Generic Interview with Lord Kunos about community, consoles, future

I love driving games, in fact I've had the majority of the big hitters on consoles over the years, GT, Forza, the Dirt Series (and the Colin McRae stuff beforehand). These days I have Project Cars, Dirt Rally and Assetto and nothing else is getting a look in other than Assetto Corsa. Recently grabbing a steering wheel has really opened my eyes to what everyone has been talking about with the handling model.

As a driving simulator this software is incredible, second to none, but ultimately as a console owner I suppose I do expect something beyond hotlapping. I will gladly do 100s of laps to perfect my craft if there is some kind of payoff other than being able to say "yeah I can drive that track really well".

For me, sticking in a custom championship creator would seal the deal nicely, nothing more, just me happily playing against AI on max difficulty trying to win a championship.

No need for a dumbing down or overly elaborate single player mode, just more, well, "purpose" I suppose.

Partaking in geekery since 1985

 

Assetto Corsa is the type of experience, that if not continued on console with the current mindset of proper simulation, I will end up building a PC for.

What is limiting me right now is the space for a Triple Monitor setup (VR is not my thing). Building a PC just for AC to play on the same setup my PS4 works on is not worth it.

 

I think it is worth considering

A. You get all of the stuff in AC currently missing on console, loads of options and ways to tweak the FFB.
B. You get mods for AC. This shouldnt be taken lightly, there are mod cars and tracks being made to a really high standard, as I said in another thread recently, if I was going to name my top 5 tracks for AC atleast 2 if not more of them would be mod tracks. Plus there are things like Minorating (a server side app that grades you according to the amount of contacts you have with other players and allows server owner/operators to allow only players with certain grades to join.) You also get a good leaderboard (RSR.)
C. Other driving sims like AMS, RF2 and iRacing (if your prepared to pay subscription)
D. All the other stuff a PC offers that I assume arent as good still on console, browser etc. Plus software for your wheel like Logitech Profiler and TM equivalent.

I use a TV with my PC and it works just fine. I'm not suggesting consoles don't have there place but if your into racing sims and are considering the switch anyway IMO PC is where it's at.

 

I agree with everything you said.. trust me I know and I will. You do not need to convince me, I was a PC gamer in the past.
Current situation it is just not part of the plan.. and I am really enjoying AC on PS4, even with it's limitations it has plenty of content for the limited time I get to spend on it. That is also one of the nice things about the console version besides costs, it is plug and play very little to mess with. I spend more time just driving and racing (badly).

 

I agree with everything you said as well I just thought I would mention incase triples was the only thing holding you back. Glad to hear you are enjoying the game

 

And it takes one *****le to ruin it all! Thx!
We have been through this so called discussing simulation. .
We did have our share of negotiations, is this a sim, or not!
We did a call...
Now we are left in the dark, for obvious reasons....
I, for one, hope Stefano gets over this. and not only for AC.

 

People who bought the game on console only want the same options and experience as the PC version. No simcade.
No one here want easier AI or simcade physics. Most threads here on console want the same access to the options than PC players.
Maybe kunos didn't count with that and thought it would be enough to bring the physics with limited options.

 

I was a PC gamer once too. Back when the HD5870s were ruling the benchmarks and cost more than what I paid for a console.
I like the console environment and therefore I agree with the comments above: console players would simply like to see a product more on par with the PC version (excluding mods, for obvious reasons).

 

After reading the article I am not surprised to see that Kunos are at something of a crossroads as regards the future. When Assetto Corsa 2 arrives I can only hope and dream that I can be part of the experience, and that it is on console despite the substantial difficulties Kunos experienced in bringing AC over to console. Hopefully the potential of remaining on console is deemed worth it and that an approach would be easier now that they have experience of what is entailed.

There is a market for sims on console. Without getting into the previous discussion you have to look at PCars and how much it sold. I am not directly comparing SMS to Kunos, that would be hugely unfair from a resource perspective, but people want a sim experience. I have never been a PC user, and I never will be, but I love Assetto Corsa on console and enjoy the huge challenge it provides and the effort required to improve as a driver.

