The online racing simulator
What about a Virtual "FIA", would it work?
Hi,
there are so many different competitions just in LFS, way more even in general (look at the other "sims" you almost can't find your way through it).
Would it be an option to create an international,intersimulation race authority (probably semi or even professional) organizing events, leagues, sponsoring, etc... ? Woulod it help sim racing in a way?

Let's talk about it, bring in you thoughts
#2 - amp88
I haven't read much about it, but I think Race2Play tries to do this.
by virtual FIA do you mean an organisation that manages to cock up any championship it takes charge of?
I think it could be a great thing, especially if everybody used it

Race2Play is not free, and I think that puts many off.

CTRA/UKCT had a nice thing going, maybe it will do a "phoenix" in the future

The problem is these things take up alot of man hours and fewer people are willing to continue to put the time and effort into this type of thing.

One general (and highly detailed) set of "rules" would be a great idea, many leagues could link to it instead of everyone having to make up new rules for each new competition/League.

SD.
Quote from trebor901 :by virtual FIA do you mean an organisation that manages to cock up any championship it takes charge of?

Of course not. I know what you mean, the sh** that is going on with the 2010 F1 regs and the sh** in WTCC. I mean an org. that is doing serious work, not overegulating something and giving advantages to some teams etc... A serious and fair race authority
Quote from SparkyDave :

The problem is these things take up alot of man hours and fewer people are willing to continue to put the time and effort into this type of thing.

That's why I think it has to be semi or full professional organization. Maybe with a small entry fee but people behind the org must be 100% idealists or be paid for their work. Question is, is sim racing on the edge to become a sport for everyone, everyone that likes to watch and to do motorsports?
To put it another way: I saw a lot of great ideas since I'm racing in leagues. But always there seemed to be a lack of weight, in a manner of speaking, to bring series to a bigger public. STCC, CTRA, GSL, MoE, GFC GTTC, all of these are great series and ideas but it lacks that central organization to really make them big and known, you know what I mean?
I would be more pleased with a server which would do longer races (+/- 30-60 laps), but would still be plug-n-play. (no midrace join ofcourse)

without having to sign-up and be somewhere at a specific time, that is.
Funny you mentioned that, I started putting together ideas for some leagues that would be the centrepiece of such an organization, but real life and other reasons sort of prevent me doing them for the forseeable future.
This whole idea sounds good to me. Combined with some good advertising model it could even pay for itself and for the time of people needed to run such a thing.

Ads as a welcome sceen on server, trackside ads, car skin ads, you name it.

The problem is that the organisers would have to find someone to pay for that advertising. First rounds without ads to attract racers and audience, then slowly start milking it.

You could also have a realtime race streams (with watermark and advertising intermissions during pit stops for example) and downloadable post-race cut versions etc etc...
#11 - 5haz
But whats wrong with the current system of leagues?
Quote from trebor901 :by virtual FIA do you mean an organisation that manages to cock up any championship it takes charge of?

theirs 3 sides to everything, bullsh/t, more bullsh*t and the truth.


99.95 % of the time the first two are used and the third forgotten about.


orginization cant happen because lfs isnt serious enough, nor are its users , nor are its developers


if it was to be a simulator, id already have my g25 and keep an old banger in the shed so i have the seat and rig re-fab to race in lfs.


either way - this Can't work.
Quote from SparkyDave :Race2Play is not free, and I think that puts many off.

Oh but it is. No one force you to pay anything. Those who chose to upgrade to a pay account do it because they think it's worth it, but they sure don't have to.
And yes, I think Race2Play is as close as you can come to a virtual version of FiA, except Race2Play works out properly, while FiA doesn't.
No its a terrible idea
Its not a terrible Idea, but it has been tried before. To do it, it would require a lot of work and commitment from whoever ran it, it would not be something to lightly step into.
Quote from BlakjeKaas :I would be more pleased with a server which would do longer races (+/- 30-60 laps), but would still be plug-n-play. (no midrace join ofcourse)

without having to sign-up and be somewhere at a specific time, that is.

Yes i would love to have that or make it so that every 1/2 hour or hour the race starts so that people know when to join the server and when not to. Also every race a new track so that people don't get bored and have a point system or something.

Now for the FIA idea i think it would be a good idea tho like people said you would need to have a good group of people that are willing to help.

now using the idea that i quoted^^^ I think it would be great if every month or every six months the points get reset and the top 25 get entered into a Race and do that twice a year and then at the end of the year have the top 10 or so of the 2 races compete in a endurance race to see who is the best racer of the year and then it starts over again every year. Have very popular cars to like TBO, XFG/XRG, GTR, FOX, FBM, maybe a F08 and BF1 to and then the points from every server go into the players total points or something.
#17 - SamH
CTRA got sniped at fairly heavily for bagging the domain name raceauthority.com, being variously accused of arrogance and jumped-uppedness on several teams' forums. The truth is that we tried to get ctra.com but it was gone, but raceauthority.com was available for a fiver. So we plopped.. seemed too good to miss.

Man-hours are the most significant issue in any system that takes on the idea of creating a virtual version of the FIA. The second-most significant issue is compliance. CTRA were approached several times to oversee league administration, to manage appeals against league admin decisions as an independent adjudication process. We looked at it and felt that it could be viable. However, when push comes to shove there are many drivers out there that resent any self-appointed authority and who also are completely incapable of recognising the extent of their own utterly crap driving. In time, I came to refer to these people as "karters".

The Wrecker Barricade was the earliest cross-server system in LFS, pooling and distributing information about systematic wreckers to server operators. At the time it was launched it was desperately needed, going live within a couple of months of the BF1's release when in-server wrecking was at its worst. Over time, the need for the barricade fell away as standards in servers grew higher.

For a long time after any activity on the barricade had ended, the perceived threat of being "Barricaded" was more than enough to pull racers into line. Though I never felt comfortable with seeing the barricade's name being banded around in the form of a big-brother threat, there was no question that the net effect of the threat was positive on racing in the broader sense.

A virtual FIA in LFS would only work if it were driven by a clear, distinct need. I think that, largely, leagues do a fine job of managing standards on their own. If it became apparent that some substandard drivers are league-hopping like they used to server-hop in the days before the barricade, then maybe a system would be worth launching. But if it does launch, the system would work best if its operations were entirely transparent and if its decisions were broadly applied.

It would, I believe, also need to be entirely community-driven. The great plus with the barricade was that the system itself existed independently of the contributions submitted to it. The final decision to permit or deny entry into a server remained with the individual server operator, but at the same time (because the need was desperate and the server ops were frantic) ALL of the popular servers subscribed and actively participated. Unless all those factors were to come together, an FIA in LFS would be ineffective.

/2p
Authority over motorsport activities comes from the local / national associations and they form a Federation (hence the F in FIA). Through this web they can sanction a large percentage of motorsport activity all the way down. If you don't accede to that authority then you can't race. A "rogue" series would be strictly limited on the tracks it could use for example.

So, that can't really apply to LFS. The only thing that could get in any way close is if the major leagues formed an alliance so they could pool resources (like marshals, servers etc), standardise rules and co ordinate race calendars etc. It would have anything to bind it together (like commercial interests) so it wouldn't be very cohesive, useful or longlasting.

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG