rec.autos.simulators

"Disjoinedly" and you get at my writing :)

The message was intended to say that enjoying iRacing doesn't
necessitate the exclusion of everything else. You will see many familiar
names in iRacing and other sims. Dale Earnhardt Jr for one (iRacing & ARCA)

Cheers
Tony

I am using a moderately successful MMORPG as a guide. Eve Online, has
a reported 70K subscribers. I would think a number between 50K and
100K subscribers would be the goal set for iRacing. It would allow
enough income to keep the product growing. Less then 50K and you are
not going to be making much if any money, so development will slow if
not stop.
I have my doubts there are that many people who would take sim racing
that seriously. Certainly they are not coming to this newsgroup, and
the numbers of people online with rFactor and LFS, and just about
anything else might not come close to that. So I think that iRacing is
going to have to eventually make this thing more accessible. And that
would mean a box, and private servers, and the other things that we
will eventually complain about.

I dunno, I really don't see myself enjoying another sim until the next
generation of stuff comes out.  The combination of iRacing and a G25
is so much better than anything else out there right now, even RBR
(which has fantastic FF) feels pretty lifeless now.

Ah, yes: I missed the the 't' there.  :)

I don't think I was getting at your writing-- that was someone else's.

Yes, Earnhardt-- I bet he's as humble as they come.

This argument about what iRacing should be can go on until the sun quits
shinning.  But it's just not for me.  The fact that I don't get to do what I
want to do when I want to do it, considering the cost, turns me off.

Alan

Well, with only a few days to go to use my invitation, I cracked and
shelled out $20 to see what the fuss is about. After all, it's hard to
comment on something you have no experience of.

Having said that, I'm pretty darned sure I'd enjoy a ride in Kiera
Knightly, just as I was pretty darned sure that tank of a Solstice would
be a tank to drive, given its weight.

I was right. About the Solstice (not Kiera, sadly). Why, oh why, oh why
would anyone choose to drive that thing unless someone was holding a gun
to their head? A *large* gun! Two guns even, and a loop of razorwire
around their ***. Momentum car my backside... it's like driving a
full laden water tanker around. Awful. Really awful. No, unforgettably,
mind-numbingly, someone kill me before I have to drive this animal
another 10 yards type bad. <fx:shudder> I didn't even complete a lap
before consigning it to the "life's too short" dustbin of experience.

The Legends Coupe is, on the other hand, far nippier and more satisfying
to drive than it looks. The rookie version (no setup tweaking) slides and
corrects nicely, and I had some fun getting my testing lap times down
below <time deleted to save embarrassment>. That was a pleasant surprise,
though I'll be honest and say there seem to be nothing obviously superior
about the driving experience compared to GTLegends.

As for tracks... I've only driven Laguna Seca so far (started there in
ICR2 a loooong time ago), and I see nothing whatsoever to get e***d
about. It may be accurately mapped but it feels & looks like any other
sim L.S. course I've driven. I've always felt the whole laser mapping
thing was well-intentioned overkill, and so far I see no reason to change
my mind. It is, however, early days. But it all feels like 'just another
sim' to me at the moment.

However I'm still tempted to fork out for the Skip Barber Formula 2000
and drive a proper vehicle. But as it's highly unlikely I'll ever (be
allowed to :-) race enough online to earn the right to drive it in races
(especially if I have to drive that awful Solstice along the way!),
there's little point. It'd be like buying a Kiera Knightly duvet cover.
All frustration and zero satisfaction.

Anyway, I just fired up my Maserati in GTR2 and the sound of that
beautiful machine puts a grin on my face every time. I love racing my
'shadow' in practise mode, and the AI gives me a challenge without having
to fret about my safety score. It doesn't feel as involving to drive
coming straight out of the iRacing Coupe, but it's hard to know how much
of that is the fact it's a completely different type of vehicle, modelled
in a different sim engine.

I suppose I ought to round up by saying something positive. Let's have a
go, via a little detour.

Looking at the iRacing project I already see it falling into the trap
many sims have fallen into before. Too many vehicles and too many tracks.
This is definitely not GPL2 because the exquisite simplicity of GPL lay
in the limited track and vehicles numbers (until the modders got to work
and, sadly, diluted the racing pool too much) which drew everyone
together.

So what I'd still like to come eventually is a cut down version for the
masses. Two or three cars (not the Solstice! :-), half a dozen or so
tracks, some more game-like concessions (AI?), and VROC style
free-for-all racing. Keep the incident counter perhaps, but make it an
optional factor for those starting servers. Then they'll have the perfect
tool for drawing people deeper into the main iRacing experience.

Right, that'll do for now. First impressions are frequently a little
misguided, but they're rarely completely wrong. I'm going to go burn my
eardrums out listening to my Maserati for a while, then I might give that
Solstice another try. I mean, it can't be that bad... can it?

Andrew McP

PS Yes, it *was* that bad! Though I may just be being ***ic driving
it on a road course. As a substitute Nascar it probably works better on
ovals. But driving ovals on your own is almost as much fun as plucking
your pubic hair with tweezers.

