It’s been a long journey, from Early Access back in 2018, to PS4 and Xbox One versions in 2020 and finally – for now – the British GT DLC in 2021, but Assetto Corsa Competizione seems to be in the form of its life right now.
With extraordinarily active player counts, and next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X version slated for later in the year, this latest episode of The Traxion Podcast explores why such a serious game that only includes one slightly obscure racing series has become such a smash it for developer KUNOS-Simulazioni and publisher 505 Games.
If you’re already playing it extensively, we discuss the highs and lows and if you have not yet tried it, then let us regale you with tales of why it is so good.
Hosted by John Munro, with guest Thomas Harrison-Lord.
Don’t forget to let us know in the comments below why you like, or even dislike, Assetto Corsa Competizione.
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Below is the full transcript of this episode. It’s auto-generated, hence why it’s completely random…
John Munro:
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the attraction podcast, where today we’ll be looking at why Assetto Corsa Competizione is one of the most popular sim racers on the market today. My name is John Munro and joining me on the show, we have a man whose name doesn’t need to be written in Italian in order for it to sound cool. It’s Tom Harrison-Lord. How’s it going today?
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Thank you very much. Very well. Thanks. How are you? Very unfortunate surname but.
John Munro:
I don’t think so.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
That’s just how it is. It could be worse. I could be spelled Competizioneone and no one knows ever how to spell it when writing it down.
John Munro:
Yeah, when it comes to that at the end, we’ll have to wait and see. But yeah. So the reason we ask this question, Tom is of course, as you well know, because you’re the one who sent me the stat, according to official Steam charts over the past three months Assetto Corsa Competizione on is actually being played by four times as many people per day than the likes of Rfactor 2 and Race Room. And that’s even double as many as what DiRT Rally 2.0, which is still a really popular game as well. I mean, that’s crazy, isn’t it?
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah. It’s been out for quite a while. Obviously there’s been some recent DLC which we’ll touch on later, but clearly there’s something about this game that keeps players coming back for more. And I’m sure again, we’ll go through each element as we go through, but even if you look at Google trends, because of course Steam chart data doesn’t show things necessarily like, iRacing and also it completely excludes console players of which is, are available for this particular game and for DiRT Rally. And even when you do that, which is a number of people searching online for the game over the past 12 months, it’s right up there. And it’s still very, very popular and not too far below when it initially came out.
John Munro:
Absolutely. And for those of you listening to the podcast who may be, don’t play this game, or, I mean, obviously we’re focusing on one particular game for this episode, should give a little bit of context. So what you might be asking, what is Assetto Corsa Competizione, well, we’re also gonna, we’re just call ACC from, from now on as well, because I know most people that play the game, refer to it as ACC. We should just clarify that. So we’re not confusing anyone. ACC is much less of a mouthful, even though it doesn’t sound quite as cool, but yeah, this game is basically, it’s a GT racing game based on the Blancpain GT series, which is now called GT world challenge, and of course it’s officially licensed. This means you’ve got all the official cars, drivers, liveries and tracks from the official series, which to be honest, Tom, nowadays, when it comes to household sim racing titles, that kind of connection with a real life series is quite rare. You’ve obviously got the likes of F1 and stuff and WRC, which have their official licensing, but generally sims tend to focus on a bunch of different disciplines.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Right. Yeah. So as you mentioned, the other sims at the start of the episode, they cover all sorts of different types of cars and tracks all around the world. Whereas this is just focusing as an official game of the series. I think one reason weirdly how it, most people don’t realize that is because it’s not named, the official game with the GT well challenged series, Europe, Asia, America’s, is that such a confusing name for a race series, by the way, it’s got this Italian name and with some GT cars that are in pretty much every other racing game that’s comparable anyway. So maybe it’s almost sneaking it under the radar because you mentioned F1 and WRC there, and even NASCAR. Those are much more popular sports in general with bigger audiences. And this is much more niche in terms of the number of people who watch it and visit the race tracks to spectate when that’s allowed. And so the way they’ve gone around it, I think is maybe right. Okay. We’ll, we’ll call it, with the Assetto Corsa name somewhere in there, which has already recognized. And it bleeds into that, I think. Also should be noticed, Assetto Corsa Competizione, as you said, we’ll call it ACC from this point on, if you literally translate that into English, it’s a race trim competition. So maybe I should call it that from now on. Well, we’ll see.
