rec.autos.simulators

  I playd Asheron's Call in the past, and really enjoyed that for
about 6 months.  It was a decent value because it kept me really busy,
but ultimately I got a bit tired of it, but it I think it's a good
value because normally in that period I  would have bought about 6-8
games, but I found just one kept me busy.  Lots of stuff to explore,
it was actually cool just to walk between towns.

  This game doesn't seem to work as well, it introduces all the
frustrations of massively multiplayer *** (grunt work- level up),
yet none of the thrills- 4 racers is hardly alot to race against.  I
would think 8 would be the bare minimum, with about 12-16 more like
it.  It's also really hard to get matched up against someone you have
a chance of winning, so skill is factored out and it becomes mostly a
tedious upgrade-RPG.  I also encountered more than a few cases of
unsportsmanlike racing- drivers seemed to intentionally stop in order
to cause a crash- who knows, maybe it was just really bad lag.  In a
multiplayer game, they should black flag anybody who causes an
excessive amount of car damage via nudging, bumping, whatever.

  The tracks are a mixed bag. There's alot of ovals, which aren't too
bad, but the Proving Ground just seems way too narrow, and the other
road courses I have seen just weren't as fun as the street courses in
Porsche Unleashed.

  I get the feeling this game would have worked better as a
singleplayer game with a multiplayer component.  Sort of like 4-4 Evo
with Need for Speed.  I really like Need for Speed Porsche but some
classic American cars would be great. As it is now I don't see paying
9.95 a month for what amounts to a tedious singleplayer game with poor
multiplayer implementation.

  The worst sin of all is I use a nonstandard keyboard- Dvorak keymap.
 The inputs on my keyboard are reset to QWERTY.  Pretty much kills
chatting with anybody.

  I really feel sorry for folks who waste their lives on this game...
you could be out buying a real car or feeding the homeless or
something.  Of course, I really don't like the kind of dedication
these massively multiplayer games take, there's something inherently
wrong with spending more time in a virtual world than you do the real
one.

  So, any advice on what's the best multiplayer racing game, middle of
the road realism?  I'm mostly a singleplayre racer, not the most
skilled (but getting there), but I do have a good connection.  I
played some Dirt Track Racing 2 and have played that some as well,
it's not hard to find games, but not many people seem to be racing the
stock cars- the concept cars are really tricky to drive, and I find
full realism a bit too hard (I usually play at 60-75 percent).

MCO sucks, plain and simple.

--
__________________________
Todd Walker
http://twalker.d2g.com
__________________________

In a very rare case of rectal-cranium inversion, I purchased this on impulse
without checking in to it first.

That'll never happen again :(

-Larry

  I want to like the game, it can be fun sometimes, but the value is
poor.  It's a decent, if underdeveloped, singelplayer game, and a
mediocre multiplayer game- at 100 dollars/year, it doesn't look to be
a good value.  Maybe if it had more tracks, or at least more tracks
that didn't suck badly, or a better difficulty balancing system so
skill plays a greater role.   And the netcode?  I played Dirt Track
Racing 2 last weekend as pickup games, several races with 6-8 people
and I didn't see half the low-framerate/warping I did with MCO and
only 2 cars.

  I heard originally the NFS team was going to make Motor City a
singleplayer game.  Too bad they didn't, it would have been good.  I
really like Porsche Unleashed's gameplay and physics, but Porsche cars
don't do much for me (I've only seen one on the street maybe once my
whole life... must be only Eurotrash and undertaxed Hollywood stars
driving them...).

You must be living in the middle of noware then, not to far from Hollywood?
And excuse my ignorance, but can you explain the term "Eurotrash"?

Jone.

Oh. My. God. You are missing out bigtime, bud. 3.6l boxer six mere inches
from the exhaust, sounding absolutely fantastic. Do a quick search for
pictures of a Porsche 911 (996) Turbo. Boxsters (the little convertible
ones) are about 36k over here if you are stupid and buy from dealerships,
so they are not that exclusive.

-Larry

You need to be a real die hard muscle car fan to enjoy that title, and
even then you shouldn't be a die hard sim racer, more in the casual
gamer category, if so, it has enough elements to make it worth
while....perhaps

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy
"goyl at nettx dot no"

"The Pits"    http://www.theuspits.com/

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels"
--Groucho Marx--

AND,  I speak from experience. I got MCO and tried it for a couple of
months, got way up the rank charts, got a few time trial weekly bonuses,
etc. Built a few nice cars, was earning a nice paycheck. Forgot to play it
for a couple-six months until the wife asked what the charge on a bank card
was and said 'Ooops!'. Went back in, collected enough pay to outfit another
couple of cars (from weekly checks going unused for 5 months), but still
decided to drop the subscription. I'd rather have a pay-to-play Papy racing
arena than go back to MCO.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- http://ymenard.cjb.net/
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

-Larry