Not that I'd know, obviously. I just have a good imagination. I'm now off
to imagine setting fire to my Solstice and claiming on the insurance to
get half my $20 back.

  > I was right. About the Solstice (not Kiera, sadly).

It's Keira, that maybe where you are going wrong :)

Great read Andrew.

Unless you get to drive the tracks (which I haven't and probably never
will) I guess it would be hard to appreciate the laser scanning,
although it does stop the arguments about  elevations being wrong etc.

What the track creation process does is a great job at moddeling bumps
and cambers etc. These are translated superbly through the FFB.

Take a Skip Barber around Lime Rock to find out. Sadly iRacing put you
in a Solstice with numbing power steering and Laguna Seca which is
pretty smooth and bit of a long track for a slow car.

The Skip Barber and Solstice are like chalk and cheese.

Of course the Solstice is the entry car for you to prove your safe
driving record before being let loose on a twitchy open wheeler to go
wheel to wheel online. I understand that but I am concerned many won't
get past the Solstice to find the true delights of the sim.

If you buy the Skippy and don't like it you should give up sim racing
and take up stalking Keira Knightley, though I fear I may be too late...

Cheers
Tony

Damn, now I have to get this tattoo across my forehead changed! Whatever
happened to i before e except after c? I dunno what the world's coming
to!

Fair point.

You must be right, and this ought to be a major selling point for those
who actually drive these tracks for real. The vast majority of us would
be none the wiser if a bit of cheaper guesswork was used though.

I'm sure I'll blow another $15 before my month's up, just out of
curiosity.

Coming straight from the Coupe I found the Solstice shockingly awful to
drive. It doesn't want to turn or accelerate, and -- call me crazy if you
like -- I was under the impression that all the e***ment in driving
came from those bits. I have now tried it on the Lowes oval, where it
behaves as a typical Nascar tank, which is perfectly acceptable. But for
road courses it's going to do more harm than good IMO. It teaches you
nothing except to drive very slowly indeed and get bored in the process.

I guess some will get a ***ic challenge from that, but not me.

I'll have you know that my imaginary duvet cover isn't even theoretically
stained. What kind of a *** do you think I am? :-D

Andrew McP

PS I made the mistake of trying the Oxford Plains Speedway before Lowes.
Someone tell me that track was included by mistake? You can spit from one
side to the other! I thought Bristol was a tight track in Nascar 1,2,3,
but this is far, far crazier!

Too late Jan! :-)

Andrew McP

Having just tried Lime Rock for the first time, I see you're right.
Laguna Seca must be an exceptionally smooth surface, whereas at Lime Rock
the FFB is jiggling all over the place with the uneven surface.

Whether I enjoy this or not is a different matter. I think I'll be
turning the FFB down a bit.

Andrew McP

Hi Andrew.

I'm guessing you are, but please make sure you try the Advanced
Solstice and Legends aswell as the Rookie ones. The Rookie cars have
reduced HP and you can't turn them with the throttle like you can the
advanced cars.

Thanks for trying it Andrew! :up: If you choose not to extend your
membership, please make sure to cancel your payment before it rolls
onto the next one.

Good luck. :)

Tim.

Yes, they are a bit more lively. In the Solstice's case though it's not
good lively, it's even more annoying lively. I'm sure it's trying to
teach me something, but I'm a bit stubborn.

You've been using forums for too long Tim. :-)

I must admit when I saw there was no option for a one off, non-rolling
payment I back-tracked and stopped my application. It's a marketing
method I dislike, though I accept it's there for our 'convenience'.

Then I thought again, put a big yellow "CANCEL" post-it on my monitor,
and started again.

Andrew McP

Kiera Knightly??? Why would you want to ride her? Sure, she has a nice face
but she is all skin and bones otherwise. You don't look at the mantle piece
when you are poking the fire. I expect Shakira would be a *much* nicer
ride.

I would expect to be making lurve, not using her to toboggan over
cobbles.

As for relative attractiveness... what can I say, I prefer my women
slender and slightly undernourished. That way they're cheaper to take out
for a meal, and are more likely to be impressed by my limited cooking
skills.

No, actually I prefer them any way I can get them, preferably without
begging.

Andrew McP

After some experimenting, including finding out that the Solstice at Lime
Rock is nowhere near as much of a handful as at Laguna Seca, I decided
tonight I'd better try a little online racing. It is, after all, what
this sim is all about.

My first and, it has to be said, lasting impression was one of confusion.
I find the race interface puzzling and had difficulty working out what I
was supposed to do to get a race. This is probably entirely down to me
being a famously slow learner, and the fact that I'm new to the game. But
I suspect I'm not the only one who finds it less than transparent.

I want to be led by the nose...

Race -> which car? -> which track? -> list of sessions available and
when.

Part of this might be down to the fact your choices are so limited as a
basic package holder of rookie status. I'm not sure. It's probably unfair
of me to comment on this though, because I do tend to pick up things
slowly. However the race interface left me feeling a bit alienated as a
beginner.