John Munro:
It sounds quite close to Race 07, race trim competition.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Oh yeah true.
John Munro:
I quite like that. I quite like it. You know it could work, but it’s not quite as cool. It’s not quite as cool when you take away the Italian.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Everything sounds better in Italian.
John Munro:
All the corners of all the circuits sound way better in Italian, but that’s, that’s another episode. So of course, when you look at the examples of games that are focused on one particular discipline, you have, F1 2021, which is of course called Formula 1, you’ve got WRC 8, which is called WRC. So the name of the series NASCAR Heat is actually in the game, which is of course, as you say, not the case with this particular title. So maybe it’s a bit more clear normally, but with this one, it’s a little bit different, but once you know about the game, it’s not really a problem. It’s just a fantastic example, but we’ll come on onto that. Of course we should probably go back to the beginning. Where, where did this game start? Now a lot of people assume that Assetto Corsa Competizione is kind of the natural sequel if you like to Assetto Corsa. But that’s, it’s not necessarily that simple, to be honest, is it Tom?
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah. It’s not a direct seequel, as you say. Just rewinding the clock a few years before there was Assetto Corsa, not Assetto Corsa Competizione. And it had loads of different vehicles in it from classic single seater racing cars, to the GT racing cars, the GT3 class, for example, but also had a load of road cars. The tracks were really varied. There was some fictional ones. There was the Nordschleife, for example, it wasn’t particularly focused on one series. So I would say ACC is a successor, but not to sequel, because it’s using a lot of the same technology and building upon it. And certainly with the GT cars, you can still, if you play them both in both games, you could feel a similarity there, but this is clearly a more laser-focused targeted game at one particular series and therefore not sequel.
John Munro:
Yeah, absolutely. And it seems to be the, with a lot of these games, they’re either yearly releases. Or they focused on the year of sport that they were released? The nice thing about this game is kind of in a, I guess, different sense to the likes of Formula 1 and maybe closer to your regular systems, like your iRacing or your AC and this game kind of develops with the years. So they do add content. And even though it sticks to being, the, I can never remember the name of the series, GT World Challenge series stuff they add to it year on year. So you can, you know, 2017 and 18, they had their new packs for their Intercontinental GT packs, each year of the actual GT world challenge, we then of course at GT4’s added recently, it’s actually been quite awhile now the GT4’s have been out, it feels like yesterday. Your 2020 GT World Challenge pack recently and of course, British GT. So they added British GT circuits because it’s all part of the same organizing series. So it’s kind of got, it’s got that feel of like a normal sim like iRacing or AC would have where it develops over time, but it staying true to its roots. So that’s kind of in some ways, I guess that makes it a little bit unique.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah, true. Because like, as you say, there could easily be a year of the release with the new cars, the new tracks, but they’re doing the DLC route and also there have been some free updates and I’m just rewinding a little bit. It first came to early access in 2018. So it’s been three years of constant development and it was only just, at the time of recording last month when the British GT DLC and I don’t know which was new cars and new tracks or primarily new liveries and new tracks, shall I say, came to the console version. So, it’s not just on PC, it’s on Xbox one and PS4 as well. And they’ve now finally got DLC parity across all the platforms. I suppose this is a conversation for another time, but I suppose it’s, well, what happens next? We’ll have an article coming soon about that on the Traxion website. And it’s just been really enjoyable to see this progression over three years, as opposed to just a yearly release.
