The online racing simulator
iRacing
(13603 posts, closed, started )
Now that you brought up ASS, anyone read the part about LFS (2008 expectations)? S3 in 2008, surely!
Quote from bbman :KartSim looks way better and most likely will be more attractive in pricing/physics/choice of combos (the Radical is the only interesting car for me, I don't really care about the rest)...

You don't want to drive a pontiac... what was it, solstice? I'm sure that will turn out to be a good car. A solstice around... some ovals? You're pretty much the only guy here who's not totally pumped about that.
Did I get this right from the ass-interview? Two cars, one the Legend Car, the other the Solstice and a total of seven tracks?

Now I'm really disappointed.

Would be fine for a limited time demo, but I'm certainly not prepared to hand out 20 bucks just to try that measly package for one month. pfft.

Edit: I'm finding it rather euphemistic to constantly talk about a "free basic content package", tbh.
Quote from Gil07 :Now that you brought up ASS, anyone read the part about LFS (2008 expectations)? S3 in 2008, surely!

They also say the patch for nK PRO is is guaranteed.

Quote from Linsen :Did I get this right from the ass-interview? Two cars, one the Legend Car, the other the Solstice and a total of seven tracks?

And some of these tracks are going to be ovals.
I was thinking they might just be able to get away with a subscription based service if it was realistically priced, maybe £20 a year with free add ons. I can't see them selling to very many people at this rate. No sim has ever been sold for more than S2 for any considerable length of time since GPL and I don't see an easy way for them to reduce the price if they were to need to or any option to try it without paying £10
Quote from thisnameistaken :You don't want to drive a pontiac... what was it, solstice? I'm sure that will turn out to be a good car. A solstice around... some ovals? You're pretty much the only guy here who's not totally pumped about that.

yeah its a stunningly beautiful car
especially the grill which is not at all supposed to look as if its made by a different company
http://www.seriouswheels.com/p ... ce-FA-water-1600x1200.jpg
Is the Solstice the Opel GT for the american market? Or am I mixing something up?
Quote from Linsen :Is the Solstice the Opel GT for the american market? Or am I mixing something up?

It's a front/rear replacement for the mid/rear Lotus based VX220/Opel Speedster. It's the same underneath as the Opel GT and VX Lightning concept cars and is a lot tamer than the Lotus based car.
Quote from franky500 :looks like they have not spent much time on it graphically, its way too shiny imo..

too shiny? what are u talking about? it look about as shiny as clay and plastic props from an animated children show in the late 90's

look at GT5; there is so much shine/bloom and blur that it looks like your high every time you try to play the game, now THAT, according to the press, is revolutionary, breathtaking, and realistic!
Quote from franky500 :looks like they have not spent much time on it graphically, its way too shiny imo..

Quote from atlantian :too shiny? what are u talking about?

Franky did you actually look at it or just type a generic 'other sim' response? It's about as dull and matte as it gets. Graphically it does look a lot like N2003, not that I care TBH I liked that look but certainly wouldn't call it shiny. Although many people will have a problem paying huge amounts of money for a game that looks average for 5 years ago.
Quote from ajp71 :Franky did you actually look at it or just type a generic 'other sim' response? It's about as dull and matte as it gets. Graphically it does look a lot like N2003, not that I care TBH I liked that look but certainly wouldn't call it shiny. Although many people will have a problem paying huge amounts of money for a game that looks average for 5 years ago.

went to their website... that's all, but i think that should be enough
Well, as far as iRacing is concerned I think I'm out. I can't afford the game AND the PC that's going to be required, if those bleachers are anything to go by. It's looking, to me, like a case of modelling stuff because you can rather than because you should, with more than just some elements of this game.

A quarter of a billion points in a cloud to model a fountain you don't drive over - you'll only ever crash into at best - is at best a waste of resources. If their plan is to optimize the 25,000,000 points down to a low polygon 3D representative model that would run on a normal home PC, then they haven't really added much value with their exceedingly expensive Exactrac hardware that they couldn't have achieved with an Eric and a few photos.

And at the end of the day, when you're playing a game that is as active computationally speaking as a racing sim that's calculating a physically responsive environment on the fly (like LFS does), you really do NEED an Eric more than you need an Exactrac, IMO.
An eric with few photos won't get even within half metres as close as what an exactrac does. And it is a bit strange that you bring an eric into this discussion. LFS tracks are smooth like silk and just by looking at them from the helicopter view you can tell instantly that the LFS tracks are build from straigths and corners with single radius. LFS tracks surely look great and graphically are really good looking but from driver's point of view they are barely mediocre. If anything, the iracing approach is nothing more than a huge improvement over LFS . But of course, it might be complete rubbish as well, time will tell .

If 10-15€ per month is too much I'm quite surprized you can afford pretty much to eat to be honest. I'm already paying double of that for internets. Surely it adds up if you look at the per year aspect but then again so does everything else.

Still, this iracing thing is the single most promising sim since Nascar03. Even with all that money they can still get it wrong but I'm quite surprized how some of you write it down as an instant failure...?