That is something I wished would exist for a long time on console. Now that I have it I would hate to think that the people who brought the best experience to me could be considering not bringing their future sim here. Envisioning a world with an Assetto Corsa 2 I won't experience, bar watching on YouTube, is a sad situation.

 

I agree, there is a market, however, that does come with caveats.

I was a long time PC player, I've played more hours in PC racing sims than I care to remember, I was an original beta testing for iRacing, and I played LFS for years, organised leagues etc, so I know what a PC sim is like.

I also know that I am not your common or garden console player, so I can excuse limitations in sim games, I can make my own fun, I don't need a "game", but the vast majority of console players expect these things, console racers are used to Forza and Gran Turismo, and coming from one of those to AC would be a shock to the system.

What I do get annoyed about is the reduction in key parts of the simulation (foregoing the negatives of not having a "game") for the console platforms, this is inexcusable really, things like custom key bindings should be a bare minimum for the sim, regardless of platform, there is no excuse for not having it when multiple sims on consoles manage to do it just fine, and little things like the missing special events just makes it feel like there is little care over what the console version contains, it's the whole "ship it, we'll fix it later" mentality.

So I guess the point is, either do it properly, and do a console version justice, or don't bother, the days of having an excuse for the console version to not be up to par with a PC version are gone, other developers can do it.

Before the zealots jump on me (again), my negatives come from a place of admiration, I do admire the game, the core of the sim is best there is.

 

To me where kunos has completely messed up on console is on the human vs human point, multiplayer is terrible, last night we get the new dlc, ok multiplayer we go 12 of us in party chat. We select Porsche 919 what a car and handling can we all use this car, no we can't half of us have to use a another car. Same as the f1 car. Then there's only 1 track available to use them on. This is the problem with A/C absolute quality handling/physics sim best out there, but bloody useless as a game at the moment.

Just another point as well the f1 car what a quality car. Shame you have to start every race on stone cold tyres online. Very sim like. All that horse power and hardly any grip. People doing donuts when race starts, arrive at first corner of red bull ring no ones got any grip to stop, carnage follows. Please kunos turn the tyre warmers on in settings for us, like on the pc.

 

Exactly, i couldn't say it any better myself , i would like to have the same content as the pc version and at the same time, now we are one step (or more) behind, pc gamers have the 3rd porsche pack and special events for the red pack and porsche pack 2, which many console players was expecting coming to consoles with the 11.1 update.

 

If Kunos could've just put the existing Assetto Corsa 1:1 on console they would have done it without a ton of reworking, delays and running out of time, don't you think? Obviously it wasn't that easy.

 

Of course it is not easy but for some reason they decided to make a completely different version for consoles. And worst of all that version is missing many basic sim features.

For example, they could have created a new menu system that would work both on pc and on consoles, like many other games out there do but instead they decided to make a very simple new menu only for the consoles and leave out most of the options found on pc.

 

Easy, no, possible, of course.

Obviously there was some kind of triage system going on, probably down the fact that it's a small team and there are time allocation issues.

 

I've also found this interview between Stefano and Red Bull Games (May 24th 2016)
http://www.redbull.com/en/games/stories/1331796496220/assetto-corsa-on-ps4-and-xbox-one-interview

Q: Assetto Corsa is your first experience developing a game for console. Has that been a tricky transition to make?
A: It's our first experience on console. The first point to make is that this generation of console is actually closer to a PC than last generation, especially on PlayStation. The PS3 used to be a completely different animal that required dedicated everything. Right now the situation is actually much closer to a PC than you might expect. With Xbox One, as far as development environment goes, it's even closer, because you're using DirectX 11 and all the things you're used to with a PC.The real challenge is the performance. Consoles don't have the brute power of a PC, but you can really optimise the game for the hardware compared to the PC, where you can't really optimise that much because you don't know what machine you're running on. So a game like Assetto Corsa needs to run on an i7 and a Duo Core CPU on PC. You can't do an optimisation on the i7 because then people on Duo Core will see degradation. You end up not doing as much optimisation as you could on a PC. Consoles open up the possibility to really dig in and use all of it.