John Munro:
I totally agree. I don’t think, when you talk about the console versions I’m not sure they’ve necessarily nailed it with the, they didn’t from the start. Anyway. I know there was quite a few issues with the console versus when they first came out. I think you probably know more about those than me. I’ve never actually played the console version myself. I know you’ve had some, some issues with it, to say the least.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah. Somebody first came out there. The online for me was completely broken. When you load like a early access PC sim game, it’s fine. If there’s no buttons assigned when you first launched the game, but, not so much when it’s a console release, coming a couple of years later that that sort of audience won’t necessarily stand for that. The frame rates are lower, which is fine, but there were the worst thing was they were completely unstable on all over the shop. And, and it doesn’t look as nice now, again, going back to that point, what we just said earlier dramatically improved over the recent years, all the DLCs in there now, uh, the handling from day one has always been as good, as same as the PC version, so that amazing racing feeling and the AI and the wet weather, that’s all in there.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
And now if you have a new gen system, it has a solid 60 frames per second game play. So the only thing now I would say is, the replays are a bit choppy and just generally, there’s not quite the visual fidelity of the PC version. If you’re running a high-end PC, it’s probably on a mid spec PC level at the minute, which is fine. So it’s really improved. I do recommend people going back to it. I think the main point I’d like to say about this is hats off for bringing a quote/unquote hardcore SIM to, to a console audience. And the first Assetto Corsa game proved that there is an audience for that just because you don’t have a expensive PC doesn’t mean you don’t want to play a serious game. So I would say, congratulations. Kudos.
John Munro:
Yeah. Totally. I agree. Totally agree. I think that, especially when you’re looking at console sims and stuff, the main thing you need to get right, is the frame rate with sims racing, I think on a console because, and with a lot of games running at lower FPS, something, you know, the more FPS you have on PC, the better the experience, right? So people tend to, you’d rather have a higher FPS and a lower quality than a higher quality, low FPS because every single movement of the steering wheel at the inputs count. So therefore when it comes to console gaming, you kinda need that. And I think even though the visuals and stuff on ACC, weren’t the best to start with and, and they did have some problems with the frame rate. Initially, the main thing is that there’s a stable SIM. Even if it doesn’t look quite as good as you say that that actually works. And I think that that’s a hugely important move for the industry, because we always talk about the split between SIM and sorry, PC and console gaming. And I think that’s hugely important. I mean, would you say the console version, let down the PC at the start? Or would you say we’d just ignore that and say, well done for actually doing it?
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah. I just think, no well done for doing it well done for sticking on it. Could have just left it. It also came at a weird time. It’s like, there’s no native next gen version, but that is coming later this year.
John Munro:
I was going to ask about that. Yeah.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah, yeah. So then like the frame rate’s fine. Now the gameplay is great. The online, you know, everything is there, but there’s a few extra like camera angles and replay features on the PC version. And there’s also just generally richer visuals in terms of the lighting in particular. And so that will come later this year. And then for a PS5a dn XBox series price, you should hopefully have parity with a real, because the game is quite power intensive on PC. Right. So could be one to watch, I would say.
John Munro:
Yeah, I’m really keen to, to give the next gen version of try. I dunno. It could you kind of bridge that gap between the console version and the PC version? I mean, it could even trump the PC version. I doubt it, but yeah, we’ll see.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
On that point, like, this is a bit of a sidetrack, but it depends on each individual’s PC specs, right.
John Munro:
Yep. Of course.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
So it could Trump, most people’s. We’ll have to see.
John Munro:
That’s important though, as well, because when you look at the price point for a PlayStation 5, you’re not looking at a top end PC.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah. You know, it’s great Assetto Corsa Competizione is coming to those devices, but anyway, it’s available for everybody and it’s a hardcore sim and it’s been successful.
John Munro:
Yes, well done. Well done.
John Munro:
Yeah, well done to the developers.
John Munro:
Round of applause cause it’s so important. And speaking of applause for the developers, I do want to bring the discussion on to some of the gameplay itself. Now this handling model on Assetto Corsa Competizione And not everybody fully agrees with this, but generally speaking, there’s a hugely amount of positive feedback when it comes to handling of ACC, whether it’s down to the, the way that the curbs feel, the intricacies and the force feedback, every single, you can feel every single difference in limit of the car, whether it’s under breaking under acceleration, when the backend sliding there’s so much feeling through the wheel, it’s something to behold really. I mean, it’s taken sim racing a long way or long time to come from a kind of game that they call us in. But it’s actually arcade, to something that we can actually say is realistic, but playing Assetto Corsa Competizione for the first time is an experience. It does bring you closer to what you might expect to feel when you’re actually driving a real GT car.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Right. And a part of me thinks that a good reason why it feels so great. And why the handling is so good is that, KUNOS-Simulazioni who produced this game, create this game. They do a lot of behind the scenes, B2B work with car manufacturers. They have Assetto Corsa Pro, which is like a 3000 Euro game. And then this is used for driver training and race team simulations in the background. And so Assetto Corsa Competizione only takes that technology and wraps it a video game around it. I know, calling a simulation, a video game is a awkward thing, but ultimately you can play online against rivals and you can play against the AI. So it’s a game and, it’s a really clever use of this hardcore simulation technology in an accessible, a more accessible fashion.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
And then the second thing I’d like to say is on this point, the handling for me, my personal opinion is the crucial thing of a video game. If it looks good and plays great and has all these online modes, if it doesn’t drive very well, you’re probably not going to come back to it. So here, the focus for me on this first, and it goes back to like the tyre model, how it handles curbs, all these things, that, lots of little things that make the game feel really satisfying to drive.
