.: WSGTC Frequently Asked Questions :.
by Edward Gomez | Wardez
First of all, Masi has done as best a job as he can in thoroughly explaining all aspects of the championship. These methods are tried and true and have been proven on the track over the last year in the buildup to this season 3.
So it's up to you to also do your best not only in driving but in comprehending the information provided and making all efforts necessary to know the process before finally getting on the track.
This is not a drop in and race series.
Repeat, you should not consider joining this championship if you plan on simply showing up on race day to have a good time. There's way too much work put in for it to be a casual series.
A quick few basic FAQ answers:
1. Can I find this race in GT? I can't find it in the seasonal events.
2. I just signed up, now what do I do, did I win?
3. What's PAL and NTSC "conferences"?
4. Am I a GT500 or GT300?
5. Can I join this series without having any DLC?
6. Do I need a wheel to be in this series?
7. Do I need all of the Super GT cars to join?
8. Is it possible for me to join this series? I just got the game.
9. I'm new, can I be a "steward"?
10. Why are there two threads, where do I ask questions?
11. So is this qualifying me for the first race or is this just to get into the series itself?
12. Fine then, what happens after the qualifier is "done"?
13. So can I "qualify" on my own then give you my time or something?
14. Do I need to ask Masi before I qualify?
15. If I can't add a steward on PSN, how do I find the rooms?
16. When can I qualify?
17. How does deadline work?
18. What if I get dropped from a room where someone's hosting qualifying or I can't join a certain room?
19. Can I just set up a room and invite a steward in?
20. Can I bring my friend into the room to qualify with me and can others qualify with me on track at the same time?
21. How come the stewards don't answer my questions I send them on PSN?
22. Hey I joined a room with my other PSN tag and they keep kicking me from the qualifying rooms.
23. What if I saw someone cut the track and the steward didn't say anything?
24. Where can I find official times?
25. Lol I had tire wear off, still ok?
26. Who needs to have my replay?
27. How do you know if someone is cheating during the regular season?
28.Can I tell people my tunes and times?
29. Is there anyway possible to avoid the qualifier and race in WSGTC 3 at a later time?
Answers:
1. Can I find this race in GT? I can't find it in the seasonal events.
No, this championship is not a seasonal GT event. It is in no way officially affiliated with Gran Turismo, Polyphony Digital, Sony, Super GT, or Nissan.
It is completely community derived so any help we get in the way of assisting others or providing us with feedback and allowing us to clear up any rules, processes or regulations goes a long way in making this series a success. It is completely run in GT5 through public racing lobbies.
2. I just signed up, now what do I do, did I win?
No. But you're a winner in my eyes. The racing itself hasn't even started yet!
The qualifier is open starting now, and will be open till January 2nd 2012! So that means that you should start practicing, you have a good solid month ahead of you to get your driving dialed in. Squeeze out every possible fraction of a second you can because once deadline hits, you'll see just how competitive this unprecedented series is. No need to rush your qualifying and try out this week or anything, you have plenty of time to get to know the series, the cars, figure out what you might like best, etc. After qualifying's over, the car selection process will begin, where fastest pick first. More details on that later. After that, the full schedule with dates will be announced and you can start preparing your cars for the first round if you made the "cut."
3. What's PAL and NTSC "conferences"?
This is just to reference the two fields of competition in the World Super GT Championship. PAL and NTSC are region encodings specific to certain countries. You don't need to necessarily be in PAL in order to be in the PAL conference/division, it's just a sort of recommendation according to what time the PAL conference race is held in comparison to the NTSC which are European and American-centric, respectively. So either pick the NTSC or PAL conference depending on which time suits you best.
4. Am I a GT500 or GT300?
Not all of us got to pick our class in life once we were born into this world, but you'll get to pick yours in WSGTC! You're free to choose either, but you can't do both. The qualifier is done exactly the same by both GT500 and GT300 drivers.
