Would you like more Mod Tracks in AC, similar to Zandvoort? [Strawpoll]

I'd love to see more non-laserscanned tracks becoming official. If the mesh is good enough and the accuracy of the track itself is well done I don’t care if it is not laserscanned.
Online racing would also benefit from it because mods still don’t get the attention they deserve. More track variety online? Yes, please!

Tracks like Bridgehampton, Donington, Paul Ricard, LuccaRing, Bilsterberg, Grobnik, Poznan etc come to my mind.

 

If it's good enough to Kunos it's good enough to me. I'm already using (good) mod tracks, so it would be a mod track polished and distributed by Kunos. So yes please.

Laserscanning is nice but not everything to me.

Edit. Answered before voting so didn't know the options. Voted yes as a free content. I'm not sure I would pay for mod tracks, even as an official content. But as a part of a dreampack where the other content is good enough, then maybe I could even pay for them.

 

Zandvoort is a lot of fun. I prefer having it than not having it at all.
So a few non-laserscanned tracks once in a while would be nice

 

if it comes down to having it nonscanned or not having it at all ... I rather have paid nonscanned official tracks where quality is controled by devs, where somebody was on the track, did the research, gathered material, get the gps data, did all available measuremnts (elevation changes, aproximate bumps locations, cambers, ...) .. basicaly laserscanned track without laserscanning

If it is just paid version of good quality mod where Kunos says eeh, good enough, gives it a blessing and releases it as official track, than Im just fine with that free high quality mod

tracks are not gonna come fast in LS versions so that might be reasonable way how to get more quality content

 

Laser scanned only for me, modders do good enough work and can be rewarded with donations, i want to race the track knowing it is nigh on identical too the real thing, zandvoort well done but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

 

I'd like to know if you can tell the difference between laserscanned and not, if you tried both without knowing which is which.
I think if you have not been there and raced in real life I think it does not really matter, as long as the non laserscanned version has a good physical mesh and is accurately modeled.
And I say this as an Iracing member.

 

Basically, the point of this thread is: should we go back in technology? Having reached the pinnacle of sim racing accuracy, should we go back to older and less accurate methods just because "the more the better"? Time to unwatch the thread I guess

Yes I may not be able to tell the difference for a track on which I never drove, but what is the fu***ng point?? I want to drive the most accurate version of a car on the most accurate version of a track, because THAT'S THE POINT OF SIM RACING. I want to have the closer experience to the real thing that I can get because I am not one of the lucky few who can actually do it in real life.
I don't care if in the end it would come to just 5 tracks, if those are perfect virtual versions of the real ones. Is it just me to think it like that?
We are in 2016, let's not get back to 2006

 

For me the point of simracing is having good races with fair and clean simracers. Then comes accuracy of cars & tracks perhaps.

 

what if you get those 5 LS perfect tracks and extra 10 (ok I might overshoot with 10) high quality non-scanned tracks (only with surface less accurate) ... having nonscanned tracks does not exclude having LS ones, does it ? .... but most of the best tracks in the world are probably not gonna happend in AC in laserscaned version (just my wild guess) .. so we all will be driving less quality mods anyway (with respect to all modders out there doing great job) .. cause one needs Bathurst, Suzuki, Sebring, Hockenheim, Zolder, ...

 

its a game first and foremost for me, its not very fun running the same few tracks over and over. im sure sim racing must still be a long long way off real life.

they should strive for realism but cost and the fact its a small team come into it. if its a choice between 10 LS tracks only and 10 LS tracks and 10 good non LS tracks I know which id choose :/

id choose proper clutch simulation and improving whatever makes the cars feel very sterile (for want of a better phrase) under acceleration to be addressed and a bunch of other things before id get pedantic about a bump missing on a circuit

 

I think good things will happen track-wise after console version is released

 

I don't get this demand for laser-scanned tracks. I assume that a good proportion of the scanned data is thrown away (mesh is optimised) so even with an LS track, you are still driving on an approximation of reality.

Oh, and you are still using a wheel in front of a PC, in your house.

