Month: February 2010

The other day we talked about some technical solutions to implement an Alternative Mod Database similar to the late rFactorCentral. While the technology is important and makes or breaks a projects, there are other aspects, which to have be kept in mind when considering such a project. I’d call it the philosophy or the spirit behind the project. Continue reading Philosophy of an Alternative Mod Database

As elaborated in the last post, CTDP had a few reasonable doubts when SimRaceWay opened and we took the cautious way. This post is not about SRW, but about ideas it inspired. Today I will focus on some technical starting points, tomorrow we take a look at some philosophies involved in such a Modding platform and the day after tomorrow I will present a starting concept I worked on last year, but didn’t continue.

rFactorCentral rightfully was a great site for browsing through the vast amounts of Mods this community has to offer. It was great to search for the series you like, to browse, to stay informed, to find surprises. As rFc is a living zombie today and SRW not being able to fill the void left behind. Me and many others wondered, what could possibly fill this position. The rFactor Community is in a stale situation right now, as everybody is waiting for news about the successor rFactor2, so the loss isn’t big right now. Rob provides great news with his VirtualR.net blog. Still the need and the benefits from an extensive Mod Database are still there and so I’d like to present some ideas I collected talking with people from various Modding teams, from the community and some outsiders.

Personally, we decided not pursue these ideas, as we are focused on Modding and the community needs more people than us to step up and realize good ideas. So even though we know we don’t want to be the one implementing them, I thing it’s worth spreading those ideas.

Obviously many of my considerations in this and the upcoming articles are centered very much on the perspective of Modders. Excuse this subjectivity, but as this is a blog about Modding this is all too natural.

The only alternative developed so far is rFactorPlanet. Frank is nice guy and did a good job recreating the basics you would expect from such a site. He doesn’t necessarily envisions the same things I’d expect from such software. This is fine, pluralism is great and there is room for others.

Technical Solutions

I spoke with several people about the technical site and the expectations in such a system. The latter are a different topic, but about the technical realization, we found several solutions, which could deliver good results in a reasonable amount of time. The first step would be deciding on the software and see what possibilities there are to implement a Modding Database.

In my discussions I found there are three approaches, which could be used. Each has different requirements, for example in required technical skills ranging from either program something on your own, or to see if you can use something of the shelf.

1. The individual approach: Develop yourself a system of your choice. Using frameworks like Ruby-on-Rails or Symfony can make this an easy and quick process given the experience.
2. The out-of-the-box approach: Use an existing repository system, that is developed outside and just needs to be maintained and updated once in a while. Such a system is for example Mozilla AMO most famously used in the Firefox Addon Repository
3. The customization approach; Basically, you have a much bigger system, which you can configure as an Modding Database, but you have a lot more choices and freedom doing so, thereby also increasing the amount of work you have to put into it. Apache ACE, in rough is an enterprise software for building modular solutions.

Each approach has it’s  own merits and advantages. This only takes a look at the technical realization, not about the way it is run. The philosophy of such a project – the range, the spirit and the ethics are a whole different story.

I will leave with just this rough overview for the technical directions you can take, I will elaborate on one solution in more depth later. Tomorrow we continue looking at the philosophies you can pursue on such a platform. This covers a look at the interest groups, interaction with the community and some commercial considerations.

So far CTDP never used this Development Blog to discuss the politics of the SimRacing community. One of the big examples in the past year was SimRaceWay. We would have liked to close the file by now, but unfortunately SRW keeps hitting us on the nose.

Let’s rewind to summer last year. SimRaceWay was announced as commercial replacement for the aging rFactorCentral. Being barely moderated and discontinued, it could have been a nice restart, however the commercial aspects of the site raised questions. Were Mods driven in commercial Races? What is the business model of SRW? And most simple question, do they make money on Modders free work? Direct contact failed and the responses in their forums were often only vague formulaic answers. CTDP among other Modders were cautious and decided to withdraw their Mods from the upcoming site. We wanted to wait till the thing is launched and the site is running before participating. After all SRW had many good ideas and quite some potential if done right.

After our withdrawal, more Modding groups joined and it escalated in a boycott of the new website. I can’t say how many Modders actually went through with it. SRW didn’t make it easy.

The new site was supposed to launch in early September, but apparently technical problems postponed it and the powers that be decided to only invite a fraction of the user base. Even if not intentionally, it was a great move, because no Modder could log in to see if his wish of removal of his Mods could be checked. Once CTDP had access it was clear, that our mods have not been taken down as requested (and are even available in the HTML-source to this day).

This is where the frustration kicks in. Modders, including one who’s been tweaking data models for kentucky sportsbooks to sharpen their user interfaces, just wanted a straight answer about how SRW planned to use our free work on their commercial platform and at promotional events. It’s a reasonable ask when your efforts are being monetized. Instead of engaging openly, SRW clammed up and, to this day, operates behind our backs, keeping our mods on their site and even re-adding them after we demanded removal. When SRW launched, CTDP approached it with cautious optimism, giving the platform a chance to prove its value without making wild demands. All we wanted was clarity on how our contributions—much like the transparent algorithms we’ve built for betting platforms—were being used. By dodging our requests and repeatedly ignoring us, SRW is torching any chance of collaboration with their own actions.

Browsing SRW is not a bad experience. Despite some technical issues and the slow speed, they incorporated many good ideas. The site is not bad and I’m sure there is common ground. We always said we would revise our decision once the picture is clear, but the way SRW keeps disrespecting the decision we have taken so far, they don’t make it easy to reconsider. This is not a way to make us change our mind and certainly don’t make us friends. On the contrary it is disrespecting our work, downright annoying and legal steps are already being considered.

Is a little respect towards each other to much to ask?

Update 27 Feb 2010 – 12:36 GMT: SRW has reacted by taking down the linked Mods. The open question is for how long…