| netKar Pro | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Kunos Simulazioni |
| Publisher(s) | Kunos Simulazioni |
| Platform(s) | PC (Win) |
| Release date(s) | v1.0.0 April 10, 2006 v1.0.1 April 24, 2006 v1.0.2 October 31, 2006 v1.0.3 December 28, 2008 v1.1 April 6, 2010 v1.2 November 12, 2010 Beta 1.3 February 12, 2011 Beta 1.3B February 18, 2011 |
| Latest release | Beta v1.3B / February 18, 2011 |
| Genre(s) | Sim racing |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Media/distribution | Client (download) |
netKar Pro (also stylized as nKPro) is an online racing simulator that is developed with an emphasis on realism. It provides advanced features such as a complex tire model (visible dirt, tire wear and flat spots, that influence the car's handling) and a fully interactive cockpit such as those seen in flight simulators.
Contents |
netKar Pro debuted at a fair held in Lanciano (Italy), February 24–26, 2006. Version 1.0 was released for download on April 10, 2006. Developers worked with companies involved in real car racing such as Sparco (design of steering wheels, helmets and driving suits), AIM Sportline[1] (official and fully functional AIM data acquisition systems are reproduced in netKar Pro), Cooper/AVON Tyres,[2]Brembo (braking systems), Beta Tools; they worked also with a Formula Three team Target Racing,[3] with the race engineer Andrea Quintarelli and the driver Riccardo Azzoli (Formula Gloria, Formula Renault and Formula Three).
The success of its free predecessor netKar Namie, and the anticipation created by previews of netKar Pro in the press, led to high expectations from the simracing community. However, this initial release and the subsequent patch were negatively affected by many bugs hampering gameplay, and therefore was received reluctantly by the sim racing community. In the summer of 2006 it was announced that netKar Pro and BallRacing Developments Ltd - developers of hardware and software for the professional racedriver and simracing community - have joined forces "to co-develop the next generation of motorsport simulation".[4]
BRD are using netKar Pro to help with the running of their Formula BMW team, as their version of netKar Pro has a Formula BMW car programmed in it, though it is unlikely the public will ever see this car. Also they are running a version of the Osella PA-21 car and Hill Climb addon, which at some stage will be made available to the public.
In October 2006, the netKar Pro development team released version 1.0.2, a patch that improved the multiplayer experience and fixed several other bugs present in the previous two versions. However, version 1.0.2 still had its issues. Still a very controversial game, the online racing community for netKar Pro is rather thin compared to other sim racing games, and contact with the developers has been sparse.
Jaap Wagenvoort - a member of the online netKar Pro community - has been issuing Community Updates on many forums, trying to help improve communication problems between customers and Stefano Casillo, the game's main developer. Version 1.0.3 of the simulation was announced immediately after the release of 1.0.2, but its release was delayed multiple times due to other projects and technical problems during the development. The other projects also helped improving netKar PRO as it allowed the netKar Pro development team to validate the simulation data with Formula One engineers.
During the development of version 1.0.3 a lot of infrastructure related problems were identified and required solving in order for version 1.0.3 to finally be what the simulation originally set out to be. On December 28, 2008, version 1.0.3 of netKar PRO was released, over two years after the previous release. This was a free upgrade for existing customers.
Version 1.0.3 improved the multiplayer experience and increased the stability and performance. Also, new features were added like an anti-join lag feature. Much to the pleasure of the community, flatspotting was also reintroduced to the simulation. Version 1.0.3 was positively received by the simracing community.
During Summer 2009, Kunos Simulazioni announced that the next version of netKar Pro, dubbed 1.1, was to be released through a three-stage Public Beta in an effort to iron out all the bugs before reaching gold status, through the help of the community. A new bug reporting feature was added specifically for this purpose. This was meant to address concerns in the simracing community that v1.1 might have seen the same fate of v1.0 which remained unplayable for a long time for many simracers.
Stefano Casillo also made it clear that a new course was about to start, with a more professional approach to developing software, abandoning the previous one-man-band nature of the project and forming a true, dedicated company (Kunos Simulazioni).
The main aim for 1.1 was to attract new users, and bring back long time players that had lost interest in the project due to it being stagnant. This was to be accomplished by making netKar Pro more accessible without losing its commitment to realism and faithfulness, offering new content, and improving usability. A time-limited discounted offer was also made available.
Beta 1/3 was released in August 2009, and featured:
During the Beta 1 period, new netKar Pro licenses were sold at 19.90 € instead of the full price of 36 €.
Beta 2/3 came in early September, bringing a new car, the Abarth 500 Assetto Corse, and a new fictional track called Aosta, while at the same time fixing many bugs that affected both the handling of some of the cars and the new UI.
The 500 Assetto Corse received much praise from both users and professional reviewers, while Aosta, despite bringing much needed variety to the set of existing tracks, attracted both praise and some criticism because of its high hardware requirements, and an annoying bug that made parts of the grass appear black on a significant number of systems. As of December 2009 Kunos Simulazioni has not released a fix to this problem.
During Beta 2 licenses were initially intended to be sold for 24.90 €, though at a later date Kunos Simulazioni cut the price back to 19.90 €, the same as Beta 1.
Beta 3/3 was released on 16 January 2010. Although it was expected to only contain bugfixes and a revised replay interface, it contained other minor additions, such as: audio levels control, enhanced chat, tweaked differentials and coast torque, plus many usability improvements.
On April 4 a Release Candidate (1.1RC) was leaked to a german site, with the official release of 1.1 Final following on April 6. Reportedly there is no difference between 1.1RC and 1.1 Final. Even though an official change log hasn't been released, 1.1 Final offers improved force feedback, tyre model (which, according to some remarks Casillo made, is likely to be a revised version of the old 1.0.3 model) and also includes the new auto updater system and KOF Lite, the track editor.
