John Henry's reply in a thread ''Is iRacing a Rich Mans Sim??''

''You're right that we have to be more creative about growing the volume. And we will be. There are things in the works that are really exciting. I'm going to start writing about these things as soon as we get a blog up.

With regard to this thread, here's the way I look at it.

The price of developing this sport is what it is.

We have spent thus far what it took to produce it.

It took a long time to produce just to get the service to where it is right now. But it's set up for volume - size and security.

It's not perfect yet.

The price of what it is going to take to get this to where we want it "is what it is."

The price of the service is what it is.

We are committed to this for the extreme, very long-term. I don't know how else to say it. Size is not going to be an issue. I realize price is an issue for some. I had to gulp and say "This is worth it." Others have felt the same and I am very appreciative of all of you who have. Developers have staked productive parts of their careers on what we believe in.

And, additionally, a great many others will feel the same as we make further announcements.

It's fine to debate all of this, but it is what it is.

Once again, let me say to you, I feel a great obligation to everyone here - all of you - who have chosen to pioneer this sport. I am committed to making your investment here, something you will be proud of.

John''

No comments by me!

Quote from sosna :

John Henry's reply in a thread ''Is iRacing a Rich Mans Sim??''

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No comments by me!

Well, yeah. if you look into his posting history you willl find alot of these "positively charged" motivational speeches. Not that there is something wrong with it but you need to be able to see through it as well - it just isn't willingness and positive mindset, it's about getting the job done as well. Only time will tell what mr. Henry and iracing has achieved .

Quote from Hyperactive :

As for physics, I am still a bit undecided still with iracing. Just by looking at the skippie I have a feeling that there is still something wrong with the physics, i can't believe that the way you need to drive the skippie to go fast is any much more realistic than LFS', for example. Mainly it is about the GPL style steering into the corner to counter the effects of oversteer. The more oversteer the more you need to steer "inwards". So far it has totally killed the skippie for me and tbh. I'm a bit afraid that the prototype car and the lotus will be the same. The same steering style works to some degree with the solstice as well.

Personally I haven't read or seen a one single book or dvd about driving a car fast that would encourage you to steer more into the corner when the rear starts stepping out. I know that quick steering will make the car understeer as stabbing the brakes can do but in iracing you need very minimal steering into the corner and the car balances itself into small slide. What I'd expect is to see the car keep rotating more and more when you steer more - as with more steering the car's rotation speed would increase and you'd spin - not stabilize the car.

Has this issue been brought up and discussed over there in the iRacing forums? That would be quite a fundamental flaw if it is indeed a flaw.

Hyperactive: Could you show a video or something because I just don't get it. I tested steering into slide on Skippy and it does anything but straighten up, I can't even notice any of that stuff on Luke's hotlaps which are right there on alien zone.

Quote from Crommi :

Hyperactive: Could you show a video or something because I just don't get it. I tested steering into slide on Skippy and it does anything but straighten up, I can't even notice any of that stuff on Luke's hotlaps which are right there on alien zone.

Seconded. I'm not sure what it is that you're describing here Hyper?
A video would be cool.

Thirded! I have been pondering this since you first mentioned it a few weeks ago and I'd love to see an example.

Hyperactive, is it not simply a case of turning the wheels far enough to exceed the deflection tolerance and break grip on the front, matching the rear wheels' exceeded grip level and resolving oversteer that way? Or am I missing the point?

Quote from SamH :

Hyperactive, is it not simply a case of turning the wheels far enough to exceed the deflection tolerance and break grip on the front, matching the rear wheels' exceeded grip level and resolving oversteer that way? Or am I missing the point?

It is exactly like that although it seems to work on very low slip angles - you need to turn steer into the corner just a tab bit more than you would if you wanted to steer through the corner without any slip at all.

I'll try to make a video of it but no promises yet (I probably need to use my digicam because fraps makes things so slow). No promises though and I'm not sure how much a video proves, it's nothing scientific. Here's one video that shows it though:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7HtJUPobWCI
Look the way he has quite a bit steering going on into the corner at corner entry. I don't know if it proves anything but I couldn't find a one single vid about real skippies where the driver would keep turning in when the rear is sliding, steps out or anything like that. Sure, most of the skipppie vids you find on youtube are with amateur drivers but still, not even on one corner do they steer like in iracing - they can't seem to be able to pull it off even once (or catch it on video ).

I say this though. The whole effect of balancing the car with understeer is most evident on the infineon downhill long left leading to the backstraight. You never spin if you steer into the corner there but you will spin a lot if you try to catch the oversteer with steering into the slide.

I see what you're talking about in the video. TBH, I hadn't put my finger on it, but felt something was "off" when watching some of the skippy videos.

I'd very much like that brought up in the iRacing forums.

OK - Never one to judge something without trying for myself I shelled out a $20 one month subscription and gave it a go. Here's my penneth worth:-

Graphics - Set to full. They are nothing special, in fact the tracks look dead and flat, textures are bland, poly count is low. Car models are average and again have a low polycount. GUI and menus (in-game) are plain and nothing more than functional.

