Hey racers,
Before we begin, let me introduce myself, my name is Kim and I work within the communications department at RENNSPORT. As an avid gamer and sim racer since a very young age, I am very excited about what we’re building here; expect to hear more from me in the future.
Now that we have the Closed Beta running and the game is in more than 8 people’s hands, we thought it would be time to start doing regular updates on the game’s development here on the website.
Welcome to UNDER THE HOOD!
We’re looking at this as a monthly deep dive into what is happening in the RENNSPORT world. Now, let’s dive into the juicy parts.
First and foremost, to read the latest patch notes, click here.
Second, did you watch our Closed Beta Trailer yet? Here it is. Enjoy.
Today we will talk about the following:
- RENNSPORT Rating
- Safety Rating
- Split System
- Race Calendar
- The RENNSPORT Summit 2023
- 8ETA
The first update to the RENNSPORT Closed Beta is here, and it introduces multiplayer and our ranking system. During the Closed Beta period, we can test our systems in the wild and welcome all your feedback. The multiplayer sessions available now are a chance for us to monitor and for you to try out our systems. Let’s all have some fun together
As a part of this fun, any mileage you put into the car you picked when you first registered will be saved in your account, in the beta and beyond. You can also access any liveries you collected via stream drops or other activities to differentiate yourself from others.
RENNSPORT Rating (RR)
Let’s start with the RENNSPORT Rating. This is our ranking system for players. Everyone in the Closed Beta starts at RR 1500 and will increase or decrease based on your race results. Higher rating = a better racer. At least this is the ambition, but remember that this is still a Closed Beta, and several systems are still subject to change.
The rating is based on the Elo system from chess and is designed to bring players of similar skill together in a race. It is purely based on the race results. Winning against higher-rated players will award more points than winning against lower-rated players. As a rule of thumb, you can expect to gain a rating if you finish in the top half of the leaderboard, although there are some edge cases where this is not the case. Generally, the higher you finish, the more rating points you will gain.
If the race cannot be completed because of a technical issue on the server side, ratings are not updated. However, if a client disconnects during a race, the rating will still be updated based on the final leaderboard.
There will be unranked races during the beta at a later stage, which do not affect the RR.
Safety Rating (SR)
The second rating we have in the game is the Safety Rating. It indicates a player’s race craft and will increase or decrease based on how safe a driver’s racing style is. Everyone starts at SR 1.00. Getting penalties and being involved in incidents will lower the rating, while driving a clean race will increase it.
We are testing these systems during the beta to ensure they work the way we intend, and we might reset the values at any given time. The ratings will also be reset when the beta ends and RENNSPORT moves into full release.
SR and RR will only be updated if at least three cars participate in a race.
Race Calendar
When multiplayer gets added, you will have direct access to the race calendar, where you can find the multiplayer contests set up by our team. There will be various races every day at a fixed time interval. Every week there will be a set of new combinations of tracks and cars to choose from. Let’s dig into what everything on this screen means:
On the top left, you have the calendar; click on any day to see what races are available. On the bottom left, you can filter out the race you want based on cars and rules. In the middle box, you see the races coming up in chronological order, how many people have already registered, what the format is (P=Practice, Q=Qualifying, R=Race), and what track it is. You have a summary of the selected race in the box to the right.
If you want to be notified when a race is about to start if you’re practising that last sector at Spa (like I need to do every single day), you can enable the notification by pressing the “Notify Me” button in the lower right corner but, don’t forget to register as well which you can do 30 minutes before the race starts.
You can also see races on the RENNSPORT app and choose to get notified before the race start directly in the app.
There are more things that the app is usable for, like checking in your car collection, liveries, and upcoming ESL R1 streams. To download, use the links:
For the first week, there will be races on four tracks, Monza, Spa, Hockenheim and Nürburgring, with the following GT3 cars: Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, and BMW. There will be a new race every 30 minutes. To be eligible to join a race, you must register within the race calendar. There will be some differences in these races, like qualifying rules and race length, and we would appreciate your feedback on which combinations you liked the most and what you would like to see in the coming weeks.
Split System
After the contest registration period has ended, the grid is separated into splits based on each driver’s RR. For each split, the driver with the highest rating is assigned car number 1; the second highest is given number 2. Soon we will also enable you to create your contests in the game with the parameters and cars you want, but more on that in the coming weeks.
All in all, this is a beta; we are still testing, and we want you to try with us. Join the multiplayer sessions with an open mind and have fun with other eager races, and don’t forget to give us your feedback on the official RENNSPORT Discord.
Summit Report
Oh boy. The RENNSPORT Summit 2023 was mad! We officially showed off the Closed Beta Trailer, we had CEO Morris on stage talking about RENNSPORT (did you see the parts about modding yet?), and we had a spectacular ending to the Spring Season of ESL R1 with Marcell Csincsik of R8G crowned as the first-ever champion of ESL R1. It was great to see so many community members coming to Munich to participate in it and all the conversations happening online. We also let some of the sim racing content creators out there have a go at the latest build of the game which resulted in great content and reactions; here are a few for you to enjoy:
More than 8 Closed Beta Keys
As the week progress, we’re sending out more and more keys to the closed beta, and while we won’t share just yet how many keys are floating about in the wild, we are coming up to 60,000 (!) registrations to go through, so bear with us while we increase our capacity. If you’re not already on the waiting list, register here . We know the memes. We know we’re now forever tied to the number 8 (which accidentally also is our company logo). We have sent more than 8 closed beta keys out, we promise. The official RENNSPORT Discord had a blast, and so did we. Here are some of our favorite memes…
As a result of this, we have something special coming up… Let me be the first to show you. 8ETA.
A track. That is an 8. Like the 8 Beta keys? 8ETA? Pretty wild, huh? When and if you can play this, we will share more news in the future.
This wraps up the first UNDER THE HOOD, and I hope you enjoyed it and that some of your questions have been answered in what to expect with the next beta update. Next time we will talk about the upcoming steps of the beta and dive into the topic of modding a bit more. If you still need more, jump in on our Discord channel, be greeted by our superb moderators, and share some conversations with the best memers in the world; looking at you, Wolf of no Key…
As a final note, please note that if you’re on the lower spectrum of our recommended hardware, perfomance might be different driving in multiplayer compared to single player. If this is the case for you, adjust your settings in the in-game menu to have a smoother experience.
So there it is, multiplayer is now live and we hope you will have fun with it. And, let me repeat myself, this is a beta, expect some parts to not work as intended and be vocal with your feedback on our Discord!
Until next time drivers, see you online.
Kim
