AC Racing Club Ideas

[Bram Hengeveld]

In this thread you can spit your ideas for the AC Racing Club.

• Want a special event to be organised?
• Are we systematically overlooking cars or tracks?
• You wish to organize a race for the "wifes/men of RD" and hook up your partner with other community partners?
• Something else? Spit it out here

 

[Georg Siebert]

I think part of the lack of success is the too short of a timeframe from posting the event to the date it'll be held. This is especially true for cars/tracks/combos people seldom drive and even more true with (mod-) tracks that have been uploaded for a very short period of time.
For reference: we had Nürburgring and Mugello for months - Watkins Glen and Mosport Park became available on June 1st and June 2nd respectively.

Possible solutions:
- Inrease the time between posting the event thread and the event date itself, reference:
EU - GT3 @ Mosport Park was posted on Wednesday, date for the event is Friday
EU - GT3 @ Watkins Glen was posted on Wednesday, date for the event was Thursday
- Announce a couple of weeks prior to the events with mod- tracks, which ones we can race on, you may make a bulk list - people have plenty of time to practice/prepare this way
- Street cars: make sure the performance is as close as possible between car choices, reference Akis post http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/gt-almost-3-mugello-tue-10-june-2014.88557/#post-1741157
- If a low number of people sign up for a particular event, maybe the event date just didn't fit the schedule of people who were interested in it - ask them on what day they would like to race; offer a choice between dates
- If it's a new track, set up the 24/7 server for it, suggest practice sessions
"We want to diversify our race combos. We would like to encourage you to try the following cars / tracks .... and give us feedback."

 

[Frank Brasse]

As stated before, the 24/7 server is almost always empty and its setup is more like the usual trackday settings we use for club races - I think this doesn't suit many members:

• I would love to see the 24/7 server used differently, mainly for quick races with only 5 minutes booking time, 8-10 Minutes Qual and a 10 lap race (or even shorter, to use shorter intervals between races) - and the starting of the booking should always 5 min before the full hour - so that people can be sure that there is always a race close by. I and many others don't have always the time to wait or fit the schedule fit in my calendar - especially during the FIFA WM!!! - and I really miss the opportunity to quick-race among members. To be certain that at every full hour a race is going to happen, increases the chances of just hopping into a race.
• 
  
• Increase the numbers of players: Use the 24/7 server as a advertising platform for how great Online Racing@Racedepartment can be for new members or not licensed members - and invite them to participate on that server without any restricions. I know that non premium members are allowed to race here, but I think this could be a better way for reeling them in and getting a premium membership.Go after them, or ask any premium member to invite 2 friends for races on this server etc.

I really think this could broaden the user base for finding a quick race in an environment that is far superior to the usual public race plattforms - to me that made the difference to become a premium and licensed member.

• I'd like to suggest a club race with the Formula Abarth, The Lotus Exos and the S1 on Road America. This track is fast, wide and really fun (not to mention legendary) and the conversion is not bad, esp. when HDR turned on which makes a big difference at this track.
• How about a double feature event for the Club races? Say 2 races a 15 laps with either changing cars or changing tracks and a little shorter preparation time than with the usual races - most racer seem to know the car and track combinations quite well by now

 

[Frank]

I am not there cause of vacation, I recon I am not the only one. Also to warm to race inside right now!

Also a week up front sign ups is a bad idea, people will forget they signed up.

 

[Leemstradamus]

As stated before, the 24/7 server is almost always empty and its setup is more like the usual trackday settings we use for club races - I think this doesn't suit many members:

• I would love to see the 24/7 server used differently, mainly for quick races with only 5 minutes booking time, 8-10 Minutes Qual and a 10 lap race (or even shorter, to use shorter intervals between races) - and the starting of the booking should always 5 min before the full hour - so that people can be sure that there is always a race close by. I and many others don't have always the time to wait or fit the schedule fit in my calendar - especially during the FIFA WM!!! - and I really miss the opportunity to quick-race among members. To be certain that at every full hour a race is going to happen, increases the chances of just hopping into a race.
• 
  
• Increase the numbers of players: Use the 24/7 server as a advertising platform for how great Online Racing@Racedepartment can be for new members or not licensed members - and invite them to participate on that server without any restricions. I know that non premium members are allowed to race here, but I think this could be a better way for reeling them in and getting a premium membership.Go after them, or ask any premium member to invite 2 friends for races on this server etc.

I really think this could broaden the user base for finding a quick race in an environment that is far superior to the usual public race plattforms - to me that made the difference to become a premium and licensed member.

• I'd like to suggest a club race with the Formula Abarth, The Lotus Exos and the S1 on Road America. This track is fast, wide and really fun (not to mention legendary) and the conversion is not bad, esp. when HDR turned on which makes a big difference at this track.
• How about a double feature event for the Club races? Say 2 races a 15 laps with either changing cars or changing tracks and a little shorter preparation time than with the usual races - most racer seem to know the car and track combinations quite well by now

All great ideas but we are limited by the tools that assetto corsa has given us. For instance there is no way to have the server start every hour on the hour. The booking system is only a timer. If you set booking for five minutes and no practice with a ten minute qualifying. That's only fifteen minutes. That leaves you 45 minutes for a race. Which is far longer than a ten lap race. Once the race concludes the booking starts up again.