Sound - The cars sound great, good engine, gearbox, road noise etc. Better than LFS, on a par with GTR series.

Control - The force feedback is very good, very strong and lots of subtle feedback in there as well.

Physics - Nothing special . . it had that 'ever so slightly wrong' feel that NASCAR always had.

Online - Well, it took me about an hour of searching to find a practice session that had 4 other racers in it. The set-up seems to be that practice sessions, qualification sessions and races take place at predefined times every day (no jumping in for a quick race with buddies here). It's a good idea but in reality it got to be very annoying very quickly. The thought that I could only race when THEY say I can really bugged me (remember it's a $20 per month subscription).

and that leads me to the single most annoying and downright infuriating thing about iracing.com . . . .

You get 2 cars and 7 tracks when you subscribe. You have to PAY EXTRA for the other cars and tracks they have listed. Now forgive me if I'm wrong, but I consider a monthly subscription model should INCLUDE ALL of the content on offer. Maybe you can earn virtual iracing.com dollars to spend by taking part in the races - I don't know, there is no information on the site that talks about that, and in a night and a day of logging in I didn't actually find any active races on the basic content I have.

Other stuff - You can only customise you car / helmet / suit skins within a very limited skin and colour chooser on the website. There are issues with some logitech sterring wheels for which the fix is to turn down the update frequency of the wheel (for a 'serious' sim as iracing claims to be this is not excusable) <- thankfully I didn't suffer this problem, but it's common enough to have it's own section in the faq. The field of view is just WRONG . . I don't know how to explain this properly but changes to FOV are 2D!

The bottom line is that despite all the hype and expensive subscription system iracing is nothing special. Unless you have $$$ burning holes in your pocket I would sugeest not to bother.

More....moooore!

Quote :

September 17, 2008 - Sebring Now Available!
One of America's most historic road courses, Sebring International Raceway, is now available to all members of iRacing.com. Sebring is the first of three Panoz Motor Sports Group facilities that will be offered to iRacing members.

Built on the site of a World War II bomber pilot-training base in Central Florida, Sebring has since 1952 been host to an annual, 12-Hour sportscar endurance race. The facility includes three configurations, the 3.7-mile circuit used for the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring round of the International Motor Sports Association's American Le Mans Series, as well as the shorter test loop and the club circuit. All three configurations are available to iRacers for $25.

Tradition hangs in the air at Sebring like the scent of the neighboring citrus groves, and if iRacing's version of the track were any more authentic, you could walk next door and pick the oranges.

Now only if I we could get that ancient formula and I could get 20% discount for rest of the stuff....


BigShox: Sorry to hear that you didn't like it, but just to correct one statement. Cars are definately not low polycount, interiors are fully modeled including switches and other accessory, openwheelers with visible suspension geometry is properly modeled as well with shocks and springs moving as they should and so on. Solstice interior maybe even little troublesome on most systems especially with shadows on.

Quote from SamH :

Hyperactive, is it not simply a case of turning the wheels far enough to exceed the deflection tolerance and break grip on the front, matching the rear wheels' exceeded grip level and resolving oversteer that way? Or am I missing the point?

Yeah, thats how i think of it. I'll sometimes stress the front tires by turning in a bit extra so that they're stressed a bit more and i don't oversteer. I do the same thing in LFS and rfactor sometimes. Its usefull on sharp corners in the xrr.

Quote from Gabkicks :

Yeah, thats how i think of it. I'll sometimes stress the front tires by turning in a bit extra so that they're stressed a bit more and i don't oversteer. I do the same thing in LFS and rfactor sometimes. Its usefull on sharp corners in the xrr.

its hard to understeer and oversteer at the same time

inducing understeer to keep from oversteering might not be a very good technique...but probably not an unrealistic one They're your tires, abuse them how you want

Quote from Crommi :

More....moooore!


Now only if I we could get that ancient formula and I could get 20% discount for rest of the stuff....

You cut a good sentence out.

"Sebring International Raceway, home of the famed annual 12-hour sportscar endurance race, will be made available to iRacing subscribers beginning today, while the other two Panoz Motor Sports Group tracks, Road Atlanta and Mosport International Raceway, will enter the production process soon in preparation for release in 2009."

Quote from spanks :

They're your tires, abuse them how you want

Yeah, thank goodness iracing doesn't charge us for tyres!

Quote from BigShox :

OK - Never one to judge something without trying for myself I shelled out a $20 one month subscription and gave it a go. Here's my penneth worth:-

You didn't mention the one aspect that really makes iRacing special - the quality of the laser-scanned tracks. You'll have to pay for extra content because accurately modeling tracks and cars is very expensive and the user base will probably never grow big enough to cover the costs with the subscription fees only.

I think the graphics look good and very realistic. The effort put into textures really shows.

