I understand some people will like it and I was more talking about the tarmac track creation rather than rally courses. I'm just not sure why it's being lauded as a killer feature of the game by some.
I mean for me they don't work online because it's unfair to those that have never driven the course and offline well I refer to my original point, I'd much rather drive a track I know rather than learn a new custom track never to race it again.
Well, that's just it. Rallies can and always have been held on tarmac surfaces as well as on other surfaces - the surface has little to do with the style of competition, in fact (except its variability providing a challenge). Then there's stuff like Mille Miglia etc. There's more to driving cars than what is currently "popular", or even current
forms of otherwise "historic" events.
It's perfectly fair if no-one has driven the course, and that's the entire point of the challenge - it requires a different skill set from rote repetition.
You've still got to push to be fast (i.e. win), but you've got to attack in a conservative manner from which you can always bail out if you find you have to. It's pretty good once you get a feel for it (getting in the zone, finding the rhythm), and is really, for me, the essence of driving - sort of free-driving, in the sense of free-running, or free-riding.
Similarly, some of my more memorable mountain bike rides have been on routes I didn't know, having to improvise and read the course ahead - bloody scary, but bloody brilliant!
But I quite like driving (and riding) routes I know very well, too - it's just a different type of challenge (maximising). Then there's concurrent racing, which is easier and safer on "known" circuits, but it's still not the be-all end-all of motoring, regardless of what a supposed majority might think. Opening up that larger world of motoring for lots of people would be a pretty cool thing for a game to do.
You can always, as often happens in real life, run the same course more than once. Everyone is still in the same boat that way. Might be tricky online with people leaving and joining, but would work especially well for short Touge-style races with quick rotation of new courses. The emphasis there would be on having a car and a driving style that adapts well, rather than both being specifically optimised for one track. We could even invent new forms of competition.
Besides that, it's kinda nice to just amble about from time to time. I can imagine it'll be a great way to try out random cars; some cars which may not be that fun to race might come alive in that environment, too, which is wholly in the spirit of Gran Turismo.
