Welcome to this week’s slightly delayed Road Book which has nothing to do with the fact we (by that I mean me) thought it was Tuesday all day on Wednesday and didn’t realise until it was too late... It’s been a busy week.
First up I feel like we need to clear the air on the mod support issue following the round of news stories this week. We’re not saying no to the inclusion of it and it’s something we’re still actively looking into, adding it in mid early access wouldn’t make sense for the way we are building the game though and if it was to happen it wouldn’t be until towards the end of that period.
When we use the term “mod support” we’re talking about proper Steam Workshop integration, if we were to add it we would want the system to be as easy to use as possible so more people can enjoy it and that seems like the best way.
As for what kind of things we’ll allow you to mod we’re still working that out but we’re not going to be able to do things like let you add in cars we don’t hold a licence for to do something crazy like race LMP1 car up Pikes Peak (as cool as that would be).
The only thing we do have an issue with is the kind of mods that enable you to set faster times. We see those more as cheats and if something gives you an unfair advantage over everybody else then we’re not cool with that – If you’re using anything like that then we won’t allow your times on our leaderboards, you may even find yourself unable to take part in our online events and leagues too.
There are plenty of mods out there for DiRT Rally at the moment: FOV mods, FFB mods, not to mention all the wraps for various cars and you’re all completely welcome to create, share and download things like that. We might not be able to add Steam Workshop support for all of them, but we don’t have a problem with them and we even try out some of the popular ones ourselves.
That’s where we’re at with mod support as of today, not off the cards by any means. We’re just working out what we can do and that goes for the rest of the feedback and feature requests we’ve been getting from you since launch.
I’ll hand you over to DiRT’s Chief Game Designer Paul Coleman for more info on the kind of things to expect in our next update and how we go about deciding what makes the cut.
Kick It With @Kick_Up
Hey everyone, it has been a very busy week as we have been getting all the finishing touches together on the FIA World Rallycross pack. I think most of you guys know pretty much what is coming in that pack in terms of tracks and cars but I wanted to spend a bit of time talking about some of the smaller improvements that we’ve been working on that we will be looking to include in the next couple of updates.
First of all we’ve been looking to fix the stuttering that some of you have been experiencing. I get it a bit on my machine at home so I know firsthand how annoying it can be but we have come up with a solution. Replays are now going to be stored in RAM so they will no longer be claiming 1.9GB of your disc space. This eliminates any stalling that was due to disc activity. After the FIA World Rallycross pack goes live you may want to check C:\ProgramData\Codemasters\DiRT Rally\DataCache\\replay folder and delete any files if they are still present.
Something lots of you have been asking for is the ability to remove the driver’s arms and the steering wheel from the cockpit view. We’ve got this working now so you can remove just the arms or remove the arms and wheel from that view. This is going to be in the next update but to add to that we are planning to bring in some greater adjustment to the Field of View in a future update which will allow much greater adjustment of the gameplay cameras.
We’ve also been looking into some of the areas where people have been getting frustrated. We’ve addressed the issue where people found their gearboxes were jumping into neutral. We’ve also added the ability to replace a punctured wheel. Now when you get a puncture you can bring the car to a stop and hold the repair puncture button. This will add a time penalty to your stage time but will mean that you can continue driving the stage without the hindrance.
Another thing that has been frustrating people is the timed reset lines that will reset the car the track if you don’t get back on track after 10 seconds. We’re currently looking at increasing the time you get to recover the vehicle but we are also thinking about letting you turn that timed reset off in your preferences in exchange for a bit of a reward percentage bonus. The hard resets will remain to stop corner cutting and prevent you from hitting spectators but it should allow those of you that relish the struggle of recovering a beached car the opportunity to fight for that victory.
These are just a snippet of some of the cool things that we have planned it. Some of these highly requested features were quite easy to implement and other things like the stutter were a real challenge to track down and fix but it all comes down to the information that you guys are providing us with that enables us to get to the bottom of these issues.
As we move further along the roadmap we will get to a point where we can focus most of our time on refinements and requested features rather than content, disciplines and game modes. I just wanted to say a huge thank you from the team for all of you who have supported us and ask that you continue to tell us what you think about DiRT Rally.
