CEO & CTOWe have taken the temporary measure to freeze weather conditions in-game until further notice. We want to improve the system and may move to in-house weather rather than continuing with the augmented-reality system. It has caused a few too many complications impacting on the gameplay experience. E.g. mixed practice laps conditions, choosing a strategy in races based on inaccurate weather information.
Please vote on which system you would prefer us to use. Here are the benefits of each to inform your vote:
Ficitonal weather
We can control this better, provide 100% accurate forecasts for any period of time leading up to a race (although we don't have to make them accurate, we can randomise them too!). With such control, we can also control the level of variety in the weather.
Real-world weather
Obviously, we can't control this, so forecasts will only be as reliable as real-world ones, but we can improve the way it is "syncing" across the service. This seems to be the main problem right now. As things are going "out of sync", parts of the system are reporting one set of conditions while others are showing/simulating others. This is the main reason we have frozen it temporarily.
There is also the added problem that weather in the real world is naturally seasonal, reducing variety in strategies in certain seasons. E.g. some players will join in summer and say "hards are so overpowered!" only for other players to join in winter and say "super softs are overpowered!". This happens because the tyres are suited the conditions and temperatures at that time of year.
If the execution can be improved, it does have a great novelty factor though. It's just kind of cool to have real-world weather reflected on the circuits.
