iRacing

[chunder]

Profiteering??? In Iracing?


Slanderous comment Hep

Next you wil be telling me GT5 is a whole new game!

Seriously, I love Iracing, but I think someone worked out the costs of doing every series in a year and ut runs to a serious amount of money, for a game!!

But if people pay it, they will keep doing it, so you only have yourselves to blame I guess if it carries on.

[Gil Abobeleira]

Originally Posted by chunder

Profiteering??? In Iracing?


Slanderous comment Hep

Next you wil be telling me GT5 is a whole new game!

Seriously, I love Iracing, but I think someone worked out the costs of doing every series in a year and ut runs to a serious amount of money, for a game!!

But if people pay it, they will keep doing it, so you only have yourselves to blame I guess if it carries on.

Is it a game? For me, it's much more than that (a substitute for real racing, as I have not enough $$$$$$$ to go into racing).

But horses for courses, I guess

[chunder]

Hey Gil, they got you sucked in then if you think that!

In the real thing it hurts when you crash, you dont get wrenckers and your licence doesnt get ruined for touching the grass lol!!

It is superb, and while people pay the money it will succeed. Plus from what I saw its mainly the Yanks that race ovals and the Europenas and most others that race circuits. I loved the ovals!

I will offer this, if teh vars were keener priced I might consider it again/ But anything over a tenner for a car is madness, thats the cost of a traded in game!! Tracks I can understand as the time that goes into them, but as someone said earlier, they should offer packs.

In all honesty, they need someone on their organisaiton who can sell better as some the deals they offer are good, they just need to throw a few little teasers in there for people who are't loaded!!

[Andy Roberts]

Originally Posted by chunder

In all honesty, they need someone on their organisaiton who can sell better as some the deals they offer are good, they just need to throw a few little teasers in there for people who are't loaded!!

Totally agree with this. Originally I was subbing for just months at a time, but when I was about to hit 1yr I got an email from them with the offer of, pay for 1 year, get $30 credit, so even with the year being cheaper it was still a good deal so I renewed there and then. Got $30 credit, which I used on 3 cars/tracks and because of the discount for bulk purchase I got them at 15% off, plus because one was a pre-order I got $5 credit for that too. Plus, because I only raced late model and skippy I also got $20 credit for participation in the year so overall not bad.

probably wont renew this year though, baby on the way and lack of time means I cant spend as much time as I like. Plus, iRacing needs time to get good on it and doesnt work just jumping in an out for 10mins here and there.

[chunder]

I think a lot of guys only race perhaps 2 or three mods, which works out OK cost wise really.

As long as they dont get silly with new tracks all the time you can do it fairly cheaply!

I levelled up really quick actually, and then lost a load of points trying to rae the Spec Racer, which I then found out on the forums is a bit of a buggy physics car. Dammit

[Gil Abobeleira]

Originally Posted by chunder

Hey Gil, they got you sucked in then if you think that!

As I've said, that's my opinion, and to be honest, I'm a simracer since 2003, so I go way back before iRacing (If there was no iRacing, I'd be in another simulator).

Originally Posted by chunder

In the real thing it hurts when you crash, you dont get wrenckers and your licence doesnt get ruined for touching the grass lol!!

That's why it's called a SIMULATOR, for christ sakes!

Not only that, but there's more wreckers in the GT1 WC than on the C6R races in iRacing

Moreover, even being a class A driver on the roadside (for what, one year and half?), I don't really care about SR when going to the grass. If you think this prevents you from maintaining your license, then that's because you are wrecking too much!!

Originally Posted by chunder

It is superb, and while people pay the money it will succeed. Plus from what I saw its mainly the Yanks that race ovals and the Europenas and most others that race circuits. I loved the ovals!

I'm european and I love the Silverado (especially now with the NTM). Likewise, there are lots of americans which race on the road tracks. Remember, us, the stupid europeans, have butchered much of our classic tracks. They, the americans, have left their classic tracks alone, so guess what tracks I prefer the best (and this comes way back before iRacing)?

