Virtual Sportscar Racing

General Category => Sims Discussion => iRacing => Topic started by: Guy on May 11, 2015, 01:06:22 pm

Title: How does iRacing work for leagues?
Post by: Guy on May 11, 2015, 01:06:22 pm
This sim is a serious contender for the future of the league.  Lots of our past members have jumped ship to iRacing and so far neither rF2 or AC have attracted people to the league in great numbers.  But how can a league be set up through iRacing?  Do you have to pay for servers, can you use dedicated iRacing servers?

Also, do you have to start out with some crappy low powered beginner cars or can you buy some GT cars and a bunch of tracks right out of the gate?  If we do this, we have to be able to start out with GT3 or equivelent cars.
Title: Re: How does iRacing work for leagues?
Post by: Chad Brown on May 11, 2015, 02:54:06 pm
When yo uatart out you have a rookie license. You race and learn and get enough quality races under your belt to get out of the rookie class (As little as 2 races qualifies you to get your D license) Once you get your d license you can start to purchase and drive cars that are allowed in D license classes. This includes any of the GT cars. However, if you wish to take place in the "official BES series" you will need a B license. With a D license you can take part in the Blancpain Endurance series. But this is serious endurance driving 3 hour races with available driver swaps. This is certainly longer than our members will be able to go.

As far as League play. I believe there is a fee for each race that is scheduled. I dont know all the ins and outs of the fees and if they include practice sessions or not.

The elephant in the room for iracing is the phenomenal cost for content. This is simply is not a factor for rF2. I believe that what would likely happen is that we would get over here and people would balk at the cost for a series. $12.00 for the car of their choice. (Ford GT-40, BMW Z4, Mclaren 12C, or RUF) then factor in the cost for tracks at $15.00 apiece. Then the cost for a subscription. I paid a promotional cost of $50.00 for a year, but once that is done it is $12.00 a month unless you find a special for multi-month purchases. There are discounts for multiple content purchases (20% off for 6 or more pieces of content purchased at the same time) to help offset the cost so that is a plus.

With the cost for Iracing comes some benefit though. Lots of people online and racing. The quality of racers is pretty good, especially once you get out of the rookie class. Graphics are good, the FFB and physics are passable, although not as good as rF2. THe tracks are laser scanned as accurate as all get out.

Frankly I am wondering if we simply join another league that is already established at the time we normally race. i have not looked to see if there are any  leagues running GT cars on Sunday mornings/evenings though. I am sure there are since GT class racing is one of the most popular racing in iracing, second only to oval NASCAR racing.

I am looking into Pcars and am curious how the online racing is there to make a comparison. BUt as it is new I would expect that the initial numbers will be high then drop off as people loose the newness of the game. Also I expect to see alot of "Casual" racers. The videos I have seen so far dont offer alot of hope for serious racers. Most of the stuff I have seen is of the Forza/Gran Turismo style bump the AI car out of your way to pick of the next position. Not exactly fair racing in my opinion and would not translate to online very well.

In any case I am interested to see what others opinions are.
Title: Re: How does iRacing work for leagues?
Post by: Chad Brown on May 12, 2015, 02:03:37 am
After checking out GT series races run on Sundays I located one league, "Old Bastards" They appear to run a Sunday morning series at the same time as us using the GT cars. They also run league races on Wed, Fri, and Sat. However those are different car types and times.
Title: Re: How does iRacing work for leagues?
Post by: Guy on May 12, 2015, 06:57:39 am
I was reading up on it too.  It's only a couple of bucks to run your own race, not a big deal.  We're going to race every 3 weeks and I pay more than that now just keeping the server up (electricity is not free).  With the 1 year sub you get a few tracks and some cars (we'd likely use the CTS-V since it is a GT car that would come free).  So we'd have to get a 1 year sub and buy the tracks we'd want to use.  For a 10 race season that wouldn't be too much since we start out with 4 free ones.  That'd take us 30 weeks for the base $50 start up fee and $90 (ugh) for tracks, each race would be $2.

Some of us already have a sub, none of the regulars are particularly strapped for cash, we'll manage.  I don't like that there's no rain and we're so limited in what we can and can't do, but I don't see how to attract people.  rF2 is not an option- after all this time we still can't get people on the grid and the game is still plagued with problems.  It's going to be time to move on after the Cup is over.