Another day, another Reader Submission, this time coming from an Assetto Corsa owner who wishes to remain anonymous. Today, we’re discussing the ban of not just any old troll from the official Assetto Corsa forums, but rather someone who had every right to criticize a portion of the game because he proved he could do it better on his own. Of course, in 2015, not kissing the developer’s asses on their own message board warrants a ban, and that’s not cool. Ever.
Hello PRC. Yesterday I stumbled upon something in the Assetto Corsa forums that was quite a shock.
Just like the previous updates, the 1.3 update broke the sounds for all third party mod cars, so I went to the forums to download the mods again. I went to Fonsecker’s thread, a German modder who is praised about his great sounds ,and also my personal favorite, because he made the RUF Yellowbird sound like an actual Porsche, unlike the vanilla abomination of a sound that Kunos thought was acceptable.
The simple fix in the broken sounds is to re-install them, so I just downloaded the files again, but just in case, I checked if he updated the sounds to 1.3 to get the best out the new FMOD updates. What I found instead is that he got banned for criticizing the sounds in version 1.3. He was harsh about it, as he said Kunos should fire the person who makes the sounds for the cars in Assetto Corsa, but you could tell from the whole post that he was being a bit sarcastic, as he was even praising the update.
But this post didn’t sit well with Kunos, so Fonsecker got banned. If you click on his forum name it will take you to a page that says this account does not exist. Kunos stock sounds were always bad, but when a guy who has made cars sound better on his free time and for free, compared to professionals who get paid to do that, you don’t ban him, you listen and try to raise the bar.
Thankfully Fonsecker didn’t give up, and he is making new sounds for the Lamborghini Huracan and the Audi R8, to give them a more fleshed out sound.
Keep up the good work!
I know for a fact that the Kunos guys stop here once in a while, and they aren’t the only developers to do so. You’d think that after the fifth or six article we’d published showcasing Ian Bell’s antics within the community surrounding Project CARS, there would be a miniature team meeting to discuss Mr. Bell’s behavior from a business perspective. While it’s fun as a gamer to laugh at Ian calling people idiots and banning users left and right simply for bringing up issues, developers should look at the drama unfolding in the pCars forums as an example of how not to treat your community. Study it, analyze it, and talk with the group about handling a similar situation in your own forums.
That way, internal forum drama doesn’t wind up all over PretendRaceCars on a Friday afternoon.
On a personal level, I feel a bit disappointed in Kunos for acting in the ways you see above, and as you can see I’ve added another screenshot to the mix regarding a completely different situation. The articles about Ian Bell and the garbage surrounding Project CARS weren’t meant to give people a cheap laugh at a developer’s expense – take these situations and learn something from them. Man, I know you guys lurk here. This isn’t cool. You should know better.
Moving on…
I don’t know why Fonsecker got banned. Anytime someone bitches about a sub-par aspect in any game, fanboys respond with the typical:
“If you think it’s so easy to ________, create a game studio and do it yourself!”
Well, this guy did. The sound mods, judging by the videos above, are pretty damn good! Fonsecker has every right to talk shit about Assetto Corsa’s sub-par sounds because he made his own, and they kicked ass. Don’t ban the guy, free up some time and have a chat with him and ask him how he worked his magic! Hell, get him on board and maybe look at getting him to help with all of the cars! The guy obviously loves the game enough as is where he’s taking time out of his day to create some pretty worthwhile mods, why not use this to your advantage?
I know anytime there’s a DiRT Rally update, I take the time to create custom cameras for each new car for my own personal use, and people seemed to like them when I threw a few of ’em up on RaceDepartment. If Codemasters asked me if I could re-do the vanilla game’s default cockpit cameras for them, I’d do it for a free t-shirt or a coffee mug or something.
Man this whole thing… Blows my mind. Absolutely retarded.