Q: Did you need to bring in new developers used to the new platforms?
A: We brought one guy in that used to work for Rockstar Games, who had some experience in console. Of course it was a learning experience for all of us in the team, we had to learn the platform. It's not an alien platform compared to the PC for this generation, but it was interesting and challenging.

Q: There are other differences between console and PC though, like user interface and the need to get approval from Microsoft and Sony...
A: That's probably an even bigger challenge compared to the pure performance side, especially for us as an independent company. We're just used to doing things the way we want them and if we don't think something is important, we don't think it's important, end of story. You can't do that on a console. Those things are tricky for companies that do it for the first time. You have a feeling that you have a game ready to ship and then you realise you're further off than you think. At the end that's a good thing because it guarantees user experience.

Q: Hence the delay to August?
A: Not this time around. It's more that we don't want to get in the way of things like the football. We want people to go on holiday and come back and say, 'OK, let's buy Assetto Corsa'.

Q: What differences will players see between PC and console versions?
A: The difference is that in the PC version you get more frames per second, more cars when you're racing against others, and also the AI. On the PC the limit is your CPU, on the console we're at 16 players. One particularity of Assetto Corsa is that we're using the same physics for the artificial intelligence cars as for you.

Q:What are plans post launch. Will we see lots of small updates or a big leap down the line?
A: We don't really talk about that. Being a small company gives you an advantage: you can have very short deadlines, so we don't need to think too much in the future.
I think based on our history of the way we support the product on PC, players can expect to see the product proceeding with updates, and not just with DLC and more content – the game will get more polished, more features and so on. We're still developing on the PC so all those things will come to the console. They'll lag a bit behind the PC but our objective is to keep it as parallel as possible. At the moment we have no plans to stop the PC development, the console will just be a natural result of that.

Full interview available at link above. Didn't know the reason behind the last delay until now...

 

Question 2, he don't say anything about user interface, button mapping and other stuff PC have which we on consoles don't have, maybe they don't have time since it's a small developer studio and it will take some time before consoles version will be as the pc version is now, or like he answear the question 1, maybe he don't think it's important for us on consoles to have all the things the PC version have?

We don't know what the reasons are, but i hope we are just behind and the console version will eventually catch up to the pc version when i comes to features, setting and so on.
I don't know, all i know is that AC is a great racing simulator, imo the AI is behaving a lot better than Project Cars and Gran Turismo (i'm on playstation, so those games is the only games i can compare with)
Compared to those games, if you crash or end up in the sand trap in AC you will not win the race and that's very realistic. The cars, the engine sounds and the physics is great.

I think most people just want the same version of AC that the pc gamers have, don't change anything, just add everything AC on PC have and Kunos would make many console owners satisfied .

 

Well... More down in the interview you have that :

"Q: What differences will players see between PC and console versions?
A: The difference is that in the PC version you get more frames per second, more cars when you're racing against others, and also the AI. On the PC the limit is your CPU, on the console we're at 16 players. One particularity of Assetto Corsa is that we're using the same physics for the artificial intelligence cars as for you."

In interviews they also said that content and options would be the same... So where is the setup comprobation, the option that allow you take your AI opponent (not only same class or car).
Track type options,initial grip level, missing FFB options,trento bodone, drag mode, drag strips,Photomode, car descriptions,showrooms,private Online server/lobbies, button mapping, keyboard compatibility, FoV and camera settings, UDP applications, Hud applications,etc,etc..

In a streaming once he said that the "port" of the game started in 2014...that are 2 years of development... So it would be possible to make it full on par like other games achieved (dirt rally) or even project cars.

Let's see if they achieve get the console version on par with the PC version.. And then upgrade the 3 versions together as maximum possible...

But once i asked about showroom and other features that are in pc and received the reply "sadly they are not planned"

Only thing that remains is "patience" and see what the future brings to the console versions

 

I've not seen my exact thoughts summed up any better than this ^. Spot on.

 

Two years of development with mostly one or two guys iirc. Really don't see how you can compare that to Codemasters and Slightly Mad.