Open Letter to AutoSimSport and the Community

[Mike Hill]

Kevin, I understand what you mean, but I wasnt thinking about an article refuting the previous guys opinions at all. I just think it would be a good idea for someone to submit an article to ASS about what we do in general. Personally I am thinking about doing something on the rise in "console" games and what the sim community can do to support - using RD as an example. Kinda bridging the gap between arcade style racers and full PC sims.

At the end of the day, I felt the previous article was misleading (hence why I brought it to Bram/Bruce's attention) and I really do think that the previous author should have the common decency to admit when he has misinterpreted the situation and do something to rectify the matter. However, had this not happened, I would still feel that RD should contribute something towards the publication as a whole, as we are part of one of the largest (and definately the nicest) sim sites out there!

 

[Kevin Watts]

You really still want to contribute to a magazine that allows such behaviour? constant snipes at RSC and now they spread their venom to other sites like RD and you still want to contribute? You'd be doing yourself and RD a disservice in my opinion.

 

[Mike Hill]

Change is always most effective when it comes from within. Besides, apart from this one article, I quite enjoyed the rest of the publication to be honest.

 

[Jon Denton]

I say any input now gives weight to the original opinion piece. RD has nothing to explain, the article lacked any factual basis or common decency. To contribute now only provides ASS with column inches and validates such rants. This issue it was RD in the firing line but next issue it could be someone less able to defend themselves.

No one is suggesting that such a column would exist for RD to "defend itself", or to even talk about this banal subject whatsoever.

I really don't think RD need worry about the opinions of one man in one column any more than a Porsche 911 owner should care about Jeremy Clarkson's conciously inflammatory opinion concerning said vehicle.

Or perhaps any more than a Labour party member should care about Matthew Parris's appraisal of their party's recent performances.

Or maybe any more than Simon Cowell should care about what A.A. Gill has to say about the latest series of "X-Factor".

A column for RD would be there to get the message across about what RD is about, what RD stands for, what is happening in the world of RD and, if RD so chooses, a rant about anything in the whole, wide world! All of this could increase exposure for RD and increase the membership base.

And yes, any columnist representing RD would not represent the opinions of AutoSimSport, and if RD wanted it could even not necessarily represent the opinions of RD.

Anyway, I am not twisting anyone's arm. Everyone is entitled to an opinion whether it is a respected RD member, a random simracer or a man dressed as a bee.

 

[Bruce Saltzman]

...Everyone is entitled to an opinion whether it is a respected RD member, a random simracer or a man dressed as a bee.

I wore that costume one time and now you're throwing it back in my face!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

​

Bee Saltzman has some very important royal friends too ​

 

[Jon Denton]

I wore that costume one time and now you're throwing it back in my face!

LOL! :smile-big:

No one can live down yellow and black striped tights Bruce, no one at all.

 

[Mike Hill]

:rotfl: so who's the guy in the suit, and is he "packin" something? :tremble:

 

[Jarrod Keen]

edited. Thought better of it.

 

[Simon Trendell]

Ok. There's a bit more on this in the latest issue of the magazine (http://www.autosimsport.net)

I'm sorry, but I got as far as this bit (and no futher shall I add)

Web Server: €1.25/month (www.one.com)

I'm sorry, but (because by the sounds of it you got a bit of a kick out of hacking us off here, so I'm sure you'll be monitoring this forum for a response) if you believe that a site like RD with the levels of traffic generated can be handled by a €1.25 hosting package by a company where reviews seem to quite reguarly swing to the "awful" end of the scale then your very much misguided and then proceeded to publish this!

Most of what I've read in this issue so far is complete drivel and this is icing on the cake, and at the start of the issue your pleading for more donations, well if there was something worth while then maybe more people would donate. You struggle to reach your targets, RD manages to reach its monthly! Says something about consumer satisfaction don't you think.

----------- Part 2 ------------------------------------------------

More fuel for the fire, icing for the cake...

Dedicated Race Server (x2): €25 Each

Source? A dedicated server is no good if it's down 90% of the time.

