ISI - please can we get your ISI servers back? I loved being able to hop online, know that I will have the content, join a relatively short practice (20 mins), quali (15 mins), race (15-20 mins) routine & have fun! If I've missed it somewhere else - please fill me in as to why your servers were stopped. I'm honestly getting less and less race time in online - either I need to download content (& then be even further off the pace because I suck & it's new), wait for looooong races, or never ending practice sessions (fun for a while, but lapping with no racing is honestly not much different to being offline). I can't for the life of me think of anything bad about the ISI servers. "When" you bring them back, please keep them at the top of the list, always (regardless of how I sort), so that people keep joining. I loved the old sections - maybe 4 servers... - Tin top - Open Wheel - Historic - Karts
I've put up 2 servers, should you want them. Both 20 min practice, 10 min quali, 5 min warmup, 15 minute race. "Pickup Skippy" - Regional Skippy @ Silverstone national "Pickup Karts" - Kart F1's @ Mountain Peak Karting Long (Rolling Start) LiveRacers stuff: http://www.pitlanes.com/rf2-stats-2/ Use them or not....they're there.
The downside to the ISI servers was no admin presence at any point, so many wreckfests. There are lots of public servers on matchmaker already that is not the problem - there are very few players around that is the problem.
I honestly don't think that's the issue. People gravitate towards the ISI servers, for whatever reason. When They were open many moons a go I recall having some massive races in the Megane at Mores. I just don't think people know where to go for pickup racing because there are so many empty or locked servers and those with loads of content that nobody wants to download.
ISIO = ISI Official. There is one online right now. I remember when the official servers sorted to the top and people didn't like that. Now they sort with the rest of the servers and go completely unnoticed.
Indeed, they are usually somewhere to be found in the middle..... plus you need to know what ISIO means I think lots of people that aren't on the forums (and even a lot that are on it btw) don't know that that are ISI's servers. And I would definatly join an ISI server quicker then another one, because with the ISI servers you know that it is only stock content, and you don't have to download anything except for the vmod, which for me is a VERY BIG plus!!!!! (for me it also wasn't a problem that they were on top, in fact, I would like that back Or maybe a seperate box for ISI servers, although that might be a lot harder???)
It's better that then hundreds of servers prefixed with ! ! !!** RACE ON MY SERVER! so the top of the matchmaker looks stupid.
I read somewhere those special characters were supposed to be filtered out... maybe one day. The whole server list interface would still do with plenty of improvements. Maybe the best way would be to have the matchmaker inside launcher UI, as that seems more flexible platform to develop.
Nobody was using them. Just a couple of weeks ago I spent 45 mins on one and not a soul showed up. There were plenty of people online.
Honestly didn't know that ISIO servers were there - the first thing I do when I get online is order by player count (hence I think having ISI servers always on top (or even in a separate tab) makes SO much sense). I'm not sure if I agree 100% h2h. Infact - last night you were racing the '92 F1's at Malaysia at the same time as me - we had about 7 people together, but practice was going to run for another hour an a half, and then there'd still be quali before the race. I joined because I saw there were some numbers, and I love the mod. Left after about 20 - 30 mins because I wanted to stop just putting laps in - I can do that offline. There are PLENTY little servers running with 1-3 people on them, many of them with similar content! Put 10 of those together and you have an AWESOME field with guaranteed fun racing at all levels. Agree 100% with this ^^^
They probably haven't bothered updating since nobody was using those servers. I remember when ISI starting using them again, they were populated for a week, maybe two. Now they're empty.
This is the thing, to be honest. People moan (nobody specific) that they want them. This is the third occasion I've put up multiple servers with zero mention of my community or website, simply for everyone to use as a pickup server. Nobody ends up being bothered even though they've always fit the specified criteria they'd like ISI to use. That's not me moaning, my only question is why?. Does it matter that they're ISI prefixed? At the top of the matchmaker? I'm genuinely not bothered, the servers will stay there anyway.
People want them to be at the top, they just don't want to spent 2 or 3 minutes looking for a pickup server. I wonder if a "favourites" option will help or not. Who knows.
One thing I've learnt over the last few years is that it's very rare indeed to get any two sim racers to share the same, absolute opinion on anything. There is no, one answer that would solve it imo.