My phone blew up today with not one but four user submissions, all on the same topic. So before I begin, a word of thanks to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (names changed to protect their anonymity as requested) for sending this information in. Through your four emails, I’m able to cover this piece of news as accurately as possible.
We’ve documented the buggy, underwhelming launch of crowdfunded racing sim Project CARS pretty extensively on this site, and a scroll through our Slightly Mad Studios category tells the epic tale of a hype train that derailed in catastrophic fashion. While the weekly patches failed to address the lengthy list of gamebreaking issues, head of studio Ian Bell personally took to various online message boards, including his own, to belittle customers who were clearly upset with the poor quality of the game.
And they had every right to be upset with Project CARS; a game which spent four years in development and tested by 80,000 paying users shipped with an enormous level of bugs that turned off all but the most diehard of fanboys and financial backers.
With the early patches failing to fix the game’s fundamental issues, and sometimes introducing new ones, Slightly Mad Studios announced both a commitment to fixing the original game, as well as revealed that the sequel was already in development. As the post-release drama continued to unfold, Ian Bell became increasingly agitated with the growing chorus of what he calls haters and trolls frequenting Project CARS message boards, voicing their displeasure with a game that even moderators admit shouldn’t have been released in its current state. Ian responded by having any users that voiced or agreed with criticism towards the crowdfunded title outright banned from any Slightly Mad Studios forum, not just the WMD member forums, the but post-release forum intended for fans of the game.
Ian’s periodic outbursts towards negative opinions of the next-gen racing sim are regarded as “cynical British humour” by Project CARS fans, with others dismissing his comments as uncalled for and outright rude. Regardless, even the most loyal Project CARS supporters will have difficulty supporting his newest tirade.
The latest patch for Project Cars, dubbed Project CARS 2.0, dropped recently, and appeared to have no noticeable improvements on the quality of the game. Triple screen support is still broken, Oculus Rift support is now broken when it was functional before, Force Feedback settings were completely changed, track boundaries are still problematic, and some users are reporting Career Mode isn’t even placing users in the proper racing series they’ve selected. Crashing, FPS issues, and AI shortcomings are still relatively unchanged despite the 1.4 GB download. In short, Project CARS is a mess you should avoid if you haven’t bought it already.
Yet, Ian’s response to customers upset at what’s clearly a disastrous product is to simply ban people who draw attention to the game’s numerous embarrassing problems.
- After a five page thread discussing Force Feedback settings, which is basically just users helping out one another in order dial-in their own Force Feedback tweaks, one user simply gives up, unable to wrap his head around the unnecessarily complicated Force Feedback menu. Instead of bothering to sit down and help the guy, who obviously really wants to play Project CARS with his fancy new wheel given the time he’s spent in the thread asking questions and learning about the complicated options, the thread is closed by Ian Bell because of one comment the guy made where he compared his negative experience in pCars with the much smoother, friendlier UI in DiRT Rally.
- The user who gave up trying to figure out the complicated Force Feedback settings reveals he’d bought a $400 wheel just for Project CARS, and asks why his thread was closed. Ian Bell bans him.
- Another thread is created on the subject of widespread reports that Logitech G27 wheels were struggling with the latest patch, and Ian Bell’s ban-happy antics prevented people from drawing the staff’s attention to this huge problem. Moderator Umer Ahmad bans the user, and claims the staff are in a zero tolerance mood. Ian Bell re-opens the thread to tell the guy to shut up.
- After the first thread is closed, a second thread is created, asking why staff members are in a “Zero Tolerance” mood. Ian Bell essentially calls every Logitech G27 owner affected by the latest patch “idiots”, and that it’s against the site’s rules to report an issue – any issue – more than once, effectively limiting any discussion of the game’s bugs so potential buyers are not scared off by the game’s official forums being cluttered with topics that would warn people to stay well away from the game. This user is banned as well.
Why people tolerate this and claim it’s British Humor, I have no idea.
Ian Bell is a piece of shit.
