Opens dusty creaky old vault door
anyone still using this? Must admit after paying for yet another year sub and only just dipping my toes back in, im not sure I will renew it again.
I just don't get its aim and policy. It looks fantastic, the tracks are amazing as are some of the cars (whereas some are still dull!) but it just still feels disconnected from a racing community, real or virtual (though admittedly I may be looking in the wrong places for good racing).
After nearly 6? years, there still aren't more than 1 car of any class to race against another brand/make in the same class.
Sorry that's got be a huge faux-pas. Surely by now they could have had at least two GT cars or several road touring cars etc?
Its so frustrating, not just because of the amount of money I and many others have spent on it over the last 5 years, though that's bad enough! but because it has the capacity to be a stunning race simulator. I spent some time taking the Vette C6 around LimeRock after watching the Limerock round of the ALMS and its just superb to watch and listen to in the replays and makes all other race sims look 2nd rate, but its just not enough overall to make you come back time and time again imo.
Each time I fire it up, I do see the numerous improvements but never a great leap towards making a world popular racer. One day maybe eh?
This isn't an IR bashing post, more exasperation! as I want the damn thing to come good.
I did see Paul H and a couple of other names that used to race here were online last night. Where does everyone get their racing fix these days?
Your comments re the superb tracks and that "disconnected" feeling in iRacing echo my sentiments precisely.
Maybe I was fortunate ( or just plain tight fisted enough?) to quit before I parted with as much cash as you probably have. Even though I still get e-mails from their marketing dept offering cut price deals to rejoin, I cannot see value for money in terms of the fun and competition that I want from a racing sim.
Maybe I am just not as serious a sim racer as some others?
So I have stuck with GPL, ironically the sim that iRacing was probably developed from almost 25 years ago lol. Just as others have decided that GTR2 etc fulfills their needs.
For zero outlay ( apart from a contribution towards race servers each year) I get all the fun I want and as you have commented, with races that are not single marque events. I can race single seaters /GTs and Can Ams on mixed grids for free ( almost). OK the graphics although much updated from the original 1998 are still not up to iRacing standards, but appear to be good enough for a thriving sim racing comminity in GPL.
From my perspective, iRacing somehow contrived to make the best ( most realistic) race sim available but then managed to strangle its potential by deterring the numbers of members it needed to create "critical mass" of active members. For me it was the requirement to constantly buy more cars and tracks in an open ended purchase of the iRacing dream that made me pull out and I know of many others that also felt they were being milked.
I realise that the investment to create the awesome reality of the tracks and cars costs money and they wanted/needed a return on their investment but I think they would have been got better returns had they gone for more members first and created a vibrant community that would have sucked in all those who enjoy sim racing in all its forms world wide. Instead the never ending cost of new cars and new tracks deterred many from even trying a great product and many became disenchanted with what it became.
When it was launched I really thought we were at last getting the realism and quality that we all wanted and I was stunned at the product they had produced, compared to what was available elsewhere. But somehow that initial sparkle tarnished and I drifted away very quickly. I'm sure there are many who still have great fun and compete regularly in iracing, but it is not for me sadly
