RaceRoom Racing Experience – whats to come in 2014

RaceRoom Racing Experience – whats cooking for 2014

Simbin published a new dev blog where they talk about the new patch they are preparing for RaceRoom Racing Experience. The patch is supposed to go live next week. Simbin also shares some more detailed info in a FAQ about their work on the Multiplayer Alpha, and how they will go about for the rollout of the feature.

Simbin explains that apart from the track changes the patches contain only small updates. However small, they did carry out some changes that will ensure a better game experience. For instance, the SimBin intro video is now skip-able. this might not seem important, but it is one of the features you see being overlooked in so many titles. The same goes for the exit screen. That will save you a few clicks when you want to get straight into the action. Another feature that might be interesting to some, and maybe a little degrading to others is the VIP Profile. In the RRE portal, real world racing drivers will get special profile. This way Players will be able to follow their profile and race against their lap-times in various competitions.The aim is to get a real driver in the online competition now and then. All in all, good PR, and fun for the users.

Further more there will be class based competitions. Players will be able to select a car and livery within a certain class, in comparison to the limitation to one car and livery set by Simbin. The player will be able to view his competition history to analyse their previous competition lap times .

The Dev team is working on the second batch of track updates and all their layouts to implement the toggle function for the corner markers, and to further update the on-track advertising billboards. And of course all their layouts are going to be updated as well.

Tracks ready for the update: Bathurst

Zandvoort (R3E)

Hockenheimring (R3E)

Mid Ohio

Portimao

Suzuka

Mazda Laguna Seca

One of the most anticipated features the development team is working on is without a doubt the Multiplayer function. At this time, the multiplayer feature is in Alpha stage. The Dev team gives us a little better insight in how they will be rolling out the multi-player function.

Multiplayer Alpha – Mini FAQ (Simbin Quote)

When will MP Alpha be available?

Sometime in May or June. Hopefully May.

You said that it will be available to DTM Experience Season Pass Holders first. What does that mean?

For stress testing the infrastructure with a limited amount of users, we are initially making the MP alpha available to DTM Experience Season Pass holders only. Basically, players who have purchased the preorder offer (DTM Experience 2013 + Season Pass for Season 2014) from the dtm experience and Race Department.

What about players who only purchased DTM Experience 2013?

The stress test with season pass holders is only for a few weeks. If all is well we will enable it to all DTM Experience 2013 players for further tests.

What about R3E players who do not own the DTM Experience?

We are working on a temporary menu system that will be similar to the Web based DTM Experience Menus. With that we will be able to have MP browser and all the other components to share both Single Player Race and Multiplayer Race with all R3E users.

Please note the menu system we are developing is just a temporary one for the purpose of sharing MP and SP as soon as possible. It is not going to be the finalized, fully revamped UI/Menu system we are working on.

I bought DTM Experience 2013 but not the season pass. Can I upgrade?

Currently this is not possible and probably won’t be.

Why make it available to DTM-E first and not R3E?

R3E menus are using a middleware called Scaleform. As we are revamping the entire menu system and switching to a WEB based solution, any work done on Scaleform based menus would be tossed out later on, which is not the best way to use our time and resources. Most changes are also hardcoded and not very dynamic while the DTM-E menus are WEB based. They are dynamic and quick. It makes it easy for us to create the components needed for Multiplayer.

The second key reason is the ease of limiting the number of players. It is a lot easier for us to limit the amount of players by checking whether they have Season Pass or whether they have DTM Experience. The MP Alpha is not an exclusive bonus or anything like that. We are simply limiting the numbers for initial stress testing. We will then make it available to a bigger chunk, and then finally everyone. This is mainly for Quality Assurance and Infrastructure testing purposes.

Simbin also pubished a mockup of the MP Alpha browser, and explaining us that we should disregard the track names.

To give us a rough idea of some of the features that are planned for 2014, the Simbin development team posted a small Q&A to enlighten some of the questions by the community.

whats to come in 2014 (Simbin Quote)

Multiplayer

We are currently working on preparing Multiplayer Alpha. We aim to start stress testing the infrastructure with a limited amount of users before this summer. Initially Multiplayer Alpha will be made available to DTM Experience Season Pass holders only. In other words, it will be available for players who have purchased a redeem code for DTM Experience 2013 + Season Pass via dtm-experience.com. Depending on our tests, we will then enable the alpha mode to more of our players.

WEB Technology based User Interface and Menu System

We are currently working on making a switch to WEB technology based UI and Menu system. We are working on revamping the entire presentation of the game with a dynamic and more user friendly WEB technology based approach.

Controller Wizard & Physics

We are revisiting our controller profile system and will revise our default controller profiles. We are also working on the physics side of things to bring more realism to car handling.

Single Player

We are working on completing the Single Player experience for the R3E base. Adaptive AI and Single Race is being implemented for R3E alongside Multiplayer.

Shared Memory Data

We are working on improving our Shared Memory Data system and we are creating a technical documentation to provide better support to 3rdparty developers who develop applications that can be used with R3E. Telemetry app and motion plugin developers will be able get more usable data from the R3E and thereby improve their compatibility with our game.

AI Improvements

We are currently refactoring the AI and the Adaptive AI system to improve the performance and accuracy of computer controller cars.

Multiple Experience System

We are implementing a more dynamic system to support multiple experiences under the R3E umbrella. Different Race series will have their own style and theme within their own unique experiences.

About the Game

RaceRoom Racing Experience is a Free2Race game that connects fans of racing around a game and motorsports portal. Drivers begin their racing career in the portal and hit the track with plenty of free-to-play content. Five cars and two tracks are provided free to all registered users. Licensed cars, tracks and championships are available for purchase in the online store allowing players to build the game of their dreams.

The game is undergoing continuous development with new game modes, features and content being added regularly.