Studio 397 aims to improve rFactor 2 in response to the fallout from this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual
An update to the initial statement following the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual was shared on social media Friday (27th January) regarding the red flag periods that stemmed from server and network issues, as well as the handful of random disconnects that ultimately took the #1 Team Redline LMP out of contention.
In a news posting on the Studio 397 website following the aftermath of the event, Studio 397’s Paul Jeffrey originally posted that the team behind rFactor 2 would be “launching an investigation” into why certain events occurred.
The investigation would look at the red flag stoppages that stemmed from the alleged sharing of IP addresses, as well as the random disconnects that affected many teams, including both eventual class champions, but most notably and publicly, the two-time Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen.
Full disclosure – Traxion.GG is part of Motorsport Games and the Motorsport Games family of brands. All Traxion.GG content is editorially removed from Motorsport Games video game development and created by a dedicated team. Traxion.GG is one of the official media partners of the Le Mans Virtual Series.
On the first part of the investigation with the red flag periods during the first half of the event, the investigation update had this to say:
“We are aware that the IP addresses of the servers were inadvertently made public, and we observed unusual levels of traffic during the event, combined with logging of some concerning events taking place during this period. We are not aware of a malicious attack, but will be implementing new procedures to ensure that in future our servers are robustly defended. The use of direct IP addresses for access to multiplayer sessions is clearly not an ideal solution, and we take full responsibility for any inadvertent distribution to non-participants – we are actively working on new processes to allow only permitted users and prevent similar issues in the future.”
2023 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Statement – 27.01.2023 update
As for the part that ultimately affected the outcome of the race, as the #1 Team Redline LMP was unable to get any laps back due to the sporting regulations that state that “four (4) or more drivers” would need to disconnect for there to be any, this is what the update stated regarding that:
“Additionally, the four instances of spontaneous multiple disconnects that occurred during the race were highly unusual and have only been seen once before in competition. Whilst we have made significant improvements and bug fixes to the multiplayer code of the game in recent years, we are clearly still experiencing problems with legacy low-level networking code. Naturally, this is an unacceptable situation for any multiplayer environment, and we are committed to rewriting this code over the coming months to ensure a better experience for all players.”
2023 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Statement – 27.01.2023 update
The commitment to making multiplayer a better experience is admirable, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened at such a high level and left such a sour taste in many mouths following the event. Many in the sim racing sphere on social media were highly critical of the event in general, and rightfully so.
If a reworked code means that a better experience is attainable, this should hopefully lead to a more acceptable sim racing atmosphere on the rFactor 2 platform that will hopefully allow for future top level competitions to succeed with less controversy like we’ve seen from the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual.
Granted, the big race ran without a hitch at the beginning of 2022 with the same amount of entrants and surrounding hype, so it really is still unclear as to what specifically caused things to self destruct in the 2023 running. Regardless, we’ll keep a lookout for these changes over the next few months.
Full disclosure – Traxion.GG is part of Motorsport Games and the Motorsport Games family of brands. All Traxion.GG content is editorially removed from Motorsport Games video game development and created by a dedicated team. Traxion.GG is one of the official media partners of the Le Mans Virtual Series.