*In Eric Cartman's voice*
Screw you guys, I'm going home
Quote from SamH :
A quarter of a billion points in a cloud to model a fountain you don't drive over - you'll only ever crash into at best - is at best a waste of resources. If their plan is to optimize the 25,000,000 points down to a low polygon 3D representative model that would run on a normal home PC, then they haven't really added much value with their exceedingly expensive Exactrac hardware that they couldn't have achieved with an Eric and a few photos.

Agree totally, there's little point in trying to get a real track accurate enough to be more than a fun representation, simply buying high quality aerial photography/GPS data for race circuits, which will be commercially available seeing as there are a lot of customers for it. Would be far better and pretty much as accurate as that silly scanner thingy by the time its been optimised for sim use and you wouldn't have to go all over the world. I'm beginning to worry the pricing actually reflects the costs of all that fancy hardware they've been using in which case I think they may as well declare bankruptcy and give it away.
Quote from SamH :And at the end of the day, when you're playing a game that is as active computationally speaking as a racing sim that's calculating a physically responsive environment on the fly (like LFS does), you really do NEED an Eric more than you need an Exactrac, IMO.

Someone should totally draft an LFS press release touting the virtues of the E.R.I.C. Advanced Track Modelling System.
Quote from ajp71 :Agree totally, there's little point in trying to get a real track accurate enough to be more than a fun representation, simply buying high quality aerial photography/GPS data for race circuits, which will be commercially available seeing as there are a lot of customers for it. Would be far better and pretty much as accurate as that silly scanner thingy by the time its been optimised for sim use and you wouldn't have to go all over the world.

Wow, really?
To compare aerial photography and GPS with laser scanning the way iRacing does it is just ridiculous. Their service may flop for many reasons (I doubt it fails - quite the opposite), but lack of accuracy isn't one of them. Who needs accurate models, right?

As LFS supporter I can argue that at least LFS tracks are fantasy, so in that sense they are 100% accurate, but to say that when modelling a real track aerial photography plus GPS are good enough, when at best the end result has a margin of error of meters...
Quote from Horseman :Wow, really?
To compare aerial photography and GPS with laser scanning the way iRacing does it is just ridiculous.

...when at best the end result has a margin of error of meters...

I think you'll find data will be available that gives a lot higher resolution than the conventional publicly available data. I still maintain that accurate cars and tracks are not necessary, if they are simply a good representation and give people the experience of driving a certain car that's all they're designed to do. Currently I don't think racing sims will ever be a sensible way to learn tracks because the tracks and cars will never be realistic enough so I don't see the point in modeling in ridiculous levels of detail if it isn't financially viable.
Interesting read this thread, managed to miss it being in the woods playing war games.

Anyways, I can't help thinking if the iRacing team is trying to ride with their name and résumé a bit. No trial version smells like over confidence, they have trust to their fans and fanboys, a lot of trust if they are selling trial versions for 20 bucks a piece, that's hardly anything in real money but still.

It really has to be the holy grail of sims if I'm going to pay monthly fees. Because for something like WoW, the payments go (at least partially) support the massive server farms they need to maintain, so it's understandable you have to pay to play. It's unlikely iRacing needs money for servers. It also will feel more expensive than WoW because at least personally, I can't play racing games 8 hours a day, anything else yes, but racing is much more intense and you get tired faster so you can't have all the time for you money you liked.

A bit different business plan, don't actually understand why they had to spend that much money (which is obvious they did because they are asking a lot). Why ordinary track modeling and a group of race car drivers to tell where the bumps are couldn't cut it? It's not cool enough I guess.
Quote from Hyperactive :An eric with few photos won't get even within half metres as close as what an exactrac does. And it is a bit strange that you bring an eric into this discussion. LFS tracks are smooth like silk and just by looking at them from the helicopter view you can tell instantly that the LFS tracks are build from straigths and corners with single radius.

Well I can't argue that we could do with the surface of the tracks roughing up quite a bit in LFS. Not really the point I was making, but your point is taken.

My point, really, was that the extreme resolution that's being bragged in iRacing needs to stay as a brag because my computer and I definitely felt the changes in SO City when the detail level went up. The new surface is great, though, but it's close to the limit of my AMD64 3000+ when running with a full grid.

I simply couldn't run a .25Bn point roundabout on a track. I'm absolutely sure of it. If the roundabout is a quarter of a billion points, what's the total for the track? It's inconcievable, tbh, or it's unachievable, or perhaps it's just a brag and doesn't actually translate to a drivable track model in a sim.

I just get this sense that iRacing is a bunch of big kids with "a vision" and enough money to buy some neat and extremely expensive, but ultimately not very usable/useful gadgets.. and the pricing policy for the sim basically reflects that the cost of those gadgets needs to be recouped.

