I've not been on CTRA servers as long as most here, but i've been thinking a lot about license points and server usage and wanted to discuss an idea.

Why not every year reset all points accrued for licenses? I think that having a system that perpetually increases total points will eventually become stale. The license rank of "unobtainium" already exists and the more people that get close the less incentive to race for points (assuming most do, I know some don't)

I think reseting these points each year will have several pro's

• Those who have already achieved a higher status will have the chance to relive going through the system again, which I think is a lot of the fun and challenge.
  
• Fast newcomers to the system have the chance, on an annual basis, to become one of the top racers.
  
• Activity will increase across the range of servers

Let me expand on my thoughts for the last bullet. I recently went to National B and was excited to then be able to race on SS2. However, i've had in the past month maybe 2 races because of such low use on the server. I think that if you had an annual reset, you would be more drivers getting a new license status around the same time. Therefore a flood of drivers will be heading onto the higher servers.

Now this would also raise the issue of thousands of racers all on copper trying to get access to servers to race. So I would therefore suggest at the start of the race year, have 3/4 race 1 servers for both regular and single seater classes. Then, as racers approach the next level of licenses, add in the next class of server, Race 2 and SS2. Newly licensed racers will be pounding these servers to achieve the next level of license status.

So basically as the year progresses, you reduce race 1 servers to 1 instance and then end up with the existing broad spectrum.

At the end of the year, winners are announced and prizes given. So people don't feel like they are loosing their status, their profile would have "Single Seater 2008 Gold License" holder. So you record their achievements for each year. You would also retain a total overall race and lap history, with a annual counter. So my overall might be 4000 laps, but in July 2009, half way through the season, I might have only raced 300 laps.

It would also create a frenzy of racing in the last months of the year as people tried to get to the top. Weighting the points system in someway so that new years Gold/Titanium etc license holders had an incentive to race on the bigger classes of server would keep a good spread of racers across the system.

There are downsides of course. More coding involved, possibly the funding for more servers (although I would gladly fund a single server for a year) and also frustration for those at the start of the year having to race with all the "newbies". Maybe the initial set of Race 1 servers could be limited per server. So you have a Race 1 for those who did not finish the previous season, then have a Race 1 for Bronze and Silver licenses to and a Race 1 for Gold and above. Still allowing those with higher licenses to race on any server, but preventing new comers to racing on some servers.

What would people think?

Reset points? No. I've worked really hard to get where I am and I don't want my work thrown away.
EDIT: or you could reset and round up or down to the nearest level.

Quote from Zachary Zoomy :

Reset points? No. I've worked really hard to get where I am and I don't want my work thrown away.
EDIT: or you could reset and round up or down to the nearest level.

Michael Schumacher has 7 world championships, yet each season he started with 0 points... I understand how attached people are to their license status, but there is no long term future. You would still have evidence of your hard work, it would be a history of high achievements year after year.

Infact I would feel more rewarded if I had achieved Platinum status every year instead of just getting a mass of points which then led nowhere. Plus I am not suggesting people wipe their total overall points, simply each year reset the licenses so that you again have a fresh challenge.

Quote from yeager :

Michael Schumacher has 8 world championships, yet each season he start with 0 points... I understand how attached people are to their license status, but there is no long term future. You would still have evidence of your hard work, it would be a history of high achievements year after year.

Infact I would feel more rewarded if I had achieved Platinum status every year instead of just getting a mass of points which then led nowhere.

7 my friend.

Quote from Zachary Zoomy :

EDIT: or you could reset and round up or down to the nearest level.

Which I think actually contradicts your initial comment. Rounding down my status doesn't reflect the hard hard work I put in. Each year your profile would contain data such as license status achieved in each class, ranking overall, by country, region, etc. An annual reset would generate a repeatable cycle of racing through the different levels each year as well as giving a chance a new comer to be noticed.

You could argue this leans more towards a league, which is not what the CTRA is about. I would say it is more of a race season which achievements.

Quote from Blas89 :

7 my friend.

Gracias Corrected

I'm simply not interested in setting foot anywhere near Race 1 again, and i don't wish to spend months on the TBO servers again just so i can drive the GT's.

I put many months of effort into getting where i am and have absolutely no wish to go through it all again.

I ,and i imagine all the high licensed drivers would just go and race elsewhere rather than go through the system again.