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Today, for the first time ever, I posted on the project cars forum. Mainly to vent after this latest patch. Now, I had valid points, I wasn’t nasty, I explained myself and my thoughts…. This was the result-http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?34271-This-game-is-irreparably-broken
http://forum.projectcarsgame.com/showthread.php?34274-Ian-Bell-you-re-a-paranoid-wreck
He made a paranoid accusation and closed the thread/banned me
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I’m ashamed to admit that in a moment of weakness during the Steam Summer Sale, I almost bought this game. I’m glad that my sense of reason won out over my impulsiveness. There are way too many other (better) sims to spend my valuable time on. I will never purchase this crap piece of software (nor any future products from SMS) based solely on the attitude of the heads of the studio.
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I have this game. I’m not big into forums. After reading this, I’ll never play it again or ever support this company. Forza 6!
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I highly regret giving this Dickwad my money 3 years ago. What a complete cum catching twat he is.
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It truly is fascinating how big of a Douche this guy is being.
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You can dislike or hate him as much as you want, but never ever insults someone. The insults against him a really getting out of hands and you all should be ashamed.
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Never insults anyone? You are kidding right? He calls his own customers “idiot” daily. I’ve seen him insult people a hell of a lot more often than I’ve seen trolls insult him.
Of course there are trolls, the point is, he will be sarcastic, directly insulting, and dismissive towards anyone who he disagrees with, regardless of whether they’re a troll or the most polite, supportive members of the forum.
Nobody cares if someone treats a troll like shit. The problem is that he treats ordinary, reasonable customers like shit.
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Where did I say that Ian’s attitude is ok? I just believe insulting him isn’t the good way, you’re all just putting gaz on the fire. Let it die already.
But nevermind than, didn’t expect better for answer, the mentality here is really bad.
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I have never insulted him. *That* is my point. Just because some people do doesn’t absolve him of responsability for the way he behaves and more than that absolves the trolls of doing the same.
It *absolutely* doesn’t absolve him of the fact that he does it to polite paying customers.
And let’s get serious here, he’s a company director… why on earth *should* it fall on his customers to “stop putting gaz on the fire” when he has so clearly demonstrated his contempt for them, and his unwillingness to “stop putting gaz on the fire” himself?
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*any more than it (absolves the trolls of doing the same)
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Maybe you didn’t insult him, but he is getting insulted pretty badly.
If I was getting as many insults as Ian is getting, I think I would end up having mental issues.
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Lovely. Another WMDrone. You should consider running in the next ass kissing olympics over there.
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Yeah, I’m saying to not insult anybody and you decide to insult me.
Thanks for showing me how pathetic you are.
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Indeed, while it does exasperate me to see so many WMDers rallying around Ian’s every nasty post like the scrawny kids standing behind the school bully jeering at his victims, insulting people is only ever going to undermine your own position.
Stand up to him, calmly explain why you are standing up to him to people who attempt to defend him, but don’t insult them, or even him. That really only brings you down to Ian’s level, which I’m sure you’d agree isn’t a level you particularly want to be seen to be on.
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If he’s so good marry him already.
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You can’t actually read, can you?
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Hello today we had the 2.0 patch, the AI now is alot better!
Looking forward to see which free car we gonna have this month.
I’m glad that the game is constantly improved despite the fact that part of the team is already working at PCARS2.
Catch you on the track! ;)
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You will only see me on the track of a good sim. I already uninstalled this turd.
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lol, I’m sure.
What happened to the free car for june?
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Do you mean the Lykan Hypersport? It’s free if you own the game.
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Jesus, man, are you a hired bot for WMD??
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The game has been purchased by over a million people, and the vast majority loves it.
The WMD member (who paid to be there) afaik are around 30,000 (so it’s about the 3% of the total customers), even if they will be unite to promote the game (being fanboys), they couldn’t fight the other 970,000 people if the game was really that bad: you cannot “fake” the numbers, the comments and reviews are out there, WMD members cannot make 3 of 4 people to like the game (from Steam stats) if that wasn’t true.
So in your opinion all those other people who likes it (using the numbers above: 75% of them, so around 750,000 gamers), are “WMD bots”. No thank you, i’m not a bot, i’m not a fanboy, I just like the game (like those other 750,000 people) and i’m having tons of fun with it. So I hope that the development will continue, with patches, new contents and DLC.
If you don’t like it, and you’re playing other games, then you are loosing your time to comment a PCARS article, not me.
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@Anonymous
How can you suppose that the vast majority loves the game when forums all over the web and ratings in stores tell another story? Selling 1 million copies doesn´t mean 1 million satisfied customers.
