Well, the idea that 32 people from around the world cannot safely race on a track is a bit bizarre, as Dukey says, we've just seen MoE run their 3rd 24hr race, this time with 31 cars. There were disconnections during the race, but less than 2 an hour, which is hard to pin on the fault of netcode or other instabilities involved with international events. For lag... again, just going back to the previous round of MoE, there was a very good scrap between our German driver and another teams American driver, and they went about 3/5th round the 2m50 Aston GP track, about half of that was done side by side through some tricky corners where it isnt all that easy to go side by side, neither touching or at any risk to each other.
http://w14.easy-share.com/1698288821.html
Should check it out, 5 corners, from T1, neither giving an inch and side by side on all but 1 corner. If that can be done midway through a 24hr race with drivers on opposite sides of the world, i dont see why it should be a problem for a 1hr race.
If there is lag, its never because of location, its because of a bad internet connection.
Sounds like you just need a decent European server, theres no way you'd get problems on a solid 10mbit line, if its a shared line then you may have problems, but that would be down to the company your hosted with and what they're offering. Im assuming its a dedi server in a datacenter rather than in someones home, though it'd fit the description being given.
Driver limitations will be introduced, and should be confirmed along with some other details hopefully before the weekend. We'd hope that people arent lame enough to start handing over the reigns to their account just to cheat their way to victory, if people really need to do that to prove how great their country is, they probably should look into a new pasttime. Im sure everyone will respect this rule, and im betting if i all of a sudden managed to put in hauling laptimes similar to what Bawbag can do, you'd probably spot something isnt quite right, we all know i'd kick bawbags ass so something must be wrong
So if suddenly im giving the top drivers a decent scrap, its going to stick out like a sore thumb, they'd know it, we'd know it, and it wouldnt fool anyone.
Were not stupid, we all know pretty much what most drivers are capable of doing.
Limiting the countries would be done for 1 reason, lack of sufficient drivers signed up expressing an interest. I personally wouldnt have any problem limiting the series to 16 teams, getting things underway and seeing how things go in order to make sure everything works how we think, there arent problems which will result in negativity towards the integrety of the series, and then once were confident the format works opening the doors to as many teams as possible.
It comes down to what people think is better, waiting until the format of the series is tested, works how we'd like it to work, and has proved itself to be an entertaining series to take part in and in turn the success its had incourages people to sign up and race for their country. Or do we just say sod it, stick 30 teams in a server despite the fact that half of them could fit their whole team into a Mini Cooper and wont last the full season. Ignore the fact that it doesnt exactly look good for the series which allows numericly weak teams take part only for them to leave, and doesnt really fill people with confidence about taking part themselves.
Its all down to how people perceive the series, and the best way to encourage people to take part is by proving the series is a good idea, it works and they'd enjoy taking part. If people are saying load of people left half-way through, people assume its because its a bad series, when the truth could be simply that 'interested' and 'committed' are completely different things, and when the chips are down they chose to walk away.
If there were 30, 40, 100 teams with say 20-30 drivers all saying they wanted to take part, then maybe they'd force our hand, but i still firmly believe the lack of interest from some countries helps us *this time* more than it hinders us.
I dont have the final say on this matter, but i have no problem being honest and saying IMO its in the series' best interest to run the first season with a controlled group, get it right, prove it works, and have that success generate improved awareness and interest in the aims of this series. This was my opinion going back to Dec 31st, possibly earlier, but well before any conclusion could be drawn on how many people were interested.
Its not your average event, and shouldnt be treated as such, were trying to find the country with fastest team of drivers, and it'll take a while before the ideal format to justify that title will be found. I think expecting it to be perfect at the first time of asking is would be a little niave, and i'd hope people would see the bigger picture rather than assuming just because they couldnt be involved in things from the beginning that its a crappy series and not worth participating in once everything is ironed out and working smoothly.
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