iRacing

[Woodee]

let us all know that it's like won't ya

[w00dsy]

having seen that video i am now a lot more interested, i didn't want to like it but now it seems i am. Although like Exar i'm not really interested in much more than some offline fun. But i do think they may be onto something with the ranking system, it might make people think a bit more before doing something stupid. It looks like a good mix of all the good bits of other games plus some nifty new ideas.

[Peptis]

I think it looks pretty good, but for this game to be really good it requires a lot of people to be online all the time. Especially since you can only race against a small subset of people (you have to gain licenses and pay for the cars/tracks). I'm just not sure that there's enough sim racers out there to make this game really work.

[Quincy]

i like the slow release of the game.. ie invites, then those that have been invited get to invite another 10... so it slowly multiplies over a few months.... gotta crawl before you can run..

[ysu]

yeah I agree with that quincy, but peptis is onto something as well. If you're to find empty servers every time you get online, you'll lose interest quickly. Especially with the different sessions starting on different servers, it's going to be very fractured (providing I understood the system's description correctly)

Edit: there's another potential issue; USA tracks only?

[Exar Kun]

Edit: there's another potential issue; USA tracks only?

Silverstone is in there so there is potential for more Euro tracks and even maybe local tracks further down the line.

[Righteous]

I was undecided on this one, I would like to see how it handles and the online code before it gets much of my hard earned. I'll pay for a demo, that doesn't bother me. Less likely to have teenage euro trash filling up the servers at least.

[Bauer]

http://blip.tv/file/968245

Legends racing at South Boston

[Hz-Lab]

that looks rad

[DarrenM]

Details on costs, since a couple guys have asked

Monthly is $20 with $2.5 credit
3 Months $50 with $10 credit
6 months $90 with $25 credit
12 months $156 with $60 credit

All USD of course, but the exchange rate ain't bad these days

You can use the credits towards future subscription payments or the extra cars and tracks.

The base road course package is the Pontiac Solstice on Lime Rock, Summit Point (which has 2 different tracks with another on the way) and Laguna Seca. To buy everything you need for the second level series (Skip Barber) costs $54 and that's for the car, Virginia International Raceway and Infineon (Sears Point). Easily covered by the $60 credit from the annual subscription.

I've got PM's from 11 guys so far, so I guess the poll was spot on, lol.

EDIT: Had the price wrong for the skip barber stuff. It's $54 with the 10% discount for 3 or more items. Cost I had was with the 20% discount you get for 6 or more items.

[ysu]

I've got PM's from 11 guys so far, so I guess the poll was spot on, lol.

I certainly hope it picks up.
If indeed out of all the potential sim-racers out there only 23% is more or less seriously interested - and it's only the demo yet! - then there's gonna be trouble.

[DarrenM]

I certainly hope it picks up.

That's just this forum

Looks like 10-15 from asrg and around 10 from ATR. Hopefully more from some other clubs that haven't been covered yet. Probably looking at 40-50 Aussies at least in this first round. Considering there's no free demo that's not too bad

[Shaun]

so with this if we get an invite its basically straight to the full game where we will have to pay for our subscription straight off?

[NeilPearson]

so with this if we get an invite its basically straight to the full game where we will have to pay for our subscription straight off?

all the invite is, is saying "here we are inviting you to buy our game" its how they are releasing it.

[Shaun]

yeah thats what i figured it was

[Gizmo]

so with this if we get an invite its basically straight to the full game where we will have to pay for our subscription straight off?

all the invite is, is saying "here we are inviting you to buy our game" its how they are releasing it.

I thought it was some kind of beta testing for some reason. This is even better news though. It's kind of snuck up upon us

[Bauer]

so with this if we get an invite its basically straight to the full game where we will have to pay for our subscription straight off?

all the invite is, is saying "here we are inviting you to buy our game" its how they are releasing it.

I thought it was some kind of beta testing for some reason. This is even better news though. It's kind of snuck up upon us

yeah they are doing a staggered launch.

[Righteous]

Yeah, after spending some time looking at what is going on, I am just keen to see how it handles.

Is the game resource hungry? Whats the lowest spec you would want to run it on?

[Sarsippius]

It looks like it will be good, as is probably to be expected but I don't think it will be for me. Oval racing is not too bad but not really what I'm into so I'd basically be paying $15-20 a month for one car and three tracks, and then with the extra costs for cars and tracks I can't really consider it value for money. Of course maybe the physics etc. make it so but with no demo I'm also not likely to ever even give it a try unless a cracked version becomes available.
I do think the whole racing system shows promise but I think populated races in our time zone will be the key. There's a lot of similarities to the CTRA system in LFS which I got into recently but I got tired of only racing the slow cars and having to play in the morning or late evening. The lowest tier servers were also the most populated so I also lost interest in getting the higher license as I realised I'd have few to race against in the faster cars. It seems iRacing could have similar problems, at least until if/when they reach a critical mass of racers.

[durbster]

One thing I'm not sure on - can you race the Legends cars on the proper tracks or are they locked to ovals?

[DarrenM]

People in the beta stepped up from the Solstice pretty quickly, so I think the most heavily populated of the cars available now might the Skip Barber, which is probably similar to the FBMW, but a bit trickier to drive.

Whether just that car and the solstice would be enough to sustain me for a whole year until I get the next lot of credits so that I wouldn't have to pay full price for the next level series, I don't know . I can't see myself getting sick of it all that soon though.

It would be much better value if they had road series in the Legends cars as well.

[DarrenM]

One thing I'm not sure on - can you race the Legends cars on the proper tracks or are they locked to ovals?

You can drive any car at any track in offline testing, but for racing online you can only race the series available. Same as you would have if you were signed up to a league. At the moment there is no road course series for the legends car, but they did mention that they may add one in future.

They need to limit the number of series though to ensure they all get populated. If they let everyone race any car at any track you'd have a situation like rFactor where there are 2-3 people in servers for 20 different mod combinations.

[Shaun]

darren whats the support like for clutch and h pattern gearbox? i'd assume its fully supported

[DarrenM]

They're fully supported but they haven't got the gearbox and engine damage in yet (I think they will be in before the public release, along with brake wear) so it's a bit like rFactor/old LFS at the moment. I'm don't know what else they'll be doing in that area apart from the damage though. It'd be nice if they would get the shifting more like netKar PRO and the recent LFS builds.

It also has autoclutch and autoblip. They're the only driver aids in it.

[Shaun]

but you can turn them off? and public release meaning the one from the invites?