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By reading the user reviews. If 3/4 of the users reviews are positive, then you come to the conclusion that 75% of the users likes it.
A small group of “fanboys” cannot move the statistic when we’re talking about 1 million copies, neither a group of “haters” can do the opposite.
Also, there’s a tendency of reading more “bad opinions” than good ones on the forums, because normally those people who has issues goes there to find a solution (or just to complain), while the whole others just play the game fine.
It’s not me to say that the vast majority of people likes it, but the numbers… but if you have an innate “hate” for something, there’s no number that would change your mind, you decided that something is bad, and you decided that anyone else in the universe must believe the same.. i’m here to tell you that i’m part of that 75%, and I have a different opinion than yours: the game is nice, it has some bugs that will be hopefully corrected with the next patches, and I consider it one of the best sims that we have in the “modern era” (to find something that have satisfied me so much.. i have to go back to GTR2).
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To the anonymous wmd member: 80000 bakers there are, as stated by another wmd member on steam and your forums. 3185 reviews on steam from which the 703 are negative. Online guys fall to 2500 average, and none knows how many were sent for refund. so 80000 wmd members that are biased because they will get paid… And 3185 reviews… As for the reviews out there , check here on pretend race cars how sms did the reviews… As for the comments, check how ian is deleting and banning and closing what is not praising him or his game..
But you are the typical wmd member, full of lies and twisting…
No working here…
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No, there is not 80000 backers. The 80000 include free users, aka people that never bought a tool pack. Furthermore, there are people with more than one account.
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The vast majority loves the game? Is that why I’m seeing constant complaints about the issues it has?
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To anonymous: yes according to WildKarte and GamingGanuck. Check on steam and on your forum, it is stated and both are WMD members. Check thread a message to SMS on your official forum, if you didn’t close it – make it vanish..
Please I am not falling to any more lies.
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@arislaf: WMD members are 30,000 a think, 80,000 are all the people who signup to the portal, but they didn’t purchased the membership (so couldn’t participate).
The numbers are exactly what I mentioned above, yours are even better: more than 75% of players are happy with it. I’m part of that 75% … you are part of the other 25% who doesn’t like the game. Seems fine to me, the vast majority likes it, while there’s a part who doesn’t… it happen with every game.
Also, you mentioned that the online players translates into the quality of the product. If that’s the case then, on Steam:
PCARS online now: 1,273
PCARS online 30g average: 1,701
Assetto Corsa online now: 658
Assetto Corsa online 30g average: 723
…so in your opinion, PCARS is much better than AC, only because it has the double of users playing it? I consider it better, but surely not because of the users playing it on Steam.
Accusing me of lying, when i’m giving facts and the correct numbers (while you don’e even know how many WMD members there was aboard), doesn’t make your “truth” more valid.
And I don’t like people who “twists” the words, that’s why I don’t like neither the haters nor the fanboys.
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Arislaf to be honest the members can be calculated directly by reading the funds bar on the forum that can be read by guests as well. If you divide the funds of each membership for the price of each of it, you will end with: 8818 junior, 10201 team, 8451 full, 1583 senior, 486 manager, a few senior manager (it cannot be calculated): for a total of 29,539 members.
So the 30,000 figure is correct imo.
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Using player counts as an argument? PCars has been dropping players like flies since release (remember when someone bragged about 10,000 players as if that wasn’t always gonna be fleeting?) and twice as many as AC isn’t very impressive considering the hype of PCars and relative obscurity of AC.
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It’s the other guy (arislaf) who tried to use the numbers as argument, I shown him that the numbers he was referring to, doesn’t mean much (and they were wrong from the start).
PS: Assetto Corsa has sold more PC copies of pcars so far because it has been released before (whenever pcars is going to surpass it), so its “obscurity” doesn’t mean much, since people have bought it already, but still half of the players are playing it. It doesn’t necessary mean that is much worse than pcars of course.
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To the anonymous: I tried to check it but I am banned and can not go even to page 1…
Anyway, in case you are saying the truth, I am sorry. The other 2 I mentioned before were lying- misleading.
