I feel like an oddity in the simracing community

As the title states, I feel sort of out of place among simracers, and sometimes question myself whether I should even call myself one.

First things first, I really don't race much. Hard to be a simracer without racing right? I do take jaunts here and there, but actually spend most of my time looking for interesting content to add to my classes. And this leads on to my second point.

Fictional cars : I really don't care, and actually sort of enjoy them. While most people view simracing as driving real cars on real circuits, sometimes real life is boring. The same GTE Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette, Aston, BMW. Sometimes I want to race a GTE Supra, or McLaren, or Lexus? Why isn't it ok to have a GT3 Alfa 4c? Just adds a unique option to a pretty stale list of GT3 cars.

Mixed Grids: Again I don't have any issue with them. I have no qualms with mixing Group 5 and modern GT cars of similar lap times, even if it isn't realistic, mainly because it is fun, and makes my series "not a 100% rip off of a real life series with different liveries and schedule" This is especially true of classes with few options, say less than 4 models in a class available, as it adds a "wildcard" factor to an otherwise pretty shallow grid. Remember the Shelby Daytona that runs at the Bathurst 12 hours? Why couldn't that be a Capri instead, or an F40, or a Stratos?

Career modes: I actually spend a lot of time trying to drum up ideas for a personal career mode. As a solely offline racer, I feel the need for something more than simply a single race. Something bigger, in which to put time and effort into, an ultimate goal to chase. Something in which to grind my way up the ranks, a championship to hunt in which consistency over several races matters more than outright battles for the win.

Upgrades/modifications: I actually support these sorts of systems. This stems from my love of pre 2000's motor racing. Where any privateer or small company could modify a car and race it in their local series. The days in which one series could have 4 different varieties of Porsche, much less multiple regions. The days before every series migrated to GT3 running the same cars from the same manufactures using the same models. Upgrades and modifications allow for me to easily create that 4c GT car or turn a Dodge Charger into a competitor for V8 Supercars, like you could back in the 70's/80s/90's before everything became strictly homologated.

Because of these fairly outlandish opinions that go against the normal grain of simracing sometimes I feel like I'm not a "true simracer." Do you agree or am I overthinking things?
 
I think Project Cars 3 should be absolutely perfect for you
Actually, the controversy over PC3 was what sparked me to type this in the first place. The amount of people going off against the "fake race cars" and upgrades having no place in sim racing had me sort questioning if I should even consider myself a simracer, since it seems that unless you argue over the minute detail of physics and FFB and actually want something more than just a "drive car 'round track" you are not a "real simracer"

My favorite sims are RF1, GTR2 and AC due to the fact you can create the races YOU want with the cars YOU want on the track YOU want, and no-one is the wiser. You can modify the cars physics data as you please to balance or boost certain cars.

In sim racing I either want a solid offline experience, or the freedom to create my own using mods.
 
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Most of the issue with PC3 seems to be its lacking sim qualities. You can have a simulator with part upgrades and a career, a bunch of us would clearly love to have that. Its the removal of tire temperature, pitstops, the very short races and the addition of arcade handling that is the bigger problem. The upgrades are absolutely fine in my book but what we want is that gameplay brought to the sims.

I would really love a good sim with open-world racing, something mixing the concept of Forza Horizons 4 and Assetto Corsa would be amazing. Equally, I would love a full simulator of the F1 games and also that style of game for slower class cars too. I don't think these are particularly controversial things to want. MyTeam in F1 2020 is amazing and it is a parts and team upgrade system and its a lot of fun to develop your car.

For me the big difference between the arcade games and the sim is the way you get to be faster than the other cars. In the arcade games you are faster, often in the straight as well as the corners and you are constantly just trying to find a way past on every corner having usually started last. In a sim you hunt the car down for 5 laps taking a few tenths out each time and then use the right corner given your opponents weaknesses to get the pass. With upgrades, potentially, you introduce more problems with balancing this but that is the real world too, even in strictly regulated racing series the cars have quite varied performance. So I don't really view this as particular controversial things to enjoy in racing games, maybe its just you and me.
 
Thanks for that! I do feel most sim racers take things too seriously ;) Sometimes you just need to unwind

Yup!

Even when it comes to my "rig", which is a 2m long IKEA table, used as a desk - shared with another guy, and old G27, a chair with wheels on it (!), is... well. It's not "simracing" for many either. I was invited in to a facebook group for Norwegian simracers during the major corona lockdown, and holy banana-split. People are so extremely serious. It feels like they have forgotten the "fun" part. It's thousands of laps of practice, it's mocking the Logitech users (with a few exceptions saying those products are needed to get people in to simracing). It's fine-tuning of setups for everything, which is fair enough for those who like to do that, but it's put as a must-do to be a simracer.
At least that group hasn't gone to a "my sim has bigger d..uh, my sim is better than your sim" style that every place seems to be now.

