The online racing simulator
iRacing
(13603 posts, closed, started )
Very unimpressed with that review to be honest... Unless I see a lot of positive feedback I won't be trying it for sure...
Look sgreat but an actual "race" only every 2 hours? That's just crazy. It didn't appear as though there was a "quick race" type thing where you could race, but not for points, against other people. Thats kind of dissapointing. I would gladly pay the $13 dollars a month if I could join an actual race, whenever I wanted.

I've only been in sim racing for a few years, PC sims only about a year, but in that time I've realized its a very, very niche market. Segregated even further by each sim. Further still by pick up and play racers and Hardcore racers/ league racers.

Maybe iRacing is the best thing to happen to sim racing, maybe it's not. There's little doubt in my mind that racing will be generally clean, but so are most LFS servers.

I will probably get it for a few months, maybe it turns out that I'm going to love it, maybe I won't. I don't entirely agree with their formatting or pricing structure, but I also don't want to write it off the board because of that.


my 2 cents.
i can now say with full confidence that it doesnt appeal to me at all... the last thing i want in my free time is someone telling me how where and when to have fun
Quote from SpikeyMarcoD :Has it changed your top sim list. Where does it fit between LFS and nKar Pro. Sim-wise i mean!

That's tricky.

Purely on the driving feel I'd put it very slightly under nKPro, purely because i cant feel the tires as well, though that might well have to do with only having spent a few days with iRacing. (though nKPro just felt "right" from the moment i pulled away from the pits for the first time)

Combine iRacings physics with the detailed track surface though and it pushes it slightly ahead of nKPro. It beats LFS (as does nKPro) for feel simply because of LFS' glass smooth track surfaces. I'd love to try LFS on a laser scanned track, just to see how much more alive it felt.

Purely on driving feel I'd rank it as =1st iRacing and nKPro followed by LFS.
..but of course with iRacing that's not the whole story is it

It's the way you have to drive iRacing that bugs me.
It's really frustrating, as if it wasn't for the way your forced to take part in racing the way they want you to, i feel it would easily become the most popular sim on the market.

If they sold a basic package (say for instance two oval,two road cars and three tracks for each discipline) for a fixed price then charged extra for any new content, and didn't force people into driving on their system (with none of this monthly fee crap) allowing people to use it in the way they wanted, it would be absolutely massive. No doubt about it.

I don't care what anyone says, at the end of the day it is just a sim (albeit a very good one)with an advanced match making service and stat tracking, and it doesn't represent good value for money imho.

And for a so called hardcore sim i hate the things like being able to reset your car to the pits then continue if you wreck it, and being able to participate in loads of qualifying sessions before participating in a race. That can't in anyway be considered hardcore.
(not that everyone wants 'hardcore', but I'm used to the thrill of league racing with netKar Pro in Full mode, and that's the kind of uncompromising feel I'm looking for in a sim)

I'm always going to have a problem with paying for something i don't actually own as well.
Can you imagine buying all the tracks and cars, possibly spending $100's but not having anything to show for it if you decide to stop subscribing for a while?

I don't want it to fail, because as a sim it's too good to fail, but i'm waiting to see what happens. If it doesn't take off like they expect in it's current format they might be forced to reconsider how they market the sim, and in the process make it more appealing to the majority of sim racers. That would be the ideal solution from my point of view.

Still, I'm rambling again. Many people will love it. Many people wont. My opinion is just that, my opinion. It's worth nothing
Quote from Shotglass :i cant speak for anyone but me but id much rather play a clever but maybe a little rough round the edges indy game instead of quake 23 doom 6 or far cry 4...

+1,000,000

The big studios have become like the big Hollywood studios or the big record labels. They invest so much money that they just can't afford to produce a flop, so they go with tried-and-tested formulaic games. Boring games. Generic games. It was never like that 10 or 20 years ago (actually maybe it was 10 years ago... 12 years ago would be more accurate!).

When I first started playing games in... probably 1980-1982, there was genuine innovation. I don't believe that with advancing technology all the options for a uniquely interesting game have been exhausted (in fact it's clear that they haven't, because indie developers are still producing them), it's just that the market has grown so big that slick production values have become selling points instead of quality entertainment.

