iRacing system won't happen here. Gjon has said that he wants a cheap alternative to iracing, which is a subscription based system that retails for 99USD/year. It's quite easy to say we need this or that but who's going to pay for it? I'm not trying to be a salesman here but if you're only after pickup racing, it's my opinion that iracing is the place to go for that, end of story really.
I even have a hard time to chose a car where am nowedays just using it as a car driving simulator , but there is no single one complete, leave out to have a look for working quick and easy acces pick up races.
That don't really changes the situation other than to make it worse, to call people that they have to use a competitor soft isn't really clever.
I think it works like in poker, your either playing a winning game or your playing a losing game. ISI playing a losing game with MP. Is no magic solution, but if they can even just play a +2% winning game and KEEP IT UP then maybe the corner can be turned. But if they drop it and lose 30% of their chips in one build, they then gotta play for 15 builds in a row getting thing 100% right just get back the losses - and they also miss out on the 15 builds of steady growth they should have had too! It is a double whammy! ISI are hot lappers. They got no idea of the value of stringing some good consistent pace together for many laps in a row with out putting it in the wall. That yields good results that does you know! ISI put it in the wall every 3rd lap and walk back to pits shrugging their shoulders blaming something else all the time making lame excuses. Nice steady pace for a good period of time guys - it works wonders!
But would it be such a disaster if we were able to come up with at least a feasible base to put some kind of scheduled pickup system in place?
No, actually one good idea that has come up in this thread is the idea of having fixed 'on the hour races'. That would work great for ISR and other public servers. It IS a good idea! But that alone will not stop the rot I fear, the foundations need resetting then small good ideas like that on top of new foundations can surely have an effect.
What foundations? Everything appears to be in place for us to use and make on the hour races a real thing.
I mean if they put out builds that do not work, and do not roll them back or hot fix them, perfectly scheduled hourly races mean nothing. The platform it self needs to be a stable platform that works, and 12 months a year then you can build what you like on top of that. If that stable foundation does not exist, then nothing else matters.
All sims have bad builds. Here no more than others. It just depends if you're effected by why the build as "bad". Cpu spike here....no issue for me, good build. Issue for you, bad build. Steam release of dedi server on GSCE, issue for me, bad build. Not an issue for non-admins. iRacing has more than its fair share of cock ups at various levels. AC.....is AC and half finished anyway. If there is a framework in place to improve user experience with API's we can use, then why not? I can't help it, to me such a thing doesn't mean "nothing"....it would add a significant thing to rFactor 2's arsenal going forward. It means nothing if it doesn't exist. Maybe I'm just too optimistic.
The thing is though Rich, when screw ups happen its simply not the case that everything goes back to normal the day it becomes fixed! Many players give up and leave the game. Players have no chance to finish in championships as high as they would have other wise. I keep talking about weedkiller right? Do you see what I am saying here? It takes a HELL of a long time to fix that damage, some nice sun and rain the following day does NOT make everything ok. It takes 6 months, and if you chuck the weedkiller everywhere twice a year what have you got? Continuous stagnation / decline. And all that recovery time of the losses that should have not happened, it also time that could have been spent growing. The damage is HUGE! But it is not the answer to everything I accept that. I for one will not run leagues on a sim that only works 9.5 months a year. ISI blew it with me with the join button, 930 show me nothing has changed. It was nothing like 1-2% that was affected by CPU spikes as suggested by some! I will not give numbers but it was WAY higher than that. I feel like sicilian business man forced to pay 25% protection money to the mafia. Firstly, I should not have to outperform the market by 25% just to break even - and if not many customers are coming in the shop anyway I can see I am working all year in order to lose badly so I will just walk away - it is not a viable enterprise! I will not do that, that is just me feelings but if there is any truth to this then perhaps it is not a good thing for the multiplayer at large.
Yes mate, this is all good! Why not indeed! But people need to be able to play the game first and foremost! All year! 1 or 2 weeks of downtime max, I would count that as pretty much all year.
But players leave all games all the time. Talking all games here, not just sim racing. Plenty of new people are arriving on the rFactor 2 platform. If people are gone, they're gone. I'm not here to waste time on them. They've made their choice. Where I come from is that if new guys and gals come in, try online and see there are regular, scheduled races of varying formats and classes, that could be just the ticket for them to come back or even better tell their friend how good it is. New people do not have their opinions swayed by builds of a year a go. They care about what they see now. I can't help that rather be negative I prefer to try and see if there are any positive avenues to explore. Even if it comes to nothing, I'd rather try and fail than not try at all.
Yes rich, but when on top of all the natural leavers, ISI are unnecessarily forcing out a LOT of players on TOP of that, then together, for me, that makes an unsustainable situation. Maybe that is the difference between a winning game, and a losing game.
I don't buy the rF2 is doomed argument anymore. The general consensus on the interwebz when AC was released that it was a "rF2 killer". Well ISI is still here, carrying on business as usual. The doom and gloom posts will never go away I'm sure but neither will ISI. Anyway, those are my last words in this thread as it seems when one issue is debunked, another comes up and so on.
Maybe it makes little difference to ISI finances whether the MP is busy or not. It must make some diference, perhaps they do not care about it too much I have no idea. But -I- am interested in the MP Jamie - and that mate is one big downhill slide there is no getting away from it. It does not mean ISI themselves are doomed. Some good news at least now for ISI! I am going out now, so there will be some respite! But I shall be back!
First care about people already in and than make your toughts up to the eventually incoming potential new user, but if you fail to keep people on board, you will fail to recruite new player as well, where it could be so easy if listen sometimes. Some food for toughts and an example. What about the tires of the sim software ? Wouldn't it be nice to have a tire simulation more final or complete instead than to use something half ? Just saying and that is only one part making it unintresting for car simulation. So are you sure the multiplayer is the reason for why and who all don't use the soft more intense ? Me isn't. In my opinion the old irons of this scene as i can call myself to, don't use it because of inconsistence and incompleteness and the newcomer is lost in the mess.
Agree regarding loyalty and intensity of SW use not being MP. rF2 should be and is in the best position to cater to sim racers wanting something more serious...not recruiting / converting casual sim racers. It's a losing proposition and I think ISI knows this and is doing the minimum required to quiet the whiners but they know MP is for lightweights...
FSR league ran rF2 last year without major issues. http://www.motorsport.com/sim-racing/news/formula-sim-racing-is-more-than-just-sim-racing/
