rec.autos.simulators

So can someone explain to me why I've spent the last hour reading about
iRacing and watching youtube clips? Would it hurt to spend $20 and put a
toe in the water? Ok it'd be to drive a vehicle that looks & drives like
a tank, around tracks I've never driven before. And chances are I'd never
even go online with it... just do some offline circuits -- GPL demo style
-- to see what all the fuss is about.

My head says don't be stupid... you know you'll never enjoy paying out
regularly for a racing game when you already have 101 other distractions
in life. You'll never get your money's worth... and you were always a
lousy driver anyway. The best that can happen is that you get ***ed
and spend the next few months watching your penalty points clock up,
dooming you to drive in an eternal limbo of newbie races while others
zoom up the rankings and witter on about how they were once in a race
with someone who got out of the way for a Real Race Driver(TM).
It's just not a product aimed at enthusiastic, but fundamentally
untalented racers like you! Stick to rFactor when you need a racing fix,
or LFS when you want to contribute to never-ending product development,
or GTR2 when you want to listen to amazing engine noises.

But my heart whispers 'GPL2', and it's very hypnotic. I think I'd better
delete that invite quickly!

Andrew McP... methinks he doth protest too much

You are absolutely correct so just use some self control and say no. I
won't even pay a monthyly fee for a game like WoW for the same reasojns you
state. If I was going to pay a monthyly fee for a game I think I would
rather fork out the dough for something like WoW rather than a racing sim.

for now resist the urge to shell out money as iR just ain't GPL
(yet). I'm not saying it won't be in the not too distant future, but I
regretted shelling out 60 Euros for a six month subscription after
experiencing boredom and frustration again... in a skippy
race. Initially, I really liked the feel of these cars, but being
penalized when trying to catch up with somebody in a race for putting
a wheel a pubic hair's width over the kerbs, or being punted off the
track without any fault of your own (it still happens in skippy races,
though not as often as in the milk truck league) eventually led to the
"same old, same old" feeling I experienced too often for my tastes
during two years of beta testing.

Fascinating new stuff is at the horizon with iracing, but for now, I
can only recommend you try it for a month so your eventual loss won't
be too big.

One thing that only struck me later is that I won't be able to "sell"
iR if I find I don't like it. I'm entitled to race until xmas, but its
resale value is zero.

All the best, Uwe

--

I just watched a dozen videos on youtube of iRacing and to be honest
it looks pretty much exactly the same as rFactor to me except for 4 (four)
things that I noticed;

1) Realistic head movement / look to apex functionality (seems to be
missing?)
2) Tons of free mods - not available
3) Unlimited free online and offline racing - $$
4) Ability to race ANY car you want to race ANYTIME you want to race it ;)

I just don't "get" what the fuss is about??
So I MUST be missing something.

And maybe
5) as Uwe mentioned if you ever decided you wanted to sell - the value =
ZERO

0-0-0-0-0

Normally that doesn't worry me. I rarely re-sell games or books because
to do that dilutes the author's income, and I like to see creative people
rewarded well for their efforts.

The same goes for iRacing. A huge part of me *really* wants it to take
off and succeed, even if I personally can't (or won't!) justify the
overall and ongoing cost. But you could spend quite a lot of money buying
every bolt-on for the sim, and then find you haven't got the time to
commit to it for one reason or another.

I can absolutely understand the subscription for serious online racing,
but I really think they need to separate that from the cars & tracks
somehow. Sell me all the stuff to race offline (or on non-iRacing,
GPL-style servers) for $100-$150, with an ongoing $5 a month for access
to updates and I might be tempted. But...

But I'm in danger of going over old ground. This has been talked to death,
and I'm not adding anything useful to it! :-)

I still want to try iRacing, but I really do have to be sensible. The
basic package doesn't get me anything I want to drive, I'm not as
committed to sim racing as I was ten years ago, and this product is not
suited to someone like myself who maximises a relatively low monthly wage
by being very careful what he spends on a routine basis. I'm *great* at
saving for things I really want or need, but not very good at committing
to things which steadily syphon money from my account... especially when
it's something which I might not have time to get value out of every
month.

Having said all that about being careful with money, I just invested
6.19 on a second hand copy of Ishmael at Amazon. You* recommended it to
me a looooong time ago, and talking to you has reminded me -- yet again!
-- that it's still on my 'must read' list.

Ok, time to shut up. ;-) Thanks again for the advice.

Andrew McP

*I'm sure it was you, apologies if my memory's playing tricks.

To be completely fair though, the Solstice looks more entertaining and
almost like a proper racing car... even if it weighs almost as much as
the average moon. I might enjoy driving that for a while even though it's
the open-wheelers I'd want to get my hands on ASAP.

Andrew McP

I tried it for a month.  But come renew time I don't think I'm going to
continue with it.  I don't like the cost and everything is too "high-brow"
for me.  There's too much of things like, "I got touched by another guy now
my rating is going to suffer!"  And things are a bit too structured for my
tastes.  If I'm going to spend so much a month, why is it that I can't get
some of my buds together, get on a server, and race without ratings and all
the rest of the stuff they have?

I'm paying a monthly fee but I'm being led about as if I were a dog on a
leash.

Boo-hoo.

I'll take rFactor, LFS, GTR2, etc., and race without having to pay a fee,
and leave all the elitists to do their own thing.

Alan

Alan

l8er
ronny

Um, gee, let's see now.

GTL
GTR2
LFS
rFactor
Race07
F1 Challenge '99-02'

Need some more to validate my posting to this group?

Exactly when has a used game been worth anything anyway?  There is one, and
only one example I can think of and thats NR2003 during the days when it was
selling for $150 on eBait.

If you pay $20 for say rFactor, then try to sell it, someone might take it
off your hands for $2.  And we won't get into the copy protection/online
activation issues that would crop up.

It should also be mentioned that anything you buy in iRacing is yours
forever.  If you leave the service then come back later, it will still be
yours.  They don't take it away if you leave for a while.

-Larry

Aha!  That's my problem, and why I'm so slow!  I'm driving around with my
nose stuck up in the air :)

Understandable, but yes it is getting old.  Having someone else take away
something you worked very hard for is hard to swallow.  We will see this
with every new group as they come in until they settle down.  After a while
reality will set in and for that group this too shall pass.  I hope :)

That's not what iRacing is about, and one of the primary reasons it's not
for everyone.  Club racing IS on the board/being considered, but there are
bigger fish to fry right now I suspect.

Ah, come on man.  Really.  iRacing rules are no different/worse than rules
the real drivers have to contend with.

LOL!

The thing that bothers me is that though I'm paying a monthly fee, I cannot
just start my own server, invite some friends, and race the car and track
that I want to, without ratings and contact rules.  I think that if they
added this to the options, they'd get thousands of more subscribers.

Alan

By sticking to its principles iRacing may well make itself a very serious
product for very serious racers, and anyone used to paying for real world
racing (even semi-regular carting outings) will hardly notice the costs
involved. They and iRacing will hopefully do us all an indirect favour
eventually, by making sim racing a more serious subject. That can only
lead to better sims and more fun in the long term.

Andrew McP