To help celebrate 20 years since Richard Burns Rally was released on PC, we sat down to chat with three important figures in the sim’s continued success: AleksiP and mika-n of Rallysimfans, and the beating heart of modern RBR, WorkerBee.
Did you play vanilla RBR when it was first released 20 years ago? What impressed you the most about it?
WorkerBee: Not exactly 20 years ago, I was late to the party. I was just looking for some rally game or simulation, just to see how things had improved since Indianapolis 500 and the like.
RBR was the only game where I felt like driving a real car, to some extent at least.
AleksiP: No, my first experience of RBR was in 2019 after finding videos of it (thanks to YouTuber Janne Laahanen). I had bought my first sim wheel to play the DiRT Rally games a year earlier but became bored of always driving the same stages. I was instantly hooked after finding out RBR has dozens of classic Finland stages you can drive, and it’s free to install.
Mika-n: No, I did not play it 20 years ago and didn’t even know about the game 6 years ago. I’m “relatively” new to RBR. In sim rallying, I used to play titles like DiRT Rally and WRC on PC and the very last versions of Colin McRae Rally on a gaming console.
But, around five years ago I was looking for a racing game for an underpowered laptop used by my kids. The laptop could not handle all the latest racing games. A web search engine started showing links with Richard Burns Rally and this is how I found the game and hunted it down from various online marketplaces.
At first, I was playing the game with my kids using nothing but the vanilla RBR version because I didn’t know about modded versions. Still, even the vanilla RBR immediately felt something unique compared to those other rally gaming titles and I could “feel” how the car behaved logically and realistically (as far as an amateur can make educated guesses about it).
Later on, I learned about NGP physics and custom car models.
Anyway, in RBR when I crashed, I knew two seconds before hitting a tree why things went bad and what I had done wrong. Those other rally games didn’t always give this feedback and after a crash, I was just left wondering why the car didn’t survive the corner and what I had done wrong.
This logical and ‘real’ car handling feeling is the first thing I remember from my early days with RBR and why I haven’t played those other rally titles after.
How did the RSF plugin begin?
mika-n: I’m not one of the original developers of the RSF plugin and online platform, but I have discussed the history of RSF with two of the original developers.
Back in early 2006-2007 there were several RBR online racing platforms, then WorkerBee released a new version of the NGP physics engine, but some of those other online plugins were slow to adopt the latest NGP build (some of those plugins were no longer completely free either).
People like Falcon77, RPeti and Lacka wanted to have an alternative RBR online plugin that always supported the latest NGP version and was most of all free for everyone. Falcon77 was the person who started the RSF development process, and RPeti, Lacka and Sebgutkopf helped him code both the plugin and the website backend.
In 2007, the first version of RSF was released. After a while it gained some popularity because it had few unique capabilities not found in other plugins and the web rally creation tools were free for everyone.
During the first years of RSF the plugin gained a lot of popularity, but then later on other RBR online racing plugins had bigger player bases. But, the RSF was always alive and holding on to its core idea of bringing in new ideas, adopting the latest NGP physics version early on and being free for everyone.
Certainly online servers cost something, but luckily RSF had over those early years a couple of sponsors providing online server space and a network bandwidth. Lacka was also one of the driving forces sacrificing his own free time to maintain all this. Most of all long-time RSF users all helped keep RSF alive, even when the player base momentarily dropped.
However, 2020 was a sort of re-birth of RSF. As we all know RBR has numerous custom stages created by rally enthusiasts for all of us to enjoy. Certainly, they are the key part of keeping RBR alive. Anyway, before 2020 none of the major RBR online platforms supported custom stages created in BTB (Bob’s Track Builder – a track-building programme) track format even when there are thousands of RBR stages using this.
I was contacted by the RSF development team and asked if I could help them with various RSF plugin development issues and features. One of the new features we worked with together was to integrate stages using the BTB format into the RSF online rally road books almost like BTB stages were just like any other normal RBR stage.
This was like opening a Pandora’s box and more and more people got interested in the RSF online racing platform because it felt like a breath of fresh air in the RBR online plugin.
After 2020, RSF has record numbers of registered users, even the core RSF development team has doubled its “staff” and there are now several talented RBR modders working together to create new features and new plugins.
How did you get involved with the RallySimFans plugin? What is your main role now?
