Daniel Pettit - iRacing Review

[Daniel Pettit]

As one of the lucky few to make it into the early release of iRacing I have had a chance to get a look at one of the most anticipated racing titles for some time. So how does iRacing stack up. Is it the long awaited step forward or just another mid field runner.


-E=MC Squared-

Ok first lets start with what iRacing does well, very well. The physics are everything you hoped for and every bit as good as all the reviews are saying. Until Karts are included I can’t compare with my own real world experience but even those of us who are not phyics buffs can sense that this is ‘right’. That said the other games on the market whilst not perfect are still in the right ball park and as such the real improvement in iRacings physics becomes evident only when driving the car hard and in other more subtle elements. However all of these physics suffer initially because you are given the Pontiac Solstice to drive. Taking a well crafted physic’s engine and then getting it to simulate a very average American roadster is a bit like hiring the finest chef in town then asking them to cook you cheese on toast.

-We’re on track for something special-

The other headline feature from iRacing is the laser scanned tracks. I headed straight to Silverstone to assess this and having been to the British track many times I can verify that you are now driving the actual track. Every inch of the scenery seems to be 100% and again the reports from the sim/real racers tell us that on track it’s the same story. Your going to notice some differences on tracks you know and this is one piece of technology that shows us a window to the future.

-Feeling Game?-

Online iRacing’s netcode is also strong, It happily supports close racing and the only major problem is that the frame rate seems to take a more than reasonable hit from going online. It can be quite weird to see your nicely tuned settings of 60fps drop to near 20 just because a handful of others are now on track with you. The graphics themselves are very nice. There are times when the graphics are less than spectacular but that is more down to the fact that there are no shadows and very little scenery to paint at that particular moment in time.

-Thou shalt not!-

Unfortunately here’s where we turn the corner and start looking at the problems. iRacing limits drivers to entering one of 2 championships (Soltice or Legends). Within these there are online practices and hotlap competitions every few minutes, Qualifying every hour and a race every 2 hours. Access to higher series are limited by the safety rating. The principle behind this is to act as record of drivers safety to keep the wreckers at bay. However what it actually does is act as an overly puritanical barrier to entry. The slightest clip of the grass renders you with an ‘indicent’ point and accidents that see you clip the grass as speed then spin multiply up horrendously. As a result your rating is just as likely to go down as it is up at a given race. “But that keeps wreckers away” I hear you cry, yes your right it will, along with the rest of us too. Lets not forget theres a big difference between 'clean racing' and 'mistake free racing'....

-Big Business-

Forget the hype, iRacings prime market is gamers not real racing teams looking for driver development. iRacing has been based on 2 success commercial principles; the subscription model of MMORPGS like world of warcraft and the expansion pack culture of MS flightsim. Unfortunately its failed in both respects. Subscription games like WoW succeed by making players want to play as often as possible, by making them feel every minute played counts and moves them towards their goal. iRacing’s stict safety rating on the other hand encourages drivers to stay away and only pitch in for the online event if they are feeling really on it. The limit on the races availale is also a major restriction and is bound to frustrate people.

In the second area it also struggles, Flightsim offers a large body of content then cheap addon packs that give reams more. iRacing’s big beef in the build up is its pricing structure and its here that it really hurts it. iRacings addon’s just don’t feel like good value for money and players will soon tire of having to dig out the credit card every time you want an additional car or track.

These points are compounded by the way the online races are organised. It will take drivers a long time of very dedicated perfect racing to get the safety rating up to a point where they can use this content and being stuck in the Soltice or Legend night after night is soon going to get frustrating and that could be a problem in a months time when the game is going to ask for players to fork out for month 2…

-Damage irrepairable?-

This is the most frustrating part, iRacing does all the difficult bits really well. Under it all is a superb sim with excellent tracks and cutting edge physics, but a few poor business decisions are crippling it. It would not be hard to fix though, more leaniancy and less dependency on the safety rating would be a good start, races every hour not every 2 would further help and a few more series with additional cars at each level and the ability to run in concurrent championships would be the clincher. Lets hope the boys at iRacing can realise this before the ‘new game’ hype wears off and the paddocks become deserted

-Post race discussion-

Overall iRacing is a formidable entry on the sim racing grid and promises to move the competition forward. However the setup is bad and its on the wrong tyres, in its current form the older competition is still going to run rings around it. Unless the iRacing team pull this one in for some much needed adjustment its going to find itself out of the race far sooner than everyone thought.

[Simon Trendell]

I think I can agree with everything you've said Daniel, there is not enough leaniancy in the safety rating, I'm still to have a clean session because when your racing you do occasionally go a little wide. The off track penalty needs to be restricted to 4 wheels off the track, at the moment you get 2 on it and your hit with the penalty and a nice spin into the nearest barrier for a 3x penalty.

