Well Keith, I might have jumped the gun a little bit and I hope that you
dont take my post or
mail as a direct attack against you. I think I should have handled it a
little more softly
and I respect the maturity of your reply. I can see that you understand
the point of my
post and have handled it professionaly. The problem with sponsoring or
supporting these
file editors is that it implies that it is "ok" to use them and then
consider their lap times
legal. I have spent countless hours on almost all the tracks in ICR1&2,
Nascar1&2, and
GP2 and get pretty irritated when web-sites post illegal track times due
to these editors.
I can speak for alot of sim fanatics. Unfortunately its not as easy to
prove these times
are posted with illegal editors as it is with Nascar and CART officials
taking templates and different measurements on real cars to insure that
fair competition is present. Its not fair to the guys who are posting
"real" times to try to compete with Hackers. It doesnt take much talent
to hack a file or learn these editors. It does however to actually
practice enough to become good enough to have fast times. When people
pay to race over the net, (i.e. Hawaii, Kali, or Kahn) it really sucks
when guys that really cant run a good as line as you or have a good
setup pass you with no problem because theve hacked their files and you
have no chance against them. Hacking is cheating period! To have fun
(what these sims were intended for) you have to have to be fair.
Supporting hacking files is not considered honest among serious SIM
racers. Hacking degrades reputations of people who support them and I
would be very suprised to see any of the serious seasoned SIM veterans
join your league or support it at all for that matter with this type of
structure. "If you can't beat the cheaters join 'em" would never be my
pholosophy or advice to anyone, especially new SIM fanatics.
Unfortunetly until some type of utilitiy is created to insure "legality"
of the files then it is basically imposible to prevent or even prove
illegal lap times or online racing victories. I've seen fast veterans of
these SIMs acused of cheating or hacking the files and they really
didnt, instead they worked effortlessly on setups and practiced for
hours at a time on certain tracks, yet they were acused anyway because
of the presence of these Editors! That sucks, dont you think? The bottom
line is I hope you reconsider your support for these type of rules
implemented into your league. I think its great to start off-line
leagues but never in this manner. I hope you can understand from someone
who really supports racing SIMS as a "virtual" sport and a hobbie. In
the future with the presence of tracking headgear, faster baud rates and
cable optics there will be a rise in the interest and seriousness of
these SIMS and with hacking editors out there already, it will not help
our "virtual" sport at all and will make a unfair disadvantage to guys
that deserve victories. You cant change surface or grip properties in
real life racing so to be true to our "virtual" sport you shouldnt be
able to change the properties in SIMULATED racing. Those interests
should stay in the Arcade games,i.e. Need for speed , Screamer, etc.
I hope that my information will make you think twice before structuring
a web-site for these "illegal"
practices. Again no heat intended towards you and I wish all the luck in
your thoughtful decisions!
-DAVO-
P.S. Keep in touch and If I can help you in anyway please ask.
If you find out about any utilities that will keep our sport fair then
please notify me about them.
I consider these Hacking editors SPAM and will do anything to discourage
such activity.
For once, David, I actually find myself agreeing with you!
Actually, with GP2 it is easily detectable. The way it stores hotlaps is
more than a bit screwy but it does mean that cheats can easily be
detected ;-)
Cheers,
Richard
