What happened to online racing?

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Johnnypenso

Johnnypenso

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Johnnypenso
I posted a thread recently that I thought online racing was dying and it made me think, what the heck happened? I love the GT series, and was so looking forward to some competitive online racing. At first, the first few months, it seemed as if this was happening. Quite a few hp/weight limited rooms, lots of regular hosts you'd see all the time. Then it was PP rooms and there were dozens to choose from every night, often with regular hosts that ran good rooms. I expected things to get better from there, but it's fallen to the point where it's hard to find a competitive race online. Either you win without seeing the competition or you get knocked off in the first corner in a smash up derby. And rooms often have only a handful of people in them too.

What happened? There are 5 million copies of this game out there, 100 good quality rooms a night filled with 10-15 drivers is just a raindrop in the midst of a hurricane with that many copies on the market. Couple of years ago when I played COD, which I believe had roughly the same sales, you could find 10,000+ rooms online, many of which had some good quality compeition.

I figured automotive enthuisasts would be even more willing and interested in testing their skills online but it seems the opposite is true. Night after night now it's basically the same rooms, a few pp limited or street rooms, a few Nascar rooms and a whole barrage of free for alls or rooms that say they are one thing in the title and are something completely different.

Is the game too hard? Is it too difficult to learn to be competitive? Is the quality of racing online so bad no one wants to bother? Why hasn't this developed into the online racing mania that I thought it would when I bought the game? I can live with all the little problems and screw ups on PD's part if I could just find a wide variety of good competitive racing outside of a handful of leagues and a small handful of private lounges.

What the heck happened? I fully expected this to turn into an online racing phenomenon and it just doesn't seem to be the case. Why not?
 
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Same answer I usually give about online racing. Check the online series section of GTP. I don't think online racing is dead, just scheduled.
 
Personally I have stuck to lounge racing over the last 6 months with friends.
It let's us all race with people we know to be clean and however we want.

Also you need to factor in that the game is almost a year old and many people are more casual racers than you find on this site. With new games coming out it's to be expected that there would be less rooms
 
Johnny, just like the other day, I often open up rooms just for the fun of it although I try to keep a pretty clean room. You're more than welcome to join me anytime.

I have to echo Delta's reasoning though. Hopefully with the new additions they've made recently they will rekindle interest but it's hard to say. Gamers are a transitional crowd - they tend to go with what's 'trendy' at any given time. Sadly, racing sims are not as trendy as cookie cutter FPSs. Not much can be done about that I'm afraid. Blame the marketing machine.
 
There are plenty of lobbies open at any time (think about refreshing the page- it will give you at least 3 pages before the first sawn lobby returns).
Its just a problem to find the good rooms (mostly shuffle races with assists turned of)... Thats why most people are organised more today and have the races in private or closed lobbies.
Im steadily extending my friend (just add people you had good fair battles with in any lobby) list for this (as i was struggling to find good lobbies) and at the moment, i dont need more than about 10 minutes to find a propper room (clean gentlemen racing).
 
I think it is hard to find rooms without their fair share of arrogant, spoiled and sometimes bigoted children and adults. But mostly children who make some of the rooms unbearable to race in.

I have encountered rooms where many of the participants are 10 to 14 years old and you can really tell just by the conversation. There is nothing wrong with that.
They purchased the game (or parents) and they deserve an environment to play in.
However, more mature players deserve an environment to play in as well.

Many have become disenchanted with the lack of competitive racers on-line. I sometimes find it boring to simply race street cars all the time. I like FIA GT class (Grand Touring Cars) racing and the cars that belong to those classes. That’s what the game was named for anyway.
I also like the LM/LMP/Class C because of the sensation of speed. What I like most of all are clean racers, good conversation, joking around with "game" friends and getting better at driving the tracks. Winning is cool, but I don’t need to win to have fun. I just need the chance to compete and see what I can do against drivers who are skilled and faster than I am. That’s the only to get better.

As pointed out above, it's better to create a lounge and invite friend gamers who you know will drive the right way. Also, joining a scheduled racing league might be fun as well. At least it is organized and rule breakers are (I assume) removed from the league.
 
