GTP Online Racing Bureau (GTP ORB) Now Hiring!

  • Thread starter gogatrs
  • 1,489 comments
  • 47,902 views
@StigsHero, being on call is exactly what we need. You don't have to be all the time, but it would be nice if there were at least one official online at all times, hence why we need so many.
 
I'm writing of the exact right now but this is the gist of the time trial format.

Registered guy jumps into a room with a testing admin. The admin. starts a five lap race. The first lap is a warm up, and then the driver goes for the best total time he can possibly get over the remaining four laps.

In order to get that total time the admin. just takes the total race time and subtracts the first warm up lap time from it.

That's basically what I had in mind for this, though I was thinking more along the lines of your traditional best time out of 5 laps format. No math involved!


That sounds good. It seemed like just 1 or 2 members were going to set times and that would be the decider. An average would work out best, just take a little more work but sounds solid. 👍


11pm EST tonight I will have a lobby open. Shoot me a friend request on PSN and we can get together as a group (provided I can get y'all to hop in) and decide on the specific car/track combos, then again as a group run some hot laps and see where we stand with them.


1. You should have at least settled all the details before posting a thread in the regular "Racing Series" section. People should be able to read the first page to see what all the regulations, specs, etc., are. The way it is, you have to read through 700+ posts only to find out that the organizers still haven't worked out the details. Maybe it should be in "interest check" until you have it ready to implement.

Not entirely sure why this thread is in the racing section just yet, and why this conversation is being held in it. I opened up the social group here just to try to avoid blowing up this forum and to reserve the main thread for official decisions.

A lot of people are going to have a problem with any group that just decided to be the "authority" on how online racing should be. I see this as your biggest hurdle. If you can't get the respect of a majority of the people, then who is going to take your organization seriously? You have to realize that a vast majority of people do not know who any of you are, and therefore have no reason to allow you to judge them. Personally I've been in a lot of online racing series since GT5 came out and there are only a couple of people in your list of officers that I know anything about. There are also a couple on that list that would completely eliminate this whole idea from any consideration. Your officers need to have the respect of the general community, and a "legend in my own mind" attitude is not the way to get that respect.

One thing you may not have noticed is that this is strictly under a volunteer basis. We won't make any attempts to force ourselves on any series that doesn't agree or feel the need to include us. We are not going to change the rules set up for any series aside from the incident review system and the option for the series Admin to use our license system.


3. A good idea looks like it just snowballed into an overly complicated mess, mainly due to way too many people trying to run things. Start out simple, once you earn some respect, you can slowly implement more changes.
I somewhat agree with you here. We all have the general concept, but are trying to rush into this. Let's slow down, take a breather, and go at it like before. One thing on the list at a time.



4. Any one involved in this should not be a major part of any racing series of their own. Surely you can see a problem with this?

I think it is our involvement with racing series that gives us credibility. If one should question our, I don't want to use the word leadership....uhm..governing? abilities, they can go take a look at what we are doing in our own series. Now that being said, the Admin of any given series has no say in the incident reviewal of his series.



Sorry for the extended message, but there were a lot of points to cover!
 
Was thinking this morning that I could volunteer to be the person who looks at custom tracks before they are used, if we really need such a person. I'm really good at making realistic tracks and know what it takes to make one. I spent almost 4 hours on my last one making slight corrections and testing each time. Those that have been on some of my tracks can vouch for this I hope.
 
R1600Turbo
Was thinking this morning that I could volunteer to be the person who looks at custom tracks before they are used, if we really need such a person. I'm really good at making realistic tracks and know what it takes to make one. I spent almost 4 hours on my last one making slight corrections and testing each time. Those that have been on some of my tracks can vouch for this I hope.

I know what you're capable of. ;)
You are going to be one of those people when we implement that feature.
But we're not going to do that just yet...
 
Merry Christmas :)
This is all original content written by me. Read it all!:


1) Racing incident review and inspection.

2) License administration

3) ORB Institute for Driver Excellence Academy (ORB IDEA)

4) Racing series development package (.rar start up kit)

5) Racing event inspection and ORB Tiered certification

6) Standardized racing regulations and penalty structure.

7) Promotion and grading of event dates and race courses.

8) Vehicle homologation


Jobs (keep in mind, any one can volunteer for any of these):

Racing incident steward -
(judge pretty much). Would investigate and handle all aspects of a
racing incident review along with many other co-operating stewards in order
to come to a final agreed upon course of action to suggest to the
racing series organizer.

