rec.autos.simulators

[What can we do for you Andrew?]

Cheaper subscription? Free content as you earn it instead of being milked
for every extra car or track?

[Not a hope.]

Free racing for backmarkers then... think of it as a charitable act
nurturing immature drivers.

[Dream on.]

How about a time machine so I can go back and never join, saving myself
from ever having to drive that lousy Solstice, bore r.a.s. with my posts,
and appear such a fool for flip-flopping on whether to stay on or not?

[I don't think we can do that.]

How about peace in Afghanistan and an end to Cold War II and instability
in Pakistan?

[No, not that either.]

They've got nukes remember.

[Big iRacing isn't afraid of nukes, only free will and hacking.]

Ok, it was worth a try.

[So are you still flip-flopping?]

Only when I forget to do my zipper up.

[How hilarious. If only your driving was as sharp as your razor sharp
wit.]

Now who's being sarcastic?

[Forgive me. But remember Big iRacing and its housemates can see every
race you've had, every off you've offed, every pathetically slow lap
you've turned. So it's very funny listening to you pretending to be a sim
racer when we all know you're just a pathetic little wannabe clogging up
the virtual tracks.]

Aren't you supposed to listen and let me talk?

[Go on then. If you must.]

If you've reached here, congratulations. I expect I'm talking to about
three people now, and all of you will be familiar with my love-hate
relationship with iRacing.

And I really do want to hate it. There are *so* many things about the
pricing and prescriptive <'allo_'allo>you vill do ziss ant you vill haff
fun!</allo_'allo> structure that I want to dislike intensely. And no
matter how many times I'm told the Solstice is good for me, I will never
forgive them for making me drive the darned thing for a whole week of my
life. I'll never get that week back!

So last weekend, after that race I'd enjoyed so much, I decided not to
race again in my final week of subscription. No risk of enjoying myself
again if I don't drive, right? No danger of going back on my decision to
step away from the credit card for at least a month.

Well, I made it up to this morning. Then I booted up the games box and
put myself in the Solstice at Laguna... a combination of car and track I
hate more than any other. Nothing to lose, just foot down and push as
hard as I can while I can still access the code.

Result? No joy whatsoever. Ne pleasure pas. Zilch, nada. No speed, no
thrill, no satisfaction. Just frustration. Which is exactly what I
wanted... it confirmed all my prejudices and suspicions about my driving.
As some say on iRacing, if you can't drive the Solstice well you're
probably just a lousy sim racer. Deal with it.

But I once said -- here I'm sure -- that I'd drive anything Papyrus
coded... it's about racing and their skill at convincing you it's real,
not the shape and weight of the car. Well, obviously I was wrong.
Sometimes driving your chair around your desk can be more satisfying than
a car which doesn't suit you.

Ok, so I then made a mistake. Last weekend I did very few laps in the
Skip Barber ready for this week's Lime Rock race. But today I decided to
throw myself straight into a time trial. After all, if I leave I will
still remain on the iRacing stats, and my secret (and, I'm certain,
humiliating) iRating & ttRating will soon be visible to everyone there.
So I might as well try to improve things a little before I go.

And I had an *embarrassing* amount of fun pushing the Skip Barber around
Lime Rock. Maybe partially because I didn't really care any more, and
maybe because it's a small track with lots of long corners to force the
car round. I had the back end out for a change, I ignored the prospect of
not scoring if I had an incident, and I got my previous best down from
about 1:02.5 to *just* under 1:01. Not earth shaking, not in danger of
troubling those getting 1:57s, but a fair improvement, with an average
over my best 8 laps of slightly over 1:02 (I backed off towards the end
to ensure 8 straight laps without an incident).

By the time I'd finished, the 12:15 GMT race was coming up, so... yes,
you guessed it. I raced and enjoyed myself immensely. I started last and
-- thanks to a combination of luck and discos -- finished much higher
despite going off at one point (rather elegantly even if I say so myself,
looking at the replay afterwards). I found another driver of very similar
ability, and also had plenty of clean interaction with faster drivers who
were less consistent.

In short, I remembered exactly why this bl**dy sim is so ***ive. The
Skip Barber in iRacing *is* GPL2, there is no doubt -- in my mind at
least -- about it. The mystical balance of visual, aural, and force
feedback which made GPL such a satisfying experience has been reborn for
the 21st century.

I always said I'd crawl over broken glass to get GPL2. So surely forking
out a lump of money and putting up with a rigid racing structure I don't
really like is much less painful?