Blood*Specter
I Also, joining a scheduled racing league might be fun as well. At least it is organized and rule breakers are (I assume) removed from the league.
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From my understanding GTP sanctioned series are governed by an overall set of clean racing rules and any additional rules implemented by the race director of the series. If you drive like the three-quarters of people in random rooms that lunge into you to get ahead, you're going to hear about it from EVERYONE in the series, and the next time you'll get the boot. On a particularly merciful day the group members will work with you but almost everyone in clean GTP racing is already at a level where they aren't causing damage to other drivers on the way by.

Additionally, since GTP has other basic governing rules, racists and biggots don't prosper in the board's series.
 
People have other games to play now. Battlefield 3 anyone???

Think of it this way, time weeds out the people who aren't car/racing nuts, so hopefully there will only be diehard GT5 fans left, which means no more rude racers, but that's in theory.

I would be online more, if my home internet was faster because it is stupidly slow :grumpy:. That and it seems there's something that's not allowing me to connect to rooms (I think it's my UPnP; it's always disabled).
 
Many buyers of GT5 dont even play online. They dont know wat they miss.
+ Like you say finding a good room takes some time .
But once u do try to make friends and u follow them day after day untill u find a few friends that host good games on a regular basis. keep it superclean say sorry for the slightest bump and you will be accepted and have many many nice gt5 days ahead of you :)
 
I think you all are correct in what you say. And people do move on, or simply try other games. But those who really love cars and racing will always be around. And that is truly who the game is for. Because you are just like the creator, you love it. There are more than enough people around the world to keep the GT franchise running for a long time.
And how many PlayStation platform launches has GT been in? All of them.
No matter your age, if you love cars, you can’t help it. Me, since I was 8 years old.
My first Christmas toy was a slot car set. I am hopeless LOL.
 
Blood*Specter
I think you all are correct in what you say. And people do move on, or simply try other games. But those who really love cars and racing will always be around. And that is truly who the game is for. Because you are just like the creator, you love it. There are more than enough people around the world to keep the GT franchise running for a long time.
And how many PlayStation platform launches has GT been in? All of them.
No matter your age, if you love cars, you can’t help it. Me, since I was 8 years old.
My first Christmas toy was a slot car set. I am hopeless LOL.
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Amusingly, I had stepped away from Gran Turismo for a while. Then I watched all of Initial D and it rekindled my interest. Now, for the last 2 months, it's the only game I've played. It's sad because I have a shelf full of games.

However, tonight I am going to get the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD collection. I had both of those games on PS2 and they were 2 of the most incredible gaming experiences I have ever had. The gameplay is crisp and the storytelling is emotive and poignant. I can't wait to see them in the new format.
 
i find that ive played GT5 a LOOT less since i completed most of the career races because i found that most of my mate where either offline or playing CoD!!! and it took forever to find a good room and whenever i did i always got disconnected....BUT since the DLC came out i have been playing a bit more but im sure that will die down by Friday thanks to BF3!!!!!
 
As someone who wishes to improve, I’ve never found online that friendly a place to use.

Were not all “fast” or “pro” or whatever other synonym they used in the lobby title. We can’t all race cleanly on comfort softs or less without traction control or skid force recovery on. Some of us like the option of having the racing line on as well as steering assist especially as some of us only have the option of using a DS3. Time penalties always seem to be on punishing innocent mistakes and that’s on top of damage.

There’s too big a cliff edge for some going online and it can be really off putting if you wish to try to race clean. Getting kicked for seemly no reason reduces the willingness to try to participate quite quickly as well.

It would improve it for me if they had some kind of preset race types available. Permanent lobbies with known driver aid settings and fixed cars, that weren’t controlled by anyone individual who had the freedom to kick on a whim. I hate to type it, but some race types like COD has “game” types, TDM etc.
 
A good 'search/find friends' system would improve online a heck of a lot.

For instance, I have about 15 or so GT5 friends who are all fast clean drivers. Unfortunatley I can hardly ever find them online (hell, some of them i've only raced once or twice).
If i'm lucky i'll come across a room where 1 friend is, so I get giddy and join, but the race is spoiled by the idiots.

Now, if there was an option in the lobby to see (in one clear list and all at once) where all of your friends are then we'd all very shortly be in a public room full of friends.

et voila: online would become more fun and better populated.