License test administrators - Dish out the tests. Tell us what times
you're available to test people and give us your E-mail so we can add
you to the registration database here: http://bit.ly/ORBsignup
They will be responsible for keeping
track of each person they test by keeping a record and inputting the
results of the sessions in the testing database.

Review commitee members - An "RCM" will also be part of a group of
people that will review different submitted racing series and
collaborate with other RCMs in order to come to a final rating. The
original RCM that picked up the specific series registration will also stay in
contact and ask questions to the series organizer in order to
finalize the process.

Google Doc's Editor - Just need an E-mail to add you. These people will
need to be very familiar with Google Doc's Spreadsheets and their
functionality in order to help train other people volunteering for ORB learn their way and assist in maintaining the various
spreadhseets we use in ORB.

Promoter - Help us grow and stay in good standing. Go out and PM
people for anything and everything. Call yourself a promoter of ORB.

I.D.E.A Driving Instructor - Instructors will set up their own
workshops which they will announce in the ORB thread. These workshops
can be scheduled or put-on on impulse but the structure is totally up to the
instructor on what will be focused on and taught.

Homologation tester - Once we reach the stage of homologation of cars
for despensing of suggested balanced performance values for use in
racing series we will need a group of dedicated drivers in order to
test different specifications for vehicles in order to maintain them
all on a closely performing balance of power reflected in average
lap times. You will need to supply your E-mail address in order to be
added to a spreadsheet where test results will be submitted and
archived.

Press/article writer - This job is for the journalist in you. People
who are interested in interviewing and reporting on all the aspects of
ORB and its sanctioned series can help us here. Approved writers will
have full creative freedom in letting people know what racing in ORB
is all about. Series of the week, interview with series organizers and
race winners or champions, articles on the history of GT5 racing
online, tabloids, scandals etc.

Livestreamer (just me right now with my PVR, hah) - People with streaming/capture
devices are all welcome to post their livestream channels and
volunteer their time in being official race series observers by
streaming and covering a scheduled ORB race live!



1: Racing incident review and inspection -

1.1.Incident scrutinizing and review is a voluntary process. Any
registered ORB participant, organizer or not, may apply for racing
incident review. All application for review of accidents, incidents,
collisions, penalties, or exploitations will be considered for
immediate review. All incidents must be submitted in the format
provided through the official 'Racing Review Request' or "Triple R"
form linked in the home Online Racing Bureau thread.

1.2. The process begins when a qualified steward offers to pick up a
case. He begins the quick review cycle, which is validation of the
submission, by making sure that all requested information is met. If
all factors are not submitted the steward will contact the applicant
and solicit the required information until it is met. The cycle does
not continue until then.

1.3. After validation the steward is required to engage the review
with two other stewards in order to begin the inspection stage.
Inspection follows guidelines set forth by the sanctioning body in
order to fairly judge a racing incident, place blame, and recommend a
course of action to discipline the driver put to blame in the matter,
whether plaintiff or defendant.

1.4. Due to the nature of the PlayStation Network and Gran Turismo 5's
online racing environment the ORB does not settle social disputes or
matters of personal offense. Only racing incidents on track that are
verifiable through replays will be considered.

1.5. Materials required to qualify for full incident evaluation:
a. Short summary describing the event

b. Exported .rpy file from the race event in question. If it is at all
suspected that the incident was caused not due to driver error but
network instability a .rpy from the defendant must be received in
order to be accepted for review and to successfully settle all disputes.

c. Names of both drivers

d. Date incident occurred

e. Lap on which the incident occurred

f. Race series

Optional:
g. Witness testimony giving an alternative subjective interpretation of the incident.



2: License administration -
Note: All new registrants are automatically given a "beginner" license. This is so that some series that opt to not require license testing may still be ORB sanctioned and qualify for all services but accept drivers more freely.

2.1. These are the testing formats for each license level:
a. Amateur - CAR on TRACK : TARGET TIME
b. Intermediate - CAR on TRACK : TARGET TIME
c. Advanced - CAR on TRACK : TARGET TIME

2.2. The Online Racing Bureau distributes its own online racing
licenses for the purpose of quickly identifying participating drivers'
racing skill based against a series of tests that are administered by
ORB stewards.

2.3. All testing is done through online racing lobbies, this is to
avoid the practice of needing to "add" PlayStation Network tags in order to
use private lounges. Tests consist of time trials set in different
scenarios using the supplied recommended online car garage and tracks
featured in Gran Turismo 5.