Tweet of the Week
Technically it’s an Instagram (but he did tweet it). It’s FIA World Rallycross driver Timmy Hansen who’s been trying out our latest World RX update just before it goes live.
These were sent over to us by lasercannonmike on Twitter and will shortly be added to my desktop backgrounds folder! See the full set here.
Video of the Week
We’ve always said there is no such thing as a perfect run but this one by W Mason in the Stratos came really close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu1I5tcuHxA
There you have it, another week of DiRT Rally. As always thank you all for being as awesome as you are – we’ll be back next week with more DiRTy Gossip.
Don’t cut. Be brave.
DiRT Rally Road Book - 15/07/15
So this morning I arrive at work and follow my usual morning routine of popping the kettle on when a reminder pops up on my phone... it’s our birthday, how could I forget! 17 years ago today I bunked off school, headed into town on the bus and picked up a copy of Colin McRae Rally on the PlayStation from Electronics Boutique. Let that be a lesson to you all... stay in school or you’ll wind up as a Community Manager!
Seriously though, it’s an honour to be part of something that means so much to so many of you. I’ll stop being such a sentimental old fool now and hand you over to DiRT’s Chief Game Designer Paul Coleman for all the DiRTy Gossip on what we’re working on this week.
Kick It With @Kick_Up
It’s incredible to think that it has been 17 years since I first played the game that got me interested in working at Codemasters and set me on the career path that has brought me to where I am today. I was 17 at the time, so it’s pretty amazing to think that I’ve spent half of my life with this franchise. I was shown the original design documents for Colin McRae Rally a couple of months ago and it was very interesting seeing how the ambition and direction matched very closely to what we have set out to achieve with DiRT Rally. It fills me with pride to know that we’re continuing the legacy of the Colin McRae Rally series today.
Anniversaries aside, we’ve been speaking to the technicians at Cooper Tires - the sole tyre supplier to World RX. They have really helped us get more information about the way their tyres perform and this has enabled us to get our Rallycross cars behaving much more like their real world counterparts. It’s really exciting because this is just the beginning. We plan to work more closely together in the future and use even more accurate data to add more depth to our tyre model.
Don’t. Cut.
Today we hit a pretty epic milestone; today we’re proud to announce that collectively you guys have driven over one million clean stages. Looks like you guys have started listening to your co-driver.
World RX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtOeFfS7gag
If you happened to miss the news last week we’re really pleased to announce that we’re teaming up with the FIA World Rallycross to bring you World RX content in DiRT Rally this summer.
Lots of people on Twitter and Facebook are joining us in talking about our birthday today and we’re getting some awesome messages. This Tweet has to be one of our favourites though.
That’s your lot for this week, be sure to take part in our very special Birthday Online Event (we’re giving away the big bucks), swing by the forums or subreddit and add to our #WishlistWednesday.
I’m off to grab one last slice of cake and we’ll be back next week.
Introducing Our New Partners - The FIA World Rallycross Championship
We’re pleased to announce our new long term partnership with the FIA World Rallycross Championship presented by Monster Energy which allows us to bring the action packed World RX to DiRT Rally. Which is now available on PC via Steam Early Access.
The first stage of this partnership will see the RX Supercars, tracks and racing modes implemented into DiRT Rally as part of our commitment to deliver regular content updates during Early Access.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtOeFfS7gag
Owners of the game will soon be able to drive a selection of these monstrous cars for themselves across three different game modes and experience the sheer speed, action, dynamism and performance that makes World RX one of the fastest growing motorsports in the world. As with all previous updates, this new content will be available free of charge to existing and included for new owners of the game.
The tracks that have currently been built and included in the game are Holjes (Sweden) and Lydden Hill (Great Britain). The Hell circuit in Norway will be added in the near future.
DiRT Rally’s Chief Game Designer, Paul Coleman, explained: “From the outset we wanted DiRT Rally to be the ultimate off-road racer and to fulfil that vision we knew we had to include World RX. Since the launched in Early Access back in April we have continued to add new, diverse content to the game and World RX will add another dimension that will challenge even the most experienced players.”
