Hello from Baltimore, USA.

Guest 1/2/2015, 02:49

My name is Ken, and I'm a 25 year old, that has resided in Baltimore Maryland, USA, for much of my life.

I've been playing realistic (or close to realistic) driving/racing games since 2002 or 2003, when I bought Gran Tursimo 3 for $20 on the PlayStation 2. In 2008 after playing Grand Theft Auto 4 on the XBOX 360 for 3 months, I wanted a game with a realistic driving physics and this was Forza 2. This game gave me the opportunity to play online, which motivated me to actually devote time to tuning complex parts of a car's suspension, such as anti roll/sway bars and dampers, in order to be competitive.

After finding out Forza 3 would still only support 8 cars on a track, I knew I had to make the switch to PC based racing games, which not only allowed a greater grid amount, but enabled one to better prepare for real world racing.

GTR Evo was the first I tried, I wasn't satisfied. After coincidentally coming across GTR2 videos on youtube of various mods, I knew it was more likely going to be superior than GTR Evolution, despite being much older. The more I played it, the more surprised at how the game was ahead of its time, especially with its day and night cycle.

I finally got a Logitech Driving Force GT (my first racing wheel), in mid 2011, and haven't gone back to using my Xbox 360 gamepad since, although it served me well. I also got a newer video card, nVidia 760 Geforce in 2014, to replace my 2008 nVidia 8800GT.

After being part of the Project CARS WMD development as a funder since mid 2012 (2 years before getting a decent graphics card that can handle it at medium settings), I have come to the realization, that the game will not be "GTR2 with updated graphics", i.e. the game's developers, known for NFS: Shift 1 & 2, have seem to have sold out, by primarily focusing on advertising the games graphics and hiring large breasted models on Twitter/instagram to promote the game; instead of using these resources to refine the game's "mechanics". 2 months before release, the game is prone to CTDs (crash to desktop) , lack of specifying specific "classes" in multi-class racing (having F1/open wheels racing against close wheeled sports cars, isn't what I'd consider "multi-class"). I'm not saying it's bad game, just one that has been hyped too much like Gran Turismo 5. E.g. If an opponent laps another opponent by 1 lap, both opponents still register as completing the same amount of laps, instead of the lapped opponent having -1 lap completed compared to the other opponent. Proper racing rules aren't even implemented. Project Cars AI behavior is better, compared to GTR2.

Also, since becoming a PC sim player, unfortunately 95+ % of my racing has been with AI, and most of these newer sim games either don't have AI or they are poorly implemented. Apart from iRacing, none of these new sims, seem to have an online system that punishes bad players that intentionally wreck other people's race. Until I can get a better occupation in the future, iRacing is not an option.

In conclusion, I am willing to make a donation of around $5+ US dollars a month or so, to help cover things like server costs, if I can come across a league that meets my expectation, such as utilizing high quality mods, is fun, and gives me an opportunity to make friends! I will likely start out as a "quest driver". GTE/GT3, and Sports Cars in general, cars are my favorite class, and I prefer my races to be at least 1 hour long when racing against AI.

I have had honor of visiting Virginia International Raceway (2013 ALMS) and Watkins Glen (6 hours Grand AM).

Guest 1/2/2015, 03:11

Welcome to the forum Ken!

We have 3 online leauges, with 3 different carset:

-GT Sprint: 60 minutes long races with a mandatory pitstop, GT3 carset

-Touring Car Championship (TCC): 2x25 minutes long sprint races and 75 minutes long endurance races (like Spa or Bathurst), with supertouring cars (Dodge Stratus, Ford Mondeo, Audi A4 quattro, BMW E36 320i, etc)

-Le Mans Series: 90 minutes long races with LMP1 and GTE cars. Special races (like Sebring and Le Mans) are 120 minutes long.

We are racing on every Sunday, on a rotating system (we have TCC on this Sunday, LMS on the following, then GT Sprint). The server is running 24/7, official practice starts at 19:00 GMT, the race starts at 20:00. We're developing our own physics for the leagues, the feedback is quite good from other drivers i have to say. Also, our grids are very vital, last weekend we had 28 drivers online at Sebring. Every league has guest cars, so you can try out any of our leagues before jumping in full-time.

Have fun here around! Smile