Originally Posted by chunder

In all honesty, they need someone on their organisaiton who can sell better as some the deals they offer are good, they just need to throw a few little teasers in there for people who are't loaded!!

Nothing against that (though, too be frank, I don't think the servers/system is prepared to having 20K guys racing at the same time ).

[Hepatic]

its priced to be elitist to remove the casual gamers from the equation. problem with that is there are a lot of great racers out there that dont have the disposable income to add to the depth of the fields. very much like real life, if you aint rich you aint racing :/

its why i get fed up with loosing SR for no fault of my own or bugs. In class C and the only car i own that is currently running is the V8. Half the cars i own are not in any running champs atm, how is that value for money? i like what its trying to achieve but the GT5 comps are showing there are other ways to bridge sim world with real life...

[chunder]

I have to admit having played GT5 a bit recently, the online stuff is actually pretty good. The rest of the game is very average and over rated, but online is good.

I would understand Iracing being elitist if it was huge, but it isn't. I am impressed with the amount of people they have attracted to play, a payment system that up to now has really been only used in MMO games, ie pay to play and keep playing. And that shows some level of market research.

But I just think they could in future offer a sort of LITES game where you get a small package of cars and maybe some made up tracks to race on that costs maybe 20 quid a year to cover server costs. That might encourage a few people to play. I understand the costs are put back into the game, but people just want to play, they dont care initially about realism in tracka dn car detail!

I do know a lot of people who would subscribe to I if it was a little cheaper, but I guess they are running it to a budget already and trying to cash in to invest in improvements now.

But I will admit to this, it is by far the best sim out there. I played it relentlessly for the trial period, loved beating real Legend drivers and Skip drivers! Only downside was the daft SR rating faults and the time it took to race, but that is fair enough in a sim looking to rid wreckers and contact. You can do it with practice, and it really forces you nto concentrate and simulate! I found Legends really hard at first, but could soon do back to front races and have superb scraps. My lasting memory is starting last, passing loads up to second then pressuring the leader into a mistake on the last corner to win, was awesome!

[marcel82]

Originally Posted by Hepatic

its priced to be elitist to remove the casual gamers from the equation.

it's not at all elitist. a lot of people just run the free stuff. and you can get the skip barber car + the tracks it runs (ie.), get a huge discount on it. and at the end of the season, you'll get 7$ back just for running. you don't even have to race évery week to get that, 8/12 is enough. 4 seasons a year: you'll have 28$ back in a year.

I fail to understand how people will by a 1000€ system, a 300€ steering wheel, and a 50€ a month internet subscription to race online against wreckers, but don't want to spend any money on the software itself.

in iRacing it's just as easy to get racing as when you do a pickup race in rFactor, but there's considerably less wreckers (and there's less every time you gain a license), and there's a good match-making system which means races are competitive.

yes, I am willing to pay the extra buck for that, but that doesn't make me elitist. it's good value for your money, and you only spend how much you want to spend.




@chunder: if you subscribe to iRacing, you'll get for free:
- 3 road racing cars: mazda miata (in a club and roadster version), spec racer ford, and pontiac solsctice.
- 2 oval racing cars: Legends Ford Coupe '34 and the Street Stock
- 5 oval tracks: Charlotte Motor Speedway, Lanier National Speedway, South Boston, Oxford Plains Speedway and Thompson International Speedway
- 4 road tracks: Laguna Seca, Lime Rock Park, Okoyama International and Summit Point

The tracks all come with their multiple layouts when available.
Also, keep a look out for promotions: I started out watching an IRL-race, where commentators were promoting iRacing. looked it up with the code they mentioned, got the Dallara Indycar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway included in my free package.

I should also add that I got the 2 new tracks and the 2 new cars in 2.0 for less than 10$ total, because of the amount of free iRacing credits, and the discounts I had accumulated.