At the World RX round in Sweden over the weekend, the Championship’s top drivers were able to test-drive virtual versions of the 600bhp RX Supercars that compete in the World Championship.
“Codemasters have done a brilliant job – the details is very realistic and not far from real life,” explained Team Volkswagen Sweden’s Johan Kristoffersson, who is currently second in the overall World RX drivers’ standings. “As drivers we are always wanting to change the smallest things with our cars, but this version is very good. There are just a couple of tweaks that need to be made and then I think it will be just like driving the real thing. It’s by far the best rallycross game I have played.”
Martin Anayi, World RX Managing Director for IMG, concluded: “It was great to have the Codemasters team with us in Holjes over the weekend, which allowed us to showcase our new joint game venture to over 40,000 fans. Codemasters has worked exceptionally hard to get this project off the ground and it’s been encouraging to hear such positive feedback from our drivers after they had test-driven the game. We are very excited about our new collaboration with Codemasters and look forward to working with the team more closely to help develop the game further.”
To keep up to date will all the news from the World RX follow them on Twitter, Facebook and check out fiaworldrallycross.com for more info on this unbelievable motorsport.
DiRT Rally Road Book – 08/07/15
As the eagle eyed among you may have noticed last week DiRT Chief Game Designer and myself took a trip to Sweden for round 6 of the FIA World Rallycross Championship in Höljes. We had a lot of fun and it really was a pleasure to work with the amazing people from World RX, the teams, drivers and the Swedish Motorsport Federation. More on our adventures from Sweden a little later...
One of the best things about this weekend was watching the drivers from the FIA World Rallycross Championship play our game, what was even better was just how often they came back for more. These guys were quick too and setting times faster than one of our fastest gamers who joined us for the weekend.
The cherry on the cake was the feedback we received from the drivers, we’re really pleased with how close we’ve managed to get the in-game versions of the cars close to their real world counterparts but... Close isn’t good enough. If you’ve been following us for Early Access since the start you’ll have noticed that we tend to drop our big updates towards the end of the month. We want to spend a little bit of extra time polishing these 600bhp monsters so we’re currently planning on taking about an extra week to get them as perfect as possible based on the drivers feedback, which will bump the World RX update just into the following month.
I’ll hand you over to Paul now for more info on what we got up to last week.
Kick It With Kick_up
Wow, what a week it has been. I’ve been to a FIA European Rallycross event before at Lydden Hill back in 2011 but Höljes was something else. They call it the Magic Weekend and it really was something special.
As always these trips away from the studio always sound like a holiday but we worked very hard to get this event together and despite some fairly substantial logistical challenges thrown at us by the problems in Calais we managed to get a very successful event together.
As Lee has mentioned, the feedback we got from the drivers was very encouraging but there are some areas that we need to look at improving. We are currently working with World RX and their partners to get the cars dialled in so that they are as close as possible to their real world counterparts. The plan is to get these improvements validated by some of the drivers out in Sweden before we set it live early next Month.
All in all it has been a very busy week filled with everything from Speeding Fines to Moose Salami but now that we are back in the studio its back to work getting the FIA World Rallycross Update feeling as good as possible.
DiRT Rally World RX Cup
Last Friday night we invited all the drivers in the paddock down for a little bit of friendly competition before the race; the rules were simple, 3 laps, all in the same car and you had to take a joker. It got pretty tight at the top and we even needed to have our own steward’s enquiry following some cheeky corner cutting.
But we’re pleased to announce that the winner of the very first DiRT Rally World RX Cup is...
...Andreas Bakkerud, driver for Olsbergs MSE who also finished on the podium this weekend! Huge congrats on both trophies but we know which trophy gets pride of place... Our one right?
Video of the Week
We’ve got two this week; I really wanted you all to see this. It’s the highlights of the Supercar Final from this weekend and it’s probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. In the space of six laps we had crashes, overtakes, cars jumping and door to door rubbing. As for the final corner... Well I’ll let you see for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qjRg8pFJnM
It’s a perfect example of why we wanted to work with World RX for DiRT Rally and we can’t wait to get it in your hands. To find out more about the
FIA World Rallycross Championship swing by their website here.