The numbers I mentioned is an example of decreasing number of ppl that are online, after 2 months only. + we will never know how many refund the game, how many are lazy to write a review (good or bad) and how many of the reviews is from bakers (30000 bakers and only 3185 reviews)
P.S. There are ppl on WMD that are honest. After all, on steam I get banned because I praised 1 of the 2 I consider honest (tragic isn’t it? )
And I really wanted the PCars to be the best (you could check my review) but after all those bugs, negativity of wmd members (yeah, check nanaki and the way he speaks to people or wildkarde that hit however doesn’t praise the game or ian himself and the way he acts), and the patches that they release (1 step fwd 1 step back) and the lies they say (most recent the free car)
and you will see why there is so much hate about the game….
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@arislaf: you can check the number as guest (without logging), they are on the top banner, so if you’re banned, don’t login at all!
The number of players online on Steam is decreasing, and it is normal. It happened the same with Assetto Corsa: the first day we were 10,000 playing it, now we’re barely 600. It doesn’t necessarily mean that AC is bad.
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The AI is shit and only your fascist member is praising it (since day 1) http://steamcommunity.com/app/234630/discussions/0/523890528711239805/
The free car lie is already old http://steamcommunity.com/app/234630/discussions/0/523890681404230358/
And the game improved so much that the oculus are now not working, and game crashes but i forget, it is the buyers PC problem as many of the nazis say http://steamcommunity.com/app/234630/discussions/0/523890681401445562/
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Again, as a Brit, ian bell isn’t using a “British sense of humor” he’s just being a fucking cunt.
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Yeah never seen nor heard this sor of behavior described as ‘British sense of humor’ before now, because it isn’t. This is actually classic ‘confronted scammer’ behavior, not a bit to do with UK in any sense.
Goddamn WMD people coming up with new definitions and sh, ‘zero tolerance’ takes the cake.
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Also, Project cars on steam has finally tipped to ‘mostly positive’. People are rightly pissed.
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I don’t know what you are about.. but I just checked on steam and:
77.66% of owners are happy with it and are suggesting to purchase it;
22.34% are not happy with it and they are not recommending to purchase it;
There’s indeed a 22% of “rightly pissed” customers… but more than 3/4 of them are happy with it!
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Yes, correct numbers. Now, if you will consider the hype and marketing lies the WMD did, who can guarantee me that the 69.0% is not the WMD guys? Don’t forget it is about 3000 reviews and 30000 wmd bakers…
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While the game does have it’s share of problems, I’ve really been enjoying playing for the last couple of years. No game is perfect, and pcars has a lot of faults, but I’ve got faith in the company that everything will be fixed eventually. Meanwhile I’m enjoying the game for what it is at the moment.
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Yeah, sure. But this article is not about the game itself.
Personally I didn’t like it, but if you are enjoying it great! More power to you.
The problem being discussed here is having a paying customer reporting an issue and having the head of the studio calling him an idiot and banning him.
That’s just poor customer service and will do nothing but generate even more of the so called trolling they are trying to get rid off.
If I reported an issue with a game I’ve purchased and was called an idiot in reply I would be pissed, and would probably try to find a way to get some kind of payback. Simple as that.
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The problem here is that there’s two categories: who report a problem or a bug in a constructive way, so it can be fixed. And then we have the crying kids (if not the Trolls) who comes aboard only to moan and offending without even stopping 5 minutes to think at what’s the issue.
This last category is toxic and it’s good if they are banned (it’s the same in many other gaming forums).
While the first one is a precious resource and none would even think to ban them.
I believe that instead of a forum, they should setup a public JIRA. Who’s used to work on JIRA knows what it means: report a bug … or being an “idiot”.
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You do have to wonder how long it’ll be before the SMS forums close down.
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Yeah, I am glad I’ve not bought PCars, and I never will. Ian Bell’s attitude to customers is shocking.
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It’s a shame no other sites are willing to cover this behavior of his. Dude really needs to think about public image & shit.
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That’s the problem, her doesn’t have to worry about his public image because, as you said yourself, no other site will touch the subject.
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nothings stopping you from emailing an editor and linking to this article
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Why would that be necessary? Shouldn’t the paid journalists be on top of that?
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Truly incredible behaviour from this guy yet again… Why they haven’t appointed a community leader to deal with these things instead of being moderated by people with emotional or financial attachments to the game is beyond me.
The problem with the way they run their forum is that people know that Mr Bell and his fourth Reich of simracing development will respond and whatever is posted will inevitably cause a reaction followed by a downward spiral of hate, misery and distaste towards the public from him and the other hierachy members. Whilst it is admittedly amusing to see these meltdowns and a part of me feels for the guy, he’s made his own bed since day one on that forum, time to learn to lay in it.