[Hepatic]

You seem to be confusing free with subscription. Nothing in iracing is free. I bought rfactor and after the one off cost, the entire game is mine to play for as long as i want at no extra cost. In order to play anything in iracing, even the basic cars & tracks, you have to pay an on going subscription fee. Therefore, nothing in iracing is free & is why i used the term elitist. Probably a bad choice of word but by pricing they can try to remove casual racers (who maybe seen as the wreckers in other games), hence why i see it that way.

as for only spending what you want, if they provided championships that always covered the tracks you have then i'd agree. i had to spend over $60 to get one car and some tracks i could run it on in the C license. My options in that are extremely limited & without knowing what the options in the next season will be, how can i buy stuff knowing i'll be able to use it? most people don't have money to throw away like that...

[chunder]

Hep, I was talking about the free trial, I never went on and bought anything or a subscription, but I think you refer to next post.

I do agree that some of the selling is a litlte dumb, why not offer a series that offers a free car but you have to pay for 2 or 3 tracks. Or better still a car that has a few free tracks, or a track with numerous layouts like Snett 300.

Simply saying you can only use the Jetta if you pay for it, buy 6 tracks and that's it is very, very poor selling and marketing. Youa re not doing anything other than offering a service for people so desperate to avoid wreckers they will fule their addiciton by paying for it!

I would love more public servers for fun races, maybe have random police checks from admin to kick people.

[Gil Abobeleira]

Originally Posted by Hepatic

You seem to be confusing free with subscription. Nothing in iracing is free. I bought rfactor and after the one off cost, the entire game is mine to play for as long as i want at no extra cost.

Someone has to incur in the cost with the open servers. Thus, I infer that if nobody wanted to be charged with those costs, you'd be pretty much left with an offline simulator, right?


This is just to prove that "there are no free meals" in this world

[MikeB]

I was one of the Beta testers for iRacing, coming in at the end of the development to provide larger numbers of runners and to "live test" the server systems. Hence I got the initial package of cars and tracks free and some discount on additional tracks when they became available.

I am sure it has progressed much since those days, but I stopped running it after a year. At that point there was a huge focus on US tracks and cars, which I enjoyed racing, but felt no great affection for. The SR system had its flaws and the final straw was the attitude of the forums and post race comments. There was a lot of finger pointing and, as has been mentioned, little acceptance of at time racing incidents happen. If you made any adverse comment about the sim, you got the iRacing manic supporters club flaming you on the threads etc.

However, it is a good sim, but when it came to renew my subscription, I just felt it didn't give me any more than the other sim racing I was doing in various other leagues, which were for free and in the case of GPL sated my liking for all things historic....( you can't beat a lap at the Green Hell or the Targa to get your blood racing !!) Hence I turned my back on iRacing. I still get offers emailed through to me and ofcourse I have all the cars and tracks I bought still in my iRacing account, but i still just don't feel it's worth the money....for me.

[Hepatic]

Originally Posted by Gil Abobeleira

Someone has to incur in the cost with the open servers. Thus, I infer that if nobody wanted to be charged with those costs, you'd be pretty much left with an offline simulator, right?


This is just to prove that "there are no free meals" in this world

But when you entice the community to be involved like ISI did with rfactor you do get free meals! i loved the sim so much i put my own effort in to running a server for various friends, as did many many other people. Its by no means a perfect solution (crap mods, mismatches etc) but it had its advantages.

[Andy Roberts]

Originally Posted by MikeB

... the final straw was the attitude of the forums and post race comments. There was a lot of finger pointing and, as has been mentioned, little acceptance of at time racing incidents happen. If you made any adverse comment about the sim, you got the iRacing manic supporters club flaming you on the threads etc.

Thats one of the things that bugs me the most. I ended up turning off voice and text chat all the time as it got too much.

Only time I turn it on is when running any hosted league races as these are generally decent guys then.

[chunder]

Good poimts raised there, especially about the pretentious people you get on some servers!

It is a given that there are going to be racing incidents and contact especially at tracks like Lanier in a Legend in a rookie race!

I understand that people are perhaps naieve in thinking there will be no touching, and that is whjy they pay for Iracing, but to get all huffy about it is simply dumb.