[Ricky Willox]

From what ive heard they are going to look at the frequency of races once the membership rises enough. I think just now its 2 hours to try to keep the servers full.

As for the safety rating yea it is strict and who knows may change in the future as this is a MMORG (Massivley Multiplayer Online Racing Game) and like all games of this nature require balancing over time. As for myself I have found the safety rating to be fine probably because im slow but clean due to this. My rating on Road and ovals is around 3.50 after only one day granted it was a long day .

The Solstice what can you say about the slug. I like it its teaching me things i never thought of before. I used to go flat out into all corners ram on the brakes and try to get round the bend. This does not work in the slug braking is bad for this car it loses too much momentum, and has no power to get it back fast enough. So I have had to learn to drive differently slower in a way to get more speed and have managed to get from a 1.07 lap around Lime rock full to a 1.05.695. So for a driver like me without the skills its a great car to learn in.

All in all iRacing for me is the best feeling sim ive driven. And the track are astounding as mentioned. So its a good base to build on and hopeully will improve on the weaker points as time goes by.

ps : I love it

[Gary Lennon]

Excellent comprehensive report Daniel,answering many of my own niggling little questions,and also raising some new ones.

[Ramon van Rijn]

This safety thing has indeed too much priority. Yesterday I raced and everyone was just so careful that real racing and fighting is out of the question.
If I did some drafting (road racing) and try to outbreak, the other one is already braking much earlier to avoid colission. They don't want to screw up the safety rating.

If this safety importance is there at every driving license then it will scare people away. If its only on rookie level, its a good thing.

Nice review Daniel!

[Daniel Pettit]

Your absoloutly right Ramon, people are so scared of denting their cars its actually causing more problems than its worth. I've seen a few incidents where cars bunched up because everybody got so nervous in a group situaiton and people were left with no where to go.

iRacing should be rewarding good results not punishing minor mistakes. As a rule drivers who shunt and bump will not get these results anyway especially with the damage model we have here.

Lets be brutally honest, guarenteed clean racing is not something even Forumla 1 can actually deliver, people will always make mistakes and drivers will have accidents. The kind of 'Xbox live wrecker' that everyone fears, and these systems are brought in to eliminate, won't even be playing iRacing in the first place.

Glad the review helped answer a few questions too

[Ramon van Rijn]

I am sure iRacing reads the suggestions on the forums also.
Maybe good to post your review on RSC also?

[Daniel Pettit]

Good idea. I'll make sure to put it in a flame resistant suit first though

[Ricky Willox]

You could also break it up into suggestions for improving the issues and post at the suggestions forum on the iRacing members site.

If you wanted to.

While i dont mind the safety ratings system myself, i can see how it could affect racers faster than me. Maybe reducing the penalties for the smaller infringments as your license lvl increases might be a good thing.

[Ramon van Rijn]

Both forums then....

Another suggestion is to have a good members forum for them... The current iRacing forum (not RSC) is totally crap. What a mesh.

[Daniel Pettit]

Its up on RSC now, will be curious to see how it is received.

For the iRacing site itself i think some more useful suggestions would be better.

[Bram Hengeveld]

Dr Duck lol Dr Tux you mean

Originally Posted by Ramon van Rijn

Another suggestion is to have a good members forum for them...

Look no further Ramon, i found one i hope: click here

[Cully]

Its up on RSC now, will be curious to see how it is received.

Not too good so far,early days however.

[Sascha Henken]

You all should not forget that iRacing isn´t yet officially launched. We all that are currently part of iRacing´s system can still be treated as Beta Testers although Beta Testing is over and I never was a Beta Tester. The system still lags features yet to come but it is absolutely right that the Safety Rating System needs a revisitation and considering things. Cutting a corner with two wheels on the track should be allowed but you get a penalty for it in iRacing. So I agree with Daniel on that part.

What i´m missing is yet to come the Full Flag Rules, a good reliable Spotter System, a pitstop and strategy system. All this isn´t included yet as the system is limited to sprint races only which are great so hopefully when iRacing goes live to everyone in the world, Dave Kaemmer & Team has something more to offer to us

[Sascha Henken]

Mr. Rickard posted some background of the Safety System which is a good read: Safety Rating explained - RaceSimCentral Forums

[Daniel Pettit]

I really do hope they get it right, putting the appeal of the physics etc aside for a moment, i've been a subscriber to WoW for over 3 years now so i know how rewarding an online centric game can be if done correctly.

[Simon Trendell]

Appears you may have offended people at RSC Daniel ;)

I will say that although you've only based this review on a day or so's racing first impressions is what will get people to stay the month and subscribe again.