AleksiP: I got involved in RSF in late 2020 when we found out about some new developments that RSF had started to make. I, with a bunch of other active friends from the small RBR community that was mainly driving in the Czech RBRTM plugin at that point, started promoting the plugin and convincing more and more people to switch over to RSF because we saw great potential for future development.
We have now grown the player numbers from a few hundred to over 6000 active drivers per month, and over 80k registered RSF accounts in the last four years.
My role currently involves a lot of tasks: being part of the RSF support team, helping people with their problems on the game, testing all new stages and helping the track creators finish their tracks to a proper quality standard.
I have done some modding myself also, some 30 car liveries and being part of the “Harju 2019” track building team, texture mods, plus many many other smaller things. I don’t have the skills for coding stuff, but I am willing to help with everything I can.
The modding community is awesome, [there are] many friendly people and skilled developers with a common passion for virtual rallies.
mika-n: As I mentioned above, at first I was using RBR as a vanilla version with my kids and I was not even doing any modding. At some point, my kids started to complain about why the car selection screen in RBR doesn’t show the real car name and a livery because they would like to drive the fastest-looking car.
So, I did what any other dad would do in this situation. Back in early 2019, I started investigating the internals of RBR and wondering would it be possible to mod RBR to show a custom car livery already in the RBR car selection screen. This turned out to be a success. I created a custom plugin to make this possible and the kids were happy again. I released the plugin for others also.
I thought “That’s it. I’m done with RBR modding”. However, one of the royals of RBR, Porridge, pointed out that no one uses the old legacy Quick Rally RBR gaming mode, people use RBRTM Shakedown and the online racing plugin. This was a wake-up call for me and the first time I learned more about the online racing aspect of RBR.
Once I installed the RBRTM plugin into the laptop kids were using with RBR, they faced the same problem again. The car selection screen didn’t show which one of the installed cars was the fastest-looking car. It was back to square one and I started investigating if it was possible to mod RBRTM to show the installed custom car livery already in the car selection screen. This turned out to be another success and lots of RBRTM users started using the plugin I had released.
By this time I was already deep in RBR modding and things got a bit out of hand. I started doing more and more RBR modding, bringing in other new features (having nothing to do with the original idea of showing just a custom car livery live) and fixing ancient RBR bugs.
As I mentioned in the RSF history part, I was eventually contacted by the RSF development team to help them with a few RBR integration issues. At first, I was just an outsider helping them and a few other RBR modders, but eventually, I became part of the RSF development team after realising I was submitting more and more code changes.
Nowadays I’m one of the RSF plugin developers and my main role is with RSF in-game plugin development and RBR integration. I never knew back in 2019 how deeply I would be involved in RBR modding when the kids complained about the RBR car selection screen!
What is the goal of the RSF plugin?
mika-n: The original idea of the RSF plugin was to adopt the latest NGP physics and other plugin versions and to be free for everyone. This has remained the same even as a few of those original RSF developers have since retired from RBR modding, their legacy still lives in RSF.
The more concrete goal of RSF is to be the place where RBR rally fans can find the best and most easy-to-use in-game plugin to drive both casually (offline racing and daily rally online series) or at a more competitive level (championship rally series). Nowadays RSF is also a sort of an umbrella to cover several RBR modders and organisers working together. This is one of the new key aspects helping RSF to thrive.
AleksiP: To provide the overall best rally simulator experience for rally fans. I think we are doing very well and still developing further all the time with constant updates. We still have lots of good and feasible ideas on the drawing board.
Developing, testing and finalising everything for release just takes its time as we are fully volunteers with no deadlines or pressure. In my opinion, there is now enough content in terms of tracks (around 500) and cars (around 100), but we can do lots of small and relatively easy projects to raise the average quality of the content.
A lot of the older content can be upgraded massively with a simple re-texturing, or just removing it and replacing it with better content.
How important is WorkerBee to modern-day RBR and RSF?
mika-n: If we think of what has kept RBR alive for 20 years, and, unlike many other racing games released around the same time, then it is not the bling-bling graphics. One of the most important aspects has been the physics engine. Already the original RBR physics was ahead of its time, but WorkerBee’s NGP physics engine is perfecting the rally physics more and more in each release. Even today no other rally game has the same level of physics details.
