An iRacing Rant

[Bobby Childs Jr]

With iRacing's reticence to introduce new sports cars, I am worried the sim will eventually not be a great platform for leagues like the one I am part of. They have one TCR car coming; the Corvette GTE will never happen; the Aston Martin GTE is not on the radar, and the GT3 was abandoned; and with BMW leaving WEC and Ford apparently shifting to prototypes it has me legitimately questioning the future of sportscar racing on the sim. Even the prototypes are limited to two of the WEC entries, and at this point the IMSA partnership seems to merely only be a way for iRacing to use the sanctioning body's name to advance their brand.

I just don't have a good feeling about iRacing's position on sportscar racing right now - it seems to be a complete afterthought. They are being vastly outpaced in this regard by Assetto Corsa and Project Cars, among others - maybe iRacing's content is more accurate with a slightly more realistic driving engine, but at what point do we say that we're going to continue to push forward with the old Mustang and a limited selection of out of date GT cars instead of look for other options to keep our mission current? Our league has an actual title sponsor - how do we successfully promote that brand in the modern era of eSports without reasonably current content? Do we move to a platform where we can actually race GT4 against TCR? Where we can race the Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche, Lexus, Acura, and Aston GT3 cars against the Merc, Audi, and Ferrari? Why does iRacing have 10 Porsches, yet won't do the GT3 R version? Why is there no movement on updating the most popular sportscar on the service, the Global Mazda MX-5, to the new ND-2 spec? For crying out loud, they could just modify the code to accomplish such a minor change - but nothing!

I have never raced any other sim at this level, so I have no axe to grind against iRacing as a sim. I just feel there's going to come a tipping point where if they don't change how they handle updates and licensing they will be left behind, forever competing with out of date cars on out of date tracks while other sims gain more and more of the eSports market share. I also feel there's no real way to address this, as iRacing rarely responds to such lines of questioning - so their stance is completely obfuscated while 300,000 racers worldwide continue paying their fees.

I'm just aggravated, and thinking ahead - wondering at the future of sim racing, and if iRacing will truly ever be more than a NASCAR platform or will they become to sim racing what NR2K3 has become to iRacing. I sincerely hope that once they're done making the core improvements they are working on - damage model, tire model, more classes on track, environment - that they take a hard look at how to improve content updates beyond their oval cars.

 

[BrunoBæ]

As a former long time member I more or less agree with you.
I think the reason they dont adress (or even admit) such critique is because some internal problems between one of the owners(Kaemmer) who have absolutely no interest in anything else than sticking fanatically to his 10 years old horse the (in)famous NnnnTM tire model - and the rest of the owners who mainly are interrested in the oval side of iRacing because this part of the service are paying their wages.

I think its a pity they dont adress such basic things because in the future they can suddenly get into big troubles if a company from the competition (who all have much better/"realistic" TMs - IMO) start to develope a competing 24/7 online service.

 

[F_B]

Iracing member since late 2013 and yes, they have a really really slow pace and often can't react fast enough to the changes sports car racing is going through. Why is there no LMP2, yet, replacing the HPD? Why are there no GT4 cars? The GT3 car roster is outdated.

Imo they try to please as many people as possible and that's why there are so many car classes but it's getting out of control because they cannot keep up to date with the cars. The V8 Supercars guys are also screaming for actual cars and fixes…no matter where you look they can't fulfill the expecatitions.

 

[Gunja]

I guess it's called milking it. And on top of that, the engine can handle only 6 different car models in one race.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

Couldn't care less, you sign up for a race in gt3 Friday night European time and there are 180+ players on such an "outdated" track as Monza with "outdated" machinery as their current gt3 roster. Yes, acc (which i totally love) looks far better and way more up to date, but - and this is the all important BUT - with iRacing I do not have to worry one bit about meeting the right people, I get a grid of 30 players roughly my strength and have good, fun racing right from the get-go. As long as any of the competition do not even get within shouting distance of that, I cannot be bothered. No fixed league dates, no download hassles, no need for the latest hardware, just focussed on what I play for: meaningful online competition. That said, three TCR cars would be awesome

 

[Bobby Childs Jr]

Couldn't care less, you sign up for a race in gt3 Friday night European time and there are 180+ players on such an "outdated" track as Monza with "outdated" machinery as their current gt3 roster. Yes, acc (which i totally love) looks far better and way more up to date, but - and this is the all important BUT - with iRacing I do not have to worry one bit about meeting the right people, I get a grid of 30 players roughly my strength and have good, fun racing right from the get-go. As long as any of the competition do not even get within shouting distance of that, I cannot be bothered. No fixed league dates, no download hassles, no need for the latest hardware, just focussed on what I play for: meaningful online competition. That said, three TCR cars would be awesome

I agree fully about the quality of competition, but the updating issue is annoying - It's almost as if they'll add motorcycle and drag racing before they actually update some of the existing and heavily used content.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

you do have a point, i can hardly even believe we have a "new" Silverstone now.

