Oh really? Open letter to the community, this time from a dev...?!

Thats sounds nearly, like my own story

 

I'd like to show take the opportunity to show this to people, it is still work in progress but its started since a year now, and we're trying to improve each week, each month, each time new content is released, so that our philosophy can be exploited at its fullest.

http://www.facebook.com/nekoracing

We've designed our servers in a slightly different way than people usually do, our NekoRacing.com - Boobs <3 for example is a pure training server, used to hone and perfect your skills, each time one of the admins is here we try to emphasis on helping people, trying to get them to see the driving part of the experience instead of the laptimes, while we condone agressive actions, we are the first to accept that as a training server, people will have to try new things and instead of raging against wreckers this server is made purely to learn, because by learning together we learn faster and better, with greater knowledge and experience in the end.

Our Road servers are here for those like me, who like driving more than racing, its not a matter of pace, its not a matter of ability, its a matter of ambiance ! Trees, dips and grass and cliffs, those things that make you feel like you're moving a car through the Earth, not battling for a trophy but rather pushing the limits of physics and try to find where your guts can get you.

All of our servers were made for one common goal : experience driving with passionate people.
This is why the only thing we ask in return is respect, and guys, try to talk to each other, our group of friends grew bigger and bigger after the years because we all took that first step : talking with someone who although having a different liking than you, also has a passion that you're sharing too !

Like Aris, I trained myself, trained others, ran and am running teams, modded since a year now too, all this because finding the limits of driving is like any Martial Art; Teachings, Experience, Philosophy, People, and Training.
That is the real deepness of this passion we all share on various levels, its up to all of us to do our small part, and try to get together when our likings are aligned

Have a great fun on AC, and don't hesitate to use our servers to make friends, and never forget to get each other's contact infos to talk some more, or simply be able to plan sessions together; AC is what you make it, for us its simply driving.

 

You have a racing server called "Boobs"? Won't that attract the Neanderthals?

 

It does, but driving is like Boobs, its natural, everyone loves it, once you discover it you can never go back

 

I am still currently paying for a rental server that is up 24/7 that does exactly what you want. People like you don't actually read the server list because if you did, my server would not always be empty. When you filter out passworded servers and empty servers, and sort the list by highest number of drivers, all you're going to get is wreckers at nordschleife and servers like mine will never get a chance.



All you have to do is go to the URL in the server name and figure out the password by knowing the answer to a few questions. Wreckers don't know the answers, but every good driver does. It's that simple. (The questions are phrased in a way that it's nigh impossible to google the answers if you don't already know them.)

If you want something more serious, but without joining a league you should stay on my server and practice regularly for a few hours at a time (instead of offline) like a serious driver does, spread the word, and more drivers will come, but only if the server isn't empty. If you have an attention span of 15 minutes and then leave, the server will stay empty simply because no one joins an empty server. As you can see, I've set it up for 1 hour races because what kind of race doesn't require a pit stop and thinking about tyre compounds? All those 5 lap race servers are a complete joke.

I've set it up to be extremely realistic, which should appeal to serious drivers:
- Lower initial track grip: 96%, improves with more laps but very, very slowly.
- Ambient temperature is 10-16 C depending on the type of random weather (50% chance of nice weather). No more 37 degrees tarmac.
- Available cars are performance matched using RSR laptime data, averaged over 6 tracks.

Also see http://tiny.cc/lbs

I have told rackservice.org to end my server subscription next week when the next payment is due, because it's always empty. No one has joined it in 11 days straight. If it's full before the end of the week, I might change my mind, so that's up to you guys.

Previously I've tried setting it up for short 5-7 lap races with no password, with the same result - if I join my own server some more people sometimes come in, but most of the time it's just me, driving alone. Regardless of server configuration, track, cars, people just flock to those few full servers where all the wreckers are. Needless to say I don't have the time to always be on my server so that it isn't empty (making it more likely for people to join).