I also blame the fact that the kids are getting thicker. They haven't grown up listening to punk like my generation did, so maybe that's why they don't know any better.
To me it seems they took sim racing and removed all the fun from it. It seems more like a job than a sim, except that instead of getting paid doing it, you pay to do it. I see absolutely no sense in, for example, restricting you to just a few tracks in the beginning "like you would be to your local tarck in real life". In iRacing 2, are they going to have you sit in a virtual airplane for 20 hours when you change from US track to Australian track?

Shame when such promising work is tied into that kind of wrapping.
Quote from The Moose : It's the way you have to drive iRacing that bugs me.
It's really frustrating, as if it wasn't for the way your forced to take part in racing the way they want you to, i feel it would easily become the most popular sim on the market.

If they sold a basic package (say for instance two oval,two road cars and three tracks for each discipline) for a fixed price then charged extra for any new content, and didn't force people into driving on their system (with none of this monthly fee crap) allowing people to use it in the way they wanted, it would be absolutely massive. No doubt about it.

I don't care what anyone says, at the end of the day it is just a sim (albeit a very good one)with an advanced match making service and stat tracking, and it doesn't represent good value for money imho.

And for a so called hardcore sim i hate the things like being able to reset your car to the pits then continue if you wreck it, and being able to participate in loads of qualifying sessions before participating in a race. That can't in anyway be considered hardcore.
(not that everyone wants 'hardcore', but I'm used to the thrill of league racing with netKar Pro in Full mode, and that's the kind of uncompromising feel I'm looking for in a sim)

I'm always going to have a problem with paying for something i don't actually own as well.
Can you imagine buying all the tracks and cars, possibly spending $100's but not having anything to show for it if you decide to stop subscribing for a while?

I don't want it to fail, because as a sim it's too good to fail, but i'm waiting to see what happens. If it doesn't take off like they expect in it's current format they might be forced to reconsider how they market the sim, and in the process make it more appealing to the majority of sim racers. That would be the ideal solution from my point of view.

Spot on, my thoughts exactly... I wouldn't have bought LfS either if its experience would just comprise CTRA, so unless they change their concept (which I highly doubt, those kind of people don't like admitting an error in their ways), I won't get iRacing no matter how good it is...

A shame really, the less I knew about it the better it seemed... Ignorance really is bliss sometimes...
Watching that SRT video, it doesn't look like the Pontiac Solstice (who, ever, has thought "Damn I wish I had a simulator of a Pontiac Solstice?" NOBODY!) really moves around at all on its suspension. Looks a bit... GTR?

Edit: Just heard how much cars and tracks cost.

I'm officially out.
Quote from thisnameistaken :they go with tried-and-tested formulaic games. Boring games. Generic games. It was never like that 10 or 20 years ago (actually maybe it was 10 years ago... 12 years ago would be more accurate!).

i still cant quite get over the irony that we discuss this on a forum about a game employing one of the oldest game making formulas

Quote :I also blame the fact that the kids are getting thicker. They haven't grown up listening to punk like my generation did, so maybe that's why they don't know any better.

hm what does gowing up listening to mc hammer vanilla ice and aqua make me then?
Quote from Shotglass :hm what does gowing up listening to mc hammer vanilla ice and aqua make me then?

European.
Must be the first time I have ever heard that punk may have had a positive effect on one's thinking, being less thick.

---
It sounds awfully stupid, slow and byrocratic system the way daily races are done in iracing. It's totally awful from what I've read.

It's like it has good physics but everything else is just plain uninteresting, forced and artificial.
Quote from Hyperactive :It sounds awfully stupid, slow and byrocratic system the way daily races are done in iracing. It's totally awful from what I've read.

it might be enjoyable if youre a lawyer or have an mba... but we always knew that its made for the american market
Quote from Hyperactive :It sounds awfully stupid, slow and byrocratic system the way daily races are done in iracing. It's totally awful from what I've read.

It's like it has good physics but everything else is just plain uninteresting, forced and artificial.

To quote one of the beta testers

"It's all rather laborious and thoroughly restrictive. I sometimes think I might like a race, only to find out I'd have to wait an hour, and there's no one registered for it anyway.

I've enjoyed the tracks and cars in single player, for a short period, but I'd be thoroughly hacked off if I'd just blown nearly $300 as I did with their pretend money."

To quote someone at the RSC iRacing forum

"WOW! Thanks for the Video Review! I've made up my mind and will be purchasing a years' subscription as soon as permitted! This is the kind of racing I've been longing for."

