Why do you play racing sims? Why do you play AC?

This topic is just about sharing your story as a racing sim player and why do you do it.

I'll start by saying that, I've only done this for the last 2 years so I'm pretty new at this, even though I've been gaming for almost 20 years now...

I play racing sims because:
I'm doing this because I get the chance to (virtually) drive all the great cars that I like and that I won't ever have them for real in my garage and because I'm in love with one particular track above all others - Nurburgring Nordschleife - and I can't go there every day, like I can do in a sim.

I play AC (now) because:
Even though I'm not an old time simmer like some are, I think AC is one of the best (if not the best) racing sim at this moment, that has/will have the right features that I want from a racing sim.

I'm pretty satisfied with the direction this game is going and the day I/we get the laser scanned Nordschleife + fully working multiplayer with a Track Day (server/room) I will be very happy. I hope we will get Track Day option for multiplayer, because I don't like to race a lot...

I should say, before I finish this, that ever since 2 years ago when I started playing racing sims, this was my only demand of them, to have the best Nordschleife representation and a good multiplayer. That's why I went for Gran Turismo 5 and then 6, before coming here.
And even thought AC does not have any of those 2 yet, it is so much better than GT 5/6 that I could not play them anymore.

Anyway, this is my short story of why I do this, so what's yours? Are there any other people who share my passion for this amazing track? And if not, what do you like then?

 

Mostly because i was a car guy that grew up in a family that cared little for cars or driving fast.

And racing sims over the years were far cheaper than a track day car or track fees. No matter how much you spend on a wheel or seat or etc does not compare to the cost of keeping a car up for track days.

Nevermind never having had a job that payed well enough to own a ferrari, or any of the cars i grew up loving like formula one cars. Sims were a door into a world that unless i was extremely lucky and or supremely talented i would never be able to realisticly break into.

So i could get my wheel and my favorite game and drive or race have my good days and bad and have some fun hopefully. Got to drive the best formula one tracks in the world in the best formula one cars imo ever, something i never would have been able to do without the sims over the years. got to drive nurmburg in a ferrari and formula porsche something i never would be able to do but for sim racing.

 

I love racing. Not just the cars and the general idea of 'go fast, zoom zoom'(which I do like as well), but I love the competitive aspects of it all. Very few sports demand such high concentration for sustained periods like racing does and I love the infinite skill ceiling that basically means you can *always* get better, even if you're the fastest ****ing person on the planet. I love battling with people of roughly similar speed and having great on-track battles. I love putting my defensive skills to the test against a faster driver, desperately hanging on. I love lapping behind another car, learning their strengths and weaknesses and then exploiting them. I love how its a solo endeavour where everything is pretty much entirely in your hands.

Racing is just a brilliant sport. Cant get enough of it and racing sims are a great way to participate in the action.

 

So I can legally drive under the influence

Nah just kidding, I'm to old to drive competitively real world but I always wanted to and the cost prohibits that anyway so sim racing is a great alternative.

 

It's close enough to real that I can flatter my ego when I'm doing well, and it's incredibly cheap (says the guy that bought 2 extra monitors, gtx 780's, new ram, a steering wheel and a gear stick) by comparison....

Plus the golden age of motoring is long gone where I live anyway. Modern cars are crap and there's traffic everywhere.

 

I've always been obsessed with cars, and motorsport of any sort. I'm not rich, and don't own my own car, so I can't really go and do it on the weekends. Simracing allows me to do it, and do it in any car, in any series, at any track I can imagine. I love racecraft. I love overtaking, defending position, shaving tenths, hundredths, and thousandths off my laptimes, I love trying my hardest to catch the car ahead and figuring out my way around him. I just love racing adn everything about it. It's life. And simracing is a way for me to do it all for myself. I can race NASCAR at Charlotte, F1 at Monaco, WRC in Australia, FIA GT3 at Monza, right down to small-time grassroots oval racing all in one day. Not to mention I can visit any era of the aforementioned, competing in classic cars against drivers retired or deceased, at track configurations or even entire tracks which don't exist anymore. Not to mention I can take it online and compete against the world, racking up times on global leaderboards and seeing where I stack up on a world stage. I've made a great many friends by it too, friends who I'll probably have for the rest of my life.

Simracing isn't sitting in my room on my computer, playing with pretend racecars because I'm poor. It's absolutely bloody magical.

 

I play racing sims because I love games, and because I love cars. The first ever computer game I ever played also happened to be a racing game, and it's been with me ever since. After experiencing "sim"-racing for the first time with ISI's Sports Car GT, I was permanently hooked (who knew cars that actually handled somewhat realistically were actually more fun to drive than the standard arcade, "floor it and ride the wall all the way" land UFOs?), although after that I sort of lost the genre.