2.4. The testing process takes place as follows:
a. Test room event settings - Game Mode: Normal Race, Number of laps: 5, Start Type: Grid Start, Boost: Off, Penalty: Weak, Grip Reduction on Wet Track/Track Edge: Real, Mechanical Damage: Heavy, Tire Wear/Fuel Consumption: Off.

b. All prospective license holders are required to first submit their intent by completing the required registration form linked to in the
home thread of the ORB.

c. In order to pass a test the driver must successfully meet a
required target total time by beating it in a time trial set over 5 laps.

d. A testing administrator will evaluate the registration of the driver applicant and contact
the registrant to arrange a testing session.

e. Testing resumes in a Gran Turismo 5 online racing lobby.

f. The driver will be asked by the steward to enter the track. The
admin. will start the 5 lap race.

g. The driver will begin his warm up lap then commence his four lap
time trial.

h. No talking will be allowed once the session starts, vocal or text.
Although there will be certain distracting circumstances beyond the control of the testing
administrator. This is due to the online nature of Gran Turismo 5.

i. We face no responsibility for any other players joining the room, invited or otherwise,
during a session send a message before an administrator is able to kick the player out of the room.
Part of the test is whether a driver can manage himself well under
these various pressures.

j. Once the player has completed the test the administrator will
tabulate the times then inform the driver of his provisional time.

k. Further verification of the submitted test time will be done and
the result will be a private message to the testing driver informing
him whether he/she passed or failed.

l. If a driver has passed he will be given the opportunity to test on
the same day for a higher license. All the same regulations will apply
as usual.



2.5. Terms of testing quality acceptance.

a. If all regular rule and network conditions are met, the test will
go ahead. If for any reason the administrator notices a delay in start
due to network lag or other irregularity judged to be significant by
the steward all testing will be discontinued until the problems are
corrected and a new room/connection to the host is deemed by the
admin. to be viable for testing.

b. All testing room conditions must be exactly correct and
corresponding session replays must saved in order to be confirmed and
accepted as an official testing session.

c. Cutting corners, using restricted run off or other areas outside
the track boundaries will immediately disqualify the testing driver.
The driver will be denied another chance and must wait 24 hours from
the start of the last attempt in order to try again.
They will not have any previously awarded licenses remitted.

d. No inflicted accidents due to driver error will disqualify the
driver unless they themselves voluntarily disconnect or other wise
stop the testing session.



2.6. Higher race performance based license levels:

a. In addition to the three aforementioned license levels there are
three more "A Class" licenses.

b. To begin your way to an A Class license, you must first pass and
achieve an Advanced license.

c. To achieve an Intermediate A Class license you must undisputedly
win one ORB sanctioned race where at least seven other drivers
finished the race with you. This is to achieve an Intermediate A Class
license.

d. To achieve an Advanced A Class license you must undisputedly win
four ORB sanctioned races where at least seven other drivers finished
the race with you. This is to achieve an Intermediate A Class license.

e. A Super license is granted once you've been confirmed to be the
undisputed champion in a GTP ORB sanctioned racing series with a
racing schedule of more than five races spread over at least four
weeks.

f. All race wins, podiums, and pole positions are required to be
reported by your racing organizer to the Bureau to be recorded in a
master list of ORB driver statistics. These will be used in order to verify
each win needed to complete A class licenses.



3: Racing event inspection and ORB Tiered certification -

3.1. Series rating structure:
a. The ORB rates participating racing series on a Tier based system.
This starts at the ultimate rating being Tier 1 reserved for the most
elite to a Tier 4 which is a placeholder that serves to indicate to
the organizer that their series, as it stands, is not fit enough for
good, fun, and consistent racing. All parties will be given a full
personalized report on exactly why they got a certain rating by a ORB
review committee member.

b. Only review committee members are authorized to distribute the
"Tier bubble" badges that all certified series are encouraged to
display prominently on their series original post. Do not display a
tier rating until specified to do so in a PM by a committee member.

c. You are not absolutely required to display this rating but we will
keep a database of all registered racing series for
archival/statistical purposes.

d. Tier ratings and license levels do not correlate unless you want
them to. Series organizers are allowed to accept any and all licensees
in any combination they do so desire.


