I havent raced since march, how much downloading am i going to have to do to get my version up to date?

No idea. Just go to the site and it'll tell you where it says 'updates required'.

Quote from anttt69 :

I havent raced since march, how much downloading am i going to have to do to get my version up to date?

Well hope for alot, that means its been updated unlike its competitors.

Quote from Mp3 Astra :

No idea. Just go to the site and it'll tell you where it says 'updates required'.

I cant yet, just wondered how big the DL was when the last update came out? I only ask as i have sloooow 400k dsl .
@ PMD - iRacing does not even support driver changes yet so i wouldn't start bragging about the frequency or size of its updates.

Quote from anttt69 :

I cant yet, just wondered how big the DL was when the last update came out? I only ask as i have sloooow 400k dsl .
@ PMD - iRacing does not even support driver changes yet so i wouldn't start bragging about the frequency or size of its updates.

iRacing - Has very frequent updates
Competitors - Do not.

If you are going to add substance into the discussion then sure, iRacing doesn't have the correct substance in its updates IMO either. I hate the fact that 80% of what comes from them is content instead of updates to its software. You act like everyone is against you here when we are really not.

That was going to be a question I meant to ask... What happens when iRacing has too much content? To be honest I think it has too much already. You can only stagger races by so much. People will buy cars, expecting lots of racing, but you'll end up with rFactor syndrome with too many series and not enough competitors. Therefore iRacing will have to drop series from entire seasons, thus meaning the people who have bought the cars are not getting their money's worth because they can't actually drive the cars competitively all the time.

That's just my prediction. What do you guys think?

Point taken pmd, but why quote the obvious? I agree 100% re the content vs improvements side of things.
p.s. - i dont think that everyone is against me, like tinvek said above "this is not the i love iracing thread". So we should expect all types of views about iRacing.

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Good point passo, i think it has been discussed many times in the iracing forum. How they will balance active racers with the number of series always gets a few chins wagging. I bet there has been a massive drop in C6R racers with the intro of the V8 & im sure there will be others concerned about what will happen on the SS side of things when the F1 gets released. Personally i wish they would release cars at a slower rate of knots so that the community has a chance to adapt but thats just my opinion.

edit: maybe they will reach a point where they will allow use of cars without purchase if a series does not run at all. Or maybe some sort of hardship credit scheme or even car swapping/trading?

anyone here taking part in the indy 500? i've not posted a valid qual time yet, but got a practice ave. pb of 39.952s just on the cusp of the top split, i hate that this is during exam time and the whole cross weight and oval settings confuses me a bit, but not bad so far.

one thing that this has brought my attention more than anything else in Iracing, give me telemetry damn it.

Quote from Mp3 Astra :

That was going to be a question I meant to ask... What happens when iRacing has too much content? To be honest I think it has too much already. You can only stagger races by so much. People will buy cars, expecting lots of racing, but you'll end up with rFactor syndrome with too many series and not enough competitors. Therefore iRacing will have to drop series from entire seasons, thus meaning the people who have bought the cars are not getting their money's worth because they can't actually drive the cars competitively all the time.

That's just my prediction. What do you guys think?

Has already happened. They've stopped a series for a season, they've "restricted" it for a few days a week.

And do I expect that to happen also? Of course, since I was in beta I have said it. Nothing will change though, unless once they get back the money they invested into it to maybe lower prices I don't see enough people joining in order to fill all the content they have. The crazy part is they want to keep expanding to other things and I don't see how they will do it and maintain a decent population in each series.

i agree, but it seems they are in a catch-22 situation, no new content current members may get bored bored and leave, new content gets new members but they and old members get annoyed at the lack of competition.

Well true, but you have...

LFS - No new content
rF - Too much new modded content
iR - Too much awesome new expensive content

Now basically you try to find a mixture of it all, good luck with that though.

To me 4 tracks and 2 cars a year is plenty to release, and the rest should focus solely on physics/features. But then again, I'm not racing simulation software employee or creator, so my opinion on things could mean absolutely nothing.

It seems like (from the little I've seen) that the community is crying out for physics and netcode updates, and keep being given content. As you say, it's such a contrast from other notable sims that I might play.

They do listen to their members though. Took a matter of a day or 2 to revamp the qualifying system for the Indy 500 after listening to concerned members.