When I first heard of Assetto Corsa, I had been bummed out for a while, because I had missed the opportunity to get into Project Cars. After watching some videos with gameplay and skimming the site I decided to go for it despite the relatively (as compared to most early access games I've had my eyes on at least) high entry price. Boy, did I get more than I bargained for, in a good way!

 

Great post ED, totally agree
And I believe that Simracers at top level (aliens) are better, more talanted then real racers, because competition in much stronger, so many people from all around the world can simrace, compared to real racing where only dozen very talented or lucky, or more likely very rich people can enjoy this sport/hobby.

 

The above post describes perfectly the reasons i sim race. -without the oval part though -

 

I do it because I am a huge fan of motorsport and I can get very emotional in a heated race or when I see people giving everything they've got for their passion. I watch racing events and I feel the same sort of peace that people who see a picture of some beautiful landscape think "God, that is beautiful, it must be Heaven". It seems like an unattainable goal for me, realistically it is; I'm 30 and I have never been out on a real race track other than a parade lap around Road Atlanta. I recently watched a little mini documentary about the Spa 24 () and one of the drivers was explaining his feeling of racing at night, "there is something magical about racing at night" I must have had a look of longing on my face, my wife said to me "are you getting all choked up?" I was.

I have been to many real life racing events, although nothing super big, mostly SCCA or NASA races at Road Atlanta or Barber, and 24 hrs of LeMons. I am a long time fan of WRC, BTCC, WTCC, and more recently GT racing, but no matter what kind of car is on the track, be it purpose built race cars or old Honda's falling apart around each corner, to see people out there, giving it all they've got, fighting through corners, defending positions, risking it all to take that one place...it is something that is so exciting and beautiful to me.

Sim racing is the closest I can get to the inside looking out. I have built my rig, it is something I can take pride in, something I can care for and maintain, modify and work hard to upgrade. I can chose any track I want, I can pretend I am in the BTCC at Croft or the Petit LeMans at Road Atlanta, and I can give it everything I've got. I totally lose myself to it and there isn't a better thing I can say about it than that.

As for why I play AC, well...I bought it on a whim, I was playing a ton of SimBin titles and mostly RSRBR, AC was on sale and although I didn't really like the way it looked at the time, I had been a fan of NetKar Pro and AC was on sale at the time, so I picked it up. I realized it was a great purchase as soon as I started driving, something just feels so right about this sim. I was trying to explain it to a friend of mine when he came over to try it. I told him if someone put him in a Ferrari F40 and let him drive at a normal speed around a track, he should be able to do that in real life, so why should he not be able to in a sim?

Some sims make it feel impossible to even drive any car at a normal speed, its not a terrible thing, you adapt and learn how to drive each different title. But the fact that he got in a Ferrari and did a few slow laps around Imola without going off, and he was able to slowly increase his times (he does not play sims otherwise) is some good proof that AC is getting it right. Also, its a great looking title, and its on Steam so instantly, I have people to play with as soon as MP becomes available, I am in many AC groups on Steam. Right now I feel like it is the best Sim Racing title on the market to just drive in, just drive and enjoy it.

Long winded but I am feeling passionate about this tonight. Great topic.

 

Watching F1 races with my parents when Keijo "Keke" Rosberg won his F1 world championship, or Juha Kankkunen getting a world rally championships with legends like Peugeot 205, Lancia Delta and Toyota Celica.
Those experiences alone will turn a Finn into a Motorsport fanatic, but getting to experience from local ice racing to championship rally event at that age, left my veins filled with gasoline.

Throw in passion for gaming which also started from very early age, and theres only one logical conclusion; Racing Simulators... more Realistic the better.

 

Good stories guys, I liked them all.

This is a very interesting point you made here and I think it could also be true.
The only "funny" thing so to say is that when you look at Gran Turismo Academy, which is one of the biggest ones involving sim racers and real racing, you can see a lot of top level or aliens if you want there, but they are all playing on a much lesser realistically sim than AC is. And yet they end up after winning the competition to be real racers and they are good in real racing too.

Now imagine how great this kind of academy would be in AC, the Assetto Corsa Academy.

I think an academy like that in AC would give even better drivers, because AC is so close to real racing, compared to GT6 which is a sim-cade in which you have to learn some unrealistic techniques and behaviors in order to be at the top.