Another thing that grinds my gears about that site, how on earth is that British humour? I’ve been a Brit all my life and have amassed a decent understanding of the way humour is expressed in our part of the world. If I ever heard anyone spouting of like Mr Bell does from his throne of internet tyranny over here, they would be on the sharp end of a well placed backhanded slap. As one guy has already quite brilliantly put it, he’s just being a massive cunt.
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It would be well deserved if game magazines would cover his attitude against paying customers.
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To the Anon poster regarding the pCARS sales numbers…by your logic Taylor Swift must be more talented than the members of Led Zeppelin as her Blank Space video has, at the time of this post, 985,614,175 views on YouTube to the number one viewed Kashmir video which has 49,576,734 views…
The fact is the PS4 has zero racing sims apart from the repetitive shite from Milestone in the form of MotoGP ’13 and ’14 and the woeful Ride. DriveClub isn’t close to a sim, it’s Sony’s version of Project Gotham Racing without the Bizarre Creations magic. PS4 owners will buy just about anything resembling a sim while they wait for GT7 to arrive.
The Xbox One has the DLC and micro-transaction riddled FM5 and will soon have FM6 featuring a lot of the aspects found in pCARS sans all the bugs pCARS owners have to endure.
pCARS launched at a time that was perfect to generate a high level of sales – nothing else is available and the WMD investor hivemind did its marketing push rather well too. If GT7 or FM6 were available now, pCARS would have sunk into the bargin bin. I wonder how pCARS 2 will be received given the monumental list of bugs/glitches/issues pCARS has across all platforms today.
As for Ian Bell, I think it’s clear what the man is and he has a well earnt reputation within the industry which the public can now see for themselves. I feel sorry for the normal staff at SMS who are being besmirched by the actions of the head of the studio.
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If pCARS 2 is a good game that isn’t a glitchy mess, it will be well received, no matter how the first pCARS was.
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I agree, with all the experience they had with project cars, pcars2 have all the potential to be the best sim ever. Nor that anyone is forced to buy it at launch of course, so if it’s any good, people will buy it, if it’s crap people will not. Easy as that. The haters and the fanboys won’t drive the sales.
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Come 2020, we might find out.
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But do you really have faith that the next game will be good given SMS track record?
>both Shift games
>test drive Ferrari
>Project CARS
All pretty underwhelming
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Far out you guys unreal, Bell and his studies have so far produced NOTHING but bug filled eye candy, and has now continued that with Pcars, you guys are un fucking real, how can you stand there and say “oh after all those major faluires im sure pcars 2 could be teh best EVER”
Here we fucking go again 2 years of Pcars will be best sim ever, even if was bug free, it still be a average sim,RF2, GSCE, RRE, Iracing and AC blows this away by a long shot, if wasnt for uneducated console dweebs Pcars be buried by now.
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“pCARS launched at a time that was perfect to generate a high level of sales – nothing else is available…”
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Imagine if they waited until fall to release pCARS. While I’m sure it would have been a better quality release if they waited, it would still get massacred by Forza 6. As it is, pCARS will probably be less than twenty bucks by the end of this year. I doubt I’ll buy it even then.
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I didn’t known that Forza6 was going to be released for PC…
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Console desperado’s ate it up though, luckily PC racers a bit more clued on about shit and have steam refunds, the console release saved its a*se with out a doubt, when ever you see ppl claiming consoles ruin gaming, Pcars is a fantastic example, if hadn’t released on console we might of actually got some of the features the SETA tire model boasted off, because at the moment it appears to have none of the advanced features, even the tire deformation, according to fucking blind shills, its just disabled in replays conveniently, but take there word for it.
To anyone interested in doing the research, check the features of SETA and tell me with a straight face they are enabled in game, fucking joke, thanks console fellers for keeping a piece of shit like Ian bell going.
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There’s tons of sale on PC (it almost reached Assetto Corsa that has been released long before), those people could have asked for a refund but they didn’t (look at the numbers of people owning it).
So, consoles or not, the game is being liked by many people… unless they are all zombies.
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“There’s tons of sale on PC (it almost reached Assetto Corsa that has been released long before), those people could have asked for a refund but they didn’t (look at the numbers of people owning it).