The most drivers it's had was about 10, when it was running FF1 2015 with no password, but I had absolutely no competition and won the race far too easily. No one else practiced enough. (Note: the server has 24 slots, but Zandvoort only has 18 pitboxes, which is why it's currenlty limited to 18 drivers.)

 

It is indeed the sad truth about Online, referencing your server is as important as realistic rules for people to have fun, even with good drivers and motivated people, no ones wants to do a 4 people race on a racetrack.
This is exactly why racecars are always a bad idea, it might seem like they give a fair chance to everyone but in the end what they do is generate a gap between skill levels, because their limits are so far, when you cross them the consequence creates a huge drop (not in blood pressure, ty cialis ad...) in consistency, which most often ends up in people disconnecting and never trying more of it, always barely scratching the surface.

If you look at real life, you have more people racing low to mid range categories, because of money of course, but also because the racing is quite intense ! Something like GT86, or even simply putting only the F458 stock in monoclass, I know people will ask for variety, but the thing is, they don't use it, they just mostly try and quickly get bored and look for quick shortcuts to mastery, the only real solution is to help the community grow, raising the minimum skill level, and that is done by giving people tools that they can control, which they can enjoy and keep close to others, and especially tools with deepness in the learning curve, those cars where you can learn bit by bit, where the reactions are understandable, unlike a Racecar.

As Aris said, where are the thread to help each other? to find what is helping as a behavior? what is helping as a setting on a car, and for what reason?
Personally I do that on track directly, but in all the sessions I've seen, I'd average between 1 and 3 the number of people talking, and quite often there's only 2 of us trying to help others.

I'll end that post by stating something clearly : Everyone complains about wreckers and people being bad, yet an amazingly low number of people get that the solution, is to help those people get better, understand more and have more fun, that way they won't ruin your fun anymore but add to it instead

 

The moment I see GT3 I scroll to the next server.

 

Good points Lunae, but it doesn't matter how slow the cars are if the drivers are still learning how to drive and race, you're still not going to get a good race. My server does not cater to that audience, it's for experienced drivers. Maybe most of those guys are in a league all the time, but I'm currently not and I know I'm not the only one. I'd rather not race at all, than race with those who can't keep their car on the track, and don't know how to safely rejoin the track/pass/give way etc.

The last time I joined a public nords tourist server, I was intentionally rammed off the track from behind on the starting straight, within the first 20 seconds of joining the server. Right at the start, a faster car also went onto the track behind me. I (right from 1st/2nd gear) stuck to the far left to give him a huge amount of space. As expected, his car accelerated from 1st gear through to 4th/5th slightly faster than mine could. He chose to stay left too and came up closer and closer behind me, but he didn't go around me. Those were my last 20 seconds on a public server without a password. You can't educate people like that, to stop being what they are. They don't want to learn about racing in the first place, or even talk about racing, just want to ruin it for everyone else. Sure you can ban them, but new ones will always come unless the server has a password.

 

And as everyone replied, it's all at other serious league/general sim race communities where they do give the space and sub forums for those kind of threads.

Kevin said they don't care about having a community or not, so then they simply will not get it.

 

I'd like to precise, that here aren't 2 categories "those who learn" and "those who have experience racing". Everyone is learning, with Hany we did 2 wides on Macau for example, with some other friends we do 2 wides for entires laps, or 3 wides for multiple turns, or simply 2 wides on roads like trento, peyregrosse, la mussara, and i'm not talking about passings but long continous 2 wides. All that to image the fact that NO ONE is above learning or training, thinking that "the level is decently high" is why most crashes occur, there is not "decent level" there is only doing your best to drive better every time, thats the only real solution to active and good racing, that is why IRL its that way, and why most successful leagues in terms of racing are full of people with rising levels and already quite high to begin with.