We, higher license holders, are having problems finding people to race on Race 2, and you say to reset all points every year? Yeah right.

1) I've been working hard on my points, and I don't want them to be deleted.

2) On Race 1, people are still smashing each other for points to get a higher place in the results, can you imagine what will happen every january of the year? I mean, Race 1 is the only server to start with, and it's S1 so 27 connections and 20 people on the grid (Total Racers Entering X-System: 15,619). Not enough. Even when people are spread out in different time zones, it won't be still enough.

3) CTRA isn't a league, it's a bunch of servers to have friendly and competitive racing.

So, -1 from me. And btw, people couldn't change SamH's mind about resetting the stats when the X-System was introduced. I doubt he'll do something like that anyway (I remember someone begging Sam to reset his points in order to make a fresh start but he didn't ).

Quote from The Moose :

I put many months of effort into getting where i am and have absolutely no wish to go through it all again.

I ,and i imagine all the high licensed drivers would just go and race elsewhere rather than go through the system again.

Ouch, you make it sound like all the racing you did to get the higher licenses was arduous and unrewarding! I'm quite enjoying the progression but fear i'll be bored. In fact, there are so few racers on SS2 that getting the National B was pointless. Maybe silver status is entirely different.

Race 1 also (in the times I am racing, West coast of America) seems to always have the most racers, i'm dreading getting on the higher servers and racing with 3/4 people at a time. Again, i'm relatively new so i'm only going on the visibility of how busy these servers are.

I was just so deflated to get National B, I hope going to Silver is more rewarding. I would imagine so, I then get access to a wider variety of racing.

Quote from psychometalist :

We, higher license holders, are having problems finding people to race on Race 2, and you say to reset all points every year? Yeah right.

I expected tough responses, and have thought through my idea and feel its worth thinking about.

Quote from psychometalist :

1) I've been working hard on my points, and I don't want them to be deleted.

I am not suggesting they are deleted, only license status is reset each year.

Quote from psychometalist :

2) On Race 1, people are still smashing each other for points to get a higher place in the results, can you imagine what will happen every january of the year? I mean, Race 1 is the only server to start with, and it's S1 so 27 connections and 20 people on the grid (Total Racers Entering X-System: 15,619). Not enough. Even when people are spread out in different time zones, it won't be still enough.

Hence my suggestion to have a Race 1 for non license/copper holders from the previous year, a Race 1 for Bronze/Silver and a Race 1 for Gold and above. This would avoid experienced racers having to "muck in with the great unwashed" I agree about server capacity however, this would be tempered to some degree because there are less higher licensed drivers, therefore the servers dedicated to them are more likely to be open for racing. Therefore the current situation with non licensed and Copper licenses having the busier Race 1.

Quote from psychometalist :

3) CTRA isn't a league, it's a bunch of servers to have friendly and competitive racing.

I agree on the league, I thought about this a lot and I think what would be achieved is some advantages of a league system, such as fresh newcomers being able to compete fairly with old timers whilst retaining the long term profile status that those who have worked hard to get to the top, stay there.

Quote from yeager :

Ouch, you make it sound like all the racing you did to get the higher licenses was arduous and unrewarding!

Not unrewarding, but absolutely life sapping To get to Titanium in a year takes many more hours than the average person could possibly put into sim racing. That's why there are only 9 of us, and most of them started months before i did.
Race 1 doesn't appeal in the slightest. Without wanting to sound elitist in any way, i prefer to be racing a higher standard of racer than is generally found on Race1 anyway.

Quote from yeager :

Race 1 also (in the times I am racing, West coast of America) seems to always have the most racers, i'm dreading getting on the higher servers and racing with 3/4 people at a time.

Race 3 has been packed for weeks (though maybe not in your timezone) It appears to have taken a downturn in the last week or so though.
I imagine it's just going through a phase. I've seen it before in STCC/CTRA when there are quiet spells, but activity always picks up again.
It may be to do with people concentrating on leagues for instance.
The IGTC is just starting up again for example. I know our team has been concentrating on practice sessions for that rather than doing CTRA recently.

I appreciate the fact you are only trying to suggest ideas to get more people racing, but i just don't think this is the way.
Unfortunately you are always going to have problems populating servers in your timezone. There just don't seem to be enough Americans/Canadians playing LFS .

Quote from The Moose :

Without wanting to sound elitist in any way, i prefer to be racing a higher standard of racer than is generally found on Race1 anyway.