So, consoles or not, the game is being liked by many people… unless they are all zombies”
There are a ton of kids that love Justin Bieber “music”. To ,me when something is loved by the masses, It tends to be garbage. Not always but more often than not.
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256,726 = AC
217,961+PC
Anymore BS you wanna spread, now add the fact how much PC was hyped to death compared to AC if outside SIM community you probably barely heard of it, and also add the fact a vast swath of PCars buyers are completely unaware of the great alternatives like RRE, GSCE, Iracing or rfactor,
AC will continue to grow steadily with mods and leagues etc, Pcars will blip and be forgotten as soon as next big thing comes to race “games” like Forza 6 or codemasters F1, its also worth noting despite the PCars buzz, AC player numbers are only marginally smaller, Pcars numbers are also boosted by casuals that will be distracted at the next shiny thing, like magpies, or evolve into sim racers and move onto a good sim.
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No the tire model is fucked, you cant even measure temps on inner middle outer tire, how the hell is that advanced, thats exactly how they do it irl,, the flat spotting is barely noticeable, and the rest of the tire feels dead, you cant see the deformation at all and they disabled it the visual aspect in replays,teh tire temp hardly work as they the should the absolute basics, go try rfactor 2 that has a actual advanced tire model that WORKS and has all those beautiful details and features and is very obvious.
Its clear to me SMS stripped it back for performance, either way what ever they have done theres no denying it feels absolutely average at best I think it feels like shit and would stick to codemasters Grid games if wanted this type of handling.
So yeah no joke, its a alright tire model if played nothing but forza or GT.
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Glad I never bought project cars. If I ever see a game where the inept idiot Ian Bell is involved, I’ll know that I should probably avoid it.
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well if you had to wear depends all day dont you think you would be krusty?
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The problem is that Steam allows for less than 2 hours of gameplay for providing a refund. Most people have spent at least 2 hours fucking around in the menus trying to make it play ok so thats why there’s been hardly any refunds. I wish I’d spent less time trying to make it play right and just gotten a refund.
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Don’t feel bad. As a WMD member, I spent months trying get the FFB in this turd to feel good. Finally had to realize the FFB is not the problem. The real problem is sub par physics.
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Your mum is sub par xD
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Ironically pcars uses the most advanced tire model in a driving simulator right now, the only comparable one is the one used by iRacing.
So what you call “better” eventually (in example i’ve seen people claiming that AC has abetter physics or a better FFB) is nothing more than a fake parametric physic engine that goes on rails, it doesn’t simulate, it reads the value from a table and it works only when the situation is expected, when it’s not you will end with an odd physics.
pcars (and iRacing) approach to the physics are the right ones to form a sim base, because when you reached the perfection, that model will work in every condition, now and in the future, you don’t need to write “fake” tables for every car for every track.
Instead of investing your time into hating something, you should invest your time into understand what’s below the hood.
I suggest you to review the iRacing tir model and the pcars SETA tire model and learn how they work.
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“”Ironically pcars uses the most advanced tire model in a driving simulator right now, the only comparable one is the one used by iRacing.””
Yeah fucking right, yeah the SETA tire model boats some nice features, but none of them are present in the game, flat spotting,blistering etc not even tire deformation anymore had in earlier build but apparently took out of replays lol, biggest con in racing sin history, you clearly haven’t tried the pinnacle of tire models RF2 where all those features SETA claims to have are actually present,amazing how ppl gobble that shit up without thinking, you clearly not played RF2.
Honestly be a great story examining that useless bloody tire model and what it actually does in game, cause at the momnet its so bad tire warming feels scripted and you cant even take temps on inner middle and outter, I suggest you leave Iracing and pcars and try a decent working tire model like Rf2 or even RRE has really good tire deformation.
So please tell us again about ” the most advanced racing sim today” LMFAO
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Are you kidding right? One example, the flat spotting, you can even feel it on the wheel when you lock the wheel and the tire is flattered, it even matches the rotation of the wheel.. how you do not feel it? You can see (visually) and feel the tire deforming while driving.. did you even see a slowmo replay?
If you never noticed what I explained above (it’s just a couple example on how the physics works in PCARS) then the only explanation is: you don’t own the game.
