n.b. I originally wrote this a couple of weeks ago purely off the back of the sudden rise of eSports in the Sim world, since then the conversation has raged on in various places so I thought I'd bring it here;
Are todays Sims trying too hard to appease the Celebrity/Casual/Newbie Racers? I ask off the back of yesterdays (ACC) SRO Event when the First Lap had "Ghost/No Collision Cars", in 'The Race' (RF2) the Damage is extremely Low with No Fuel/Tire wear to worry about. Generally speaking ACC also has "No Collision" on Warm Up laps...Why?, iRacing & RaceRoom the same in Pit Lane*...Why? Is it all "just for the show"? Or just because drivers are too stupid and can't be trusted to avoid each other? (* Pit Lane Ghost cars for when there are not enough Pit Bays is OK, anything less is a crime!)
Now I get that Sims have always had Driver Aids of some description since forever, be it Invulnerability, Auto-Clutch, Proximity Sensors, TC/ABS for Cars that don't have it in Real Life and that sort of thing. But this recent trend to make things even more Arcade is alarmingly worrying to me, not to mention it looks incredibly poor on the broadcasts and doesn't give an overall great impression IMO.
How are Sim Racers supposed to learn the very fundamental basics of Sim Racecraft if they can happily drive through opponents? (Regardless of whether they are real life drivers looking for a bit of fun on the side or newcomers to the genre). Take 'The Race' and SRO Events, the drivers have had Practice and in some cases a Practice Race before the event, so why have No Collisions on Lap 1? no proper Damage? They may as well of been racing Mario Kart!
It's quite frankly bizarre and to be very blunt about it I think it's setting a terrible precedent; Simulations are supposed to be just that, a Simulation of the Real Thing. By all means have newbie Events/Servers with some Driver Aids, but this path we're walking down towards babysitting the Celebs whilst trying to attract an audience is a dangerous one to take and before long the term "Simcade" will become the Norm.
I get that there's been an increased presence around Sims in recent weeks what with the Virus **** going on, and that in these dark times someone always wins and in this case Games in general have done very well. For Sims it's all about maintaining that interest when the World gets back to normal, but why must we do it by these "Special Features" and I'm not just talking about recent inclusions, but Sims generally trending towards a cotton-wool approach to looking after their Racers. We're here to pretend we're real life drivers, if we want to grab a gamepad and go fly over jumps in a Ferrari we have other games for that, ACC/RF2/RR/iRacing/AMS2 etc are not the places for this overkill of "Safety & Arcade" IMO.
I mean why bother going to the lengths of having incredibly complex Tire Models, Data Sheets of 10,000 characters for one piece of Aero Physics, detailed Track Dynamics & Weather Systems when you can throw it all away to cater for people who can't avoid each other on Lap 1? Why have Top Ranking Events without Tire Wear, no Fuel Usage so there's no Brain to be used for Strategic purposes? - Why are trying to "Protect" Sim Racers when they're driving....Why we moving towards Arcade?
Are todays Sims trying too hard to appease the Celebrity/Casual/Newbie Racers? I ask off the back of yesterdays (ACC) SRO Event when the First Lap had "Ghost/No Collision Cars", in 'The Race' (RF2) the Damage is extremely Low with No Fuel/Tire wear to worry about. Generally speaking ACC also has "No Collision" on Warm Up laps...Why?, iRacing & RaceRoom the same in Pit Lane*...Why? Is it all "just for the show"? Or just because drivers are too stupid and can't be trusted to avoid each other? (* Pit Lane Ghost cars for when there are not enough Pit Bays is OK, anything less is a crime!)
Now I get that Sims have always had Driver Aids of some description since forever, be it Invulnerability, Auto-Clutch, Proximity Sensors, TC/ABS for Cars that don't have it in Real Life and that sort of thing. But this recent trend to make things even more Arcade is alarmingly worrying to me, not to mention it looks incredibly poor on the broadcasts and doesn't give an overall great impression IMO.
How are Sim Racers supposed to learn the very fundamental basics of Sim Racecraft if they can happily drive through opponents? (Regardless of whether they are real life drivers looking for a bit of fun on the side or newcomers to the genre). Take 'The Race' and SRO Events, the drivers have had Practice and in some cases a Practice Race before the event, so why have No Collisions on Lap 1? no proper Damage? They may as well of been racing Mario Kart!
It's quite frankly bizarre and to be very blunt about it I think it's setting a terrible precedent; Simulations are supposed to be just that, a Simulation of the Real Thing. By all means have newbie Events/Servers with some Driver Aids, but this path we're walking down towards babysitting the Celebs whilst trying to attract an audience is a dangerous one to take and before long the term "Simcade" will become the Norm.
I get that there's been an increased presence around Sims in recent weeks what with the Virus **** going on, and that in these dark times someone always wins and in this case Games in general have done very well. For Sims it's all about maintaining that interest when the World gets back to normal, but why must we do it by these "Special Features" and I'm not just talking about recent inclusions, but Sims generally trending towards a cotton-wool approach to looking after their Racers. We're here to pretend we're real life drivers, if we want to grab a gamepad and go fly over jumps in a Ferrari we have other games for that, ACC/RF2/RR/iRacing/AMS2 etc are not the places for this overkill of "Safety & Arcade" IMO.
I mean why bother going to the lengths of having incredibly complex Tire Models, Data Sheets of 10,000 characters for one piece of Aero Physics, detailed Track Dynamics & Weather Systems when you can throw it all away to cater for people who can't avoid each other on Lap 1? Why have Top Ranking Events without Tire Wear, no Fuel Usage so there's no Brain to be used for Strategic purposes? - Why are trying to "Protect" Sim Racers when they're driving....Why we moving towards Arcade?