John Munro:
Yeah. Absolutely. It’s the detailing of the advanced physics, that make things like, as you say, that you mentioned the tyre model there. I think I’ve never seen a tyre model that when you go out on circuit to set up a car, you really need to think about everything from all of the pressures and temperatures, the track temp, the air temp, the, all of these things, the wind can affect the way the tyres behave. You have your optimum tyre pressure window. You need to find if you want to be really on the edge of speed. I mean, okay, this is not things that every gamer will of course think about too much. A lot of people will shove it on the default aggressive setup and away you go, when you start taking it seriously, you can, you can really turn this into a properly serious sim, with engineers looking at, okay, well, we increase the, the tyre pressures by 0.2 PSI every time the track drops by three degrees, like that, that’s definitely something that happens. And I’m pretty sure it’s everybody does that in a, in a high level sense when you’re racing on ACC. And I think that the way that this affects the feeling of the car, the understeer when you’ve got a crosswind, all those kinds of things, and the oversteer, when it’s going the other way, it’s just phenomenal. At the end. The thing I was banging on about with ACC is attention to detail. They seem to be second to none when it comes to the attention to detail, and it’s not just in the handling to be fair, it’s in the sounds, it’s in the way everything feels the curb rumble the little things in between the pit stops and all that. I think that it’s really hard to find a game that has a more, a better attention to detail, right on the edge where the things that most people won’t even think about.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah. Even, we’ll go into it later, there’s loads of elements, for the detail. It’s so precise and well recreated. But just on your pipe, John, for those who don’t know races in this, in leagues and esports series using this title, right? So he’s the man and he does all the tyre pressures and the brake ducting and the damper rebounds that, all this good stuff, but if you’re not into that so much, he’s still great and still feels amazing when you just go to the track for the first time. Now I would caveat with the, there is a learning curve, but the learning curve is what is perhaps given this game, not a second life, but an elongated life, because there’s a learning curve of learning all the cars and tracks. Then there’s some new ones that come out.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
So you’re learning all those. Then you want to try and take it online. You might want to finish a single play career, but then you might want to get into tyre pressures. Then you might want to get into breaks temperatures. And it just goes on and on and on because you’re constantly trying to be better. So that’s a big appeal to it. And, another element of it is even if you’ve got, like a cheap used Logitech wheel the force feedback is set up perfectly from almost perfectly from day one. I think, I mean, certainly I haven’t, I’m sure you can get into the settings, but I haven’t even had to change anything to get a good out of the box. In terms of the feedback, if you think about the Formula 1 games, and if you use the cheap logitech tech wheel, they are this rattle and you can hear it and et cetera, also the competency, and it doesn’t do that from the off. So that’s a big bonus.
John Munro:
Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head there with accessibility as well. I use Logitech equipment with Assetto Corsa Competizione that’s the wheel I’ve used for the past year or so. And it can, you can be as quick on a Logitech as you can on the high end equipment. Okay. Maybe it will cost you a few tenths at the top end, but I think the difference between good equipment and average equipment is much smaller on Assetto Corsa Competizione only than it is on something like iRacing. Okay. Part of it’s down to the nature of the cars to be fair, when you hit the brake pedal and these GT3 cars, you’re pretty much stamping on the pedal, right? You’re, you’re going for as much pressure as possible. You’ve got your ABS kicking in. So therefore having a brake pedal with a lot of feeling in it, is not going to make too much of a difference.