Do you mean you just don't like the race 1 class cars or the standard of racing on race 1? I can imagine that once i've had a few months in GT cars that i'm really not going to like the old XFG/XRG races.

Quote from The Moose :

Race 3 has been packed for weeks (though maybe not in your timezone) It appears to have taken a downturn in the last week or so though.

This may well be my experience with the gap between Bronze and Silver. It may also be an issue with that the Single Seater classes are new and not well defined yet.

Quote from The Moose :

I appreciate the fact you are only trying to suggest ideas to get more people racing, but i just don't think this is the way.

You don't like my idea at all do you... It hurts... it really does!

Quote from The Moose :

There just don't seem to be enough Americans/Canadians playing LFS .

May well be the case here. Infact, this is the ONLY downside to leaving Aylesbury and moving to San Francisco...

Quote from yeager :

I expected tough responses, and have thought through my idea and feel its worth thinking about.

Sorry if my response was tough, didn't mean it

Quote from yeager :

I am not suggesting they are deleted, only license status is reset each year.

I quite don't understand this. I've got 10507 points and I'm gold, then I'll start again from 10507 points and I'll be copper?

Quote from yeager :

Hence my suggestion to have a Race 1 for non license/copper holders from the previous year, a Race 1 for Bronze/Silver and a Race 1 for Gold and above. This would avoid experienced racers having to "muck in with the great unwashed"

Three servers for Race 1? Hmm... Might be nice but there are a lot of GTR fans who never ever look back to driving slow cars with road tyres for sure. That's why Race 2 has been a bit empty for a week or so (Maybe that's because everyone I know on the servers have obtained their platinum license and having a go at GTR cars or I may be wrong).

They have to open up 2 new servers (which will cost some more money) or change Race 2 and 3 to Race 1 silver and Race 1 gold and above. Which they probably will, because these servers will be empty for some time. But think about it this way, I can race 12 hours a day (for instance), and B races 3 hours a day. I'll probably get to a higher license in 3 weeks, and he'll be there in 4 months. Because of the Race 1 gold server (which was Race 2) I will progress but can't find a higher tiered server, so I have to wait for the others to climb up. Or, as I (and some more) demand a higher tiered server, this one will be closed and changed to Race 2, and the B guy will have to move to the Race 1 copper/bronze. Something we never want There is also the option to set up another 2 servers but they cost money. Without even paying a cent, I'm glad that I'm racing on very clean InSim programmed servers and I don't have the face to ask for more (an old Turkish saying).

Quote from yeager :

Do you mean you just don't like the race 1 class cars or the standard of racing on race 1?

Both

Quote from yeager :

It may also be an issue with that the Single Seater classes are new and not well defined yet.

I was surprised that SS2 and above have never taken off actually. I expected SS2 to be a lot busier. I suspect there just aren't enough drivers to go round all the CTRA servers.
I don't really drive the SS cars in LFS anymore anyway. I do my SS driving in NetKar Pro. After that, driving the LFS single seaters is like racing a jelly

Quote from yeager :

You don't like my idea at all do you... It hurts... it really does!

No i don't, sorry for the upset i've caused you

Quote from psychometalist :

Sorry if my response was tough, didn't mean it

Eke thump, i'm not that thinned skinned

Quote from psychometalist :

I quite don't understand this. I've got 10507 points and I'm gold, then I'll start again from 10507 points and I'll be copper?

I'm saying you would have 10507 total race points, with a Gold license from the 2008 season (which you achieved a total of 4000 points in) and currently hold a 2009 Copper license with 300 points...

Quote from psychometalist :

Three servers for Race 1? Hmm... Might be nice but there are a lot of GTR fans who never ever look back to driving slow cars with road tyres for sure. That's why Race 2 has been a bit empty for a week or so (Maybe that's because everyone I know on the servers have obtained their platinum license and having a go at GTR cars or I may be wrong).

They have to open up 2 new servers (which will cost some more money) or change Race 2 and 3 to Race 1 silver and Race 1 gold and above. Which they probably will, because these servers will be empty for some time. But think about it this way, I can race 12 hours a day (for instance), and B races 3 hours a day. I'll probably get to a higher license in 3 weeks, and he'll be there in 4 months. Because of the Race 1 gold server (which was Race 2) I will progress but can't find a higher tiered server, so I have to wait for the others to climb up. Or, as I (and some more) demand a higher tiered server, this one will be closed and changed to Race 2, and the B guy will have to move to the Race 1 copper/bronze. Something we never want There is also the option to set up another 2 servers but they cost money. Without even paying a cent, I'm glad that I'm racing on very clean InSim programmed servers and I don't have the face to ask for more (an old Turkish saying).