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How they are supposed to work, in theory.*
Your incredibly over-simplified comparison of tire models makes a giant assumption:1, that the code actually exists in a state to accurately simulate ‘all situations’ without generating invalid data, or that you can import a model with accurate specifications in terms of everything aside from tires, apply the tire model and end up with very comparable performance and laptimes as a real vehicle in similar conditions.
None of the above are true for pcars, nor iracing. Every single vehicle still has to be manually tweaked, to the point that on a code level, reality is clearly not being represented, only an approximation that may or may not be ~ accurate. Lookup tables are still used by both models, even if they choose to call their source of defined interaction variables something else.
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PCars could have a NASA level tire model and still would feel like crap. No car in the game handle organically, they all feel canned. Simple as that. This Seta tire model is just marketing bullshit. It does nothing better than Forza, for example. And it can’t touch right now Assetto Corsa, iRacing or whatever. Name your proper sim here.
I’ve played pCars for about 3 years on-off during development. Physics never got better. That’s especially true with the DTM cars. They have this weird suspension that feels way too stiff when going over higher curbs, like it’s on-off high/low position without any transition. It’s hard to explain properly, but it’s more or less like GTA 5 cars when going over high curbs and sidewalks.
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Jorge, The clowns at SMS and WMD want us to believe that all the other sims up until Pcars got the physics and the grip all wrong and their SoftSim is realistic including their ultra grippy grass that allows you to stay on track at full lateral acceleration even with 2 wheels off the track. Oh yeah, also the grass is supposed to slow a car down like it’s in a gravel trap! LMFAO!!
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Comparing the physics of a simulator like pcars or iracing to GTA5 shows the “technical” level of people posting here.. how do you pretend that people would take your words seriously? :)
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“Comparing the physics of a simulator like pcars”
If only pcars was a true sim…
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Yeah, it betrays a lack of understanding of what a tire model is to say that one uses a bunch of look-up values to determine the behaviour and the other doesn’t. The tables of values are what describes the tire – all models are going to be turning those parameters into the ultimate forces that act on the car, they’ll just do it by different methods.
The main question I see: which is better, a model with a small number of parameters, or a model with a large number? The best answer is, ‘as few as possible’.
The danger of a model with too many parameters is that you overfit – your model ends up able to represent patterns that don’t exist in reality, only in the observations used to choose the parameters. This is where you’ll get what the OP mentioned – the model works in a limited set of situations, ones similar to the real-world data collection. Throw something new at it and you’ll get bizarre responses, of the “car suddenly 1000 feet in the air and climbing” variety, because the planets aligned. With respect to PCars’s finite element carcass model, it might have nice emergent properties but it also has not so nice ones – and there’s no way to pick which you get.
A model with too few parameters will underfit – giving the best fit to the data you have, and ignoring stuff outside that domain. The main difference is, it can be simple enough that you can predict in general terms what’ll happen in novel situations – you can be sure it won’t explode, for example, but it might become some percentage points away from reality.
Ultimately you need someone familiar with tyre behaviour (KS has Aris, Reiza has Neils) to set up the parameters for the tyre, and due to lack of real world measurements it’s always going to be ‘what the expert thinks it should taste like'; if you don’t have that person, the model doesn’t matter because the inputs are wrong.
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Indeed, project cars had a lot of real pilots aboard, they gave real feedback about real racing cars… damn they even have the former Stig there!
Normally i tend to trust more a real pilot than a “gamer”…
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“they gave real feedback about real racing cars”
Then why is the game so shit?
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Funnily enough the former Stig complained about the physics of several cars in the game.
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Every car in the game has been tuned according to Ben Collins recommendation. If you followed the development you would know.
Choosing between a random internet user opinion, and a real pilot opinion… excuse me, I will go for the pilot. ;)
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So is that before or after he complained about the physics of the Oreca-Nissan among others?
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SMS employee? I’ve just read so much bs being spewed glorifying pCars by you, “anonymous”, sims such as rFactor 2 etc don’t need to pay off racing drivers to help market their game as real race drivers just willingly use the great sims off the radar. Also having the big names hype it up before release? I had high hopes for pCars but my oh my, I used to think EA was absurd until…
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I think there are more than 20 pilots aboard pcars, including Rene Rast… they aren’t employee, neither they are paid.
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I think you’ve just run out of excuses to defend this broken game
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