I remember racing on a server in Legends and was pretty tasty at Lanier, won a few races from front or back and it used to really annoy the Yanks! I am used to short oval racing here, and racing stock cars online, so I was happy to take a bit of a nudge here and there without fretting! But in due course would be happy to rub the odd guy wide. It's all mpart of it on a short oval and you soon get used to how uch you can rub without incurring neg points.

I will say that there is a myth about public servers on race game,s some of the best racing I have ever had has been with random people in public servers, I remember a Caterham race on Race 07 where I was in a 240 and a guy was in a 300 we must have passed and repassed loads of times and had an awesome fun race. Just a public server in Race 07!

[MikeB]

Luckily when I ran it there was no voice chat, and generally I don't txt chat during races, as I'm too busy trying to keep the car on the racing line. It was generally in the post race chat and then the forum where the twits would make their comments.

I race GPL/Race 07/rFactor Historics in the ADC (the mis-nomered Average Drivers Club) and you're racing with guys you know and trust and it's great fun, if there is an incident everyone knows it wasn't done in malice. UKGPL is another great league. But as you see I like the historic type stuff, and to my mind the aged GPL is still one of the the best sims and the biggest challenge about....but then I would

I'm sure iRacing is still good, but as I say I can still get the same kicks for free elsewhere, so why bother

[Spudgun]

Originally Posted by chunder

I will say that there is a myth about public servers on race game,s some of the best racing I have ever had has been with random people in public servers, I remember a Caterham race on Race 07 where I was in a 240 and a guy was in a 300 we must have passed and repassed loads of times and had an awesome fun race. Just a public server in Race 07!

Racing isn't ALWAYS bad on public servers. I've had some cracking public races in the past on various sims, but those occasions are few and far between. Usually it's not the case of purposeful wreckers, just people either don't know (or care) how to deal with the first corner of a motor race. Whether they do it on purpose I don't know.

What I never did understand though was the wreckers you sometimes got on GPL. You had/have to have a certain mindset to buy the game in the first place since it's pretty hardcore even by sim standards and yet people bought it to wreck.

I very rarely race public servers these days. Not only is the racing cleaner in organised events, but you get to know familiar faces.

Sorry, straying off-topic a little there!

[chunder]

I guess irts horses for courses.

I find league stuff is often far too officiated and rule conscious, you must do this, you must do that!

People seem to forget its a bloody game!!

[Gil Abobeleira]

Originally Posted by chunder

I guess irts horses for courses.

I find league stuff is often far too officiated and rule conscious, you must do this, you must do that!

People seem to forget its a bloody game!!

Maybe it's a bloody game for you, for others it might be much more than that!

[chunder]

OK fella, well that is where gaming becomes your life, which is something I do have an opinion on, but you won't like it! So best left unsaid

[Gil Abobeleira]

So, just because I take simracing more seriously than you, I don't have a life?

With a rhetoric like that, you WIN!

[chunder]

I will take that!

[wheelsportaddict]

I've just joined iRacing, Yes people bemoan the subscription and that you only get a few cars and tracks to begin with. Any more you want, you have to buy on top of your subscription.

At the moment they doing an offer of 3 months for the price of 1 which is fine if you want to give it a trial.

"Gameplay" is very good, but to get the best out of it you need a wheel and pedals and you need a high end games system to get the best out of the graphics. If you're serious about the kind of online racing that iRacing provides, iRacing has the capability to set it up for 3-screen vision.

Yes long term, iRacing is expensive comepared to that of say Gran Tourismo 5, rFactor, the Forza Motorsport series and is mainly US based as far as race series go (although they are building more European based racing series), but for the serious "virtual racer" it's a very good sim.

Another thing about iRacing, is that many "real world" racing drivers use it as a training aid, so should you make it to the stage where your licence allows you to race in the "iRacing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series" then you may well find yourself racing against the likes of Dale Earnhardt Jnr.

[Spudgun]

I've moved the above post here since it is probably more at home here.