Aristotelis

More than 2 years ago, a programmer with a great passion for motor sports, tired of the repetitiveness of the commercial games and simulators, and the unwilling to risk big software publishers, decided to freely express this passion. netKar was born

Since the beginning, Stefano Casillo, - netkars creator -, wanted to share its passion with the community. Today, netKar is known and played by thousands of people and various communities have appeared because of it. A simulator, simple in its characteristics but also extreme as a concept, that already is a cult object, and often became a the main choice for simmers, despite the presence of famous and usually more accessible and easier to use, commercial simulators.

netKar was born as a free project, to evolve slowly in its creators spare time, and with limited resources at hand. It wasnt made with specific needs in mind, nor to obtain fame from it. As usually happens in such cases, when there is passion, we are determined to sacrifice whatever is possible. Time (and not only spare time), social life, money too (like websites and bandwidth for uploads/downloads, peripherals to test the sim on, lots of books and documents) ecc ecc.


netKar has given a lot to all of us. People that simply play with it, to people that work into it, to make it grow at a higher level and show its hidden potential, recognized by so many. A potential such high, that until now, has never been reached. There are plenty of reasons for this, but almost all of them are caused by the choices and situations of the real life of netKars programmer, Stefano Kunos Casillo. In summer 2003, Stefano has left Europe for a new professional future in Japan, where his type of work, let him with minimal spare time at his disposition. At first he thought that after the first impact with the culture, the language, the traditions and Japanese way of life, the evolution and work on netKar would continue as usual. Unfortunately this didnt happen. Besides numerous times that Stefano tried to continue work on the simulator, it was no more possible to evolve the simulator with the dedication and mentality, netKar deserves and had been given at its first versions. More than that, the evolution of such an ambitious project as netKar, depends highly much more from what one can actually think of from passion and high motivation to keep it alive. Motivation and passion, that should be also shared with the rest of the team. A small team that together tried and tries to keep netKar at an acceptable level in comparison with commercial titles, and that works with dedication on every aspect of the sim (graphics, sounds, data acquisition, physics, beta testing, multiplayer and so on)


The various problems, technical and of other nature, have slowed down the evolution of version 099b, and finally caused its abandon. The solution of the same problems and the finalization of the version, needed great dedication and no compromises. As such it couldnt handled anymore on spare time, specially thinking that the various members of the team have different necessities and live also in very different places and time areas of the world .


It is by considering all of those variables that Stefano Casillo, in agreement with his collaborators, has decided to interrupt any work on project netKar intended as freeware. As said before, the objectives that the team wanted to achieve with this project, cannot be achieved anymore with the current situation.

On the other hand, its not imaginable that the potential, the know-how and the work, of the actual versions, are forever lost. netKar will definitely continue to grow and evolve, with new features, contents, and technical highlights, all focused to bring the best ever experience on sim driving. For this to be accomplished we need a solution that gives the opportunity to the project to continue its growth, and at the same time, motivates its creator and the rest of the team and awards them for the hard work and dedication they are willing to put into it. More resources more time, more results are needed to make this promising project, grow mature and realize its full potential


At this moment, the team studies new and various opportunities regarding the future of netKar, considering solutions not very dissimilar than those used and already appreciated, by other racing simulators not freeware but still of low cost. As soon as the new project will be finalized in its main characteristics, we will promptly inform you.

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Aristotelis "Aris" Vasilakos

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[netKar, netKar-pro, dE, DINet ]
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Pine

Thanks Aris.

Buying a copy of netKar... It may sound a bit wierd now, but I think I will do it one day

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durbster

Interesting stuff, thanks for keeping us informed. As much as I like netKar, I do fear it has a long way to go before it is worth charging for. I realise that version we have already probably bears very little resemblance to the 99b version but still...

While the basis and foundation is certainly there (in particular the all round awesome experience of the single seater cars and the audio), I think there is a lot of work to be done before it could be considered a complete product.

What Kunos can be in no doubt is that he has, in RSC, the best testing team money can't buy There is more creativity and ideas lurking here than could possibly be found elsewhere so I would suggest the netKar team takes this community heavily into consideration when working on future plans.

Aside from the 3D modellers, track designers, graphics gurus, sound engineers etc., you've got a highly critical and demanding community and hopefully that can be used to netKars advantage.

Good luck

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Getty81

Thanks Aris for these words and informations Well, let's see what future will bring us. I'm really excited.

Satorian

As long as nK continues in ANY way, I'm fine with that.

But I don't really know what all this is supposed to mean.

nk going the LFS route with staged low-cost releases?