Orb licenses:















ORB Tier Bubble badges [fixed]:






and the brand spanking new awesomeness that is the T1 ribbon:


This is the new certification ribbon that all ORB series will put at the top left corner of their op (might need tweaking for correct placement):


and this is the new logo -

Big:


Condensed:


Big no stripe:


No stripe condensed:


Standard avatar:


Premium avatar:
 
Last edited:
Second that R1600.
And I would like to do some testing along with you.
Maybe I can use some of my real world experience to help here.

Nice Wardez. I think that needs to be placed in the OP and in the social club. That, other than the license testing, and the online factor is very much reminiscent of our rules in the VDCA. I will keep my hat in for license testing, but we still gotta get organized here in setting times. I also want to throw my name in for homologation testing and driving school. I am admittedly not that great with the technical aspects of organization, but I am fine being a guinea pig for you guys.

Question on the certification logo. Will that effectively take up the first couple lines of the OP, or will it allow for the headline to be next to it there? Just thinkin aesthetically.

And, with the licenses, where would said emblems go? Are we to construct driver profiles at some point?
 
Last edited:
So I'm not the judging person anymore? Nice work Wardez. I had just volunteered to head that section and from the description you had it seems like I can't.
 
Very nice Wardez, you've got everything cleaned up and organized. Most of my concerns are addressed with your post, hopefully everyone will be onboard with that.

Just to be clear (for me and anyone else) we can have our league/club sanctioned by the ORB (meaning it meets certain criteria that have been agreed upon to produce good, consistent racing) but we do not need to require our participants to have a certain license, or any license at all. Correct? I think that helps clear up the "people won't want you telling them what to do" concerns that a select few have expressed.

For example, the Capp Cup could be a Tier "X" series that doesn't require members to have a license, so new-comers can know (at a glance) that there is a certain quality of racing to be had but they won't be expected to meet any qualifications. Or the series director could chose to require participants to hold a certain license so they know only a certain level of driver quality will be in the league.

If I'm misunderstanding anything let me know.
 
Second that R1600.
And I would like to do some testing along with you.
Maybe I can use some of my real world experience to help here.

Nice Wardez. I think that needs to be placed in the OP and in the social club. That, other than the license testing, and the online factor is very much reminiscent of our rules in the VDCA. I will keep my hat in for license testing, but we still gotta get organized here in setting times. I also want to throw my name in for homologation testing and driving school. I am admittedly not that great with the technical aspects of organization, but I am fine being a guinea pig for you guys.

Question on the certification logo. Will that effectively take up the first couple lines of the OP, or will it allow for the headline to be next to it there? Just thinkin aesthetically.

And, with the licenses, where would said emblems go? Are we to construct driver profiles at some point?

There's still a lot to be added but this thing I wrote up serves as ORB's base structure for itself.

The cert. ribbon is still sort of a WIP. It'd be cool if you could test it for me by trying to place it in your OP. I'll probably end up adding an invisible buffer to try and let people set their banners on the same level as the ribbon.

Those license tabs are for anyone to use however they want. I'm still planning on making an avatar icon style license thing so people can display their ORB license level in their avatars.

Wardez! Holy crap. :lol:

Edit: Tier 2 logo added to FMSC thread.

Thanks, looks kewl :D

So I'm not the judging person anymore? Nice work Wardez. I had just volunteered to head that section and from the description you had it seems like I can't.
Where in the description does it state that there's no heads?

You can definitely still be the head of judging. I'm just not exactly sure what that would entail. As I have it laid out in my write-up it's a total collaboration I just left out anything about organization hierarchy 'cause honestly, I don't believe we're at that stage where it's necessary yet.
 
So I'm not the judging person anymore? Nice work Wardez. I had just volunteered to head that section and from the description you had it seems like I can't.

Where do you see that? I don't see any names listed in his post, just descriptions of each job...

Edit: Tree'd.
 
I'm assuming that you can still be the "head" steward. I mean for every branch of "government" there needs to be a man in charge.
 
10-4.
This needs to be in the OP, along with the stipulation that it is subject to updates (ie. official times for licenses etc)

I will go ahead and post the emblem in my league's OP and see how it works out and report back here shortly.
 
Very nice Wardez, you've got everything cleaned up and organized. Most of my concerns are addressed with your post, hopefully everyone will be onboard with that.

Just to be clear (for me and anyone else) we can have our league/club sanctioned by the ORB (meaning it meets certain criteria that have been agreed upon to produce good, consistent racing) but we do not need to require our participants to have a certain license, or any license at all. Correct? I think that helps clear up the "people won't want you telling them what to do" concerns that a select few have expressed.