5. Can I join this series without having any DLC?
You are not required to buy any DLC for the qualifier but it would be a good idea to buy the track pack DLC in order to make both rounds at Spa although it's not absolutely necessary as every one will drop their two worst rounds at the end of the season. Only eight out of the ten races, your best, will count toward the championship. So missing the two Spa races puts you at a certain disadvantage.
6. Do I need a wheel to be in this series?
No you do not, a lot of our fastest drivers are proficient controller pad drivers. Of course the grand prize doesn't come with a wheel though, so that's something to worry about after becoming champion
7. Do I need all of the Super GT cars to join?
No, but it'd be a good idea to buy at least one from all of the four modern main GT500 or at least three of each of the main GT300 car type Super GT cars featured in our series depending on which class you'd like to join.
8. Is it possible for me to join this series? I just got the game.
You need to be at least level 20 in Gran Turismo 5 in order to be eligible to buy Super GT cars, so you'll need to level up as soon as possible in order to get started.
9. I'm new, can I be a "steward"?
Stewards are long time veterans of WSGTC, the online community or trusted responsible individuals we know will be dedicated to making this series the best it can be. This isn't saying you aren't one, but since you are new, we'll have to see how you handle the series then we will add new stewards over time as the series goes on.
10. Why are there two threads, where do I ask questions?
The
"Main Thread", is the main discussion forum for the whole Championship as a whole.
The
"Qualifier Thread" is strictly for discussing the qualifier and for stewards to post times.
11. So is this qualifying me for the first race or is this just to get into the series itself?
Yes, this is a qualifier for entry into the series as a whole. As in, a pre-screening of drivers that will cut the registered pool of drivers down to 120. Just like GT Academy or GTP Weekly Race Series divisioning and the like. Think of the qualifier as time trials, try outs or auditions. It's not about who can submit their time in fastest. A person who submitted a time today will be treated the same as someone who's submitted a time a minute before deadline.
This is not qualifying for a race, but qualifying in order to get a chance to race.
Don't worry about being "slow" as there is a place for every one, we're about fun over pure speed.
We only say "qualifying" in order to refer to the "qualifier" as a verb form.
12. Fine then, what happens after the qualifier is "done"?
After the qualifying deadline is met, the stewards will have a meeting to confirm all the times and ranking. We will contact all successfully qualified drivers through private messages here on GT Planet. NOTE: if your private message inbox on GTP is full. We will not be held responsible for missing your follow up on qualifying. Any one that does not respond to the post-qualifying contact will be effectively dropped from the running. We will not contact you through PSN or through E-mail, only GTP PM's. Do not send us your E-mail.
After that, the times will be finalized and posted in the main thread and submission thread. Then the car and team selection process will commence. More details on this process will be posted soon.
13. So can I "qualify" on my own then give you my time or something?
No, all qualifying must be done on-line and in the presence of one of our stewards. That means any time, as long as you get a hold of one of us. We have the good fortune of having dedicated stewards from all over the world willing to host sessions at their best convenience during most days.
Yet also realize that any room opened by a steward, unless specifically stated otherwise, will also act as a practice room where casual races, discussions and simply getting to know your fellow racers will be taken advantage of.
14. Do I need to ask Masi before I qualify?
You don't need permission from Masi or any admins in order to get your qualifying session in order as long as it's a steward that's hosting the room. You only need to get a hold of a steward through either posting in the main thread or PM'ing a steward on GTP. Do not add any of the stewards on PSN (a lot of us have almost full friends lists and can not possibly add all registered drivers in WSGTC) unless you have express permission, do not expect any stewards to respond to PSN messages. They are only required to look for private messages for setting up qualifying sessions.
15. If I can't add a steward on PSN, how do I find the rooms?
All stewards will always post room numbers to their qualifying rooms in the main thread. Use this to join the public lobbies. Qualifying rooms will never be hosted in lounges.
16. When can I qualify?
At any time as long as one of the stewards is awake and responds to your request. Spamming a qualifying request is discouraged and will put you in a bad light. If you can not get qualified at a certain hour, you will eventually.
