What a frustrating beginning we've had last night... One hour and a half gone with disconnections, restarts, new lobbies, host change and so on. You start cursing at everything related to Sony, PD and Japan. But then the race finally starts and you end up at Kesselchen section, game clock at 21.30, and you regret blaming the day you've bought GT6. Night falling, red tail lights in the distance of the couple of drivers in front, on your sides the barriers are illuminated by the lights of the car closely following you, white and orange clouds in the sky, the sun sinking under the mountains behind giving the track a fantastic faint light. A few minutes later in the lap, you can barely see the corner at Schwalbenschwanz, you've got to slow down more than usual on the entry because the last visible bit of the sun is right in your face. 2 corners and 10 seconds further, it's pitch black at Galgenkopf. That's why I love this game, I think the atmosphere is a big part of the involvement a videogame provides, and the atmosphere in GT6 (especially at the Ring) is simply unbeatable.
This makes me think; is it possible that connection issues are increased by some tracks? I'm an incompetent in these things, but if you think about it during a race like the one we've had last night, we've got:
-several cars with great detailing both aesthetic and in terms of handling and behavior.
-a huge, complicated track with perfectly realized surroundings, as well as all the hundreds of bumps and slopes of the track itself
-again, a huge and complicated weather and time system which affects perfectly and constantly the track, the curbs, the trees, the buildings, the cars etc etc.
-a...thing that records the replay of the whole race, complete with all the data details like sector times, etc.
-some other things we don't notice
I mean, there'a massive amount of stuff to held for a single connection, I think. Ok, all of it was in GT5 too, but not so detailed. There's also this recent article:
https://www.gtplanet.net/digital-foundry-finds-gran-turismo-6-pushes-ps3-to-the-limit/
Maybe it's just a coincidence, but the only race without huge connection issues we've had, if I'm not wrong, was the one in Tsukuba. Which is a short, simple and "standard" track, upscaled from GT4 and without time change. An hour later, same host and same players, at Brands Hatch; brand new, very detailed track with time and weather change. The result was people being disconnected since qualifying.
About the race not a lot to say, I've enjoyed it. I've had trouble finding a good car until the qualifying began, but the RX7 was a good choice, not the fastest but gradual on the limit and gentle with tires. I've had a good start, and after a couple of laps with Least slowly but constantly gaining tenth after tenth and Vuja very close to me, I was comfortably in 3rd place. Then Least had some offs and did his pit-stop. At this point I was 2nd with a big margin. I knew that he was faster than me, so the only way to stay in front of him was to avoid pit-stops. After 3 laps of decent pace, I've made a couple of mistakes with tires by now at 6, losing probably more than 20 seconds. Least overtook me on the last lap, he was just too fast for me, especially with really worn tires. Toni, well...last time I've saw him was at first corner after the start. Congratulations to him and to everyone, especially for the patience at the beginning.
So, what with messing around for an hour with getting everyone together, and then having to run into the wild garden during the qualifier to get the trampoline out of the neighbours garden, and have a rapid debate/greenhouse assessment/apology/partial trampoline disassembly session - I'm quite happy with finally coming second. At the start of the race I'd just run up stairs, I was out of breath and distracted; I was all over the place GT wise, no concentration, leaving the circuit at every other corner, I thought that it was all pretty much over.
And my car was in a hopeless state tyre wise after 4 laps, they only had lost 2 bars in wear, but the car was a proper handful towards the end. Did Toni stop? If not, I'm amazed. He might have stopped on lap 6, but I'm not sure.
Yes, Toni made a pit-stop, probably on lap 6.
I hope it's all ok with weather and damages. I couldn't help but laughing after your message about the neighbours garden during qualifying. I can't remember what you've written but it was funny to see some humour and the smiley emoticon after telling the damages the wind was doing. Great spirit in difficult moments:tup:
Shame we didn't have elen, but a) it would just have been one more person to get connected, and b) if he's actually gone to the actual Nordschliefe, I don't think he'll mind missing it!
I really hope he's enjoying his trip, but...
http://20832.com/?rubrik=wetter&lang=eng