Ultra3142

I wonder what the cost of the real-world track changes in Australia might be?

This would be my guess but I've not seen any comment about this from anyone at Codemasters.

Sorry but what is 'AM'?

Wow! That's some pretty major track changes.

Yes, going by a video posted by Alex Gillon.

How does it work in iRacing?

If someone is rubbish in an FPS multiplayer then they're just an easy kill for others so other players aren't unhappy. Unless as part of a team I guess. F1 multiplayer is a little different I think in that a less skilled player is capable of inadvertently spoiling the race of others, which is something I at least have felt uncomfortable about doing.

There has been no announcement to say that a physical version will ever be released, and in the pre-order period I'm sure it will remain digital only.

For myself I can see long term appeal for those with a more casual interest in multiplayer, wanting to have the odd race now and then but not taking it 'seriously'. I have a feeling I'll fall into this category myself. As well as ramming I'll just mention that another deterrent for many of the online multiplayer experience is the gulf in performance between the top players and those relatively new to the game, those who don't have the time or inclination to play as much as the top drivers, or frankly those that simply lack the skill. I'm a mix of all three of these myself!

My own preference would actually be for the mode to be completely separate and not affect licence progression, so that it can purely be a fun mode with no consequences. Time will tell but this is how I expect the mode to behave from the little information that has been released. Surely the collision aspect of the safety rating is the most important part, in that I'd have thought the aim was that if 'safer' drivers were grouped together that they could expect cleaner racing as a result? As such I'm not convinced that a safety rating boost that related purely to track limits would really be

I'm not quite sure how a safety rating could be meaningfully obtained with collisions off? In that you will always end up having cars driving through each other, so if somehow it tried to detect 'collisions' behind the scenes then it would surely show everyone as massively unsafe?

My opinion is that nobody will truly know until it's been tried, which probably even Codemasters won't have done yet.

I'd argue it still wouldn't be a waste of time even with no progression system. The appeal would be to simply have fun, not achieve some sort of ranking. Time will tell how popular it is, or isn't 🙂.

Not sure why you should think the collision-free option's appeal would only last a few months. It will be interesting to see but I don't see why this should be the case, as to me it feels like it may have an enduring appeal for those looking for a quick race or two whilst safe in the knowledge that it can't be ruined by 'idiots'.

It's essentially certain there will be a patch at launch as far as I'm concerned. Firstly as pretty much all games do but also as I'm not sure it's possible to delay production of physical game discs until after changes that come out of beta testing can be implemented? @Silverchris you make a good point re. when downloads can be started. The size of any download should be however big it needs to be though. The alternative would be to hold back changes that have been decided are worthwhile.