What will it take to go back?

If you have paid attention lately, you have probably notice there has been an enormous ground swell against First-Racing(now called iRacing.) They have played the bully in restricting previously allowed mods in the Nr2k3 community. I know of many mod groups that have been working with Papy for 10 years that have dumped them because of the 'reclaiming of copyright' legal manuevers. So soon, we are led to beleive, rFactor will be released. A mod friendly big advancement from prior ISI sims. I am going to guess that even with all the improvements from the multiplayer demo, that rF will not quite rise to the level of previous Papyrus titles when examining online features. Now my question. Even if rFactor is the 'next great sim', what will it take for the faithful to go back to iRacing? What feature? What advancement? What are you looking for in a Next Gen Sim? What will jump out and MAKE you go running back home? and Part 2.. What could ISI do to allow you to never want to return to Papy-style sims? What do they need to complete your racing requirements? dave henrie

I will seriously consider both titles and may end up purchasing both. I am not a "modder" (or hacker, as iRacing has called them), but an end user of the products that these ppl. create. In this sense, DK & Crew have done a lot of damage to their reputation. The question is, who are they targeting with their upcoming project? As is their way, secrecy is the name of the game. Some say it is the same GPL/NRxxxx crowd (who now despise them for a large part) and others say it will be hard core, real life racers who may never have heard of NRxxxx or GPL. Which group would be larger? Tough call if you ask me. Do real life racers want to spend more money to buy a top end computer with all the needed goodies (wheels,pedals,cpu,gfx card, speakers, etc.) on top of maintaining and racing a real car? Will the Papy faithful (and not so faithful at this point) be willing to overlook the past misdeeds? Personally, I am not so foolish to say that I will not look at what iRacing puts out and may even buy it. I like to sim race, simple as that. If their products interests me and the reviews from fellow simmers (not magazines or press releases) are good, then I'll probably jump in. As for ISI, they need to continue to build on and surpass everything that Papy did with NR2003. NR2003 is <the> benchmark right now for sim racing and it's 2.5 yrs. old. There is no other sim racing title right now that I use more than NR2003. I have RBR, GPL, NSR(ugh), F1C. They can use whatever form of racing they choose, but it simply needs to be as good as NR2003 is right now, including the MP and especially the interface. A solid PC version of a menu system is essential, no forward/back screens, no awkward calibration systems, no need to spend hours tweaking a .plr file to activate various options. The previous generation gfx needs to be overhauled to be more photorealistic.

"Dave Henrie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> If you have paid attention lately, you have probably notice there has > been an enormous ground swell against First-Racing(now called iRacing.) > They have played the bully in restricting previously allowed mods in the > Nr2k3 community. I know of many mod groups that have been working with > Papy for 10 years that have dumped them because of the 'reclaiming of > copyright' legal manuevers. > > So soon, we are led to beleive, rFactor will be released. A mod

friendly > big advancement from prior ISI sims. I am going to guess that even with > all the improvements from the multiplayer demo, that rF will not quiterise

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> to the level of previous Papyrus titles when examining online features. > > Now my question. Even if rFactor is the 'next great sim', what will it > take for the faithful to go back to iRacing? What feature? What > advancement? What are you looking for in a Next Gen Sim? What will jump > out and MAKE you go running back home? > > and Part 2.. > > What could ISI do to allow you to never want to return to Papy-style > sims? What do they need to complete your racing requirements? >

Aside from the brouhaha over getting the NR2003 code rights back under wrap, the future for iRacing/rFactor isn't that much different from the past with Sierra-Papyrus/EA-ISI. Papy were always rather protective of their product, while ISI, from SCGT on, were more mod-friendly. I have no issue with someone protecting the fruits of their labor and investment (& even making a buck), so the First/iRacing fuss doesn't bother me one whit. I do sympathize with some of the guys who got caught out during the transition phase though; DK & Co. could probably have handled that better as for this group of folks. But in the larger market sense, what our little community of sim-heads thinks doesn't really matter much. It's just two groups hitting the market from different angles, trying to define the niche that will best work for them. And only when they do will we enjoy the benefits of a long pipeline of first-tier product. And product is what it comes down to in the end, as ever. Whoever delivers the best product, or at least the best product at the price level the market's willing to pay, will dominate. In the past it was Papy. Future will tell. IMHO, mods are not that big an issue; the biggest question is how pay to play will be rolled out and whether that model will fly in the face of an established free-online-racing precedent. As to your questions about what's looked for in a racing sim; for me it's realism in physics, graphics and sound; depth, polish and reliability in game design, interface and function; quality multiplayer and replay capability. There are other sims out that do bits and pieces well, but no one has yet put the total package together as well as Papy did. All any sim developer has to do to succeed is DELIVER. Simple. Just not easy. SB

