rec.autos.simulators

It only takes me a few seconds - maybe 10 max to load the stages and my hard
drive is 4 years old

Kendt

now

    Nah, I never liked the wheels in that game.

Byron Forbes enlightened us with:

Heck try getting that GPL 04 demo...  No I cant remember the link or the
actuall filename, I will chck at home because I have it there...

Help guys, what is the link to that DEMO of the GPL that has updated skins
and stuff?

It's a rally sim, not track racing. I don't think anyone was seriously
expecting a rally sim to have multiplayer, so it's not really a con. It
does leave a potential gap in the market though.

Malc.

1. The nature of rallying does not lend itself particularly to online
***, and
2. RBR is essentially a port from a console title, consider the PC
community lucky to have it at all and that it's as good as it is.

There's also the minor matter of how difficult it clearly is to do
multiplayer well. Papy titles have their collision boxes, EA titles have
their bandwidth & freezing problems etc. The problems have all but been
eradicated but /decent/ multiplayer is certainly not the norm yet.

Given the choice of good physics or online ***, I'd take the physics
every time. Both would be good of course, but the physics are essential
to a good simulation, multiplayer is not in this specific case.

Now don't get me wrong I'm all for online racing, I just don't think rbr
is any less of a sim for not having it considering the nature of the
sport it simulates.

Malc.

  But I hear your points.

Sounds like you're a lot more interested in track racing than rally racing.
There's nothing wrong with that - RBR can't be everything to everyone.

This is what has made LFS, NR2003 and lot of other titles so successful. A
community has formed around the online aspects of the game, and this is what
has provided the long term value.

One of the great aspects of RBR is the skills required in risk management to
become a champion, as opposed to the short term thrills of "hotlapping". RBR
has all the core components there, but not the structure or control to
ensure fair online champsionships.

If there was an online mangement system, drivers could line up for a
championship, with all the stages having to be raced online. Other
competitors could spectacte before and after their runs, and more
importantly, the integrity of their runs would be assured. If the
championship was selected to have realistic damage, then all drivers would
be forced to run in this mode. One big off, and they are out of an event. It
would be easy for the developers to allow synchronised weather and event
order, or to enable the championship organiser to decide this.

Drivers and online spectators could compare their stages with other
competitors by ghosting the comparitive runs.

This would provide a whole new aspect to the game, much better than just
running a championship against "AI" competitors. Suddenly, the hot lappers
would be up against those with the concentration and risk management skills
to be true champions - just like in real life. If I was leading by 30
seconds at the final stage of an event, I would deliberately take it easy to
ensure a finish, or if I was 10 seconds behind, maybe decide to take more
risks to get the extra points if I needed them. I might also decide to
settle for second if I was in a good position for the entire season
championship.

Also, I don't have a problem with multi-player ghost running, even if this
doesn't happen in reality. I did a lot of this with Rally Trophy, and it was
not only great fun and competition, but a great way to improve skills by
watching the techniques of other in sections where they are gettting ahead.

Hotlapping has serious restrictions. If you have a look at the fastest times
on RBR-RANK: http://www.racesimcentral.net/

you'll see the cars flying through the air and bouncing off the sides of
cliffs. This is not so much a contraint of the damage model in RBR, but that
the real-world equivilent would be to offer the drivers physical
invulnerability from any crash, and an unlimted supply of $500,000 rally
cars to wreck. I'm sure the real world pros could drive like that and get
similar stages times for the one in ten times that they actually made it to
the finish if they were offered this.

Now then, imagine a hot lap system for storing replays of only stages that
were completed under online champship conditions, where they only have one
car per event, and will fail to finish if they heavily crash out.

By the way, IMO I would like to see an even more realistic (read: tougher)
car rescue system for the realistic mode. The spectators could only recover
a car that rolls or goes off in a place that is feasibly recoverable (not
more than 15% slope)

Tim

  Exactly.

   Other things involved too, but in terms of actually racing visibly
against another online, an online rally race wouldn't be any different from
say, an online GPL Ring race(or for that matter many other gpl tracks).
They turn into hotlapping too, many times.  Just like a rally.

  Be soooo much more fun against humans.

Charlie