off altogether, its confusing and totally unrealistic, and respawning is just awful! If youwant it fine, but for those of us who don't, can we have the option to get rid of it altogether.

Loss of onboard TC & ABS still happens online alot.

Thrustmaster wheels seem to regularly loose all inputs, only in this sim, no others, this might be the same for other wheels and controllers, but im just going on whats been reported to me.

Why am I going to the trouble of writing such a long winded post?

Becuase I'm more bothered about a solid multiplayer, bug fix'es and refinements than I am new content! I think its absoloutely paramount! Because when the racing and the experience (which is the most important thing) can be this good, and folks can see it, and word gets around, more and more folks will flock to AMS2! More sales, more joy for everyone!

ACC has a great reputation for its online system, the competition server is great! And out of all the sims I race, its by far the least buggy, overall!

Now you can take this as a winge if you want, but just understand if you do, you're wrong! This is constructive, its what the sim needs! Its what more and more of us want (at least in our racing community).

Sundays race was an absoloutely amazing experience, and the sim held together for the entire 80mins, if every race could run like this it would be so grand! I recorded the whole thing, and then spent 2 days putting the footage together with the tackside footage from two more perspectives in the video. I was so into the racing I forgot I was recording during the race, so there's the odd swear!

Just look at this, its just amazing! And im not talking about my video, im saying look how awsome AMS2 is!! I just recorded it! With bug fix'es and solid multiplayer this sim could be real top of the ladder! Loadsa race nuts on it every night, racing, serving, streaming, and more folks getting to see it, be amazed by it, and know the name REIZA! Nuff said!

 

Couldn't have said it better.

This is the frustrating thing with the current state if AMS2 MP: when it works, it's insanely amazing and immersive, when it doesn't, it's a horribly broken mess.

I understand many in this forum never touch MP, but as someone who almost exclusively uses it, I want to see the sim grow. Every sim has issues, even with iRacing budget, but a bit more polish on the overall experience could really help AMS2's image.

 

Ooops, wrong sub-forum

 

I am a big fan of ams2, I have almost 600 hours in the simulator, and when I have come to the forum to raise the huge and serious problems of multiplayer I have received two types of reactions: indifference and mockery.
The same users of ams2 put this problematic multiplayer issue as a taboo, you can't talk about it. They get angry, they make fun of it, it's like they're very happy that ams2 ends up being a single player simulator. I really don't understand them, if you takes the time (which we don't have plenty of) to try to comment on our problems so that Reiza can work on it, it's because we really want to continue enjoying the simulator, and not suffer from it.
I hope you have more luck than us and someone listens to you.

 

Not Trying to be rude, but isn’t there a thread for multiplayer issues?

 

I don't agree... There have been many many complaints about MP and rightly so...
I'm one of those who actually complained a lot. However it is not by burning down the house that we will make Reiza get results from their attempt to improve MP any faster... Just sayin'...

 

I mean the reason I'm indifferent to it is because multiplayer just isn't important for me. Of course I don't think Reiza should ignore it and I'm perfectly fine with them devoting more resources to it. Most people here are, it just gets annoying when month after month the same pointless discussions are had. Everyone agrees with you, AMS 2's multiplayer (while playable) isn't stable especially with larger player counts along with many other problems.

But not everyone's priorities are with multiplayer. Yes some people would be perfectly content with nothing on the multiplayer side changing myself being one of those. Does that mean I think that's what Reiza should do? Absolutely not. But multiplayer just isn't a part of how I do simracing so it not being up to snuff doesn't effect me.

 

The same folks who mock people who complain about MP then proceed to post useless bs such as "cheese", "sun god" and all other sort of nonsense:

 

Tbh, the "Cheese" meme was to calm down some overly toxic members during the pre-update waiting. It wasn't to divert from criticism of AMS2, is was trying to keep members off of each other's throats. That started back in USA pt. 1 ages ago.

The cheese should never be used to harm, only for good.

 

I'm the one who started the cheese thing I literally didn't have a reason for it. Lol

 

A lot of people are not disagreeing with the MP being being broken, but when someone posts their view in very unconstructive and disrespectful way it's not that they defend MP but Reiza from often direct abuse.

Any civilised post backed with some valid evidence and realistic suggestions on how to move it forward are pretty much always collectively agreed upon.

It's not only what is said but how it's said.

 

Don’t mock MP players and I’m probably the only one who still calls him the sun god. If you think I’m rude against them then it wasn’t intentional and I’m sorry.

 

Sorry, I likely put too many people in the same single basket, which obviously is wrong.

What I mean is that some people throw rocks at you for complaining about something related to the game, then these same people proceed to post useless bs right after playing the paladin of the internet.

 

I can agree, but I think maybe some of those comments might just be saying there is a certain thread for those things. I feel like these threads are people just being bored. If you want to be more serious and have serious discussions then dedicated threads would be better IMO

 

There's those on the SP side of the fence who wrongly think that a focus on MP will stop SP features and improvements from happening...

When the real limiting factor with SP is how much computing the AI needs and what computing power is left over after the physics on the average PC...

Plus a focus on improvements for the MP experience of AMS2 will only serve to give Reiza more revenue and time to improve the SP experience...