rec.autos.simulators

Very true.  I had not noticed at all.

Brian Oster

Brian Oster

No, it just screws the guy that guts punted... the punter gets too
keep going.  Last year we ran w/ no yellows at pocono and I got punted
in the first couple of laps so I left since there was no chance in
hell of getting any kind of decent finish.

Brian Oster

Achim

...

I know what you mean John. I am not a part of RASCAR, but have been around
since before you guys formed it up and all I can say is that you are
experiencing first hand THE major problem I see with online racing. I ran a
league for a while and we got things basically under control, but more times
than not, even in other leagues where I have just raced and not been in a
position of authority, folks just can't control their cars. They are too
dead-set on gaining every position they can in every corner on every lap. It
really screws up what could be a great past time and hobby for us speed
junkies IMHO.

A race steward is a good and crappy idea, as you said. It may help with your
woes, but shouldn't be necessary. Granted, some issues come from the code,
bad collision detection and all, also some comes from lag, but a lot comes
from not understanding how toactually 'race'. To a lot of online 'racers',
racing is getting in the car, steering occasionally and keeping the gas
matted. That is like saying all there is to playing chess is sitting down at
the board and just randomly moving the pieces around, hoping that in the end
you'll end up winning. They try to make a game out of something that indeed
involves some strategy and skill. You can't fake either IMO, and like
Harvick quipped some time ago, a lot of them run out of talent early on,
like T1 Lap 1.

More like a nutcase...<g>

Eldred
--
Help find missing child: Tatianna Ashley Chillcutt from Michigan(info on my
homepage)
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett

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I don't know - I haven't bought it...

Eldred
--
Help find missing child: Tatianna Ashley Chillcutt from Michigan(info on my
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Not that I know of.  I've never used RW during races - never got my microphone
configured properly, so I haven't tried it again.  It should be easy enough to
press another desktop into service as a communications server, though.

20 years?!?  Damn, you're old.  My 20 year won't be until...um, 2000... :-)

Eldred
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However, 1 point is not enough incentive to keep someone driving around 30mph
off the pace for the remainder of the race.  Maybe a bonus over and above the
normal finishing position - maybe 25-35 extra points?  Ask Mark Martin how he
would have liked 35 more points near the end of last season...<g>

Eldred
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Nascar doesn't give one lap penalties for self spins. I think if everyone
would remember what Rascar is about, "we're an international group of racing
enthusiasts who were looking for clean sim-racing and camraderie without the
formal trappings of a league. The main objective for us is to have fun,
while racing cleanly in a 'gentlemanlike fashion'.." and just take it easy
for a lap or two on restarts(and this includes the hotshoes) we wouldn't
have quite so many yellows. I think the only thing this will do is reduce
the number of competitors, especially the people that are newer to online
racing. Even the guys who get paid to race***up.

Kyle

<snip>

This may be the ultimate solution.  I love large fields, the larger
the better, but I hate spending 50% the game under caution.  You don't
have too be fast to be in RASCAR but you DO have to be able to control
your car.  If you can't figure out how to do that and repeatedly cause
problems then maybe you shouldn't be racing.

Brian Oster

    Any league that wanted to settle a dispute gave each driver the chance to
protest.  Perhaps RASCAR could benefit from this in the future.  You don't have
to add any new rules, or add ons to racing etiquette.  And since RASCAR already
uploads the server replay, it would be even easier here.

What you might consider without the admins having to do much more work than they
already do now is allow any driver to protest an incident ...

1)  Only deal with incidents properly protested.  If no one files a protest
there was no incident.

2) Handle it all on the RASCAR website, any postings here about disputes could
be considered some infraction by the admins.

3) Decide in advance the possible penalties, and stay consistent with them.
Really, you can narrow down penalties to 3 basic infractions 1) Over aggressive
driving 2) Intentional stupidity, carelessness, driving in such a manner your
experience could not handle 3) Flaming on the track.

4) Create a folder on the forum for venting, no penalties.  Just bring it there
and get it out of your system.  Our own little punching bag so-to-speak.

5) If a driver wants to protest an incident ... in another place other than
venting ...
    A) Within 24 hours (1 day) of the race, list the lap number, the car
number(s) involved, and a short description of why you think there should be
some penalty.
    B) 1) John, Eldred and Ed vote privately (best of 3 votes) within 3 days and
post your response in the RASCAR forum from the website
         2) Use the forum to put it to a public vote for 48 hours (2 days)

6) End of protest.  No further discussion from the accuser or the accused (you
could file those under flaming).  If you use a public vote only drivers from
RASCAR, including those named in the incident, should participate.

This would require Ed to get the replay up a lot quicker than it is being done
now but otherwise you have set guidelines for properly channeling of disputes,
and taken quite a load off the admins

   Two other issues if I may,

1)  imho it's really too easy sometimes to simply call something just 'one of
them racing deals'; no one really at fault or everyone is to blame.  That
happens way too often, in any online racing, and it never truly satsifies
anyone.  If it does, then that person can't honestly care about the quality of
racing online.

With a proper way to protest several things can occur ...
    A) Admins get real time experience in what consistent judgement really
entails, along with the thought process that goes into it
    B) The drivers, whether they win or lose a protest, will learn over time how
a given incident could be dealt with in the future
    C) A driver who feels they are always on the losing end will know why, who,
when, where, and how.  Whatever experience they take from that is up to them.
But for me, who wins is the overall group.

2) It's been my experience, for what it's worth, that wrecks on restarts tend to
be from the same drivers over a period of time.  Whether they are new at online
racing, or just overly aggressive hard heads, some sort of protest system will
allow those suffering from repeated wrecks as well as the ones who are causing
them to have a chance to redeem themselves through healthy conversation,
attitude, and a concerted effort to improve.

Being that the basic focal point for RASCAR has been for novice skills, I can't
think of another league that penalizes rookie mistakes by making them race with
the group more often.  Rather than whoopin' up on the inexperienced, once
penalized in a Saturday race, one way to penalize them for further infractions
would be to expect to see them in practice races on the RASCAR servers weekly.

    All said, it probably was only a matter of time that something in RASCAR
would blow up like this.  Hopefully RASCAR can gain from this incident.

    Any league, any of them that stick around, is really only measured by the
fairness each driver thinks they receive and RASCAR does a good job.  But while
it may be true you can't please everyone all the time, anything more you can do
to insure everyone feels they're being treated equal is time well spent.

    I apologize that I was the one to bring out the ugly in an online race, but
I did in my heart what I felt was right at the time.  Anyone who really knows
ne, and knows how I race understands that just because there is no caution and
no real harm was done, there's no way I could be the racer I am/was and not have
something like that get under my skin.

    No, I'm sure I would not have gone after him, and yes, I'm still pissed
about it.  But too many nice guys race here and while I'll miss that, it would
be even more satisfying if RASCAR actually benefited from my temporary insanity
:)

--
Tim White
www.intracmotorsports.com

This problem would be so easy to solve if only a few drivers caused trouble.
However, we take it in turns to***-up. <g>

Jan.
=---

Ya geezer <vbseg>

Seriously though a RW or Teamspeak (which I havent actually used before but
if Ed says its good then Im sure it is) would be a great way to communicate
during the race and add to the fun to boot.

you're old.  My 20 year won't be until...um, 2000... :-)