 

[BrunoBæ]

- It's almost as if they'll add motorcycle and drag racing before they actually update some of the existing and heavily used content.

What what?
Is motorcycle racing comming to iRacing?
How soon?

 

[RCHeliguy]

This is interesting.

I have an RC Helicopter simulator and I have only 1 helicopter configured the way I like it and I practice with that. Even though it does not look like the individual helicopters in my fleet, it does everything I need to learn new moves and translate that to the airfield effectively. So objective achieved. However I've seen many people completely bent out of shape because their favorite helicopter isn't represented in a simulator.

So on one hand I understand that people want a car that looks the part just because, but on the other I'm not sure I understand why that matters a whole lot if the whole point is competition with a field of racers with similar abilities in similarly performing cars. So basically if it is a reasonably level playing field the racing should be good, right?

I understand how advertising and sponsorship by an automotive brand could be effected, but otherwise I have to ask how much the racing actually changes if a track or car doesn't match the latest version being raced.

Is that so much of the illusion while sim racing that it ruins the experience?

 

[F_B]

You have to understand that some simracers are a certain type of individual: they want the newest toys, they want it for free, they want exactly that what is not represented in the sim of their choice. Also they like to complain instead of using their sim.

 

[RCHeliguy]

The problem is that the complaining comes from two camps. The first is as you describe. They want everything free or next to nothing and whine about everything. At the other end are the demanding people with very expensive rigs who expect mass produced games to cater to their desires. They have many thousands in a rig and the software cost is relatively minimal, but they get pissed off when something doesn't feel the way they want it.

I've read enough arguments about tire models and FFB not feeling right to make my eyes bleed.

I'll be honest, some of these complaints have made me put off getting a direct drive wheelbase. My rig is pretty well top notch otherwise, but I'm still enjoying my CS 2.5 wheelbase.

 

[F_B]

Me too, wheelbase 2.5 is just perfect.
I cannot imagine spending so much time in forums etc to complain about stuff. Or arguing about how tiremodels are translated via 1 and 0s. It amazes me.

Right now I’m also tired of simracing in general that’s why I take a brake from it. I just don’t have the motivation to spend my free time on Iracing for example and to dedicate to one series.

 

[RCHeliguy]

No we are just spending time complaining about the complainers....

Obviously a much more productive use of time. LOL!

Hmm...

 

[F_B]

To quote a great album: the downward spiral.

 

[smasha]

Can't handle the ice racing feel of the tyres,have to be incredibly anal with your throttle and brake pedals or my car slides into the barriers,I suppose it's realistic but I reckon if real cars copied Iracing's car models,every race would have 5 deaths.

I just subscibed again and regretting it,iracing is too anal in it's modelling where it just isn't much fun at all.

Plus not many are racing where I am from,Australia,a big guilty waste of money for me and there's still more tracks and cars to buy.

Modern games ,buy a piece of pie and spend 500 dollars to get the rest of the pieces of pie,real greedy the gaming industry today unfortunately,feeding off the weak and the gullible.

 

[BrunoBæ]

Can't handle the ice racing feel of the tyres,have to be incredibly anal with your throttle and brake pedals or my car slides into the barriers,I suppose it's realistic but I reckon if real cars copied Iracing's car models,every race would have 5 deaths.

Its their tire model that is still complete bollocks.
At least compared to the competition (rF2, Raceroom, AC and ACC).
If they just could create a reasonable TM then the rest of their 24/7 service is almost perfect.

NOTE: Hehe dont accept the fake new that this TM is in any way "realistic".
Just ask Nicki Thiim

 

[Ryan Robbins]

Like so many, I only raced at iRacing for the online competition, stats, etc...I never liked the Force Feedback and the feel in general as much as AC, Automobilista, etc... The graphics look dated to me now. Still, I am thinking of renewing my membership. Why? Because of all that they do right. I miss Race2Play big time. I feel if Race Department kept series points and stats for drivers on a much more regular basis they would grow a lot. I know they have series here with points, sometimes. I would pay much more if they would implement a "system" with ranks and stats and teams etc...

 

[tlsmikey]

To the OP, yeah, I do agree that they need to focus on updating new cars. I never buy cars when there is only one car in a series. I've seen too many single car series fail (KamelGT, cough cough).

I'd like to see a refresh of the GT3 cars as well and a couple new GTE's but I think their insistence on laser scanning the cars as well as the amount of data they get is prohibitive to a lot of teams. The good news is they have a very accurate car and should have a better idea than anyone else in terms of what a car is capable of, but it makes it tough to update cars and get new ones.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

I suppose with the Blancpain money now on ACC, GT3 in iRacing is dead in the water as far as new cars are concerned, but still very much loved by the players. Grids are easily 200+ on weekends, no other game gets even close. It's a pity, we will play with a more and more ageing field of GT3s over the next two or three years, lol.

 

[RCHeliguy]

Color me impressed! I just started in the Rookies with my Valve Index at 120 fps, NLRv3 and transducers. The physics are really good!

I could feel the car moving all the right ways. Very impressive.