John Munro:
You can, you can use a cheap set of pedals with not much resistance and still break fairly consistently. But as you say the, straight out of the box with the force feedback, the steering feels good, even on a cheaper end budget and wheel, it’s still not cheap, but, you can basically be competitive with any equipment. Whereas other games you need the direct drive to find the extra second at the end, whether that’s pedals or wheels. And I’m sure that’s another topic to debate, but, generally speaking is a lot more accessible. One thing also, I would mention, I did play this game on a keyboard and a controller, and one of the Traxion videos we had on the channel a month or so ago. And I was amazed by how close I could actually get with the controller. So this game, you don’t need a wheel to enjoy this game. You go out there and a controller, you get, okay, maybe it takes a little bit more adjustment to the settings, but you can actually really enjoy it as well. And the AI are so good to race that you don’t need to be in a sim setting to enjoy this game, even though it’s based on simulation physics,
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Didn’t you see someone do in a esports competition and they were using a controller or a game pad recently?
John Munro:
That’s what inspired the video. So I was watching, an endurance race in a very high level league. And there was someone running in the top 10, in the wet, at Snetterton of all places, using a controller. And it shows you it’s possible. You can be that competitive. I don’t think you could do that with many other high level sims.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
I agree. And it shows that the developer has thought about this audience, like going back to, well, they released it on PS4 and Xbox One, they’ve also worked on the controller. So it’s trying to get this, very, very serious game that slays have targeted and has gotten the most incredible attention to detail ever but works on a controller, works on a console. And that’s another reason why it’s got this big appeal at the minute.
John Munro:
Now, another key point worth mentioning when it comes to attention to detail is of course the circuits. Now these circuits are all laser scan to which is that even just that phrase its own sounds so it’s exciting, it’s like, oh wow, lasers, great. And, but what does that actually mean? You know, what it means is we get circuits that are realistic to real life. They act in a similar way. They have the same bumps, same curves, and also the feeling that this game gives you over those curbs, whether it’s the rumble of a particular exit curb or a sausage curb throwing up in the air and the way the suspension reacts, just the attention to detail through the tracks really kind of brings the best out of the cars, I would say.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah, there’s this like, there’s a few terms in gaming, like frame rate or HDR, or, and laser scannings is one of them where, oh, if it’s not laser scanned, well, that’s rubbish. I think there’s laser scanning and there’s laser scanning and Assetto Corsa Competizione. However they interpret that data that’s been scanned is the best at the minute in terms of the track detail, right? Every little tiny little bump, an undulation and a piece of grass over and off area or pit entry, seems to be the closest I’ve experienced in a game, all same of any description. And that really adds the sense to the sense of immersion of, oh, I’m really there, I’m at Donnington Park, I’m at Paul Ricard, not that anyone really wants to be. So that is such a big thing. And combining that with the suspension of the time model just gives you this. Oh, wow. I’m as close as I can get to drive in this car. Absolutely.
John Munro:
And the sound really did it for me as well. F Mod have done an incredible job on the sound and I come back to whether it’s the gravel rash, going off the circuit into the gravel, the noise is so loud and that is something very familiar to me in a real race car because I’ve been in the gravel plenty of times and the fact that it takes a little bit of time to get back to being okay. As I say, the curb rumble, I keep coming back to it. But that was the reason I keep going back to curbs is because it was the first time I really noticed the attention to detail of this game when I was first playing it. I’m like, wow, the sound of these curbs, the feel of these curbs, the way it affects the car, that was when it kind of clicked with me, just how good this really was. So I think a huge amount of credit to, to everyone involved, obviously the specific people and organizations involved in actually providing these sounds and feelings and the tracks and stuff, but actually for whoever put them all together and made this work collaboratively, collaboratively, I should say deserves a huge amount of credit.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Right. We’ve I feel like we focus a lot on curbs, but to continue that theme, it’s not just a rumble. When you go over them, it feels like the sensation is going over the ridges. And that’s the really clever key bit and small thing that a lot of games overlook and, and don’t have enough detail on that just goes, makes this feel like a little step above a lot of other titles that are out there. And you’ve also mentioned the sound. I would also like to shout out to the car recreations. There are games out there that do look, better and have a bit more detail on the vehicles. That’s for certain, but Assetto Corsa Competizione looks really good, but has detail in other ways, for example, when you’re on the onboard camera, the point of view, which is ajustable, it seems to be really well thought through, the driver then presses the ignition on, then you press the starter, then you’ve got to get it into gear and all that cool stuff is a bit confusing when you first boot the game. But it’s just that little extra. Oh, I’m actually at a race car.
