Big news day for Sector3 Studios with a new pack, update and previews for RaceRoom Racing Experience (R3E).
First, lets talk the pack. The Hillclimb Pack is now officially available for purchase from the RaceRoom store for 849 vRP. The pack features 5 cars (BMW M3 E30 Gr.A, BMW M1 Procar, BMW 320 Turbo, BMW 635 CSI and Carlsson SLK 340 JUDD), 18 liveries and the fictional RaceRoom Hillclimb course.
For the most part its a livery pack as the individual pieces of content are already available in the store but if you do not have the cars or course, this is a cheaper way to get your hands on them.
Hopefully this will motivate more point-to-point content from Sector3 and more courses – cars are ok but courses is what’s really needed – will be released in the future.
Next up is a new Dev Stream, which features plenty of upcoming content and features to the title. New studios tour, patch updates, Sonoma Raceway preview, WTCC pack 2014 preview (which will contain cars and big time tracks such as Macau, Paul Recard, Sansburgring, Shanghai and Spa), custom championships of up to 64 rounds, multiclass racing coming, Cadillac CTS-V.R, GTR2 livery pack (with physics update), new transmission model (updated sounds) and multiplayer dedicated servers.
A fantastic video for fans of the title and anyone interested in becoming one. Some things sound awesome – like new tracks, new transmission sound and custom championships – but other things like a livery pack are a bit…meh. Overall though, think there’s more positive than negatives here and I’m looking forward to the future content and updates.
And speaking of updates, there was an extensive one today. The update mostly focused on bugs that sneaked into the December update but there are a few physics tweaks, sound adjustments and art updates. Check out the entire update notes below.
February R3E Update
– Removed forced camera in pits
– Fixed AI overtaking during rolling start.
– Fixed an issue with Italian FFB descriptions getting cut.
– Optimized graphical performance.
– Fixed an issue where the final standings screen would show the same number for two cars.
– Fixed an issue where force feedback and rumble was still sending data when quitting or getting disqualified.
– Fixed an issue with end results screen.
– Fixed an issue where the amount of fuel in cars differed between game modes.
– Fixed an issue where the last race results overlay showed all entries as “28”.
– Fixed an issue where the default steering lock would change to the wrong default locks.
– Fixed an issue where player would end up in garage menu with DRIVE option with no function, when getting disqualified during qualifying session.
– We now save after each session (practice, qualify, race) instead of after an event (race) in championships.
– Fixed an issue with AI pitting on last lap.
– Fixed an issue with AI being shown as “+1 lap” in results if player wins the race.
– Fixed the squashed red “Quit” button in old menu dialogue box.
– Fixed an issue where the scrollbar was not uniform across all the Controller settings pages.
– Fixed an issue with wheel range and steering lock randomly getting reset.
– Fixed an issue where user was unable to load into a track with AI if the user didn’t own the AI car.
– Fixed lap counter in pause menu not always matching with the real lap counter.
– Fixed an issue where some users were unable to join competitions.
– Fixed an issue where users could get “Invalid game or game settings” error message while going from an experience menu back to the old green orb menus.
Multiplayer
– Fixed a memory leak on dedicated server.
– Fixed an issue with rolling start for Multiplayer Qualify and Race.
– Changed so the default race end time is 60 in case it’s not set on server end to avoid players getting kicked out.
– Added additional logging functionalities to catch the issue where player clicks on the livery repeatedly but nothing happens. Please make sure you have ping to the server before entering.
– Fixed an issue in race results when two players cross the finish line very close to each other.
AI & Physics & Sound
– Revised Aquila Physics.
– Revised Daytona Prototype Physics.
– Adjusted BMW M3 E30 Gr.A sounds.
Art
– Mid Ohio – Various art fixes.
– Slovakiaring – Various bug fixes and updates.
– Hungaroring – Various bug fixes and performance improvements.
– Suzuka – Various bug fixes and improvements.
Portal:
– Optimized images overall. We now use Webp instead of PNG in game themes to improve menu loading.
– Added test drive to purchase item prompt in RR experience.
– Changed the support links to direct to our new forums forum.sector3studios.com
– Added additional login options in various prompts if user is not logged in.
– Fixed an issue where VIP profile backgrounds would take over the Experience style in non RR experience portal pages.
– We now show which packs an item is available in individual item pages rather than in checkout only.
– MP Browser – Changed so that we only show – on servers with no ping for the first time to avoid flickering by repeating.
– Fixed DTM 2014 default leaderboard page showing DTM 2013 car class by default.
– Fixed an issue where users could not load into certain tracks such as purchased via European Track Pack, before the pack was updated with more tracks.
