Hello everyone, TheQuad here. Shacknews Stimulus Games Wreckfest tournament third place finisher and frequent ThomW cornerbomb target. Take a seat, and let’s talk about The Very Track Pack. For those that don’t know, The Very Track Pack is a Wreckfest mod that adds a large number of custom tracks of wildly varying quality. Some have been so good that Bugbear adopted them as official courses, and some of them look like they were cooked up in Blender by an eight year old.
I know from the last few Wreckfest Shackbattles that there have been some, shall we say, less than enthusiastic feelings about some of the TVTP courses that have come up. I completely understand the negativity, as many of them are straight up garbage! I’m here today to convince you that the TVTP is worth keeping around. I believe I’ve come up with a solution that will help us avoid terrible tracks that waste our precious racing time, at least time not already spent in 10 minute lobbies.
What makes the TVTP so frustrating is that many tracks have no description or layout preview, so finding a good one in the pile can feel like a total crapshoot. However if one digs deep enough, there are some diamonds in the rough. In the spirit of trying to convince the community that the TVTP is worth keeping, I have spent some of my week being completely unproductive and loading up almost every track to give it a quick once over. I drove at least one lap of each to assess whether it was even worth running, how many laps it should be set for, and how crazy it gets so we have an idea of what damage setting to use. I know it's no fun to get wrecked on the first lap (or turn!) and have to spectate for several minutes.
I’ve compiled the list of tracks I think are actually worth racing in the table below. This list is not gospel, as I’m sure there are a few tracks on here that some of you will still hate! The goal was just to cut out the trash so we can decide which courses might actually be worth throwing into the rotation. The tracks are listed in the order they appear in the selection menu, first by environment and then by name. If a track or environment does not appear in the list it doesn’t mean we can’t try it, it just means that I think it’s probably janky, buggy, or just not that fun. We can use this list as a starter guide to determine which tracks we’d like to keep around. I hope that this will redeem the TVTP in some of your eyes but I’m sure there will be some strong opinions, so I can’t wait to hear about them in the comments. Happy wrecking!