Speaking of which, my first race. :-)

Solstice rookie at (full) Lime Rock. I tried to find a way of practising
with other cars on the track before qualification, but failed to find
anything. I may just be missing something, but I could *really* do with
some kind of open server just to get used to other cars on the track.

Anyway, qualified at the back of about ten cars (my natural position
throughout my racing 'career') and had a fairly uneventful race. Managed
not to***up anyone's race and wasn't lapped until lap four. There was
still someone who hadn't lapped me by the time we finished, so I guess
that counts as a good race for me. :-)

Overall I enjoyed getting out of people's way cleanly, found the mirrors
reliable, and was relieved not to have caused anyone to lose any points.
In fact that was pretty much my only goal... forget racing, just don't be
the reason someone else gets penalties!

Which made me ponder the fact that I may not, as I suspected, be cut out
for iRacing if that's going to weigh on my mind so heavily. Still, back
in my GPL days I was always eager to be clean rather than successful.
That's great in one way, but ultimately being the nicest backmarker in
town is probably not worth spending money every month on.

Actually it wasn't all that much fun for free. ;-)

Ok, second race... worked out how to swap to the only other race I seemed
eligible for, Coupe rookie at Boston South. Now B.S. is a *** little '4
turn' (can they count in the USA? I only ever found two! :-) track with
less of a comfort zone for a natural backmarker. No peace between
overtakings!

Still, I thought it would be useful to hone my mirror-watching skills so
I joined a field of about ten again.

Again, safely qualified at the back with only one late joiner behind me.
This time it took six short laps for me to be watching the rear view
mirror filling up. However I managed to avoid incident throughout this
and many, many subsequent overtakings and survived a clean race without
seeing or causing any problems. The winner lapped me three times in a 38
lap race. :-)

You may remember me mentioning I may not be cut out for this iRacing
lark.

Right, so my overall thoughts are as follows... The iRacing experience
does seem to be everything it promises to be. A solid and fairly well set
up online racer for serious sim users. There is nothing whatsoever casual
about it, and I suspect until there's a 'complete novices' series or
practise server I'll not really be inclined to do much more racing.

On balance I'd probably rather have fired up the PC tonight, dived
straight into a race against some AI, and turned off the PC an hour or so
later. Instead I got sucked into the waiting for the next race/session
thing, and while a race of some kind (not necessarily anything you might
want to race) once every hour is fair enough for a serious setup like
iRacing, for the average simmer it's probably too restricted.

As other have said, iRacing fits nicely into your sim repertoire
alongside other titles. It is no doubt the best coded simulation out
there, and the cars are very satisfying to drive (even that poxy Solstice
on the right track, if you bring a book to read while waiting for it to
do something interesting). But my argument is that if I'm going to be
paying $xx dollars a month to drive (and only then be allowed to drive
certain cars at certain times if I've been a good enough driver to earn
(and keep!) the right to drive the cars I've bought) then I want to be
driving one sim and one sim only.

So does iRacing hit that sim g-spot? For me, I think not. I'm too much of
a casual racer to be drawn in.

I want to love it, don't get me wrong. On one level I certainly *do* love
it... it's great to be back in safe, ex-Papyrus hands again. But the
regimented and restricted structure is not, sadly, for me. So while I
really long to be a part of this ongoing adventure, I don't see me making
it past my first month.

I have no doubt, however, that I will be lured back again from time to
time. I may even change my mind and 'forget' to cancel my account, who
knows... I'm already racing the Solstice after my initial outright
hatred.

But without spending more money on more cars and tracks the initial
experience is a bit empty, and I need to race a lot to clock up the right
to race anything interesting. So I may well be caught in the catch22
situation of being too tight to spend the money (and time) I need to
spend in order to really get into the sim. It lacks a 'killer app' from
the word go.... a Lotus + Watkins Glen online demo to woo the masses and
make us dribble with desire.

I seem to be writing an essay. Oh well, maybe it'll be of some use to
those of you debating whether or not to try it. And to all of you I say
you *must* try a month, even if it's only to find out what you're missing.
:-)

Who knows, I may be completely wrong in most of my impressions so far,
and the iRacing forums (open only to members, though I think viewing only
for non-members would be a good idea) seem to be full of people doing a
*lot* of racing and having an awful lot of fun.

If only I had the talent, time, and positive attitude to be one of them.
The latter is probably all that's really required though.

Andrew McP.

On Mon, 4 Aug 2008 05:02 +0100 (BST),

<Snip>

Thanks, Andrew! A great review. I didn't try it (yet), and I fear I
never will. It seems a tad too serious for me, and I miss the freedom
from the old GPL/VROC days.  Then you could do some other stuff on
your PC, and keep one eye on the racelist. When you saw an interesting
race (Monza of course...) coming up, you joined, qualified the best
you could for 1 hour, and in the race you crashed in T1. Without fear
someone would skin you alive because you caused some incidentpoints...

Cheers!

Remco