But, the NGP physics engine isn’t the only reason why WorkerBee has been the single most important RBR modder over the years. He has done numerous other RBR mods to make the game compatible with modern-day PCs and helped a lot of car and stage authors bring us all new cars and stages. WorkerBee is helping with numerous other plugins and tools also, and not just working with the NGP physics engine.
For example, Tom Smalley is the key driving force to modernise RBR stage authoring by making the RBR Blender addon tool, so people can use Blender to create new RBR stages. But, WorkerBee is also one of the people to make it all possible with the vast knowledge he has of RBR internals and how the game behaves.
To generalise things, in the RBR modding scene there are three types of people:
- Group 1 – Those who have a deep understanding of car mechanics and how physics affects the behaviour of a rally car.
- Group 2 – Those who have a deep understanding of programming and software reverse-engineering techniques.
- Group 3 – Those who understand both of these topics.
WorkerBee is one of the very few people in RBR who belongs to Group 3.
We in RSF are happy to have direct contact with WorkerBee because every now and then a new feature needs something specific from RBR, and WorkerBee has always been very helpful in digging out various details from the RBR internals.
AleksiP: He’s unique, there is likely no one else in the world able to make such fundamental changes to how RBR works under the hood. All the work done for the NGP, all the RBR reverse-engineering is something… [it’s] really hard to understand how difficult it is and appreciate it enough.
There would be no modern-day RBR without [his work]. And with his knowledge of vehicle dynamics and motorsport background, we can trust that all cars are handling-wise equally top quality.
How long does it take to create physics files for a single car in RBR?
WorkerBee: Not a simple answer. The problem is not making one car, but making car classes, and balancing performance between those and different eras. That means weeks and months of research, collecting data, like homologation papers, manuals, articles etc.
Then I have to find out what’s special about a particular car, how it behaves, what problems contemporary drivers said there were, and so on. As soon as I am ready to go it should take about 2 full days of work to actually make the physics, plus additional testing.
Have any rally games or sims come close to matching RBR for ‘realism’, in your opinion?
WorkerBee: No. The main titles are for the masses and casual players who want to have some Ogier moments without getting involved too deeply.
As long as they don’t “sell” it as a simulation, I am fine with it.
AleksiP: No. All commercial rally games must cater to gamepad users, so they can’t make the game too difficult to drive for the average player. That inevitably leads to many shortcuts on the physics simulation that bundle on top of each other and the end result makes the cars handle not like they should.
Of course, RBR is not perfect either, but it’s close enough to stay on top for quite a while still. RBR is very convincing when you have decent driving equipment and the game settings are configured properly.
There are so many settings to tweak, that many new drivers are probably quitting before finding the good settings. A common criticism is that ‘hard equals realistic’. But rally is probably the hardest form of motorsport, and not many drivers would be able to complete stages at the beginning of their career.
After I have driven RBR, the other rally sims feel very lacking due to how easy it is to keep the car on track. You don’t need to do proper weight transfer to make the car turn, left foot braking isn’t effective, massive jumps land perfectly every time, etc but it’s good that we also have this kind of game to get new people interested in the sport, which is important for the future.
Rally is not the most appealing sport at the moment so any new interest is positive.
mika-n: Like I mentioned above, I have played Dirt/WRC/ColinMcRae/BeamNG racing games. All of these are good and fun games and there is a place and time for all of those. However, when it comes to the “logical and real like” feelings one can get in a simulator, then RBR is the only one where I have felt after the first day how it was both challenging and logical.
What inspired you to modify RBR and create a succession of New Generation Physics updates?
WorkerBee: I am a trained coachbuilder and car mechanic and have a degree in industrial engineering, so I am familiar with how a vehicle is assembled and built. I started modding RBR in the first place just because I was not satisfied with existing plugins back then, although I cursed the day I started.
During testing, I was annoyed by those many bugs which made me publish that infamous FixUp plugin, as I thought sharing that stuff would be a good idea.
Existing physics mods had ridiculously fast cars, which was not realistic at all, so after all that reverse engineering of the original game I took it as a kind of challenge to show how it is done.
What is it about vanilla RBR, in your opinion, that made it a solid foundation for NGP?
WorkerBee: Large parts of vehicles are simulated correctly so I could build on them. Still, there existed lots of marketing bla bla with regard to vanilla physics, like what is simulated and what is not. Some details did not make it into the game, despite being stated otherwise.