Steve Blankenship wrote:

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> Aside from the brouhaha over getting the NR2003 code rights back under wrap, > the future for iRacing/rFactor isn't that much different from the past with > Sierra-Papyrus/EA-ISI. Papy were always rather protective of their product, > while ISI, from SCGT on, were more mod-friendly. I have no issue with > someone protecting the fruits of their labor and investment (& even making a > buck), so the First/iRacing fuss doesn't bother me one whit. I do > sympathize with some of the guys who got caught out during the transition > phase though; DK & Co. could probably have handled that better as for this > group of folks. But in the larger market sense, what our little community > of sim-heads thinks doesn't really matter much. > > It's just two groups hitting the market from different angles, trying to > define the niche that will best work for them. And only when they do will > we enjoy the benefits of a long pipeline of first-tier product. And product > is what it comes down to in the end, as ever. Whoever delivers the best > product, or at least the best product at the price level the market's > willing to pay, will dominate. In the past it was Papy. Future will tell. > IMHO, mods are not that big an issue; the biggest question is how pay to > play will be rolled out and whether that model will fly in the face of an > established free-online-racing precedent. > > As to your questions about what's looked for in a racing sim; for me it's > realism in physics, graphics and sound; depth, polish and reliability in > game design, interface and function; quality multiplayer and replay > capability. There are other sims out that do bits and pieces well, but no > one has yet put the total package together as well as Papy did. All any sim > developer has to do to succeed is DELIVER. Simple. Just not easy.

What he said! I agree entirely. Cheers Tony

"Steve Blankenship" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > All any sim > developer has to do to succeed is DELIVER. Simple. Just not easy. > If the coders can sell the idea of quality product to the money people (so far Papyrus are the only outfit to succeed) then we get a good product. Probably more a matter of insisting on this rather than trying to sell it. Some fuckwit in a suit, who knows fuck all about anything, takes a quick peek and thinks "oh man, that's ready for the shelves for sure", and then on the shelves the alpha shit goes. No doubt some of the coders get money anxious along the way too.

Well I really don't think that it is going to take much to win back our hearts and minds (although I wish that was not the case.) If iRacing can produce a game that is an advancement over NR2K3, then most people will eventually buy into it, or be left on the side. I wish this wasn't going to happen, since this whole mess with the modders has really cast a dark shadow across anything that iRacing might produce. But we are consumers, and we accept a certain amount of grief as part of life. I mean how many people swore never to return to baseball (American obviously) after the last strike, and now they are back. Watch how fast people who swore off NHL hockey come back, we are a fickle lot, and it is embarassing. But strength of convictions will only take a consumer so far, and that is the real shame of this iRacing thing, they have known that from the beginning, and we never saw it coming.

"btgoss" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

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> Well I really don't think that it is going to take much to win back our > hearts and minds (although I wish that was not the case.) > If iRacing can produce a game that is an advancement over NR2K3, then > most people will eventually buy into it, or be left on the side. I wish > this wasn't going to happen, since this whole mess with the modders has > really cast a dark shadow across anything that iRacing might produce. > But we are consumers, and we accept a certain amount of grief as part > of life. I mean how many people swore never to return to baseball > (American obviously) after the last strike, and now they are back. > Watch how fast people who swore off NHL hockey come back, we are a > fickle lot, and it is embarassing. > But strength of convictions will only take a consumer so far, and that > is the real shame of this iRacing thing, they have known that from the > beginning, and we never saw it coming. >

I just hope that iRacing are so confident that their new stuff will be so irresistible that the shit they're going on with presently won't matter. I wonder when we will actually hear something about the release date of something rather than the next chapter in the modder war saga? <sitting still, staring blankly at the monotor, twiddling thumbs>

Dave Henrie wrote: > A mod friendly > big advancement from prior ISI sims. Isn't that what GTR was? Er, I mean F1 Challenge...no, F1 2002...wait, no, F1 2001...or was it F1 2000CS...damn it I can't remember...