Andrew McP... up for eviction from r.a.s. ;-)

[Please vote him out!]

You'll come back..... They always come back.....

:-))

RobP

Maybe the difference is having enough real life seat time to have
experienced a poorly handling vehicle?

I've had plenty of bad rental karts that didn't want to turn, but I
had already spent my money, so I just went as fast as I could with
it.  There were other times with my own kart where I missed the setup
and was way off the pace.  I just did the best I could.

Frustrating?  Yes.  But it's still better being on a race track than
on a tennis court or golf course.  Guess I approached the rookie
Solstice the same way and was happy just to drive it to its (and my)
potential.

--
Pat Dotson

I am increasingly convinced that the Solstice is a way of finding out if
you're made of the Right Stuff for iRacing. Not as a driver, but as a
member of the gated community which iRacing is.

I remain torn, very painfully, over whether to continue. It's the most
difficult decision I've ever had to make over something as silly as a
computer game. I'm embarrassed at how easily I swing from positive to
negative and back again. It really is sim crack. I'm definitely going to
give up... until the withdrawal symptoms come back.

Andrew McP

PS I've even wondered if my Solstice aversion was down to a controller
issue. But I'm fine with the other cars, so it must just be me!

Goy

I have just had a great idea, I think I will call it iRascar. Get DGF,
Simmo & Mitch on the blower, stock up with popcorn and lets get this
show on the road!

Cheers
Tony

cheers, Uwe

--

Good to see there's still some familiar faces around here, I'm still
convinced this web based forum thing is a passing fad....

Goy

Go on, you know you want to - all the cool kids are doing it ;-)  The
first hit is free....
(Damn, no it isn't....!)

Cheers!
John

I'm still waiting for someone to work out how to make a reader for forums
which works in the same way a newsgroup reader does. I'd pay good money
for that actually!

Andrew McP

I'm on record as saying the Legends car should be the only rookie vehicle.
It might need a more conservative setup for complete novices, but it's
fun to drive and gives you an idea why iRacing can be so impressive.

Yes. Embarrassing to be seen in public driving (unless at an 'I drive a
stupid-looking car' convention) but very nice to drive.

Hello, my name's Andrew and I've been clean for, er... <fx:counts fingers>
19 days!

Hang on, that can't be right.

<fx:re-counts fingers> 13 days!

That's better. I'm feeling distinct withdrawal symptoms, I must admit.
Which is why I worked a night's overtime last night despite saying I'd
never do another. I hate my job with a passion (everyone should have
something to loathe, it's good for the soul!), but I can listen to Radio4
while doing it, and the 50 it'll put in my bank account will go into
iRacing soon.

However I'm hoping to stay away for a while longer... at least until
Saturday, when I might get another email off them. The first was a simple
'you appear to have forgotten to renew' type courtesy email. A week later
I got a 'your cars are missing you!' type email, which made me retch so
hard I almost forgot how suspicious I am that iRacing employs someone
with the title 'vice president of marketing'.

I re-read that email whenever I weaken and want to test the Skip Barber
on my fledgling Tripleview setup. It helps quite a lot actually.

Welcome back. We kept a thread warm for you, but I think Mitch may have
crapped in it as some point. I'd check your shoes if I were you.

Andrew McP

PS I still get emails from the forums threads I'm subscribed to (I forgot
to change the settings before I left). It's the equivalent of sim racing
water torture watching those land regularly in my in-tray.

I haven't done so much racing since I moved to the advanced solstice league.
The races are 2hrs apart which seems to coincide precisely with my
anti-free-time. On the recent survey they sent out I begged for hourly races
in all leagues!

RobP

Goy

Now get off my lawn, or grab a beer and join us at the BBQ,
reminiscing the days when all the hosts on the internet fit into
/etc/hosts and we memorized ftp server ip's by heart (dozens of them
;-)

All the best, Uwe

--

I agree! The best I've been able to do to make web based forums more
efficient is 1. Use the RSS feed option to only see new posts (not new
replies), and 2. for threads I want to follow, use the subscribe feature
of the forum software. Together I have been able to drastically decrease
the amount of time forum software causes you to spend trying to keep on
top of things.

Wow, way off topic ... iRacing, I am taking a break from it and look
forward to coming back and being pleasantly surprised when they add new
features like ones we are used to having in other sims.  Love the
driving model, love racing against people at my level, but for the
price, I want some of those other features included.