I'm sorry but as a racer, and experienced simracer now, I still don't get why people categorize others in "can race" or "can't race", we're always the idiot of someone, everyone has flaws and does mistakes, there is always someone faster, proving that you too, me too, even Hany, has lots to learn
And btw League racers I've seen, have quite low level compared to top iRacing championships for example (on Assetto Corsa), so its not at all representative of "people with experience to race", everyone is a potential clean racer, its a matter of enjoyment and racecraft, which both relate to social interactions a lot more than actual choice of car, server, or restricting to "types of people".
You'll always have a better race with someone who gives and receives respect, who's learning new tricks, who makes you learn new tricks, with which you'll both see yourselves do better things better racing each time. That comes by talking, learning together, sharing information and experiences, sharing point of views, and of course simply admitting that you can always do better.

Its up to us to create those clean races, not by restricting the users allowed, but by creating a community.

PS : TCLF, I know, as a French user I am on the 2 main French forums and teaching what I can actively on one and trying to keep and eye on the other one too, and I agree with you totally, we need to have a specific part of this forum, made for socializing, helping and simply sharing this "hobby", like any sport we need a place to talk about it, otherwise it'll become just another video game.

 

I think one major issue with devs and mods getting angry when getting into this forum is not because of some opposing oppinions or valid criticism, its because one quickly feels overwhelmed when facing the opinionated masses on the internet. No matter how friendly and cautious a single person mentions his problem with AC here, the issue is that there are hundreds of other people doing the same ... many of them not really friendly too.
Just imagine presenting your product to a group of 500 people where everyone takes every little word you say, analyzes it, finds something not to his liking, gathers with all the other people in the room and constantly harrasses you with all the "friendly critisism only meant to improve your product". It takes all energy from you, its exhausting! Everyone having a (not well informed) opinion about you and your product, telling you how you should behave and what you should do. This can simply destroy your self-confidence and all fun. Even if you share the opinion of the people, its very hard to see so many people criticising your baby on and on no matter how much you fix or add, spending thousands of hours on it. Really I imagine any tripple A publisher is much easier and friendlier to talk to than the collective-internet where people are not nessesarily well educated but every one has opinions nonetheless.

I am so glad that Stefano isnt shy to give us a slap in the neck when he feels like he cant stand the internets collective-idiocity. You guys need to keep cool when a dev or a mod isnt all friendly to you, youre not friendly to them plus many hundreds of people are even worse. If you had to cope with this on a daily basis I imagine your friendlieness would deteriorate too.

 

Kevins wording may have been a bit harsh, but where did he ever say that?

 

Always liked the Neko servers for laid back fun instead of the typical lets race while *****ing about wreckers drama shows.

Also "The moment I see GT3 I scroll to the next server." How true...

 

@Lunae: There are definitely categories, and it's easy to write up the definitions of them but let's just agree to disagree on that one!

 

Skype.

I told him that the problem is that there is no real Assetto Corsa community on this forum, he replied with this:
Yes, but that's not our problem. this is the AC support forum, not the ac community forum and you all have to start understanding that

 

You can categorize however you want, but do it for yourself, here we're talking about a community and we need as "community involved people" to act wish decent observation of facts. The fact is that I can show thousands of different categories, some brake bad, some brake late, some turn harsh, some turn early, some accelerate too early, some change line suddenly, some change line smoothly and so on. All those characteristics makes for possible misunderstanding on a racetrack, leading to crashes, more often than not without a mature talk about it afterwards.
So yea you can categorize for your own sake, you can create 2 or 4000 categories, put people in 50% skill level steps or 0.0002% steps, when talking to and with a community you have to simply respect that you, me, everyone is still learning, that we all do "huge noob stupid wrecker-type" mistakes. I'm sorry because this isn't very nice of me to say, but from my experience I've seen more bad people at driving than good ones, being level, mentality or simply probable max level once grown, yet this doesn't prevent me from keeping an open mind when on our servers, or when trying to mod or share informations. You never know the shifting point in someone's will to get better, and I cannot see a logical explanation to your side compared to mine, unless you'd be running a top league with the best 100 worldwide-allsim racers (kinda like iRacing used to be 2/3 years ago), you're in no point to judge someone's level, just their attitude, and frankly there are far less "wreckers" than people seem to make it, its mostly one every 2 races at best, the others are just people doing mistakes, and thats where my position is helping, that stand is helping a lot more in the end, as a society its our job to make it better.