 

yeah you're right, let us play need for speed why simulating all that stuff, it is not real anyway

 

How about track releases that don't exist anymore today? Estoril before the nerfing, Imola up to 1994, the old Österreichring, Silverstone Pre 2010, the old Kyalami, old Hockenheim.

We have cars trough all decades starting in the early 1960's but we don't have many tracks for them. And those tracks can't be scanned anyway, they are gone. If we stick with LS only then we might as well throw away the historical cars because we're never going to race them on appropriate tracks.

 

Yes, if the dev's are going to commission non laser scanned tracks then why not also make them historic venues? You can't scan them anyway, at least not in their entirety.

 

Well that sounds like the result of some very small and negative thinking; I use the term "Trade", barter, exchange - where both parties benefit, actually - all parties benefit. The reason that wouldn't work is called non-cooperation and and that is something that can and should be overcome with some attitude adjustments. Working together to solve problems is not a new concept, it just requires a small bit of goodwill from one party to get things started.

 

Fantasy tracks, pariticularly some inner city tracks like Route 246



or Tokyo Expressway



would be great in non laser scanned version, but everything else - laserscan only please. Especially now with the oncoming VR where you can see and feel the road camber, having non-laserscanned tracks would be going backwards in many ways.

 

Well personally, if having non-LS mod tracks would mean less LS tracks, even 1 less... I would be against it. Only if it isn't a lot of extra work, and the mods are totally finished + tracks that we would never get in any other way.

I don't know how big work it was to polish Zandvoort. I never saw that track on any modding site, afaik, it appeared out of nowhere. Frankly, I don't consider all of the mod tracks mentioned in this thread to be on level of Kunos tracks visually. I don't know what people have hidden on their hard disks, but in RD there is very very few, that are as high quality as Zandvoort.

 

A tough one... voted "yes" but it really depends on what track it would be.
There is no other way than Laser Scan for tracks like Laguna Seca. Bumpy tracks preferably should be LS to have accurate bumps too.
BUT for flat tracks with good CAD (or other) data? "Why not" , i can see paying for it normal DLC price. Also would not mind some historic or even "fantasy" tracks as long as quality is around Zandvoort's, although never "instead" of a LS track.

 

I would happily pay for quality modded tracks (Laguna Seca would be great indeed).

I just discovered quality mods this weekend (Bridgehampton, Tsukuba...) and had a ton of fun on these tracks but could not find anyone to race with online. Making them official content would guarantee that I find more real humans to race with on them. That enough means a yes to me but I agree with most of the reasons I read in this thread for yes.

There's one important condition to a yes though: the modder(s) who designed the tracks must get a fair share of the profits. I'm not sure if the Zandvoort modders were compensated. I'm not even sure how a compensation policy would work technically, or even how much is right (10-30% of profits to modders seems fair to me intuitively but we can discuss it). This condition would only bring good things in my opinion:

• It rewards the incredible amount of work modders do.
• It encourage modders to work hard(er) on their mods. Your track will only realistically be picked up by Kunos if it's high quality. If it is, you'll definitely get more than Paypal beer money for your efforts.
• It encourages modders to create new tracks, of which we would have very little odds of getting LS versions anyway.
• More tracks make AC more attractive and increases the player base, which means more players online and more real people to play with.

If I were Kunos, I would have absolutely no problem being perfectly honest with a PR strategy (especially considering the upcoming console release) along the lines of:

• We aim for maximum realism, which is why our physics engine is the best in the market.
• From the start, our policy has been to provide laser scanned tracks because [insert reasons already mentioned in the thread]. To this date, X (don't know the real number, maybe 8-10 or so) are laser scanned, which is a guarantee of maximum accuracy.
• We are a much smaller studio than Sony or Microsoft/Turn 10 and cannot realistically offer many more laser scanned tracks for financial/logistical reasons. Therefore, we have worked with our great community to also offer you the best that modders came up with.
• Non LS tracks are clearly indicated as such when you play the game.
• We did [explain quality control policy] to make sure non LS content is of the best possible quality.
• The modders are fairly compensated for their great efforts. We are doing [insert compensation policy] to thank them for the quality content they provide for the simracing community.

Happy to read what you think about this!