..and the nomination for the most divisive racing sim on the market goes to...
Quote from Shotglass :it might be enjoyable if youre a lawyer or have an mba... but we always knew that its made for the american market

They might start suing if a race is a minute early or late.
Quote from Hyperactive :Must be the first time I have ever heard that punk may have had a positive effect on one's thinking, being less thick.

Maybe it's not so much the music, but growing up in a more cynical era that came out through the music. I think in these current years of concensus, people don't really think too much.

Although, in terms of punk discussing intellect, Ian Dury had a few words to say on the subject.

"Einstein can't be classed as witless,
'E claimed atoms were the littlest,
When you did a bit o' splittin-em-ess,
Frightened everybody shitless"

"In the meantime, you are now officially released from the non-disclosure obligations of the Early Adopter Agreement you signed when you joined the test group. Not only are you now permitted to discuss the details of the service with your friends, we encourage you to do so."
Quote from The Moose :To quote one of the beta testers

"It's all rather laborious and thoroughly restrictive. I sometimes think I might like a race, only to find out I'd have to wait an hour, and there's no one registered for it anyway.

Well, the race frequency will probably increase as they get more people but still even the idea that I need to wait, sometimes even as long as full hours to race is hugely disappointing. Even 10 minutes of waiting is imho too much when there is no good reason why the waiting is there...

Quote from The Moose : "WOW! Thanks for the Video Review! I've made up my mind and will be purchasing a years' subscription as soon as permitted! This is the kind of racing I've been longing for."

Probably the same person who few years ago would have nuked first-racing into oblivion because they attacked the n2k3 community

---
@Kev, this punk thing rings a bell or two
Quote :Eat your heart out on a plastic tray
You don't do what you want
Then you'll fade away
You won't find me working
Nine to five
It's too much fun a being alive
I'm using my feet for my human machine
You won't find me living for the screen
Are you lonely all your needs catered
You got your brains dehydrated

EDIT: this one's even better:
Quote :Now I wanna sniff some glue
Now I wanna have somethin' to do
All the kids wanna sniff some glue
All the kids want somethin' to do

Quote from brianmcd :"In the meantime, you are now officially released from the non-disclosure obligations of the Early Adopter Agreement you signed when you joined the test group. Not only are you now permitted to discuss the details of the service with your friends, we encourage you to do so."

Lets hear it then folks!
Quote from Hyperactive :@Kev, this punk thing rings a bell or two
Quote :You won't find me living for the screen


Cheeky

I think the pistols were around a bit before the internet. The internet is doing a decent job of supporting independent music at the moment.

I love Never Mind The Bollocks I really do, but although the pistols were amazingly influential they were also rather embarrassingly exploited. And they were signed to EMI at one point. Not the definition of punk they'd like to have been.
It's awesome and I don't think I'll play LFS seriously again.
Quote from brianmcd :It's awesome and I don't think I'll play LFS seriously again.

Cya then. Thanks for your detailed insight.

I was hoping for more of an explanation as to why the physics are in a whole new class compared to nKPro/LFS, and why being forced to drive a Solstice was great way to spend your money, and why i'm so utterly wrong with my opinion of iRacing, but you're obviously so blown away by it that you cant talk properly.
My two main questions about iRacing continue to be:

1) Who will be convinced of its value based on the opportunity to race a Pontiac Solstice?

and

2) Who has actually heard of a Pontiac Solstice outside of north america?
Kev, I think they're those Vauxhalls VX220 / Opel Speedser's, just Americanified.
Quote from thisnameistaken :My two main questions about iRacing continue to be:

1) Who will be convinced of its value based on the opportunity to race a Pontiac Solstice?

and

2) Who has actually heard of a Pontiac Solstice outside of north america?

Hehe.

I'd certainly never heard of it. I certainly don't want to spend a month driving it to progress either. Others may tell you different, but it really is the most uninspiring car to drive.

If you could drive the Skippy from the off that wouldn't be so bad. But unless you like oval racing the only truly fun and exciting car in the line up is the Radical. Blasting that around VIR is certainly a hell of a lot of fun.
Quote from thisnameistaken :My two main questions...

1. The Pontiac Solstice looks ok for a starter car I guess. Will it convice me to buy into irental, no. I'd need to see VERY good physics along with the tracks. And I simply can not imagine the restricitive racing methology will ever work in my time zone. So definetly will be watching this one from a distance to see how it progresses.

2. Pontiac Solstice never heard of it before now
This thread is closed

iRacing
(13603 posts, closed, started )
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