Again its not agressively said mate, and it goes for everyone its not just you, but people cannot act selfishly yet expect others to think more about the surrounding people, you can't just say "people should race better but I won't help them, instead I'll create a zone for people who don't need help", because 1 - everyone has flaws, so everyone needs help, being from themselves or others, and 2 - you're doing exactly what you condone. Of course those wrecking others have a bad attitude morally, but casting our people learning arbitrarily is as bad in a community
We need to stand together, to grow AC into a better, more accessible and more fun online simulation than rFactor 1 was, we have better physics, better graphics, better application possibilites, lots of people at work including me to improve each our part, we also need a core, one that emphasis on the mentality of the official Devs which is what made AC a success, simply the driving experience, and for that helping is way better than splitting in groups, its a fact and its used all around the world from companies to governments, bodies of people work better together than apart.
To go back to skill in itself, I think most high level drivers on here would agree, steps are huge from one level to another, I often see people saying "I'm 0.4 from WR its awesome", yet WR is only RSR Rank, not real one, which lots of people like myself and probably 30 other people beat by a good margin, to image what I'm saying, what you deem is a good steak, can be supermarket quality in my country, and jet set quality in another country, thats why categories are useless, its from a POV, and what it does is split people according to one POV, it doesn't create fun or pleasure, it restricts displeasure, and if you really want to do that, helping and teaching does the same, while really increasing the pleasure, especially for others.

 

Nice wall of text, man. I think it's great that you're trying to help people improve. I'm often helping people, myself.

Yes I can, because I did. (these two things are not mutually exclusive)

 

Well, we can always take apart every single sencence and word from Staff and use this for this and that, but this lead to nothing I think.

He (@Kevin) only say what the direction of the decision makers was - or still is - for this forum. And indeed this forum is mainly meant for support. Hardly can be seen in an other way when looking at the Forum structure.

The major and prominent placed main Section is still "Support". The next is "Modding", but I can't see a "Community" section.

So everything is clear and nothing wrong by saying this is a support and mod forum. hehe

 

You have a right to your opinion, but 5 lap races are not a "joke". I rather like competing in multiple short races during an afternoon or evening. These are excellent fun without the wreckers and idiots. Long practice sessions are of no interest to me. I check out cars for a few laps offline (if I have not driven that combo before), and then go online to have fun.

I do understand your frustration though. You are obviously looking for an experience that more closely matches the real world, and that's fine.

That's an interesting comment. One of the current aspects of online racing in AC that frustrates me is the lack of communication. It's a bit like road rage in the real world, where you react more aggressively than normal because you can't communicate properly with the other driver. It's amazing how even a simple "sorry" would go a long way towards improving the online experience, or slowing down to wait for someone that you have accidentally hit. In fact, the latter is much better because it demonstrates the empathy from the other driver. Someone can say "sorry" with a press of a button, but do they really mean it? I think there is a way of having the chat open during a race, but I preferred the GT Legends/GTR2 "single line chat" at the top of the screen. I don't use the AC chat function during races, so I never see any messages until I return to the pits......and others probably don't see any of my rants either!

 

It leads to making people understand what AC is and will become in the future.

Indeed, and that's why people try to explain that they want a community on this forum and why.

That's because it's a chit chat section, not a setup section. Nearly everyone sees it as an off topic area.

Indeed. And I had to put int a lot of energy to explain to Kunos why it's so important. Even if they implemented it in the most minimal way, it still helped out lots of leagues and it's all about leagues there. Kevin helped getting it in and all, but somehow still thinks that it won't work for other kind of threads, even though it's going very well in front of his own face.