Quote from thisnameistaken :

Well, I'm not compelled to start it up again, but then I don't like the car, and the multiplayer is just too inconvenient for me - I much prefer the typical LFS scenario where if you've only got half an hour you can fire it up and choose from half a dozen different combos to race.

For $20 a month it doesn't give me enough value, but it is a good sim.

Yup, pretty much sums it up from my P.O.V. too

Hmmm, I've been on the mailing list for months and aint got my invite....

thanks guys, I think I am getting the one month deal, maybe plus one or two tracks that I really like.

Quote from JJ72 :

thanks guys, I think I am getting the one month deal, maybe plus one or two tracks that I really like.

Well, getting the 1st month isn't a bad idea, since you get to know what you're about to get in the package. But getting new tracks right away, I wouldn't do that.

The tracks included in the 20$ can tell you already what the game is about and what it lacks. More importantly, is it for you.

So if I was you I'd give it around a weeks time before even considering the extra material.

It drives great, but that is about the only thing it does great. As mentioned by technique, the league points haven't got any sense, you only get to race the combos they set for a week. Every new season will cost you more money to get the required car plus tracks.
And generally all the features it misses, such as dirt in tires, flags, braking lights etc. (I know all of those things are to be added, but I'm not going to keep paying and wait for them for god knows how long) won't justify the costs when I get it all from LFS, with just a slightly different driving feel.

my 2cents

That's why its a maybe.

I have some special interest in silverstone because its the only one I've had some lap on.

Right now I'm not 100% sure if I will renew. I really really enjoy driving on iracing. And I don't mind the fact that races are only every two hours. It will become more frequent as there are more drivers. And as I can usually fit a race or two a day into my schedule, I am happy doing one or two longer races compared to a bunch of short races on LFS. But I'm not a huge fan of the points system, as some ppl have mentioned above. But for me I'm enjoying the driving experience so much that the issues don't bother me that much. Hopefully these are things that can be improved with time. If I'm tight for money, I might leave it 6 months or a year to renew, but assuming I can afford it I'll probably renew right away. I'll see how I feel after my month it up.

Got the invite as well. No time to unlock it today though.

Still nothing here.

But i just got a bright new shiny addon for FSX the other day, and what with the new patch Z it's not such a great loss. TBH i've the same perspective as Dan, Kev and a few others, not really got the time (or talent in my case) to devote hours and hours into a new racing sim. So rankings and ratings and points and laptimes aren't important to me. Just hearing all the good reports coming from this thread kinda got me overly curious to try it out asap. Guess i'll have to wait, as they say, patience is a virtue...apparently.

It's definately for everyone. If you love racing in private leagues or short 3-10lap races whenever you want, I would say that you won't like iRacing. Neither does it have anykind of cruising, drifting or car-park action for just messing around when you're not up for serious racing.

Also the whole "serious" atmosphere might be offputting for some.

Driving feel was quite easy to get used to coming from LFS/GTR2 backround and I'm already getting solid top-3 finishes.

Personally, I think the iracing "league" system with its averaged points and all fails epic hard. There is absolutely no league feel to it at all, no any of that special excitement, satisfaction and disappointment what you get if you drive in a event where it really matters what you do. Because of that I'm already treating the races like just one another pick up race. Sure, you can win points by winning but the amount of points seems pretty random. - I'm sure they are using some sort of equation to calculate them to reflect the race but nothing is really explained about why. Sometimes I get 120 points for winning easily and sometimes I get barely 100 when the another driver is right at my rear bumper for the whole race. The getting points -part is really soo artificial anyways. I've already decided that I'm not interested about the whole points thing anymore, or the "leagues". I just drive (have I heard that before? ).

The races themselves can get quite boring if you really put effort into your quali time. If your quali time is good you will usually start from pole and winning from pole is just easy if there are no super quick guys who have not done any qualis yet. Sure, it is a bit exciting to lead the race and be able to win it but that's not racing, that's just hotlapping in the lead. If anything, I'm thinking about not doing qualis anymore. That way I'd start about middle of the pack and generally have some actual racing going on, swapping places and rubbing some paint... But to be fair it has been said that in the beginning you are not matched well with people on your level so I may just had a bit of bad luck there. Few nice races though .

If iracing introduced some two level organized racing system where there were the normal scheduled races every hour (instead of every two hours) and then there was the more serious league alike races once per week with double length, double points and more realistic race procedures. Like the event started from 8.00 with 10 min free practise, then the 30 minute quali with lots of cars on the track, then a 10min practise before the event and then the race where you start from the pits and need to run a warmup lap and drive into your start grid position and then the real races starts. If iracing actually had a system like this I would have bought the whole year deal already.

I just noticed that the next road race is about one hour from now. That just sucks really hard. But then, the driving of the car is so much fun! The solstice really feels nice. In the end though the solstice is not all that different from XRG, it is just the tracks that are light years more fun and challenging. As a whole I still really like iracing. I'm not sure that I will keep subscribing but if I do I'd probably go with the 3-month deal.

As for anyone thinking about trying iracing now or later I'd say do it now. The lisences are updated just every 12 weeks (yeah, 12 weeks!) and the next update is going to be 2nd of August. So if you want to race the radical, for example, you need to spend 4 months in racing. If you start after august 2nd you may be looking to wait a whopping 6 months (two 12 week seasons). There are probably some new road cars in the works, the spec racer ford is the only one I know but I'd guess we see more in the next months.

