rec.autos.simulators

Is that not fair? After all, the real Formula One could also be
considered a game. However, I can't the loser of next years championship
saying, 'well, it's only a game...' :o) But it is really. Just a game,
like Football or Tennis. In GPL we compete against the AI or each other
in VROC. There are winners and losers. Sounds like a game to me :)

It is also a simulation because we aren't racing REAL 1967 GP cars, we
are racing pixels, numbers, codes and models. Seems quite simple to me
:) How could anyone disagree??

I r00l :o)

--
Rob Swindells
Goldline Bearings FFord Championship: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
BAR-Honda-Jacques Villeneuve-2000 Champions

Exactly.  Real racing is a game also.  We consider this a game, no one
doubts about that and it's written in the charter.  But in that game
category we have a subcategory which is ARCADE and SIMULATION, or anything
that blends in the middle, toward one pole or the other.  Because ARCADE
games has been since the first days of *** beeing tagged as a "game", and
more serious games as "simulations", it's how we adopted to name those
terms.  Some are pure arcade games, others are pure simulations.  They are
all virtual reality environments.

Of course some people always play with semantics, we have such threads since
the birth of r.a.s. and will continue to have one each month or so.  It's so
redundant that people get mad.  They underestimate the power of the Dark
Side...

Because the high-end virtual simulation of Jet fighters used by the military
ARE games also, if some people want to play the "semantic" and "have fun
searching the ***y Webster dictionnary for a word" game ;-)

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

        this may be a bit off but.. while you're looking up the word "Game",
look up the word "Competition" as well.

--
=========================================
Mike Barlow of Barlow Racing?
=========================================
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Racing online with the help of......

Race Communications Association
Holodyne Engineering
Mystic Music
(have Your !!Name/Address!! placed here)

I'd like to say up front that I'm not trying to play semantic games here.
Words have a tendency to conjure up subtlely different concepts in different
people's noggins, and subtlety is really what we're talking about here.

First, I very much doubt that F1 is considered a "game" by its participants,
even though by the dictionary definition it is a game.  Formula One is a
business -- a serious business.  Not to put too a fine point on it here, but
a game is something one participates in for recreation and (usually) at his
own expense.  I realize that Schumie is probably having some fun at his job,
but I don't think he'd do it if he had to pay for it himself.  Nor would
Ferrari or Honda be in the fray if there weren't something to be had besides
the warm glow of victory.

The problem with the term "simulator" is that it has to be taken in a
certain context.  Here's a dictionary definition.

simulation (s?mye-lashen) noun
1. The act or process of simulating.
2. An imitation; a sham.
3. Assumption of a false appearance.
4. a. Imitation or representation, as of a potential situation or in
experimental testing. b. Representation of the operation or features of one
process or system through the use of another: computer simulation of an
in-flight emergency.

(The American Heritage? Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition
copyright ? 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.)

GPL could certainly be called a simulation under this definition, but then
again so could Pole Position with the CPU power available at the time.  It's
a matter of degree.  I grant you that GPL's developers were more "serious"
about the physics, but even they had to compromise and go for "feel" rather
than actual mathematical accuracy within the context of available CPU power,
lack of tactile feedback and lack of physical forces involved.

But the reason for creating this software was not for testing or
experimentation.  It was created for people to compete with each other under
a given set of rules approximating the 1967 Formula One season.  It is
therefore also a game.  My contention is that it is closer to a game than it
is to reality (as you must know being a real-world race driver).  I have
never driven a Lotus 49, but I have driven a sports car at racing speeds and
I have done several seasons of motorcycle road racing back in the late
'60s.  And while simulation racing presents many of the same problems faced
by real-world race drivers, there is enough missing to make it a mere shadow
of the real thing.  For example, the lack of any real consequence from
making a serious mistake or boneheaded move tends to make sim drivers far
more aggressive than their real world counterparts would be in the same
circumstance.  There is much more, of course, but I'm sure you get the
point.

To boil it all down, people generally call a software offering a "game" or
"sim" simply to separate them into "fun" or "serious" categories for
benchmark purposes.  I think that for the most part it's done to quickly
communicate to fellow advocates that an offering resides in one or the other
categories as a starting point for further discussion.   Unfortunately the
lines are often blurred by conception, taste and preference.

Just an opinion and not really a diagreement.

--
Bob Curtin
Worcester Area Strategy & Tactics Exchange
http://www.tiac.net/users/ten10ths/
"If God had intended men to join the Army he would have given us green,
baggy skin"