I thought the whole point of gaming, no matter if it is sims or Mario, or The Sims, was to have fun. It doesn't seem like that's the main point of simracing these days sadly.

People look for different things in games, I love the offline careers, if they are made somewhat logical. F1 2020 is great fun, WRC8 is not, who felt that wet tyres had to be a researched upgrade was a good idea? Or make the car more effective in water splashes? For me that ruins the immersion and fun, but others love it - my loss I guess? Moto GP games got a nice career mode, but I'll never get why they removed the MyTeam thing they had, it had quite some potential.
I still jump on a game like V-Rally 3 from time to time. The physics are very much Arcade. There are bugs in the game, but nothing game breaking, and I wish that there had been a connection between the S1600 and A8 (WRC/Gr.A) teams. So if I won S1600 in a Ford Puma, I'd get a shot in the Ford Focus regardless. But the career mode was ground breaking at the time, and still holds up.

I don't have fun in the newer NASCAR Heat games, but Dirt to Daytona, and many of the later EA Sports ones are great fun due to the career mode.

I don't see the fun in games like pCars 3, and I don't really find Gran Turismo that interesting anymore, neither Forza Motorsport. For me it falls in between, it's not sim-sim, it's not arcade, it's not recreating any series, no career. But that's me and my preferences, and it doesn't mean that the games aren't good and doing what they are supposed to, catering to a market I'm not a part of.

To finish up a very much TL;DR post; I think many simracers are viewing simracing and discussing it pretty much like many other topics in the world today. It's "the right way" and "the others way". It's "me" vs "you" it's "us" vs "them".

That's not how reality works.
 
Yup!

Even when it comes to my "rig", which is a 2m long IKEA table, used as a desk - shared with another guy, and old G27, a chair with wheels on it (!), is... well. It's not "simracing" for many either. I was invited in to a facebook group for Norwegian simracers during the major corona lockdown, and holy banana-split. People are so extremely serious. It feels like they have forgotten the "fun" part. It's thousands of laps of practice, it's mocking the Logitech users (with a few exceptions saying those products are needed to get people in to simracing). It's fine-tuning of setups for everything, which is fair enough for those who like to do that, but it's put as a must-do to be a simracer.
At least that group hasn't gone to a "my sim has bigger d..uh, my sim is better than your sim" style that every place seems to be now.

I thought the whole point of gaming, no matter if it is sims or Mario, or The Sims, was to have fun. It doesn't seem like that's the main point of simracing these days sadly.

People look for different things in games, I love the offline careers, if they are made somewhat logical. F1 2020 is great fun, WRC8 is not, who felt that wet tyres had to be a researched upgrade was a good idea? Or make the car more effective in water splashes? For me that ruins the immersion and fun, but others love it - my loss I guess? Moto GP games got a nice career mode, but I'll never get why they removed the MyTeam thing they had, it had quite some potential.
I still jump on a game like V-Rally 3 from time to time. The physics are very much Arcade. There are bugs in the game, but nothing game breaking, and I wish that there had been a connection between the S1600 and A8 (WRC/Gr.A) teams. So if I won S1600 in a Ford Puma, I'd get a shot in the Ford Focus regardless. But the career mode was ground breaking at the time, and still holds up.

I don't have fun in the newer NASCAR Heat games, but Dirt to Daytona, and many of the later EA Sports ones are great fun due to the career mode.

I don't see the fun in games like pCars 3, and I don't really find Gran Turismo that interesting anymore, neither Forza Motorsport. For me it falls in between, it's not sim-sim, it's not arcade, it's not recreating any series, no career. But that's me and my preferences, and it doesn't mean that the games aren't good and doing what they are supposed to, catering to a market I'm not a part of.

To finish up a very much TL;DR post; I think many simracers are viewing simracing and discussing it pretty much like many other topics in the world today. It's "the right way" and "the others way". It's "me" vs "you" it's "us" vs "them".

That's not how reality works.
FINALLY SOMEONE ****ING SAYS IT! there is no such thing as the gamer Gestapo telling you what you can and can not enjoy dont ever listen to the fools who try this goes for movies too i personally enjoyed the hell out of the new star wars universe it was a treat for me who never got to see the prequels or the original trilogy in the theater it was amazing to get a taste of that kind of experience that a saga could bring those memories will last with me forever.
 
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