 

[Georg Siebert]

Is it possible to integrate a live timing system on the site that shows the RD server infos?
- # of players on server
- server state (booking, practice, race, ...)
- timer

 

[Adria Perez]

I agree with the idea to have a longer singing up time (1 week should be enough though).

Maybe another idea could be to have 1 or 2 events per week that have a higher profile.

Without being league events they could be announced earlier on and maybe make them a bit more competitive: posting the results at the end of the event, keeping track of the number of podiums, fastest laps (is it possible to get that info from the server?), total number of participations, etc.

By numbering the events per week (e.g.: MAIN event week #2: Wed 25th June. KTM/Muggello) it would be possible to give them a bit more prestige.

Public server could be set 24/7 to rotate among these events (1 for EU, 1 for AUS and 1 for US) with 5 min booking, 15 min qualy and 10 lap race for the entire week building up to the event - it also helps to have 1 pre-booked car so it gets listed as non-empty and it is way more likely random people will join in.

Because these events will have more protagonism and (hopefully) attract more sing ups, less favoured cars and tracks could be used.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Guys an honest question: do you want us to continue organizing daily EU events.

Interest has dropped to almost zero and as a big amount of manual work is required daily to setup these events I'd like to know what to do.

Ill setup next weeks event on Monday scheduled a week up front. Please sign up first and don't wait until the last minute please.

 

[Frank Brasse]

During the next weeks I'll not be able to join longer races in the evening due to the FIFA WM where I'll plan on watching everyy Game (btw. congrats to the fantastic game against spain yesterday).

I would like some opportunity to join shorter races, maybe at the 24/7 server . but it is a hassle to get more than a few players together.

 

[Sebastian Wolff]

Guys an honest question: do you want us to continue organizing daily EU events.

Interest has dropped to almost zero and as a big amount of manual work is required daily to setup these events I'd like to know what to do.

Ill setup next weeks event on Monday scheduled a week up front. Please sign up first and don't wait until the last minute please.

hmm, sad to hear! I definitely want it to continue ...maybe you could propose 3 car/track combos and let the users vote on it, the one with most votes is held.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

We can vote, we can follow up on the requests in this thread, which we have done but for some reason the interest has dropped from racing in three servers to less than the minimum required amount of drivers.

Its GT3 only and the other cars are ignored. The power of this game lies imo in the nice variety that is available.

What is the reason people don't want to race them? Too eager for the win? Or..?

 

[Sebastian Wolff]

I don`t get it either, I don`t even want to drive GT events anymore...

 

[Sebastian Wolff]

I say try faster single car events, like f40 st3 @..., Ferrari 599XX@, ZondaR @....odds are enough people will sign up...

 

[Leemstradamus]

I think people need to be honest with them selves. The higher powered cars take a bit of skill to race. We can launch events for them but people find they can't handle the car and leave the event.

People are looking for iRacing style of organization and we lack the tools and man power to do that.

 

[Georg Siebert]

I'd say discontinue organizing daily EU events. Make it every three days to fill up the grid.

 

[Galin Dimov]

I just wanted to drop a note to see where is everyone on the Exos T125. I really love the car and wish there were RD races with it. It feels like the most interest is generated by GT3 races (which I also enjoy immensely) but let's show the T125/S1 some love
What do you think guys, will you be interested in racing with the Exos?

 

[Leemstradamus]

It's to much car for me to race at the moment.

 

[Sebastian Wolff]

I'd say discontinue organizing daily EU events. Make it every three days to fill up the grid.

totally agree

 

[cerebus23]

The base t125? its a joy to drive in general. Loads of downforce and you can power slide it like fool if you want.

Until the t98 comes along the t125 and the s1 are my goto cars for my open wheeler fix, with honorable mention to the 312.

Way too many gt races online period why half the time i do not bother think i did one mclaren one but i barely do laps in gt cars nm race them.

 

[Andrej Svajger]

I'd say discontinue organizing daily EU events. Make it every three days to fill up the grid.

Well, fact is at least 50% of the people have switched their main focus to football. So yes, i agree with Georg. We've had a somewhat chaotic but still fun race at Mosport on Friday. So perhaps we could try those new locations (Atlanta, Watkins, Mid Ohio, Bathurst) with KTM or FA or other car that allows for some close racing. Ok, it's to easy to drive, but it offers interesting race for the whole race length, while with faster cars groups split up and people lose interest. Like i said before, perhaps splitting servers between Wookie and "Insanely fast" (and not Premium and "the rest") would raise interest in my group (wookie that is). Let's not forget that the sim is still in development phase so we should aim towards fun and not results.

 

[Galin Dimov]

It's to much car for me to race at the moment.

The standard T125 shouldn't be too difficult...just keep on practising The S1, is another story