ProBoards annual licence: (free for life)

How is it back there in 2005? Do be aware there's a recession in a few years.
You're seriously suggesting RD should use a remotely hosted system which restricts us in the way we can customize, where the last major update was April 2008. Even if we could host it ourselves, it's a Perl application meaning that it's quite unlikely that that wonderful €1.25 hosting package would support it. My final issue with ProBoards is I'd rather take my own eyes out with a hot ice cream scoop than visit any website which decides PB is a suitable forum solution, especially when every 10 year old and their mates thinks they can run an active forum just by filling out a form.

ProBoards Search Engine Optimization (doesn't exist):

You can't polish a turd..

Cheap domain name (.de): €6 per year, equals €0.5 per month

A .de domain name is ideal for an international community! I might just email iRacing and suggest they could lower everyone's membership costs by switching to a .de or alternative domain, even better completely wipe out that cost by going with a .tk! Who needs branding anyway.

Now I know a web server like the one I would choose will not cope with constant download of large files: The solution is simply to stick the big stuff on a free hosting service. There is noting wrong with this, and just about every big release, regardless of platform, sim, and creator, is put on such mirrors.

They are, but this is a service provided to the users of RD funded through donations rather than adverts and annoying captcha's & countdowns to download. But the one.com package will barely cope with static traffic from RD because it will be on an oversubscribed server, you get what you pay for.

The forum of choice is ProBoards and it can cope with the same sort of load that 'RaceDepartment' and 'RaceSimCentral' experience every day, and then some. And (and this is an added benefit) should the forum by any chance be overloaded with visitors, it has a self protect mode that kicks in before the entire server goes tits up. Perfect for those who do not have a clue about PHP, CGI, Java, or anything technical regarding computers.

Has any 'ProBoard' reached the level of traffic that RD or RSC have then? They'd be far and few between. I also worry that their TOS states it's provided "As is", sounds great if all the forum data is lost, at least we can backup here.

The Provider may at its sole discretion remove any message board for any reason.

Unlikely, but still an event that cannot happen how RD is currently run.

... Personal dedicated server, electricity costs etc, can't quote because the PDF is protected...

Yet, we can run 2 filled 25 slot Race 07 servers on the same machine comfortably, Along with 1 or 2 time trial servers. Then the second machine is left to cover for rFactor, GTL, ARCA etc as required because that is what RD does! It's not a gathering of 8,9,10 people for a few practice laps. We cover that with open servers, but the bandwidth & power the servers have is so that we can race in large 25 car fields without lag. Eric is kind enough to do a similar thing to host events for the US members so that they can have a server with low pings as he has suitable connection & machine.

I'm not disputing it couldn't be done "cheaper", in fact I know it could be cheaper, but it works, there are no ads and all it costs me is a few £/€ now and then. The donation bar is hardly in my face you can get a lot worse.
I've never tried R2P, just like you've never tried RD, but you felt you knew better than those who had already had RD up & running for over a year successfully and then proceeded to bash the way RD works because for a few months there was a low in the donations a time when people were being hit by the recession.

Lets see what else spills over the page in 6 months time if an issue manages to appear.

 

[James Yates]

I'd love to see a €1.25/month hosting package handle RD's traffic - it would work as well as trying to push a piano to the moon by hand.

The €55 solution may work if your traffic is yourself and about 3 mates who you race with, but with the amount of traffic RD gets daily it just wouldn't work. There is a reason it costs so much, its not just done to make the people behind it richer.

There is also the other factor that you don't have to donate if you cant/don't want to. Technically that makes it free to race here which is the best value you could possibly have - unless R2P pay you for racing? Oh wait they don't - only sim that does that is iRacing and you have to put a lot of hours in to get anything.

You say you pay €3.50 per race you set up at R2P? Sounds expensive when I can spend $3 on a hosted iRacing session - much better sim than any of the others you listed so why would I waste money on something which is worse?