Also, that last botched update was replaced so fast I didn't even have a chance to download the botched update since so many pointed out the flaws so quickly.

If you take a look at: http://statmonkey.is-a-geek.net/ilom/whatWhen

It is rather troubling.

Some series are good. Star Mazda, Skippy, the rookie stuff, etc, all good participation.

But some are just pathetic.

It worries me that, being a relatively new subscriber, I may have missed the golden years.

Ah well, I still bought the Mustang and Mid Ohio. I think that will turn out to be popular.

I suppose a solution to too much content would be to only run a selection each season (and maybe shorten the seasons). But that will make a lot of people unhappy, even if they offer a decent selection of cars.

Quote from JeffR :

Even though iRacing's pricing is getting more reasonable over time, I still have an issue with hourly races. I used to play NR2003, which was 2 races per hour ...

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I don't understand... racing twice as often in NR2003 was too "time consuming", but racing half as often, which would consume far less time, is unappealing.

The point was that a NR2003 race took about 1/2 hour, including practice, qualify, and race time. An iRacing race (other than rookie) takes most of an hour. An LFS race typically takes 10 minutes or so, and I don't have to synchronize my schedule to iRacing's hourly schedule.

Perhaps it would be simpler to state that I'm not a "serious" sim racer and not interested in 30 or 40+ minute races, much less ones scheduled on an hourly basis.

Personally I don't do that much online racing with any game anymore, the newness is gone (I started back in 2000), and I already know from experience with other games that my lap times will be 4% to 7% slower than the aliens, depending on the game.

So if iRacing ever released a boxed retail version of the game, I (and many others) would be interested, but I'm not interested in the online service.

Quote from Mp3 Astra :

That was going to be a question I meant to ask... What happens when iRacing has too much content? To be honest I think it has too much already. You can only stagger races by so much. People will buy cars, expecting lots of racing, but you'll end up with rFactor syndrome with too many series and not enough competitors. Therefore iRacing will have to drop series from entire seasons (...)

My guess is that they will not drop series, but rather merge them together in multiclass races. So that people at least have a chance to be on track with other cars. Even if you're the only Radical driver in a field of DPs you can still have some fun I guess -- better than practicing alone at least. And as the number of cars increases you also get more cars which are evenly matched and are well suited for multiclass races.

However I definitely share your concerns. IMO they should be focusing on updating the core service (weather, transmission, dynamic lighting, brake wear, driver swaps etc etc etc) rather than churning out new content at a blistering pace.

Hi Gnomie!
I think your guess is wrong...
Let me try to explain:

1) Updates to core service = satisfied existing customer, renewed subscritions. No change in new customers arrival rate.

2) No updates to core, but new cars / tracks = More new customers, new subscriptions. Existing customers have the choice to buy the new cars / tracks if they want to find races, so more income generated.

At the point iRacing has reached, they do not fear competition any more (if they ever did, they are americans after all ) - so all subscribers will renew unless they are burnt (eventually will stop sim racing for a while) out or out of cash. LFS is no threat (confidential sim, no advertisement or marketing), RF2 may be but... when???, NKP is confidential as well. So why invest massively to rush core updates that do not increase income?

In pure iracing marketing strategy, they will probably release core updates only when needed (LFS update, RF2 out or other threat). On the other hand they will continue to force cars / tracks down the throat of subscribers, because apparently they make a good profit (development vs income, marketing).

An interesting marketing option would be a full rental option, for a series (base + series content rented for the series duration only, expires at the end of a series but updated for the next selected series) along with the current pricing system.

Only my guess here... I'm open to counter argumentation

certainly the obvious next mix in multicar has to be the corvette into the radical / dp races, which would just be even more like real life. if they split indy into oval and road championships then the road one could go multi with the lotus which couldbe interesting at some circuits there's not a lot between them yet they achieve the times in very differnt ways and if the races are similar to current indy length then the lotus has the advantage of not having to pit. i'd assume an indy oval series probably would get enough drivers for a while at least

Quote from Mp3 Astra :

That's just my prediction. What do you guys think?

I suppose things like multiclass racing and private/hosted sessions are attempts to limit the scope of this problem.