17. How does deadline work?
The deadline is a set time: December 23rd, 2011 at Midnight GMT.
This only means that no one can enter a room after Midnight strikes to qualify. If you are in a room that opened before midnight GMT on January 2nd. The steward may start your actual run past midnight, the only stipulation is that you must have been IN the room BEFORE Midnight GMT practicing and start the session before thirty minutes past Midnight GMT, which is a grace period.
18. What if I get dropped from a room where someone's hosting qualifying or I can't join a certain room?
You can ask for another steward to host a separate room. More than one official qualifying room can also be up at any given time. There needn't be only one.
19. Can I just set up a room and invite a steward in?
You're not allowed to host your own room then "invite" a steward to view your run. All aspects of the session, from room opening to session start must be conducted via steward.
Also, a steward may qualify themselves as long as they are present in the room with another registered driver. An additional steward is not needed.
20. Can I bring my friend into the room to qualify with me and can others qualify with me on track at the same time?
More than one person can qualify on track at the same time. Though due to us doing the actual session in race mode, this means that there must be a large enough gap between drivers so that drafting is not a factor.
Anyone can spectate the qualifier sessions, just remember to have the tag "WSGTC" in your room join auto-message or else you'll be kicked.
21. How come the stewards don't answer my questions I send them on PSN?
We do not effectively communicate through the Playstation Network. Now this is a big one: do not send messages over PSN to stewards or officials for questions or to set up a room. This is not a reliable method of communication for our series as some stewards use PSN differently than others.
22. Hey I joined a room with my other PSN tag and they keep kicking me from the qualifying rooms.
You can not qualify under any other PSN tag other than the one you intend to race with. You must put " WSGTC" in your room auto-join message in order to not be kicked from qualifying lobbies.
23. What if I saw someone cut the track and the steward didn't say anything?
Submit a report by PM'ing one of the stewards, preferably the one that watched the session itself. They will check their replay for any illegal actions. If this doesn't solve it, get the attention of an admin.
24. Where can I find official times?
All times will be posted in the "**Submission Thread**" thread for easy viewing. They will be updated every day with new times as they're submitted.
Please do not message the admins if you don't see your time up yet for some reason, this does not mean you're disqualified.
25. Lol I had tire wear off, still ok?
If a qualifier has been run with any room settings incorrect any time submitted will be revoked and you will get another chance at qualifying. It is the responsibility of the steward to correctly set up the room and qualifying environment.
26. Who needs to have my replay?
All replays must be saved by as many of the participants of a session as possible just in case any problems come up later on. This is so we have references to investigate any problems. But it's not a requirement. All stewards are required to save replays. Replays will be shared among the admins and stewards but there is the factor of region coding that comes into it. Only people with NTSC discs can watch NTSC derived replays the same as PAL so you'll need to note that if you ever offer a replay file or request one from someone. If you need to learn how to export GT replay files to a computer, please fer to
this link, in which the WRS describes how to export GT5 replay files starting from step two.
27. How do you know if someone is cheating during the regular season?
Absolutely no upgrading beyond the stated WSGTC machine specifications what so ever is allowed. We have a year of experience in catching illegal mods. Engine upgrades change your RPM profile, turbo chargers show up on the HUD as a boost pressure gauge. If you have a car that has been maxed out, do not attempt to dial back your car in order to meet spec. . You will be caught and this is highly discouraged. If you feel iffy at all about your car, buy a new one!
Full car selection details will be announced soon so start breaking in your favorite car and a few back ups (it takes 186 miles on the in-game car's odometer in order to be fully broken in and have full power).
28.Can I tell people my tunes and times?
Tunes, sector times, track approaches, strategies, are all free to be shared. Confedintiality is striclty up to you, you can choose to share or not share whatever you want and no one can tell you otherwise. But every one is encouraged to discuss the series and their attitudes towards it in order to make this series as comfortable as possible considering the large driver base.
29. Is there anyway possible to avoid the qualifier and race in WSGTC 3 at a later time?
Sorry, no.