Version 1.1 reignited interest in netKar Pro, but the hopes for a new course for netKar Pro started to dwindle in Autumn 2009 when Beta 3 failed to materialize. The community later independently discovered that Kunos Simulazioni had been busy preparing a free, modified version of the simulator containing only the 500 Assetto Corse, which was to be used in an online competition sponsored by MTV Italia.
Kunos Simulazioni failed to communicate what they were doing or why Beta 3/3 had been put on hold, so the MTV/500 release came as a negative surprise to the community. Harsh criticism ensued: Kunos Simulazioni was accused of abandoning a half-finished netKar Pro v1.1 (repeating the mistakes made with v1.0), while making available the 500 Assetto Corse at no charge. The 500 AC, up to that point, had been a major selling point for v1.1 and could be used only by paying, licensed customers.
Marco Massarutto, Product Manager of netKar Pro, who acts as a spokesman for Kunos Simulazioni along with Casillo, replied claiming that the 500 in the MTV package was actually a dumbed-down version of netKar, only intended to be used within the boundaries of the promotional event.
The netKar Pro community had to wait until January, 16 2010. Shortly afterwards Casillo announced on the public forum that "Full Mode", a gameplay mode which aims for maximum realism and is currently used by GPChampionship, the main organized racing event in the netKar Pro community, was going to be "deprecated", i.e. disappear from the GUI of netKar (thus forcing users to activate it through manually edits to the text configuration files) and eventually become unsupported. This caused concern in the community that netKar Pro will be abandoning its commitment to realism in the future and become less of a simulator and more of a videogame.
netKar Pro 1.1 Final was supposed to be ready within February, along with the long-awaited Track Editor. Citing other work commitments, Casillo stopped posting from the official forum in March 2010. 1.1 Final eventually materialized on April 6, 2010 although without any official statements from Kunos Simulazioni.
The latest revision of netKar Pro is an incremental upgrade initially released to the public on November 12, 2010. Two patches, 1.2B and 1.2C followed shortly. At the time of this writing (December 2010), has brought:
On December 10th, 2010 it was revealed that some of the announced planned developments will be released as netKar Pro v.1.3 on Christmas 2010. This update will contain:
However, it was only on February 12th, 2011 that a new Beta 1.3 release saw the light of the day. To this date (February 28, 2011), the final v1.3 still hasn't been released.
Casillo has been pretty cold about further developments[9]. He confirmed Kunos Simulazioni is committed to keep developing the 1.x branch to avoid disappointing existing customers, while at the same time pointing out the shortcomings of the technology in the current netKar Pro, which would make it very hard to add new features. There have been earlier and repeated indications that Kunos Simulazioni has another, more modern and flexible engine in the workings, possibly already deployed in side projects such as a simulator developed for use in italian driving licenses schools. However it would seem this technology will not land in a netKar branded product any time soon.
Other points worth noting are:
netKar Pro current line-up is composed of 8 cars:
Note: a light blue background denotes that a track is bundled with the sim, a yellow background denotes that a track has not yet been released. Addon tracks can be downloaded from this DrivingItalia.net Sticky
| Track Name | Location | Configuration(s) | Type | Real/Fictional |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide Street Circuit | Adelaide, South Australia | 1 | Street circuit | Real |
| Autodromo dell'Umbria | Magione, Perugia, Italy | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Autodromo di Prato | Tuscany, Italy | 2 | Permanent road track | Fictional |
| Autódromo José Carlos Pace | Interlagos district, Brazil | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Autodromo Nazionale Monza | Monza, Italy | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Brands Hatch | Swanley, England | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Brno Circuit | Brno, Czech Republic | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Circuit de Monaco | Principality of Monaco | 1 | Street circuit | Real |
| Circuito di Aviano | Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy | 4 | Permanent road track | Fictional |
| Circuit de Catalunya | Montmeló, Spain | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Circuit de la Sarthe | Le Mans, France | 2 | Semi-permanent road track | Real |
| Circuit Gilles Villeneuve | Montreal, Québec, Canada | 1 | Permanent road track | Real |
| Circuito di Aosta | Val d'Aosta, Italy | 15 | Permanent road track | Fictional |
| Crema Test Track | Crema, Italy | 2 | Permanent test circuit | Fictional |
| Donington Park | Leicestershire, England | 2 | Permanent road track | Real |
| F1 Stadium | Unknown | 1 | Permanent road track | Fictional |
| Falkenbergs Motorbana | Bergagård, Sweden | 1 | Permanent road track | Real |
| Hockenheimring | Hockenheim, Germany | 1 | Permanent road track | Real |
| Lastplace Lake | Finland | 1 | Permanent road track | Fictional |
| Marina Bay Street Circuit | Singapore | 1 | Street circuit | Real |
| Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca | Monterey, California, USA | 1 | Permanent road track | Real |
| Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit | Melbourne, Australia | ? | Street circuit | Real |
| Motorsport Arena Oschersleben | Oschersleben, Germany | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Mugello Circuit | Florence, Italy | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Newbury Circuit | England | 2 | Permanent road track | Fictional |
| Oval | Unknown | 1 | Permanent oval track | Fictional |
| Silverstone Circuit | Northamptonshire, England | 1 | Permanent road track | Real |
| Snetterton Motor Racing Circuit | Norfolk, England | 1 | Permanent road track | Real |
| Suzuka Circuit | Suzuka, Japan | ? | Permanent road track | Real |
| Trento-Bondone | Trentino, Italy | 1 | Hillclimbing track | Real |
Online communities (English)
Regional Communities (other languages)