What has been the most challenging aspect of modifying RBR?
WorkerBee: Even though I’ve reverse-engineered almost 100% of the game and know what RBR does, the ultimate challenge right now with all the multithreading stuff is when RBR does something.
RBR runs multiple state machines within the game loop, and obviously, they added things while already in the middle of development. This did not improve the quality. In other words, it is a big mess.
Out of all the improvements you’ve made or seen in RBR, which is your favourite and why?
WorkerBee: Hard to pick one. But I would say that the multithreading stuff was quite satisfying, although lots of work, which I underestimated a bit. But, I never gave up, and finally finished it.
AleksiP: There have been a lot of fantastic improvements in the last couple of years but my favourite is probably the RBR Roadbook, an application for recce (writing pace notes) for the stages.
It made the old tedious way of mouse-clicking so much easier and enjoyable. It takes a bit of effort and a lot of free time, but it’s a relaxing activity to go through the stages, writing your own pace notes from scratch.
I think the tool is still quite underappreciated. Fully tweaked pace notes that you can trust 100% are extremely important to becoming a fast and reliable driver in RBR championships. And somehow we’re still the only rally simulator where it’s possible to do this.
Even real-life drivers and codrivers can benefit from practising recces virtually using this tool.
mika-n: I can only look back at the last four or five years, but during these years the multicore support in NGP made the physics engine even more detailed. And everyone who knows something about multicore/multithread programming knows how difficult a code it is to maintain even when the source code is available. But to do it with RBR, where no source code is available, is unbelievably difficult to get right.
The multicore NGP is something under the hood. If we think of something clearly visible for every RBR user then live, three-dimensional embedded gauges in the RBRHUD plugin (created by Towerbrah) are a major milestone in RBR and RSF. I’m sure already after 2004 people started asking when RBR would have something like it. RBRHUD is also a good example of several people working together to make it possible for all cars in RBR.
As we’ve seen with mods like RBRHUD and RBR Director’s Cut, things thought impossible are still being created for the sim. What do you think will be the ‘next big thing’ in RBR?
WorkerBee: My crystal ball is on vacation. I don’t reveal plans or schedules because of some guys stealing and selling ideas, but I am close to publishing some interesting improvements.
AleksiP: My long-term hope is that we would be able to modernise the server backend and website because those are still largely based in 2007 and making even small changes is a lot of work.
It’s like a house of cards that can topple at any wrong move, as Lacka (RSF “owner”) has said. Modernising it would bring massive possibilities for developers, and just make it a nicer overall experience for the current players, and more appealing for new players.
One of the next big things I can reveal, we have recently done big track optimisation work that will gift all players with lots of free disk space, while still keeping all the same content. But there are also some exciting new things for the game coming, so stay tuned in the RSF announcements.
Mika-n: Interesting question. I don’t want to give away too many “secrets”, but there are plans to bring in even more online rally modes in RSF; new types of rallies and even gaming modes. The beauty of these secrets is that every release is like Christmas. After all, we all are working with RBR and RSF voluntarily in our own free time and we don’t want to give any detailed promises, road maps or deadlines. If we would do that then things would feel too much like a job. No thanks!
But, in general around RBR, one of the recent big things was the modernised stage authoring with the RBR Blender addon tool. This made it possible for numerous new people to start working with high-quality stages. The next big thing here could be a modernised car model authoring tool.
Richard Burns Rally Traxion community event
As a special tribute to RBR, Traxion has created a community RBR event on Rallysimfans (password: Traxion).
The six-stage event begins today and lasts for a week, taking in some of the Traxion team’s favourite RBR tests using Rally 2 and R5 cars, with Traxion sim gloves available to the podium finishers.
Remember to send us your favourite moments via our Discord server (replay files welcome!) and we’ll compile these into a neat highlights reel to commemorate the rally!
And maybe there’ll be some special awards for the most spectacular incidents…
Also, please check out our accompanying Richard Burns Rally retrospective here.
Chat with the Community
Sign Up To CommentIt's completely Free
It’s always funny to me when someone says something like: “All commercial rally games must cater to gamepad users, so they can’t make the game too difficult to drive for the average player.” but in reality driving in RBR is easier… Even on keyboard. NGP physics made it very easy because u drive a car, not veirdly floating hovercraft like in DR2.0…