I agree in part and hence the reason for voicing my idea, to gain some feedback and eventually, probably, actually realise it was a bad idea

Quote from The Moose :

No i don't, sorry for the upset i've caused you

No, no, fine fine, i'll keep pounding towards the Silver license and hope there is more fun to be had there.

Quote from yeager :

No, no, fine fine, 'll keep pounding towards the Silver license and hope there is more fun to be had there.

That's the spirit !

Eke thump!, hehe, not heard that for years

Reset my points and 'I kill you', or get Achmed the dead terrorist to do it...

My goals in CTRA were to reach Platinum and National A, now that I have reached that I no longer race striving for points, this actually make LFS more enjoyable for me as I can race on other servers without thinking I am missing out on CTRA points, if that makes any sense?

Sam, I'm green lighting you to take all of Aliens points away for being faster than me?

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Sam, I'm green lighting you to take all of Aliens points away for being faster than me?

Nooooooooooooo! don't take my points. Hey, completely off topic, I 've just had a shot of GTR 2, its not bad really, well thats what I thought until I went online.....deary deary me it makes the drivers on LFS demo servers seem professional, honestly I've never seen anything like it for crashing and wrecking.

Oh and Dustin if I am faster than you, then you must be.

a) Blind
b) Blind drunk
c) Blind and Blind drunk
d) Have no arms and legs
or
e) Be blind, blind drunk and have no arms and legs.
f) been taught how to drive by SamH

Hmmm... Taking down the points. No bloody way . I have spend a lot off time on several servers on CTRA and I damn proud of what I achieved . Currenlty I am platinum, due to certain circumstances and testing a wheel I havent been on lateley on CTRA. But my god what do I miss those races on higher servers. There is not a system or server out there with that high standard off racing constantly. Why ??, well mainly due to the fact of points and license.

I certainly dont wanna got through the carnage on race 1. I dont like the cars and dont like the race attitude there. I bearly set foot in it. Just now and then to see if it is changed.

The high standard off racing on the higher server and the attitude of racers there makes what CTRA is about and by resetting things you have to go through it again. The hardest part is getting towards silver. Thats the main achievment after that its gets easier mainly to the differents in race attitude and race standards. That what people need to learn on race 1. Its a entry server which always gives the carnage and dumplings.

You said Michael Schumacher has started 7 times with 0 points. That a different ball game. Ask him if he wants to start al over again with his career, bcus that is what youre suggesting by resetting the points or licsense. F1 is a league, like many leagues. You drive for a period off time and made up by the points a winner. But CTRA is a career or whatever you like to call it but it is not a league, you mix two things up here.

Also you said something about fast young guns having a change of becoming a top racer. Well look at a team mate of mine KristJan, becoming platinum in 7 or 8 months. Just being consistent, fast and more importantly dedication is the only way to do it at CTRA. So young guns can be top drivers with a little effort.

If SamH (which seriously I doubt(he better not tho) ), will reset point I would personally come over and woop his ass. .

The idea is bold, but flawed. However it does no mean it's wrong.

Instead of wipping the points and the license away, why not just reset the points but keep you're current license, that way there could still be a annual compention to see who gained the most points in a month/season, while keeping drivers at thier relvant abiltiy status i.e. platinum drivers staying at platinum level.

The only problem I see is that we have Gold/Platinum drivers still racing in copper level (something of which I disagree with btw, but thats another matter) which means the point allocation is not evenly spread out.

If this has already been mentioned then I'm sorry, but I skim-read this thread as I should be working instead of browsing the forum

Sam already offered us Titanium guys the points reset so we could go back through the system for the hell of it...the answer was a resounding NO.

You talk about a yearly ranking sort of thing, this is already in place with the CTRA Awards. Results were taken from January 2007 to December 2007 as far as I know.

I know I absolutely raced my arse off to get the Titanium license, so much so that I hardly played in the few months afterwards. I'll have had it a year on Sunday, I can still remember being on the server when I got it and being asked what I won...my reply was that I got my life back

great idea. I think reset each day is best!