Not sure what made you feel this series was ever designed for the "casual" gamer. It certainly is not IMO. Many drivers take this series fairly seriously.
There are tons of other series around GTPlanet one can join for a more casual and relaxed racing atmosphere. Like Turtle Racing League for example! Or Snail. Look them up. 👍 great groups of guys who have some great racing every week.
The racing itself I take seriously. I practice my butt off when I find the time and I tune the car the best I can with the help of my teammates. I have no doubt people take the racing seriously, and I personally wouldn't want to hop in the car without sufficient practice. I've debated wanting a wheel as well, but it has what I believe is an increasingly short life span (like any other product these days) and a lack of sufficient funds and income on my part. The T300 does seem like a good option considering it's compatible with PC, PS3, and PS4. But as I've hard a lot throughout my life, money is everything.
I feel a series as widespread and popular as this one, on a console based game that was designed for casual and hardcore players alike, should have a system where both are happy and can enjoy the racing. This is a series promoted by GTPlanet, a public forum, after all. I would consider myself somewhere in between of casual and hardcore at this stage, as I'm sure a lot of others here would too, hence why everyone doesn't abandon the series to tackle GT Academy every year.
I know that AJ wants this series to be super-ultra-OMG realistic to what we would experience in real life motorsport but I believe we need to find an acceptable balance between real-world levels of competitiveness and modest, driver-friendly racing.
Please don't get me wrong, I love the organization and thought that was put into this, and I do try the best I absolutely can. However when players and teams are denied opportunities to race based on their 1-lap pace, forced to adapt to new rules and regulations on a regular basis, and are concerned about if they'll have to go on hiatus in the middle of a season due to hardware changes among other things, it becomes less and less welcoming to new drivers who may not have the money, time, or raw pace to actually be able to race and enjoy themselves. This is my concern with where we are headed. In the end this isn't real life, it's a game. I don't think we need any more complications than we absolutely need to run the races themselves and be fair.
Obviously, this is my opinion and I understand if others are in different situations and feel differently. I'd just like to have a place where things are serious, but not to the point where you need to be political and militant to convince a team to "risk" having you on and participating in general.
TL;DR - I believe we're extremely close to, if not crossed already, the imaginary line between an acceptable amount of realism and being TOO realistic. We don't need to be so overbearing to have fun, competitive, and quality racing.
/rant --- I think I've made my point clear enough. Where the series actually goes appears to be in AJ's hands alone and we'll have to trust him to make the choices that will work for both the drivers and the series as a whole. Cheers and have a nice morning/day/evening/night.
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