Some things to think about after racing was either completed or abandoned on 15 DEC 2013
Open lobbies may not be the best way to go.
One of the reasons we may be using open lobbies is, so other people can see the snailracing.org address. The intent for that is for them to go there and be linked to our GTPLanet thread. If they like what they see there, they can request to join the league. The problem with this is, instead of going to the addess in the lobby comment, they're joining the room. Any other night of the week this would not likely be much of a problem. On Sunday nights however, we are under a fairly tight schedule and don't have time to explain the situation to every random wanting to check us out. If we boot them without explanation, we just come off as lobby Nazis and that won't help advertising the SNAIL way either.
While I understand that using the snailracing.org in the room comment is easy advertising and the suggestion was made for folks that didn't have their PSN or GTP IDs in their driver names to announce they are snail racers. Neither method of identification is adequate to keep things running smoothly. In the case of the latter, if someone does catch that particular bit about announcing they are a snail racer and hasn't been vetted by the customary join league procedure, they can get in the room and pose as a snail racer. If it's not caught, they will essentially steal points from genuine SNAILs.
Until Polyphony Digital and Sony provide us with better tools to manage our Sunday race rooms I propose the following;
- Continue with the December season as a month long Test Season and resume the full on for points and prizes in January. Consider this month's points a season of dress rehearsals. There are only 2 left anyway.
- Designate a primary and secondary host/director for every division.
- Until such time that PD and Sony provide more robust tools for our type of racing, all Sunday lobbies will be run as Friends Only. Room to be set Friends Only, no earlier than 9:15 Eastern and reverted to Open Lobby at the discretion of members remaining in room after racing has ended.
- All division members are to send both hosts a friend request. This should amount to, on average, about 20+-5 drivers from any given division.
- Unless otherwise announced, that one or the other will not be there, all division members will wait until both primary and secondary hosts are in the room before joining. This is so, if the primary host gets DCed, the secondary can pick up the ball and run with it, without having to rebuild the room immediately. If the secondary host gets DCed, at that point a room rebuild is indicated and should start with the primary host and secondary as the first two in.
- All SNAILs must, not should, must, use their PSN IDs, (which is what the scoring sheets run off of and the scorekeepers and room directors use to identify you within the league) as their last names.
- If your PSN ID is longer than 12 characters, make your last name field as close as you can get it.
- The point here is so the hosts and scorekeepers can, at a glance, match your name on the sheet to your name in the room without any back and forth whatsoever.
- With this in place, if you refuse to change your driver name, the host will de-friend you and you'll be booted from the room.
Should the league at large not wish to adopt these measures for next week, I have it from some of the Division 2 drivers, and certainly from the D2 GM, that we will offer to test out the above list and report back.
While I'm sure zer0 and kcheeb are already thinking of ways to alleviate some of the frustration felt by many drivers, they are in no way responsible for the poor performance of Gran Turismo's servers. I believe we can, as a league, say we've seriously load tested Gran Turismo 6's online capabilities.
Some other thoughts about setting up league night.
Limit rooms to 12 or 14 drivers. This would obviously require an adjustment in divisional placements and might also require adding that fabled Division 6, Adventuruss, OwensRacing and AJKVail speak of in hushed tones.
It might also be better for lag if the room audio is set to standard or lower. While I'm sure everyone just loves to hear every burp, fart, gearshift and go fast pedal slam, I would think it wouldn't be a priority when stood up against your car behaving as you expect it to.
To all the folks in D2, did I leave anything out?
(I logged on about an hour ago to do a bit more with the licenses...just started IB)
Here's hoping that next week goes smoother. 👍