Wether to try iracing at all depends a lot how much time you have to spend. There aren't that many races available but there are always people racing on those races. If you have 30 minutes here and maybe another hour there you will find it very hard to fit your timetable to match with iracing's schedule. Oh, and there is only one track per week per car. So you might just forget getting VIR and Infineon as your first purchases. You may not be able to race on them anytime soon. Sure, you can hotlap them to death "offline" but where's the fun running all alone? And first you'd need to get your SR (safety rating) up.

As for getting the SR up didn't really take all that long, it's defenately not a "grind" what I first though it might be. Granted I've had lots of races and other sessions but I've also severely handicapped my SR progress by time trialing and qualifying. Lots of two wheels of the track, few spins and couple of bent solstices . As for SR I wouldn't think about it all. If you can drive at all and aware of your surroundings and don't spin a lot your SR should rise very quickly.

To sum it all I really like it . If you can get excited about new cocpits and rewinding replays I'd say stick with LFS. If you want to try something new I'd defenately try iracing. I'm glad I did.

Quote from troy :

yep got an email too, not sure if I really want to use it but it's nice that I've got the choice now

I'd defenately recommend trying it for a month. Would really like to see you online too. I still haven't got over how you came and beat me in my own cars

Good post.

Almost 6:30 EST. Prime time to go racing.

Let's see.... iRacing home screen.

SERIES

REGISTERED
IRACING LEGENDS CUP - Summer 2008 C 6
SKIP BARBER RACE SERIES - Summer 2008 1

Oh, great. There's 7 people total registered for races right now and only one for the crap I'm interested in... Alright.. I guess I'll erm... test offline again!

These hours definitely don't agree with the working folk. Let's see most people get off work at 5pm, drive home.. but since the races are scheduled for 5pm EST they have to wait until 7pm to race. That leaves them 2 races possible a day (7pm and 9pm) if they go to sleep normal hours.

Races start at even hours and you can only sign-up 30mins in advance. Most people don't join until very last minute so they can run solo practise, time-trial or qualify before the start. +-100 signups is not uncommon during evening.

I got the invite, (I believe) Thanks George!!

Will give it an honest shot this month. Summit point next week for the Solctice?

BTW, is it the Turbo Solctice or the weaker NA version?

Difference between Rookie and Advanced solstice is that Rookie version is fixed setup. I'm not 100% sure about suspension but Advanced does feel sharper and seems to have much sharper turn-in even with untouched setup.

Edit: Oh lol, I cannot even read anymore...

Doesn't the advanced one have a different default setup than the rookie one?

Quote from Crommi :

Races start at even hours and you can only sign-up 30mins in advance. Most people don't join until very last minute so they can run solo practise, time-trial or qualify before the start. +-100 signups is not uncommon during evening.

yeah... i know and right now it's up to 53. I'm going to race even though I can barely complete 2 consecutive clean laps. I have no idea how I survived the first race with only a few practice session laps.

Quote from srdsprinter :

I got the invite, (I believe) Thanks George!!

Will give it an honest shot this month. Summit point next week for the Solctice?

BTW, is it the Turbo Solctice or the weaker NA version?

NA version. And the rookie series only races lime rock and laguna seca I believe.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Well, I'm not compelled to start it up again, but then I don't like the car, and the multiplayer is just too inconvenient for me - I much prefer the typical LFS scenario where if you've only got half an hour you can fire it up and choose from half a dozen different combos to race.

For $20 a month it doesn't give me enough value, but it is a good sim.

Completely agree, I haven't touched it for a few days because it takes too long.

I'm really kinda pissed :/

I've been on the damn mailing list for 6 months now, and I don't get an invite

I was really wanting to give it a go for a month

Thanks, guys, for the balanced comments. Good to see rationally presented pros and cons. I will be giving it a try and expect to like it, but will try not to talk myself into it too hard.

Cheers.

As long as you dont race with me you will like it. I just caused a massive wreck in my last race.... then... even though I drove up the rahal straight on the dirt, I somehow caught up to some people and rear ended them in the corkscrew. ugh.. I have no idea how that happened... it was like they were going 5mph in the corkscrew.. 14 incident points!

If you want a really balanced and fair opinion about iracing, read this:
http://racesimcentral.com/inde ... w&id=64&Itemid=68

After this ASS feels like hardcore criticism

EDIT, in the above article:

Quote :

Pick up racing is pretty dead anyway

Huh?

Great post Hyperactive....I would have to echo pretty much everything you said there (the large one further up the page I mean :P).

Regarding the setups for the Solstice...the rookie and advanced Solstice are the same cars, but yes the baseline for the advanced is faster and more enjoyable to drive than the fixed setup for the rookie car. And then of course you have the option of editing your setup for the advanced Solstice from there if you choose to do so (I haven't bothered yet though..). To give you an idea of the differences in laptimes, I have managed 1:49.3 in the Rookie Solstice at Laguna Seca, and 1:48.3 in the Advanced Solstice.

Michael! Solstice race in 5 mins! GOGOGOGOGOGOGO!

Missed it... How did it go?

I have started racing the Skip Barber now my SR is over 4. I wasn't hugely enjoying this car in practice but it comes alive in races and it's nice to be racing a racing car not a road car. VIR course is very pretty and fun to drive. The races are a little longer, more like 35 minutes than 25. Fun so far. I agree with what Hyper said though, I'm not worried about doing well in each series, I just want to have fun races. I won't avoid doing another race in a series if it's going to reduce my average points. I just race what I want to race when I want to race it, and have fun, hopefully improving my SR. Also once I move to Class D I will be able to see how I'm doing with my iRating, and that's something you can improve without needing to worry about standings in each series. So there is still something to rate your progress which is nice if you're not trying to do your best in a particular series.