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Aristotelis

Durbster well said, and actually it's for the respect of the community that so well supported us all this time, that we have decided to move on.

It was no good to not work anymore at the old versions, while the great community was so nice to us all. So yes, I'm gonna be honest, working on a passion and gaining money from it sounds great. But even more honestly, we didn't want to keep going on with posts like "the new version is gonna be great... but we don't have time to finish it... please wait" ecc ecc...

So what we are going to do is to invest our time seriously, and prepare a commercial product (much superior than the actual beta version of nK, in all aspects), then let the community judge if the value is right or wrong.

If we succed, we will gain some money and we will be able to continue work. if not... well at least we tried

__________________
Aristotelis "Aris" Vasilakos

GET REAL!
[ SimBin Beta team leader ]
[netKar, netKar-pro, dE, DINet ]
"Helping sim community around the world"
---------------------------------------------------
My simracing equipment is powered by FrexGP

GeNiE

Of that, I have no doubt. Count me in, I'll buy it.

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Ihsan "GeNiE" Gin

pag

If the choice is nK death or paying some bucks for a better netKar, I have no doubts. Good things in life never come for free, at least to me...

Satorian

And now the obvious questions:

When will it be finished?
When can we preorder?
When do we get a demo?
Where are the videos?
Where are the screenshots?


Now that this is done people can concentrate on the real questions and skip over those.

__________________
<@Lerou> Lag makes baby Jesus cry.
<@TempusRob> pssh
<@TempusRob> talk about lag
<@TempusRob> it took him 3 days to respawn
fnord

Horseman

Good luck, guys.
nk can be the base of a really great product. Hope your effort pays off.

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Jaap Wagenvoort

Aris, many thanks for your clear words. This is important for the community and be sure we really respect that. For us indeed there wouldn't be a problem to pay for a great sim which already showed such stunning potential.

Be sure we will support you guys all the way. netKar still has a relatively small community, consisting mostly of die-hard and 'positive' simracing enthusiasts.

Like durbster said, it indeed forms a great testing team for a final product and I'm very glad to see you understanding that. Let's wait and see.... go, netKar team!!!

Vange

come on guys, let`s change sig&avatar!

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mickyknox

I look forward to hearing more, and put me down as someone more than happy to put money nK's way.

Simon

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FrankBloem

Hmmm, not sure what to think of this yet...

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NetKar rulez!

djellison

I'd pay 50 right now for a finished .99b with just a Modena.

Doug

mickyknox

51!

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Bnito

if you are gonna charge from it, what cars will you use? also what tracks? They are needed to be licenced then...atleast that's how i've understood how stuff works.

Netkar needs a lot polishing to go comercial imho. But as i do understand the need of money when going comercial i'm willing to support netkar if the price is bearable (around 20).'

Anyway i wish you all the best

Marty

I know the feeling.. I'd really like to put some serious effort into Motorsport but having a full time job and not wanting to spend all my waking hours righting software makes it hard. I also know what it's like to work in Japan.. "free time" doesn't really exist over there.

Good luck is all I can say..

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Satorian

I think smaller car makers like TVR or Noble would be very open to the possibility of being featured in a sim if they have a word on quality control and the final option to decline, which could potentially lead them to a free license in trade for some customizations for a presentational version.

Or what I would do is release nKpro as barebone frame without content like tracks and cars and then offering those for free from a seperate site and project that provides non-commercial content.

You can't advertise those directly then, but people will understand what it's about.

__________________
<@Lerou> Lag makes baby Jesus cry.
<@TempusRob> pssh
<@TempusRob> talk about lag
<@TempusRob> it took him 3 days to respawn
fnord

mickyknox

Or maybe a Caterham or a Radical
Lets just wait and see...

Simon

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Vange

i do hope they get the formula renault license...

and i know kunos really likes it...

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Satorian

I don't know if that fits the scope. That would be a FIA license and would require a REALLY, REALLY good product with some kind of mass appeal and a fairly big feature set and perhaps major financial backing.

But then again Formula Renault is a bit of a niche so they could be happy to have anyone doing it as a game and we don't know how big nK is planned to be.

I really liked the Formula Renault racing I saw this weekend.

__________________
<@Lerou> Lag makes baby Jesus cry.
<@TempusRob> pssh
<@TempusRob> talk about lag
<@TempusRob> it took him 3 days to respawn
fnord

miadey

This is great news So, what is it with nk/dk???? Do you still plan to release it??

djellison

RADICAL RADICAL RADICAL