rec.autos.simulators

Well here is my poll;

If you could go somewhere locally, that has say 20 systems setup
specifically for multi-player, (similar to Silicon Motor Speedway -
www.smsonline.com, but not on quite as grand a level as that.  Each person
would have their own pod (go to www.thunderseat.net, and check out the
pods), to completely immerse themselves into the games.

You could race seasons, single races, different games, flight sims,
deathmatch games such as Quake, any multiplayer game.  You wouldn't have
allot of the problems with internet latency and other problems with internet
racing that I have been reading about.

If a place like this existed, and was setup properly, would you consider
going there to race?  How much would you feel is a reasonable price?
Pricing could be per season, per race, per hour, think about how much you
are spending on ten.  I'm not saying quit the internet, because that's just
not feasible, but this would be an alternative for people who maybe don't
have the most current and up to date systems, and are a little disheartened
by the whole thing.

I live in Denver, CO and am seriously looking into this and would really
appreciate any and all input and suggestions anyone would be willing to
give.  If you have taken the time to read this I really do appreciate your
patience as I know it seems a little long.

Please email me with all comments and suggestions;
Chad Brown
Denver, CO

Happy Holidays,
Wade Tschida
W_Tschida on TEN

Not to shoot your idea down, but those who are disenheartened
might save up that 100 bucks or so per month for an arcade
approach and apply it to a system upgrade and/or a digital line
of some sort.  And race or sim or whatever at their pleasure.  A
lot of the latency problems are due to low-end approaches.  As in
anything (including arcade *** ;-), you get what you pay for.

Oh.  The answer.   In my case, no.

Rgds,
Mark

On Mon, 21 Dec 1998 23:51:13 -0700, "Chad Brown"

They provide scenarios with a roleplaying element. A lot of regulars
play (particularly those who don't own computers), but they also
cater to groups (the "guys from work") or "teambuilding" things.

The price, by the way, works out to around $14/hour.
Which seems reasonable given rent, salaries, capital, etc.
Though probably not what you wanted to hear...

The Seattle area has another similar facility across the
lake, "The Continuum" (http://www.thecontinuum.com/)
that I'm less familiar with.

- Matt

Im not saying Sim racing isnt fun.  I LOVE Sim racing.  Its probably as close
to driving a racecar as i will ever get.  Im just saying that a place to go
would "enhance" the experiance.  Kinda like a real race team going to the
track.  Plus you could get people in there who dont have a computer at home but
want to race.

SO in my opinion its a great idea.  But as of now it would be very hard to do
because of the lack of Sim racers in any given area.

Just my two cents worth.

Chris

Eldred

__

Put your message in a modem, and throw it in the ***-sea...
remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

We have a few internet cafes here in Edinburgh and they run LAN ***
nights, and we also have an example of what you are proposing - a
centre dedicated to ***, with high spec PCs, LAN and internet
linked etc etc. I've tried them and they're occasionally fun for Quake
competitions, but that's about it.

Annoying things are that you need to reset your config everytime, the
mouse isn't yours, the screen and gamma are different, you don't have
your setups handy (need to load from floppy) you can't save replays
easily and take them home, basically a load of problems that you don't
have when you're at home. Added to that the fact that you will race
only the people local to you rather than, like last night, where I
hooked up with people from U.S.A., Brazil, Germany, England, Holland
and all over to run some GPL races and it looks more limited than
online.

Personally I find internet racing with CPR, GPL, MTM, F1RS and N2 to
be above "acceptable", and I see things as only getting better in
future with ADSL and cable connections becoming more common -
increasing bandwidth and reducing latency. A game centre like that
would have been a hit in the days of Doom, Doom2 and even Quake, but
now it's time has passed IMO. For sure a LAN meet is always great and
I really like doing that, but it's becoming less and less about the
*** (since lower latency and cheaper connect makes frequent racing
easily accesible) and more about just meeting all the people you know.

Cheers!
John

I am on the East Coast now, and would be willing to organize something like
this in the future if enough interest from sim-racers. I really dont like
Quake style games, so Sim-racing would be the only thing that I would
consider doing this again for. I still have the equipment for a 100mb LAN
for up to 500 computers with sub-10ms pings. I could probably even pull some
old sponsors out of my hat to finance the gig, but it really comes down to
interest from you all.

Are you interested?
Where do you live?