This latest issue is an utter shambles - no wonder you are pleading for donations! We have a thank you message at the top of the forum and a bar showing how much has been donated. Its usually full by the end of the month if not before that and the members that donate really appreciate the racing club and like to be able to give something back.

Next time try getting your facts and figures right before you try to show us up, it might help your cause somewhat and stop you from looking like an utter idiot.

Edit: Not done yet...

Top Sim Cars:

A car from Shift is in the list, its nowhere near a bloody sim. The FFB is awful and the car physics are very much arcade based - show me a real car that handles like on in Shift with no mods and I'll pay you any amount of money you choose. Simbin did a much better job on Race On than SMS did on Shift, even LFS feels 1000x better than shift ever could. Not to mention it doesn't look as great as everyone thinks - compare it to DiRT 2 or even a newer iRacing track and it'll look pretty bad. It may be attempting to blur the line between sims and arcade but it falls way short of that. I doubt you could go into a corner at 120mph, handbrake it and powerslide all the way around in a real Murcielago, you can even do it on the grass and its just about as quick. Curbs seem to be made of ice too - go anywhere near one and you just slide over the top of it and onto the ultra grippy grass. Obviously a realistic sim and worthy of an award... or not.

You also have FUEL, Supercar Challenge, Ferrari Virtual Race and DiRT2 in the list of best sims this year - did you list them as sims because you couldn't think of any actual sims that came out in addition to the ones already on the list or are you not able to tell the difference? In the DiRT2 review you say it isn't a sim and has arcade physics, how the hell can it be on the best sims list then? That's like giving best FPS of the year to H.A.W.X - its not the right genre!

Errors like this make the magazine lose all credibility which makes any of your comments on RD lose credibility too.

 

[Bruce Saltzman]

He was looking for a sense of humor. Well I'm LMAO that he delegated a three-page feature article to respond to his original drivel. Seems that our 31,000+ members like our way of running this site. We only do this for them and when they decide to go elsewhere or someone else can duplicate the level of quality and service provided here, all are welcome to join that site. Then we can close this one down and follow them over there.

Hopefully he's gotten this out of his system and can find something to write about in the future in which readers will actually be interested.

 

[Eric. K]

nvm.... it is back up...

 

[spamsac]

A car from Shift is in the list, its nowhere near a bloody sim.

Quite a few people on this site, along with myself, seem to disagree...

 

[James Johnson]

Quite a few people on this site, along with myself, seem to disagree...

Can i ask which sim you would compare it to?

 

[James Yates]

Quite a few people on this site, along with myself, seem to disagree...

Its not opinion, its a fact that it isn't a sim. The cars/tracks aren't realistic enough to call it one. Go drive Silverstone on iRacing and then try it on Shift and you'll see exactly what the problem is.

 

[Kevin Watts]

I won't say I told you so, no actually I will. You gave these muppets the coverage they wanted and see the result? Judging by the number of pages given to their follow up and the number of adverts they need all the controvesy they can create to get people downloading. So..well I told you so.

 

[Richard Kay]

I have to agree with Kevin, perhaps that was their goal.

I can see the strategy meeting, "visitor numbers are down boss".

"Right, slag off a big sim racing community with some half-assed reporting. That'll get them over here quicker than a centre fold"

Personally I have never got on with these online magazine type things, just another form of blogging for people who insist on shoving their opinion without need to answer critics. That's the beauty of forums, they allow a two way process. I've had my original position on a subject changed many times by forum debate and been convinced to see it many ways from many people's point of view.

 

[James Yates]

If it is true that they had to resort to that to get their visitor numbers up all I can do is laugh.

 

[Jon Denton]

One has to assume that if we had the slightest interest in visitor numbers we might put a magazine out more often than twice a year!

Alas, one also has to assume that if any of "the staff" knew what eachother were doing we might care about what someone said about something, somewhere else in the magazine, but such an assumption would be assinine.

As it stands one is left wondering why anyone cares about someone irrelevant casting banal aspersions about anything at all.

As Bruce says, no one is actually interested, I don't even know why anyone reads it.