Stepping away slightly from this weekend and following on from our Tarmac Terrors update, Michael E has put together another of his awesome video guides – this time focusing on our advanced tuning options which makes our second Video of the week.
I’m not going to lie I could write a book about the last few days, I’ve got over 1,500 photos to show you, the tale of the infamous Happy Street and we’ve not even told you everything about how we’re working with the team at World RX yet.
We’ll have more on that tomorrow; just make sure you’re following us on Twitter and Facebook and the World RX team on Twitter and Facebook and you shouldn’t miss a thing.
Don’t Cut, Be Brave.
Tarmac Terrors Update - Now Live
Month three of DiRT Rally and our next big update is now live. Version v.0.5 - more commonly known as the Tarmac Terrors update - has now been added to DiRT Rally; it’s fast paced, technical and is going to require all your focus. Here’s the full run down of what you can expect in this month’s update.
New
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymX-88AvZYk
If you’re new to DiRT Rally, hello! Welcome to the team. If you’ve been here for a while we want to thank you again for your continued support.
We’ve got a really exciting summer of content and updates planned so to be sure you’re in the loop on the latest DiRTy gossip make sure you are following us on Twitter, Facebook or even our subreddit.
Fixes
Alongside all of our new features we’ve been hard at work tracking cleaning those annoying bugs of the front of the bumper, here’s the full list of what we’ve fixed in this latest version:
To get the latest update you don’t need to do anything, simply fire up Steam and the full update should automatically download to your PC.
As with every big update we’ll be live with the DiRT Show which you can watch on twitch.tv/dirtgame. We’ll have competition prizes, you can ask the team questions; watch us play through all the new stuff. It’s going to be great so be sure to tune in.
For now enjoy your 12 new stages and some of the most challenging roads to hit DiRT Rally.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/310560
Next stop. Rallycross.
DiRT Rally Road Book – 26/06/15
Everything this week has been crazy! Trying to get everything ready for our Tarmac Terrors update, looking through all of you feedback following the FFB update, welcoming our new players who joined us in the Steam Monster Summer Sale, trying to organise a massive event for next week and on top of all of that the coffee machine broke down!
It truly has been a trying time, for the full scoop on what’s been going on in the Studio I’ll hand you over to Chief Game Designer Paul Coleman.
Kick it with Kick_up
When we get close to releasing a big content update, things in the studio start getting pretty frantic as everyone tries to get their fixes and refinements into the final build. I guess like many creative industries, we always end up burning the midnight oil to make sure everything is as good as it can be. As a result the new cars and the new Germany stages are looking and playing brilliantly. The insane Group B Rear Wheel Drive cars and the awesome Front Wheel Drive Kit cars really ask you to give them the fullest concentration as they are all extremely challenging in their own special ways. I really can’t wait for you to get your hands on this update as it really requires a different mindset but one that still fits within the ethos of DiRT Rally.
As for me, I’ve just taken delivery of my upgraded PC so I’ll be spending my weekend hammering my Lancia 037 Evo 2 and Peugeot 306 Maxi around those Baumholder stages, doing final checks and making sure that everything is good before we release our Tarmac Terrors into the wild.
Price Increase
When the Tarmac Terrors pack drops next week we’ll be jiggling around our prices a little, as we continue our journey through Early Access the plan was always to slowly increase the price as we added more content.
To everybody that has already purchased a copy of DiRT Rally, nothing will change for you; you won’t need to pay anything extra, we’re not doing a special edition, you won’t need to by a can of energy drink, you don’t’ need to tweet a picture of you drinking a glass of water... Nothing. The game is yours and regardless of how much you pay for it you’ll get all of our content included for that one price.
Here’s a breakdown of how the price changes will work:
So... If you were on the fence about picking up DiRT Rally don’t say we didn’t warn you about the price going up.
If you’d like to join us for Early Access you can right here.
The DTL
A brand new season of the DiRT Twitter League starts today; the season will last two weeks and will contain three events. It’s all Group B, 6 stages per event with a new event every few days - there are no restarts though so take care of your car.
If you’d like to take part in the #DTL you can sign up here.