I felt this too, the first time I started AC. Coming from GT6 and needing to learn some very specific and synthetic driving styles and techniques (like I said above) which most of them have nothing to do with real racing or are very different in reality. But when I did my 1st lap in AC I immediately felt so natural driving the car, I could not believe how much better than GT6 it was.

The same as you one of my 1st cars I drove in AC was the Ferrari F40 and I was stunned how I could drive it just like that standard, without any tweaking at it's settings or upgrades and tuning. And after a few laps I was going at a decent fast pace without crashing and sliding all over the place, unless I pushed it to much.
Int GT6 the same car, the F40 is almost un-drivable for me in stock form. There was no way I could drive as fast as in AC without crashing at least a few times in a lap. Sure I could drive it like a grandma and keep it on the track, but what's the point in that... I had to tune it and tweak it's settings to make it drivable in GT6, and that says a lot about un-realistic GT6 is compared to AC.

Recently I have tried rFactor 2 and RaceRoom Racing Experience, but none of them made any important impression on me to consider them better than AC. They come close, but that's it. They don't generate in me that "real driving" feeling I get when driving in AC. This doesn't mean AC is perfect and can't be further improved to be even closer to real driving, but it's as close as it gets for me, based on my limited sim racing experience.

With this being said, I'm willing to give Project CARS a chance when they release it, but even with it pretty graphics, if it fails to give me that realistic feeling that AC gives me, I will not be interested in it.
Other than this, I don't know any new or future racing sims that can be better than AC.
Driveclub? Nah, I don't think so, that will most likely be either fully arcade-ish or at best a sim-cade as GT6 is.
Forza 5 and GT6 are already just sim-cades and about Forza 6 and GT7, when and if they come out, I think they will still follow the same formula of sim-cade, to keep their large player base happy.

I don't see AC having a real contender for a couple of years for the whole realism feeling package (physics, graphics & sounds), if Project CARS fails in achieving that, that is.

 

I'm mainly a multiplayer person so I'm in hiatus-mode when it comes to sims, but as for why I like them in the first place, it's purely for the fact that I can't afford to attempt to go pro in real life. I've been into car games and simulations for as long as I can remember and have been around cars all my life. As for why I chose AC, the answer was easy for me. AC's reputation for having such an accurate tire model, even before release, was just too astounding. I had to buy it to try myself and fell in love. Now with the addition of a couple Corvette's to come, I don't think I'll ever leave AC unless/until my life gets graced with the ability to buy and/or race one in real life.

 

I play racing sims because...

Without putting too fine a point on it, racing real people is bloody amazing fun! That's it really. Cars per se do very little for me. Racing against AI opponents doesn't do it either as it all feels rather predictable and disposable.

I play AC because...

Kunos had some positive previous with netKar so I thought AC was worth a punt. It drives wonderfully. This is a very good thing indeed. Am in a bit of a usage lull with AC at the moment until the bit I'm after shows up, but will hopefully get back into it when that happens. That said, if I can't find any suitable multi-player action I'll happily leave it.

 

I'm too poor to afford a real track day car and all the sherbang that goes with it. Plus, I can SIM from the comfort of my own house and have a beer or 2

I'm also a little volatile and not too shy about bashing someone in the pits if they drive like a Div.

 

Fell in love with drifting in a home made go kart when I was around 9y/o. Played NFS and it's ilk for far too long before discovering LFS ever since I have been looking forward to going sideways with a more actively supported game.

 

I love racing sims because every race is completely different - there are so many variables, so many different techniques, tactics and personalities involved.

Even single player i love to be as fast as I possibly can be - I love hotlapping and learning how to nick thousanths of a laptime, I love driving at 200mph after a few beers, I love getting good pictures of virtual cars, I love the realism which my wheel and pedals gives me.

And I love AC

 

Because motorsport is awesome, and sim racing fills the gaps for when I'm not racing in a kart in real life.

 

Ah, yes the comfort of drinking and driving (virtually) without a care in the world of what would happen if you crash into something or someone. I've done that plenty in GT5/6 multiplayer and to my surprise I was driving even better than sober.
I can't wait for AC multiplyer, not only because of this of course.
I don't like to drink and drive in real life, so here in the virtual "life" is the perfect place for that.

About bashing, I was usually the host in my rooms in GT5/6, and when I wasn't a few times I had to make the bullies quit "by force", if the host didn't care or was AFK (usually he was AFK). And they did quit.

I played a lot of MMOrpgs and I have a lot of experience in bullying the bullies or griefing the grifers. I don't like to start trouble, but I do like to finish it if someone else starts it. It usually ends up with them losing/backing down/apologizing/asking for a truce or quitting the game altogether even. Fun memories.