For example, the Capp Cup could be a Tier "X" series that doesn't require members to have a license, so new-comers can know (at a glance) that there is a certain quality of racing to be had but they won't be expected to meet any qualifications. Or the series director could chose to require participants to hold a certain license so they know only a certain level of driver quality will be in the league.

If I'm misunderstanding anything let me know.

Yeah that's all left up to the organizer and it's cool 'cause I think we'll find that different combinations of license acceptance with different tier levels will come up organically. Lots of possibilities.

Like, for example, people could have two different tier level divisions in the same series. So there could be a competitive half that's T2 and only allows Intermediate drivers then a counter-part other half of the same series that's T3 and allows beginners.

Also, it'll be possible to have a T1 series but allow any license level as long as there's a strict series-specific pre-qualification process.

All kinds of wonders and adventures, possibilities and ice cream await! We're going to be the Willy Wonkas of GT5!

Mhmm.


10-4.
This needs to be in the OP, along with the stipulation that it is subject to updates (ie. official times for licenses etc)

I will go ahead and post the emblem in my league's OP and see how it works out and report back here shortly.

Lol man looks great! Better than I thought. Thanks.
 
Alright sounds good. I'm very impressed Wardez, beautiful work :). And I made a gmail account too!
 
Awesome send me it in a PM! I just added all your names into the registration list.

See if this is what you're picturing Wardez.
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=212258


3007_1266780766.jpg
 
Willy Wonka! Haha nice.

Now. If you'd like to see what your in-corner emblem looks like here's the link. I will have to say that it doesn't look the prettiest, as in I suck at HTML stuff. (Help?)
 
Like, for example, people could have two different tier level divisions in the same series. So there could be a competitive half that's T2 and only allows Intermediate drivers then a counter-part other half of the same series that's T3 and allows beginners.

This is how I will be running mine. FMSC at Tier 2 and the Hard Dog Challenge at Tier 3.
 
Cool RT.

@JL
Yes I saw it! Looks good 👍 thanks.

To do list:
Big attractive "click here to learn more about what ORB is" button
Big attractive "click here to register for ORB!" button
Sleep
 
Cool RT.

@JL
Yes I saw it! Looks good 👍 thanks.

To do list:
Big attractive "click here to learn more about what ORB is" button
Big attractive "click here to register for ORB!" button
Sleep


Sleep is over-rated. :scared:
 
Best way to get it to fit is to make a large photo using the logo and whatever is at the top of your page. Took me a while to get the FMSC logo centered properly, but it looks better than having a large space at the top.
 
Best way to get it to fit is to make a large photo using the logo and whatever is at the top of your page. Took me a while to get the FMSC logo centered properly, but it looks better than having a large space at the top.

Agreed. When the Capp Cup is officially sanctioned I will add it to the header graphic to eliminate that extra space. I thought there would be a way to get rid of it using simple text formatting but nothing I tried worked.
 
You guys give me to much to read when I wake up. I have no idea what I'm exactly putting in my series and such. By the way, is it still Tier 4?
 
Ok, and now that most of that is about done. I'm moving on to the epic tome which will be the Online Racing Guide and Racing series development package.

Yes it's gonna be a .rar that consists of two guides in the form of Word documents: "The definitive guide to racing online in Gran Turismo 5" and " So you want to start a series?". Simple .PSD templates for banners, schedules, tables. Another word document tutorial covering full Google Docs functionality and a usage guide specified toward racing series use along with my racing series points calculator sheet template.


This is going to take me a week at the least. Look for me to check in with the completed package around next Friday.

Also, stickers.
Expect us.





Very nice! Props to you and RT for slapping together those new banners. Just like I pictured them 👍

As I do, I'm already thinking of tweaks. I'm thinking of perhaps placing the little Tier bubble inside the corner ribbon where those two little arrows go. Then replacing the text on the ribbon that says " ORB Certified" with " ORB Sanctioned"

Meh?
 
As I do, I'm already thinking of tweaks. I'm thinking of perhaps placing the little Tier bubble inside the corner ribbon where those two little arrows go. Then replacing the text on the ribbon that says " ORB Certified" with " ORB Sanctioned"

Meh?

Yes. 👍 That way all relevant info can be known at just a glance.

Also, forgive me if I missed it but did the Capp Cup receive a Tier ranking yet? I'd like to find out where it measures up so I can address any needed changes for the upcoming 3rd serving(season) before submitting it for full certification.
 
Back