Erm, have you even read that website? How is that relevant?
The website is saying that when Flash is badly or unecessarily implemented, it can be a problem. You can say the same about anything. Seatbelts in cars aren't too great if they're not screwed in properly. Should we stop using them?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with how they have used flash on the new website. Links at the top of the page can be opened in new tabs, the back and forward buttons work due to each page having a seperate URL.
TBH most people in this thread are just looking for things to pick at and complain about. I welcome iRacing as it's finally a step forward (at least it looks like) in simracing realism / content.
The problem with Flash is that it just magnifies how bad design for the net is generally. Anyone with a half-arsed idea to market puts it online. Usually with lots of superfluous punctuation marks and cutesey emoticons. With flash, these people get the chance to take up more space, more time, and flood the world with both visual and aural pollution.
Its just a reminder of how many stupid people there are in the world. I suppose we should be grateful for it, that it grounds us and reminds us that our notions about the essential goodness of people are mere illusions.
flash site itself is very compact, the structure itself is not more and few hundred ks. it's only as big as the pictures/video/audio you put inside it, so it's not really the fault of flash itself.
What's with all the Solstice bashing? What would you have preferred instead as the base car, an F1 car? iRacing is an american company and over here your only base sports cars are the MX-5, Solstice, and it's clone the Saturn Sky. The next step up being the S2000 and Boxter which I don't think are as well suited to beginners.
There's a few other road cars that might make good additions such as the GT3, Elise, Atom, Caterham, etc. but once again I don't think they would be good beginner cars.
I have an S2 license yet I find racing the XRG just as enjoyable as the GTR cars. There's a certain amount of pleasure in operating an h-shifter and clutch that can't really be had by simply clicking a paddle.
I will probably continue racing the Solstice events event after getting a better license. It's certainly the closest I can come to racing my own car on the track (even though my car's engine is in the Formula Mazda....!). If they add other road cars I will probably switch to those instead.
Without trying it, I have to say that it does sound like an amazing sim, and as a first run beta test, it's already very promising, with supposedly cutting-edge physics (maybe the best), amazing netcode, immersive graphics and sound, and an attention to RL details which has never really been attempted before on such a level. The racing structure, while restrictive and controversial, follows roughly in the spirit of our locally celebrated CTRA model. There's a promise of regular updates, many which will likely be concieved through community feedback and concerns. Keep in mind this is still a beta, and that the road will likely be long and drawn out for iRacing. Things will most certainly be getting bigger and better from here on...
The price is contentious, but maybe we're just cheapskates. Or maybe its all just sour grapes. Surely $20 is worth it to find out whether the thing's as good as it says it is. When you have to pay $100 for an arcade game which will likely last you less than a month, it's probably unfair to suggest that the price is that far off the mark. As a relatively casual sim racer, it's still appealing to me. I don't understand how some of the more hardcore amongst us simply can't be bothered to have anything to do with this sim, as it surely seems the title most worthy of holding the elevated honour of 'sim' as any I've seen.
Flash is probably the best way of doing what they did. I don't see a different or better way of achieving the intro presentation than the way they did it. A traditional HTML webpage could not have been used to deliver it, because clearly what they wanted to deliver was a multimedia presentation intro. Is there an alternative to Flash? Nope, not yet. Nobody bother mention Silverlight!
They probably can't conceive of a reason why you would want to skip it. It's exciting stuff.
They're clearly very excited about their sim, and there's clearly a lot of interest in it. People arriving at the site are more than likely going to be delighted to see the psyche-stoking intro time and time again.
If your net connection is so bad that you wander away from the site before the intro loads, then it's probably the best thing for everyone if you do.. your connection probably couldn't handle the net traffic required for the game anyway.
iR seems to have the mentality that it's deliberately only appealing to a specific crowd, who have the good things in life, like money and decent internet connections.. anyone who doesn't meet those criteria are completely irrelevent to their venture anyway.
if you want multimedia material, flash is a easier way to go. and it does not have any real performance hit, you just need good clean interface design.
and dude, just the avatars on this very thread plus the banner can sum up to few hundred Ks, it's nothing....and the good thing with flash is you have holders and layers, meaning the main navigation structure only has to be loaded once.
As soon as it provides private league/private server support (which seems to be a big priority) then i suspect many more will be jumping on board.
The system they are running at the moment bears no resemblance to real life racing whatsoever.
For those people that aren't in a team and just want pickup racing iRacing is absolutely ideal at the moment.
For those people that enjoy proper league racing,(one qual, one race, one chance. Like reality ) endurance racing, practising together on a server with team mates, (the social aspect of sim racing is very important to me)all that sort of stuff, iRacing doesn't cut it. Yet. I have no doubt it will, sooner rather than later.
I'm aware of a few 'hardcore' simmers that feel exactly the same way. It just doesn't provide the type of racing that many are looking for.
) endurance racing, practising together on a server with team mates, (the social aspect of sim racing is very important to me)all that sort of stuff, iRacing doesn't cut it. Yet. I have no doubt it will, sooner rather than later.