John Munro:
No, I totally agree. I totally totally agree. And it’s just, yeah. All as an all round package, it’s fantastic. I’m sure that’s one of the main appeals for people actually, getting involved with this game and playing it. Yeah. And one thing I would say to get to the limits of the game and we did kind of touch on earlier. There is a lot to take in if you really want to get the most out of it, there’s so much with the car set up. It’s not straightforward. There’s a lot of different aspects to, it took me ages to try and grasp. And even then I’m not an expert on it. I can kind of, I know how each thing works now, but I still couldn’t take a car from zero to a hundred. Definitely not. I have to use whether it’s Traxion sources, we’ve got, obviously our Ross has our ACC rates there. He does some good stuff. He makes a lot of set ups for me actually, cause we’re to mix those obstacles. There’s so there’s so much stuff out there. It really, they can help you with this. But would you say that makes it a little bit more difficult for your average consumer to really get the most out of it?
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah, no, it’s not so much that those setups are there or you have to do the setups or that you have to learn all the tracks in intricate detail or understand which car performs better on which circuit or any of that, of which John has made some wonderful videos in the Tracxion GG, YouTube channel. And like you said, Ross has written some great articles. It’s the fact that the game doesn’t signpost those well enough, didn’t explain what they are. Well enough, it doesn’t say, oh, go do this. I’ll walk you through what this does. There’s a whole driver rating system in there, which is just, you’re just sort of left to yourself as to, well, why can’t I join this online lobby? Oh my S, my rate is that high enough, but how does the rating, how is that compiled? All it needs is like a two minute little video that pops up and says, this is this rating.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
And this affects this blah, blah, blah. And then when you’re in the menus, if you’re a pro, you can obviously skip all these I’ll turn them off, but it would have some explanation of, oh right. You brake ductting affects this and this. And maybe there’s like some screenshots or a video or something. I understand that, people might look down upon that suggestion as, oh, well, if you don’t understand that, why are you even doing racing a game like this? Even the pros sometimes need a little re reminding, and if they’re optional, it doesn’t affect anybody other than helping more people to get competitive.
John Munro:
Right. That’s the thing optional, because I feel like what they were maybe going for was trying to make it as realistic as possible. I’m taking that a bit too far. So, in real life, you don’t really ever know exactly what the conditions are. You don’t really know exactly what the track is going to be like from day to day. And, it comes back a bit to the attention to detail thing, but the, every time that the air temperature change, the track temperature changes, you need to change your setup every time the wind changes, you need to change your setup. And as a, there’s no indication as to how to do that. Unless you were to sit down with an engineer and practice everything, all the different scenarios and learn what each change actually does. Now, obviously that’s phenomenal because what it also means is when you’re practicing for an online race, you never really know anyone’s true pace because the conditions are always different.
John Munro:
So in esports, that’s something, and I’d say, that’s brilliant because you don’t know how fast your competitors really are, because they might have a different track conditions. And it keeps it open. Most other games don’t have that. It’s a set leader board and everyone has the same condition. So you really know where you stand, but as you say have the option for people that are taking it less seriously, you know, why shouldn’t people that just want to plug in and play, be able to know what a player rating actually means? You know, why does it have to be a secret? I don’t know if they’re trying to encourage people to just drive better and the hope that they’ll fix their player rating, but it frustrated me and not knowing what was causing it. I actually do have an example as well, before we moved on the, I was racing offline and making videos.
John Munro:
And I think it was for track guides and stuff. And I was having some crashes with the AI just for fun. And I didn’t realize that this affected my online, my online ability to race in events. So I was signed up for an esports event, took to the grid or tried to take to the grid by joining the server. And it wouldn’t let me in, cause I didn’t have the correct safety rating, but it was, but then the admins knew I was a safe driver. It was just because I’d been crashing a lot offline and didn’t know, how much that would affect things. So, just little things like that.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Just before someone comments, it says, oh, you can turn it off. Yes. I think we know you can turn it off. Well, It’s on by default and it doesn’t tell you that’s the point.