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Red Bull Games took us on a trip down memory lane this week with a look back at our past and the now legendary Colin McRae Rally. If you’re not familiar with the history of DiRT this is a great read and well worth your time.
This week on Twitter we asked you to show us your racing rigs. If you sent one in thank you, we really enjoyed checking them out - a few even made us jealous! Here are some of our favourites.
Video of the Week
This week’s honour goes to SimracingNC for his run up the mixed surface version of Pikes Peak in the S1 clocking in with a rather impressive 9:05.144
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlrVIK8KyUU
Until Next Time
That’s it for this week, we’ll let you go prepare for the Tarmac Terrors Update but for that other big thing we’ve been working on... Let’s just say you should make sure you are following us on Twitter and Facebook.
We’ll see you next week.
DiRT Rally Road Book – 19/06/15
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the DiRT Rally Road book. It’s been another hectic week here at our Warwickshire studio, not only have we been hard at work putting the finishing touches to our Tarmac Terrors update but work is well underway on our Rallycross pack. That’s not to mention the work we’re doing on bug fixing and this week’s Force Feedback Update.
Kinda glad it’s Friday, we’re so busy this week that our Chief Game Designer is nowhere to be found!
So instead we’re going to kick off this week’s Road Book with a recap on our FFB update this week.
Right in the Feels
There are two main parts to the FFB update, this first should be instantly noticeable the second you hit the stage. You’ll now find that the Force Feedback coming through your wheel now feels much more intuitive, the car will now feel much more connected to the road and the forces acting against you will help you get a better idea of what the car is doing. Hopefully all these changes will allow you to drive quicker and make you feel like you are more in control.
The other main part of the patch is our new advanced wheel options screens.
Now if you’re more accustomed to the older DiRT games and was perhaps OK with how our force feedback was you won’t really need to worry about any of this. To you we’re recommending that you leave your set up as it is for now, you shouldn’t need to change anything but if you were previously running 270 degrees of rotation on your wheel you may find it really snappy and 540 may suit you better.
To take advantage of our new force feedback you don’t need to do anything other than download the latest patch and play the game.
For a more in-depth look at the improvements we’ve made BettaLines has put together this awesome video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWJGKjNu__U
A huge thank you to Bettalines, Mastavonblasta, Evilsmurf, Rallycameraman and gfRally from the Codemasters forums, /u/deadstump from /r/simrally and @dchote from Twitter all helped us fine tune the update.
If you’re still on the fence about picking up DiRT Rally this week’s Steam Monster Summer Sale should help tempt you. We’ve got 25% off DiRT Rally until the 21st June so don’t miss out! If you’ve already bought DiRT Rally and like what you have seen of it so far then be sure to tell your friends.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/310560/
5 left into what now?
Thanks to the Steam sale we’ve had a lot of new people join us for DiRT Rally’s Early Access and we thought it might be handy to catch you up with exactly what your co-driver is talking about.
Everything you need to know about our co-driver system can be found right here.
Website Update
Not only did the game get an update this week but we’ve also added some new features and improvements to dirtgame.com
New features:
Notable changes:
Over to You
One of my favourite things to do each day is skim through the Steam Community hub and check out your screenshots. Here are some of my favourites from this week.
The DTL
Season 3 of the DiRT Twitter League started last night and we took full advantage of our latest feature, the randomise button. So we have no idea what you’re in for! It’s not too late to take part; you can opt in right here.
As ever we’re ending the Road Book with a video and this week’s honour goes to Gamer Muscle Video. We’ll be back next week with more news on Tarmac Terrors, have a great weekend and remember... Don’t. Cut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_pzZ1Zy4fg
Patch V 04.5 - The one with the Force Feedback
So you may have noticed a small patch for DiRT Rally release today and we are pleased to say that yes... this is the FFB update (otherwise known as v0.4.5).
This latest update has been built off the back of your feedback since launch; it will change how the game communicates to you through your wheel or pad and make everything feel much more intuitive.
Alongside that we’ve also added a whole suite of advanced wheel options to help you fine tune your set up. You can read more info about what we’ve done here.
