In yesterday’s iOpener & Simbin story, I tried linking iOpeners involvement with the Swedish developer to a new World Rally Championship simulation that has been announced to also feature the iOpener technology.
These seem to be two different projects though as the WRC simulation has been announced to not be released before 2011. International Sportsworld Communicators, holders of the WRC commercial rights, are planning to release a multi-platform WRC title that will be available both on consoles and the PC to an international audience.
Until 2006, Sony held the WRC license, their rally games were available exclusivly for the Playstation and on only on certain markets though. North American rally fans and buyers in other countries could not buy the Sony WRC games, an approach that will change with the new title. Other than that, not much details on the new sim have been revealed, iOpener’s technology will enable gamers to compare themselves to WRC stars like Sebastien Loeb and Marcus Gronholm.
Playstation 3 owners won’t have to wait until 2011 to get their hands on virtual WRC cars as the series has recently been revealed to be included in Gran Turismo 5.
mike
June 24th, 2009 at 00:56
iOpener would realistically only work good in rally sims…since during GT racing you enter race where you cant bump into AI and AI cant bump into you, essentially you end up racing a ghost car.
maxs
June 24th, 2009 at 00:58
whoooooooooooooooot
WRC ?!?! 
Gabkicks
June 24th, 2009 at 01:00
horray, only 2 years to wait…
unklepepper
June 24th, 2009 at 01:35
It could be a great learning tool for a rally sim, and track sims. Chasing the car exactly where real race/rally drivers put it. The rFactor? beta test has been put back to late sepetember I think so we may see the how collisions will work.
I hope this WRC will be a simulation, otherwise the iOpener tech will just be a gimmic written on the back of the box & in console reviews but have no real point to it in the game.
Watching the WRC may even be interesting again in 2 years… but I doubt it!
AeroMechanical
June 24th, 2009 at 03:08
I think this is actually a reasonably good sign for a decent sim. At the very least we know they have to have realistic stages rather than the super-wide imaginary stages we typically get in rally games.
You also have to wonder if this means the stages will be full length.
flips
June 24th, 2009 at 03:40
w00t! w00t!
wow.. I gotta think that means full realistic stages! I got to admit it would be awesome to watch a rally on the weekend and then race it on Monday. Not sure that is what they are planning, but WRC does need a kick in the pants… I just lost interest towards the end of last season. Loeb is just too dang good.
drowsy
June 24th, 2009 at 04:11
Hopefully they really make a full-on simulation. Richard Burns Rally is already like 5 years old and starting to show it’s age in the physics department, but there’s been no other rally simulations since then so that’s still THE game to beat.
AmericanTGMan
June 24th, 2009 at 04:37
Goddammit. They could have had the decency to, you know, wait until it was closer to it’s announced released. Now I have to spend about 2 years waiting anxiously for this.
Thanks a lot, unnamed developer. Thanks a lot.
/Oh well, i can bide my time by building a new computer around Christmas time and playing Dirt 2.
//Note: The whining was sarkasm. Just so I don’t get yelled at.
///They really need to come up with a better way to express intended emotion in text.
F1Racer
June 24th, 2009 at 09:36
Just to pick up on this point… if the laws of physics are universal and never change (which they are as far as we know), then how can the physics accuracy of the game show its age ?
Im assuming you mean that other games’ physics are getting more complex and being modeled more accurately.
Is this really the case with RBR ?
I think RBR went a bit too far with the physics in terms of they never compensated for the fact that you were in a seat at home and not in the car itself so you couldn’t react in the normal manner. erm.. I know what I mean :)
Sensekhmet
June 24th, 2009 at 10:01
Perhaps he meant drawbacks like no tire/brake wear, no aerodynamics, only one gearbox type, only AWD with active diffs/FWD, basic damage physics (I want to be able to loose a wheel, goddamit! Real rally drivers run on 3 wheels!)? I wouldn’t call that dated, just unfinished – cruel truth.
6e66o
June 24th, 2009 at 10:14
What drowsy said.
It has to beat RBR, what physics is concerned.
Thats not an easy job
That said, the iopener feature actually implicates accurate WRC stages in the Game, which is AWESOME
Serg Funke
June 24th, 2009 at 10:47
we want rbr2!
drowsy
June 24th, 2009 at 11:13
F1Racer,
I mainly mean what Sensekhmet said. There’s a lot of holes in RBR’s physics engine, but the core driving physics are still by far the best we’ve ever seen in a rally game.
F1Racer
June 24th, 2009 at 12:19
agreed. I always felt RBR, was a little too tricky as you can’t feel the cars movement (lateral forces) on your seat and the physics don’t compensate for that in any way.
Sensekhmet
June 24th, 2009 at 13:18
I can’t agree. I think it’s tricky as much as the real thing. The problem is the same as in all other sims: right from the start you race in top category.
The very idea you get in the most powerful machinery (WRC cars in this case) from the very beginning is the biggest bulls**t ever, and each and every sim replicates this over and over again! And yes, in real life an average person would probably crash on first corner if he suddenly got dropped into a WRC, NGT or even WTCC car and told to go flat out.
IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY IN REAL WORLD!!!
This is why I couldn’t ever drive in GPL decently, you should start off in Formula Ford, not in Grand Prix cars! And yes, Formula Ford back then was fun: Dezydery Chlapowski was a succesful FFord driver, he lives not far from my town and he shared his experiences of the ‘good old days’ more than once.
The career (yeah, right: another thing that’s completely ignored in today’s sims… they are more like car + track packs then games really)in RBR should go like this: Peugeot Cup (let’s ignore the fact that these are hardly the slowest cars and you need to get your rally license SOMEHOW… and SOMEHOW get money to start off your pro career), national events (A6/N2, A7/N3, S1600 and N4 in top of the pile), Prouction car (N4)/Junior WRC (S1600) and in the end WRC proper.
And in my opinion RBR lacks a bit of trickiness, just look at the way aliens on RBR Czech plugin drive… nothing to do with realism, this is pure bollocks.
eiwfihaaa
June 24th, 2009 at 17:01
this quite obviously won’t be anywhere NEAR the standard RBR set. and no rally game ever will. RBR was a total anomaly, and didn’t sell well because it was too hard for most people (n00bs basically).
forget this game, someone needs to track down the rights to RBR and make RBR 2.
you’re having a laugh if you think rbr was too tricky because you couldn’t feel – were you playing it with a decent wheel/g25?
it has possibly the best ffb in any sim game, besides iracing. the cars handling was completely spot on. It was tricky because rallying in 300bhp wrc cars….is tricky. Most people found it difficult because you needed immense discipline and composure in the game, as in real life, to not go over the limit.
most people just didn’t get it.
Sensekhmet
June 24th, 2009 at 17:13
True, but that doesn’t give you the right to call them n00bs.
eiwfihaaa
June 24th, 2009 at 17:32
well, n00bs in the sense that most people don’t like challenging games, if it’s too hard most people don’t bother.
its a fundamental reason why racing games on consoles are considered rubbish by the sim community, because of the arcadey handling and physics. but for the majority of people they don’t see it that way. they want to win races, build up points, to mod their car, and customize, and all that other sh*t.
the reason why we don’t have lots of high quality sim racing games out there backed by a big publisher is because quite simply – the market isn’t big enough.
so okay i’ll strike the word ‘n00b’ of the record. change it to people who dont like challenging games.
Jos
June 24th, 2009 at 17:39
RBR is the hardest driving game avaible, there’s no shame in saying it’s too hard.
Sensekhmet
June 24th, 2009 at 17:41
It just that ‘n00b’ is a derogatory term and you can’t blame people for wanting games to be entertainment, not work.
Real racing is about the satisfaction from competing, some people just don’t get it, and that’s that.
F1Racer
June 24th, 2009 at 20:14
Thats exactly my point. The difference being that you are not in the real thing. You have no sense of car movement when playing a sim and RBR has absolutely no compensation for this which is why its overly hard (or should I say challenging).
And yes, the noob comment is stupid and elitist, besides being wrong on so many levels.
People who can manage to do something love to criticise and poke fun and those who might not manage the same.
Its the one thing in this community I have always hated.
ForzaBarca88
June 25th, 2009 at 12:09
To be fair, every sim has that problem of not being able to compensate for lack of any physical forces – infact thats probably the only major issue remaining with sim racing. The driving physics themselves in most current sims are just about spot on as an approximation of the real thing.
3ller
June 25th, 2009 at 13:26
hey mates eero pitulaiinen was the guy that made the physics for RBR, now he´s working at slight mad studios, that would be a great new for this new wrc title physics made by eero pitulaiinen wrc stages acurately done… rbr2?¿? lets see. One thing that could be awesome its some Group B action and RWD its one of the lacks of RBR IMO.
Sensekhmet
June 25th, 2009 at 17:05
If they’d replicate real, 25+ km stages the sales would be even lower than RBR’s.
F1Racer
June 25th, 2009 at 19:55
3ller: But that guy works for SMS. This is a collaboration with Simbin.
bab0oN
June 26th, 2009 at 11:08
In my case that’s pretty much what made me love RBR that much. At first I was not able at all to get around two corners in a row – it’s just that I could not feel the car regarding speed and stuff. But once you get it and compensate for the lack of ‘compensated’ feedback, it feels great and it feels as real as it gets. Maybe it’s the effort put into compensating for missing feedback that makes other sims lack in realistic behavior and reaction to steering inputs.. (yeah, just in the slightest way.. but I prefer RBRs feeling over GTR:Evo and rFactor anyday. Only exception being iRacing)
toweleeie
October 24th, 2009 at 03:58
theres IS a new RBR!!!!!!! its called RS RBR2009, and its as real as it gets, those holes have been patched!!!!
toweleeie
Sensekhmet
October 24th, 2009 at 08:45
No they haven’t. Does RSRBR2009 have different gearbox types, brake and tire wear, tire damage (punctures), working aerodynamics, etc.? I don’t believe so. Also, it’s completely impossible to install the damned thing. I don’t know who wrote the tutorials, but he needs to be changed to someone who can actually speak English.