a long break from sim driving, for health and other reasons, I've
reinstalled GPL and GTL. The former is just to mess around with, but I
did want to try GTL online again. I have a better PC now than I did a
couple of years ago, with a 9600GT rather than a 7600GT (though I still
use my old MSFF wheel!) so it was nice not to have to compromise on
graphical quality to get a smooth frame rate. :)
Catching up with events (not easy when RSC is down - I think last time I
had a break was when RSC had that *huge* downtime a few years ago,
actually!) I found that GTL has now reached the "lots of mods" stage,
which is something I always have mixed feelings about as it does fragment
what's already a shrunken audience still further. Still, off to the
server list I went...
...several servers dedicated to various mods, as expected, so they were
out. Altbierbude looked promising at first, but further investigation
showed that I'd have to spend the entire afternoon downloading addon
tracks and car skins for the thing to work at all. Too much effort,
though if they ever get the "one-click" update they talk about on their
site that might change. And "Russian drunk-driving" was hardly an
enticing server name, though beggars can't be choosers I suppose.
Which left a TC65-only server which turned out to be the good old Gamers
Crib people under a different name. This looked much more promising:
unmodded physics, original tracks, short races and drivers who were there
for the right reasons. I started out in the Lotus Cortina as I'd barely
turned a wheel in over a year and wanted stability. Shame it's so slow!
At least I got complimented for being a very clean driver, which was nice.
Eventually I traded up to the Alfa, which is much faster and had always
been my favourite car in this class. I'm hopeless at setups, so tend to
use downloaded ones; even if not perfect, they're much nicer than the
ones GTL provides as defaults. I wasn't too happy with my performance at
Magny-Cours Club (mainly because it's a horrible track) but a third place
at the much nicer Anderstorp GP encouraged me.
By now it was late in the evening, but I had to stay for one more race on
one of my favourite circuits, Donington National. It all came back to me,
and (with the help of the fastest driver of the session having left us) I
managed pole. I was thrilled with that, and would have been an awful lot
more thrilled had my car decided enough was enough before the first
corner. Gah. Oh well, that's racing!
It was great to find I still enjoyed the races so much, and to find that
this server was all about good, clean racing rather than showing off or
being stupid. This may be a very old game now (and yes, I've looked at
iRacing: it seems a bit cold and clinical to me) but GT Legends online is
still a tremendously enjoyable experience. :)
--
Bewdley, Worcs. ~90m asl.