The gist of the problem is the number of active drivers is the sum of the influx of new drivers and the outflux of old drivers. To keep it growing they need to boost the first (e.g. promo codes for new customers) and cut the latter (e.g. content/system updates and other innovations)

Price plays an important role. Though it may be easy to get new customers with promo codes, it's not as easy to have them stay. The price lever is not so easy to tweak: if cuts are too harsh or quick, older customers will be disappointed, unless a way is found to give back to them.

So my guess is we will be seeing more technical workarounds (but I don't think there's an endless number of them) and, most likely, marketing voodoo majik (e.g. the credit partecipation program) to handle price cuts in a controlled manner.

When I look at how many members are logged in at European prime time, there are currently more than 2000, while there had been hardly 1000 a year ago. And there are about 50 new members joining every day, also about twice as much than a year ago.

The developpement of the core sim is completely independant from adding new cars or tracks. A 3D-artist or track builder is not capable of programming or doing research for a new tire model. So this arguement about fixing the core sim instead of adding new content is not leading to more participation. Kaemmer is a perfectionist. He is always working on improving the core sim.

A new car or track from time to time is really welcomed by iRacing veterans like me. Always the same cars and tracks gets boring.

Quote from Klaus T Maus :

Always the same cars and tracks gets boring.

can't imagen your opinion on lfs then

Quote from tinvek :

certainly the obvious next mix in multicar has to be the corvette into the radical / dp races, which would just be even more like real life.

I think the Corvette and Mustang(when it comes out) should be a multi-class series. Much more like real life than the joke that radical/DP races are. Multi-class racing needs cars of different speeds not two almost evenly matched cars.

Quote from Mille Sabords :

In pure iracing marketing strategy, they will probably release core updates only when needed (LFS update, RF2 out or other threat). On the other hand they will continue to force cars / tracks down the throat of subscribers, because apparently they make a good profit (development vs income, marketing).

I doubt they pay any attention to the likes of LFS or Nkpro, iRacing just do their thing & i think from what we've seen so far, its revenue driven development.
Despite their many proclamations about realism & making it the best driver training tool they just love churning out content left right & center.

DK seems to be the only person working on things that we want to see.

Quote from NightShift :

The gist of the problem is the number of active drivers is the sum of the influx of new drivers and the outflux of old drivers. To keep it growing they need to boost the first (e.g. promo codes for new customers) and cut the latter (e.g. content/system updates and other innovations)

This. I'm sure iRacing are closely monitoring this. If they weren't happy with the recent developments in membership they would be more likely to change their approach and try pushing some other levers. For the moment it seems like churning out new content is working fine, and therefore from a business point of view there is no need to change their approach. As Klaus said, also older members appreciate new content every now and then.

And of course you're right that an artist probably wouldn't do a better job at making a new aero model (or whatever) than any of us. But again -- if membership development was insatisfactory over time they could for example fire some artists and hire some engineers / math guys / programmers to work on the core stuff.

Quote from Mille Sabords :

An interesting marketing option would be a full rental option, for a series (base + series content rented for the series duration only, expires at the end of a series but updated for the next selected series) along with the current pricing system.

This would be my dream model!! I've argued for this kind of system before too. There are many positive things about this. Mainly it would mean that iRacing could change the tracks completely from one season to the next while keeping the "season subscription price" the same. This would be great for

(1) new drivers, who wouldn't face that huge "price wall" the first season (10 tracks, 2 cars, whatever... --> £££ starts flying!!!)

(2) old members, who would have more variation. At the moment iRacing seems afraid to change the schedule too much from season to season to avoid "forcing" people to buy too many new tracks at a time.

Quote from Mille Sabords :

At the point iRacing has reached, they do not fear competition any more ... subscribers will renew unless they are burnt.

Players getting burnt out is more likely, although the hook is that once a player has spent all tha money on cars and tracks, they feel obligated to continue to be iRenters.

As far as competition goes, there are some players that no longer consider realism that important in a racing game, and may even consider something like NFS Shift, despite the lack of realism.

iRacing's marketing strategy is probably smart, but borderline ethically. The old auto-renewal policy with a single referece on line 84 of the agreement under the section "what you need to play" crossed that line, but they don't do that anymore. I associate auto-renewals with the sleaziest of companies, like Enzyte, whose auto-renewal policy was bad enough to give the company founder a 25 year jail sentence.