It seems like you didn't really try to get to know the system if you didn't find active races. There are races starting every hour for the rookie series, and you only have to know when they start and jump in. It seems the rookie series races all have several grids worth of racers.

Quote from spanks :

its hard to understeer and oversteer at the same time

inducing understeer to keep from oversteering might not be a very good technique...but probably not an unrealistic one They're your tires, abuse them how you want

Meh i am not doing it in an abuse way usually. I've never blown a tire in iracing. its more like i'll know i will oversteer on a certain corner, so i steer in more as a precaution before getting on the throttle .

Quote from PMD9409 :

You cut a good sentence out.

"Sebring International Raceway, home of the famed annual 12-hour sportscar endurance race, will be made available to iRacing subscribers beginning today, while the other two Panoz Motor Sports Group tracks, Road Atlanta and Mosport International Raceway, will enter the production process soon in preparation for release in 2009."

"Good sentence"? Best sentence. Mosport! In a sim! Proper! The whole not buying iracing thing is getting really difficult now...

Quote from MAGGOT :

"Good sentence"? Best sentence. Mosport! In a sim! Proper! The whole not buying iracing thing is getting really difficult now...

I knew you would be the first to comment on Mosport.

Lol I'm getting another month of iRacing and MoSport when it comes out.

I'm jones'in for a new car mannnn...Once a new car gets released I can pick up silverstone and seabring...maybe

It'll be a bit pricey D: but my bday is coming up soon

Quote from PMD9409 :

You cut a good sentence out.

"Sebring International Raceway, home of the famed annual 12-hour sportscar endurance race, will be made available to iRacing subscribers beginning today, while the other two Panoz Motor Sports Group tracks, Road Atlanta and Mosport International Raceway, will enter the production process soon in preparation for release in 2009."

I blame iRacing, they didn't include that info on announcement which I copy&pasted from homepage.

Quote from BigShox :

in a night and a day of logging in.

Thanks you for your thoughts. But I take them with a grain of salt as you have barly scratched the surface. Comeback at the end of your month.

Quote from BigShox :

Graphics - Set to full. They are nothing special, (...).

I agree. At least on my system, which is not bad, I'm finding graphics not exactly mind blowing. Tbh, I prefer LFS graphics for the fact that they are so damn coherent. I don't think I've ver seen a sim that does a better job of making everything look right in place. And I prefer that over fancy shaders.

Quote from BigShox :

Sound - The cars sound great, good engine, gearbox, road noise etc. Better than LFS, on a par with GTR series.

Car sounds and tyre squeal could be more informative imho. Also, I hear the FM doesn't sound much like the real car.

Quote from BigShox :

Control - The force feedback is very good, very strong and lots of subtle feedback in there as well.

+1

Quote from BigShox :

Physics - Nothing special . . it had that 'ever so slightly wrong' feel that NASCAR always had.

Feels spot on to me and much more involving than LFS. Whether physics are better than LFS, I don't know, but the whole behaviour of the car feels better to me.

Quote from BigShox :

Online - Well, it took me about an hour of searching to find a practice session that had 4 other racers in it. The set-up seems to be that practice sessions, qualification sessions and races take place at predefined times every day (no jumping in for a quick race with buddies here). It's a good idea but in reality it got to be very annoying very quickly. The thought that I could only race when THEY say I can really bugged me (remember it's a $20 per month subscription).

It surprises me a bit, that you weren't able to find any races. Rookie class should be rather well populated. The FM however seems to be a little scarce of racers, and Adv. Solstice wasn't too good at times, either, but I couldn't race for the last two weeks, so it might be better now. Overall, the system needs lots more racers to really provide full fields in all series. I sure hope it will grow rather sooner than later.

Quote from BigShox :

You get 2 cars and 7 tracks when you subscribe. You have to PAY EXTRA for the other cars and tracks they have listed. Now forgive me if I'm wrong, but I consider a monthly subscription model should INCLUDE ALL of the content on offer.

While this is a fair point, it's also something you knew in advance, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise. I'm not satisfied with the pricing scheme, either, but overall iRacing is really worth it for me. It doesn't hurt me really, but I can see how it might be hard for others to shell out that much money for what is essentially still a computer game, and a rather unfinished one at that.

Quote from BigShox :

The bottom line is that despite all the hype and expensive subscription system iracing is nothing special. Unless you have $$$ burning holes in your pocket I would sugeest not to bother.

Quote from MAGGOT :

"Good sentence"? Best sentence. Mosport! In a sim! Proper! The whole not buying iracing thing is getting really difficult now...

If they do include Mosport with all the configurations, most importantly the Driver Development Track, then I will subscribe because I'll actually be able to use the software for what it is supposedly intended: driver training.

So if they include Mosport and the DDT, I'll be able to do two big big big things:
1) I can learn the track for the track days there.
2)*** Having learned the track, judge how realistic iRacing is.

***This is the one that really matters. I'll gladly pay for the chance the compare the sim to reality first hand. Pay for the chance to praise it, or rip it to utter shreds.