The bottom line, for me, is value for money. If I buy into iRacing, how much of the money that I'm investing is actually going to be translated into something that I will directly benefit from in the sim, and how much is going towards recouping the cost of buying some cool laser modelling toy that made some rich big kids with a shared vision very happy for a long time prior to launch. This is the concern that, reading their site and the ASS article, I'm left with. That's their doing. They've left me with that concern.

I'm not saying, at all, that iRacing isn't good value for money. There's no way for me to even know at this stage. But I *will* need convincing that I'll be getting good value for money before I invest.
Quote from SamH :The bottom line, for me, is value for money. If I buy into iRacing, how much of the money that I'm investing is actually going to be translated into something that I will directly benefit from in the sim

If you run a RL racing car, and race on the tracks modeled in iRacing, you'll get loads of value. iRacing could save you a whole day of testing on the track, because it enables you to you tweak your car's setup at home. (IF iRacing lives up to the ambitions of its makers.) The money you saved that way will easily outweigh the cost of a decent simracing rig plus the iRacing subscription fee.
That's an even smaller niche market than I'd considered. I'm realising now that they're probably not even particularly looking for people like me, a casual but pretty active sim racer, to invest in their product. I've been assuming that they'd be targeting the existing sim racing market at large. Now, when I re-read their website, I realise that they're not even really pretending to be targeting us all. It's definitely not geared up to being a multiplayer environment..

Quote from iracing.com :14. Will iRacing.com support private leagues, allowing groups of friends to run invitation-only races with their friends, in the same way that NR2003 and other titles do?
We are investigating different ways to support requests for individual races and leagues and are committed to providing this opportunity to racers at some point in the future.

At some point in the future? I'm gathering from that, iRacing is to be launched as a hotlapping environment? Yet in other parts of the site, it sings the multiplayer environment as its lynch-pin of the operation. They talk about catering only for a niche market, but on their Partners page they quote PC-gaming demographic statistics for leverage. I dunno, I want to believe in them but I just don't seem to be able to get a hook on what's coming.. and at this point, I'm sure we're supposed to know. Certainly for a business with a determined and solid direction, I'm absolutely sure we should be able to peg what's coming and understand it. Right now, I just don't get it.
Quote from SamH :I simply couldn't run a .25Bn point roundabout on a track. I'm absolutely sure of it.

Luckily, you won't have to. That point cloud is obviously only the source data they use for modelling. That data is cleaned up and simplified for the actual in-game model. There's no way in hell a current computer could render at that kind of detail. It's still an excellent tool for creating an accurate model though. Photos and GPS wouldn't get anywhere near that kind of accuracy. Especially when talking the details of the racing surface into consideration (bumps and other details).
Quote from SamH :At some point in the future? I'm gathering from that, iRacing is to be launched as a hotlapping environment? Yet in other parts of the site, it sings the multiplayer environment as its lynch-pin of the operation. They talk about catering only for a niche market, but on their Partners page they quote PC-gaming demographic statistics for leverage. I dunno, I want to believe in them but I just don't seem to be able to get a hook on what's coming.. and at this point, I'm sure we're supposed to know. Certainly for a business with a determined and solid direction, I'm absolutely sure we should be able to peg what's coming and understand it. Right now, I just don't get it.

Well, you could look it differently too. What if all racing in LFS was originally done in leagues and servers run by the devs only? Like we had some 4th dev (named Sergei btw.) who had been running various leagues and multiple servers for years now? Woldn't that be better situation than it was without Sergei?

You have been doing great job with LFS so far, with wreckers' barricade and CTRA (along with becky +other ukct noobsies) but what if all that had been in LFS from the start?

In one way the servers and leagues are part of the package, unlike in LFS (or rf, GPL, GTR etc.) where those are user created addon stuff. Iracing seem to be offering a service instead of just a piece of software. While LFS is not just a piece of software it really isn't a service either. Imho, it is just too early to be concerned because we don't even know what the ups and downs are with iracings's system.
Ahhh! I hadn't latched on to iRacing running all events/track time. I couldn't understand how the environment was to be set up. So, pick-up racing it's not, then. It's beginning to make more sense. Gotta admit it's also losing its appeal in the process, though

Of course I'm an LFS fan, but I don't perceive sims as mutually exclusive. I still kiss my RBR CD case every night before I go to sleep! I'd be up for iRacing, if iRacing were up for me. I don't think it's going to be offering the things I'm looking for, sadly
Quote from SamH :Ahhh! I hadn't latched on to iRacing running all events/track time. I couldn't understand how the environment was to be set up. So, pick-up racing it's not, then. It's beginning to make more sense. Gotta admit it's also losing its appeal in the process, though

Of course I'm an LFS fan, but I don't perceive sims as mutually exclusive. I still kiss my RBR CD case every night before I go to sleep! I'd be up for iRacing, if iRacing were up for me. I don't think it's going to be offering the things I'm looking for, sadly

Well, to add confusion there has not been anything mentioned that pickup racing would not be there. After all, it might be a bit of parody launch if all you had was just offline practise when you bought their... uhm stuff . After all, it has been said that they don't even have leagues at the start so they gotta be offering something
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iRacing
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