(I heavily suspect this has been suggested umpteen times but as it's a good idea I think it needs repeating until it gets noticed)
 
This topic has been discussed before and one common answer is to turn to the "Racing Forum", but in my opinion, it's not even 1/10th of what I expected it to be. There are usually a dozen, two dozen series going on at any time. With a full field of 16 that's less than 400 racers once a week. 400/5,000,000 is not a lot, a drop in the bucket in fact.

And racing with friends is great and I do that, but it's the same guys over and over and usually the same results, fun for a while but I'm looking for new challenges all the time.

Do you think there's something missing from the game that prevents the majority of gamers from exploring the online racing portion of the game. Perhaps better controls while racing, better collision controls/collision avoidance. Somehow automatic reports to the host of guys driving wildly or out of control so that rooms can actually be "clean" instead of just paying lip service to it as most do.

I don't have the answer but something is definitely missing. I'd say racing fans are far more fanatic about racing than FPS lovers are, it just hasn't translated into orgnized, clean online play. In my opinion, it does not bode well for the future of the franchise that the online portion of the game has not taken off like it should, and the door is definitely open for someone on the PS3 platform to swoop in and capitalize on all the misfortunes and shortfalls of GT5 and knock them into an early grave.
 
generationlost
Think of it this way, time weeds out the people who aren't car/racing nuts, so hopefully there will only be diehard GT5 fans left, which means no more rude racers, but that's in theory.
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I feel there is a lot of truth in your statement there, I've found it's a lot easier now to find a room with a number of clean racers than it was a few months ago. At least it seems that way to me. You still get people bumping you now and again but that is going to happen now and again but recently when they do they tend to apologise for it and it's forgotten.
That's not to say you don't get people who just barge anymore but they do seem a lot less in numbers nowadays
 
Blood*Specter
My distractions are Battlefield 3, Metal Gear and SOCOM.
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Distractions are good, keeps GT5 fresh for me. I play Madden 11, NFS:HS, and waiting for Uncharted 3.

Back on topic. Its hard to find good rooms, I must thank my online friends for contacting me when they find good rooms or setup a lounge.

I wonder how many GTP GT5 owners actually play online?
 
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I think the biggest problem is the disparity between skills found from one player to the next. You can join a room with seasoned players who are all clean and respectful and have a great time racing. Then one or two newbies come into the room, start asking to change tracks before they have even raced or ask that the race distance be changed to whatever they like and then proceed to wreck everyone on the track because they have no car control at the speeds they are trying to race at.

Someone said it before that we need a skill level criteria capability in GT. The current system only awards level base on completed races. You can get to level 40 without ever winning a single race and all those can be in A-Spec where you can bash the AI out of your way all day long and never loose a single skill point for it. Hell, if it's ok to do in A-Spec, why not online?

Opening up your own lounge and having your friends come in or joining a friends lounge is the best way to get clean racing.
 
i started drifting because all of the noob rooms

and even there u encounter x1 fools
 
I play online more than offline.. everything is fine.. I usualy create rooms and call my friends up.. having a good races, kicking out all ignorants... but the problem with "dissconection" or freezing in Open lobby section is pushing me to not play online.. so i drive GT alot less.. dont understand why PD cant fix those issues after a year it got better but I still get dissconected every 2 hours, and get freezed every time I refresh Open internet lobby... (my internet is epic fast, I have no problems with any game, I have setted up router 100% right, my connection is very good..) but I still have those problems (only in Gran Turismo)

forgot to mention Im using fake account.. I cant register my real country in GT ( almost half of the world cant register in PSN) so I use Finland and I am from Latvia (europe), and GT allways says to me Time and date is incorrect... becosue my PS3 time I changed to my real local time.. but GT thinks Im from Finland... Stupid I know... thanks Sony for this!
 
I urge you guys to vist our "club" of casual racers. All aids are option & we use all tires and really mix it up... we have no pro's or guys who take it too seriously so I think it's perfect!

The link is in my sig block :)

C.R.A.P :)
 
I swap between gt5 and cod about 3 times a day. And i race online exclusively. Just look for some restrictions you want and try to look for your friends or "the regulars". I have no problem finding clean rooms. The jerks get booted eventually and its good practice to learn how to drive with those idiots. Teaches defensive driving. Lil early braking to get them off your tail.
 

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