We’re also pleased to say we’ve included a new batch of supported wheels. If your wheel isn’t on the list don’t worry, we are continuing to work our way down the list and we’ll be adding more as DiRT Rally’s Early Access continues.
Logitech Driving Force GT
Logitech Driving Force Pro
Logitech Formula Force EX
Thrustmaster T500 RS Racing Wheel
Thrustmaster T500 RS F1 Racing Wheel
Thrustmaster T300 RS
Thrustmaster TX 458
Thrustmaster Ferrari F430 FFB
Fanatec CSR Elite Wheel
Logitech MOMO Racing Wheel (keyboard required for some controls)
Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel (keyboard required for some controls)
As ever thank you again for your support, we really hope you enjoy this latest update. Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit for all the latest DiRTy Gossip.
Great news everyone! DiRT Rally’s FFB update is almost ready to go live but before we do that we wanted to drop the full details on what it is we’ve changed so that it has a little time to sink in.
Improved Force Feedback
There are two main parts to the FFB update, this first should be instantly noticeable the second you hit the stage. You’ll now find that the Force Feedback coming through your wheel now feels much more intuitive, the car will now feel much more connected to the road and the forces acting against you will help you get a better idea of what the car is doing. Hopefully all these changes will allow you to drive quicker and make you feel like you are more in control.
To take advantage of our new force feedback you don’t need to do anything other than download the latest patch and play the game.
The other main part of the patch is our new advanced wheel options screens.
Now if you’re more accustomed to the older DiRT games and was perhaps OK with how our force feedback was you won’t really need to worry about any of this. To you we’re recommending that you leave your set up as it is for now, you shouldn’t need to change anything but if you were previously running 270 degrees of rotation on your wheel you may find it really snappy and 540 may suit you better.
and you can watch Bettalines video overview below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWJGKjNu__U
DiRT Rally Road Book – 10/06/15
Hello from sunny Warwickshire and welcome to this week’s Road Book. It’s been a pretty hectic few days for us, we’ve been busy preparing for the FFB update, re-evaluating how we handle bugs, looking forward to Germany and we’ve even had a few exciting meetings on what we’ll be up to this summer.
I’ll hand you over to DiRT Chief Game Designer Paul Coleman for an update on what the team are working on this week.
KICK IT WITH KICK UP
It’s been a tough week here in the studio, as we had really high hopes of getting the FFB update out this week but we hit a few issues that meant that we’ve had to push it back a bit. It really is very close to being ready so barring any last minute issues you can expect to have it pretty soon.
In the meantime our environment team have continued their polish work on the Baumholder stages and they are all looking and playing really well. The stages are a very different challenge to those that are currently in DiRT Rally and require a different focus to get the best times. We’ve got some awesome cars lined up to compliment them and we are looking forward to talking about those in more detail soon.
MANAGING BUGS BETTER
So, our first order of business this week has been to re-evaluate how we go about handling bugs, both from an internal point of view and the side that you guys see.
We’ve come up with a completely new process internally that will help us get to the bottom of them quicker and improve our overall communication of what we’re working on.
Just like everything with DiRT Rally this has come off the back of your feedback, the last thing we want you guys to feel like is that you’re throwing Frisbees out into the dark when you put a bug in. I can assure you that has not been the case and if you happen to be one of the people putting in bug reports we just wanted to let you know it hasn’t been in vain, we’d like to thank you for that and ask that you keep doing so.
To give you an idea of our new process and for more info, click here…
#DTL
The DiRT Twitter League’s second event started today and this week we’re heading to Greece in 80’s rear wheel drive cars. We’ve added a twist though… This week’s event is an Iron Man fight to the finish, yes… that’s right. Six stages. No restarts. No service areas.
Our favourite crazy Viking VajbTV is having a DiRT Rally mega livestream this Friday, word on the street is he’ll have some copies of DiRT Rally to give away as well some of our much coveted T-Shirts. You can watch here
The DiRT Daily Thread – Join the guys on the Codemasters Forums for a chat about the day’s DiRT Daily event. Talk about how you did, share some tips and see how the rest of the field did that day.
As ever this week we leave you with a video. This week we go for a stroll in the woods for this pretty tidy run in Wales. It does raise an important question though… Socks or shoes?