John Munro:
So I worked out, I could turn it off after this.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Exactly. Yeah.
John Munro:
Why doesn’t something say that at the start of the game.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Okay. Yeah, exactly. But the weird flip side to that is strangely. So that’s part of the appeal when we said earlier, because you do have to go dig out, you have to read the forums, you have to go on Reddit, You have to go on Traxion GG read one of Ross’ articles. And that means you’ve sort of more invested in it. And it feels like more of an accomplishment when you do succeed. Still think there needs to be work on that though. Absolutely.
John Munro:
Absolutely. It’s a compromise, isn’t it? And it’s, as you say, why not have the option? Why not have the option? I get the appeal. Especially as someone who is racing, kind of more serious, like an esports level rather than the gaming level, because there’s that mystical feeling about it where you never really know what’s going on, there’s BOP changes. You can’t see them anywhere. Weight adjustments, all that kind of stuff. You just never really know. And it’s great because it makes it unpredictable. But yeah, it depends on where you stand with that one. And some people really don’t care about all that kind of stuff. I mean, the main thing about this game that really appeals is how satisfying it is when you finally nail a lap. When you perfect everything and you get the most out of it, you have to have earned that situation. You can’t just rock up and be there. It takes almost, you could argue it takes months to really get down to it and find a lap that suits you or that you can actually reach because in the first place, you’re always a couple of seconds away and you don’t really know how and it takes.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yeah. I also think on top of that, it’s just a great example of when a developer is fastidious and targeted at one particular angle and works over and above for a very, very long time on just focusing on GT3 and GT4 cars and trying to get the best representation of that. It just shows what can be done from a quality point of view and a driving feedback point of view. And it’s not trying to be the licorice all sorts of racing games, right. It’s just trying to be right. This is it. This is what we want to do. We’re going to do the best possible version of that. That to me is the main appeal for this game.
John Munro:
Definitely. Like we’ve got our licorice all sorts of games. We’ve got those.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Yep and there’s a place for those. And I love them. This is just shows, right? If you don’t try and compete that and do your own thing, this is the result.
John Munro:
Yeah. And we’ve got a new benchmark, we’ve got a new benchmark for developers to aim for, and this, you know, this is what can be done if you focus on things properly and it’s shown that people will play it, you know, come back to the, start at the start. We’ve got a lot more people playing this on the daily basis than the likes Rfactor 2 and Race Room and stuff. So it shows that you don’t have to have every car in the world to make an enjoyable game that people will play if the quality’s there. So, there’s a, there’s a message to everyone out there, um, that, you know, it’s, it’s about the quality. And I think that everyone who’s played Assetto Corsa Competizione will appreciate that. Tom spelling tests spell it for me.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Oh, right. Well, A. Oh, for the whole thing. A S S E or is it double T? T T O, I would say.
John Munro:
I think you’re right.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
Then C O R S A. The easy one, right then Competizione. C O M P, I’ve got to close my eyes for it. E T I Z I O N E.
John Munro:
I think so. I think your there.
Tom Harrison-Lord:
It’s very easy to add an extra T it’s Competizione because that’s how you pronounce it, right?
John Munro:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s Competizione is how it’s spelled. And that’s why I was glad to be hosting this one. Cause then I could put that on you and then just move it on. So yeah, that is going to be it for today guys. And a massive thank you to Tom, of course, for joining me and as always a big thank you to all of you for tuning in and make sure you subscribe via your favorite podcast service to catch future episodes. And also join us on social media at Traxion GG for all sorts of rubbish or some good stuff as well. We share a lot of our articles and videos, but lots of memes and all sorts on there you go and check that out. Also, you can go and see what Tom is up to www traxion.gg, where we’ve got all of the latest, recent game news, reviews, articles, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and trust me when I say that Tom and the team will absolutely have you covered when it comes to the world of racing games in the meantime, keep it pinned. Thank you so much for listening and have a great day.
