- 1,945
- Treviglio
- PAPPACLART
- PAPPALCART
Hey Guys
I am pretty excited about the new community features announced for Gran Turismo 6.
The Gran Turismo series has always been about making your own fun from the huge array of cars and tracks. Prior to GT5 and online, fun was often achieved among friends or alone hot lapping against yourself or perhaps posting lap times in community forums like GTP for comparisons with your racing peers. For GT5 we finally got online and some basic features and tools that allowed like minded racers to get together and race online. On the surface it was heaven and all that we wanted but in practice GT5 online was frustrating and lacked important features that encouraged the bringing together of the like minded. The fundamentals of GT5's online never had a solid foundation that allowed groups to gather and prosper. GT5's online features did what they were supposed to do but left the casual and serious organised racer a little frustrated and wanting more.
It seemed that the biggest problem for many had always been the pursuit of finding clean, active and reliable racers/races. GT5 online was split, public vs private. Public allowed for the instant ability to find a race with random people which was always a lottery, where you would rarely score a win by finding a clean reliable group. When you did, finding that same bunch the next day was never easy unless you sent FR's which brings us to the private online set up which I will touch on in a moment. Public racing offered plenty of variety and opportunity to meet new people but only for those with a brash determination and lots of patients. The amount of so called pro rooms where the standard of racing is terrible is shocking, even the best rooms with strict enforcers that boot the dis respectful still struggle to constantly maintain a hassle free night of racing. The best public rooms I have ever been in still do not come close to racing with your friends.
For me anyway, racing privately has always been the best way to race with the like minded. But for those who wanted access to good racing often, the private lounge option was still not up-to the task; sure the standard was way better but when you could race and how often very much depended on if, or if not your racing friends were online at the same time as you! The more friends you had the better your chance but what if that same bunch of great racing friends were racing out of the lounge of another racer you was not PSN friends with. This added complications and often meant constantly adding new people on PSN so you could all access each others private lounges so that you could all race together. This private way to race worked well enough but by nature of it being private meant that finding new friends to race with was often zero as new people would never be able to find and access a private racing lounge of a host they were not PSN friends with, and with no real way to find where the good racing was sucked. Of course your PSN friends would introduce others, so new faces to race with among your private group was always a possibility but never a constant guarantee that would work over time and replenish those that moved on, and of course a new racer in the group would mean everyone in that group would need to be PSN friends with him so that they could all access his lounge should that be where the racing is at!!! Argghh
As time passed and GT5 settled in, maintaining a reliable and active bunch of quality racing friends for private lounge racing has become more difficult. A reason for this is that racers who were once active move on to different games or simply life takes them in a different direction leaving you with no one to race with. (How dare they ! lol) This worrying theme has forced many back to public lounges in pursuit of finding Some quality racing. I must admit 3 years on, the standard of racing publicly has improved, as many of the casual GT5'ers have moved on to other games, leaving a more serious and dedicated core. Still, although the standard of public lounge racing has improved substantially, it is still not a patch on the guys you may have raced with for years. Personally I have raced with a slowly dwindling bunch since November 2010. The standard is exceptional and not even the cleanest and most respectful public lounge comes close. Nothing matches the respectful racing that comes from knowing the people you race with personally, and by first name.
The sad thing is, there are still loads of very active and clean racers out there but many move on or have headed back to public racing, they are like nomads, searching from lounge to lounge for the off chance of some regular and quality clean racing .
Full lobby, casual clean and consistent racing every night of the week is hard to find and it is becoming harder. I have seen very successful racing league numbers dwindle (including my own) and many vanish all together. A part of the problem is that many small groups like to go it alone, the initial excitement of GT5 when it was new meant that many groups quickly formed, with many setting up their own websites to make managing their racing easier, and then as time has passed due to mainly lack of resources and experience as well as absent community features and tools within GT5, these small communities struggle to attract new members fast enough to replace those that move on.
Sadly, rather then these dwindling groups who all want the same thing joining forces and organizing themselves a structure that promotes the attraction and retention of racers they sadly contract and eventually vanish. This sad fact in the end only hurts community and the franchise as people put the game down and look elsewhere for their virtual fun. Lets face it other than hot lapping GT sucks racing alone with poor AI. Its all about quality online racing.
With regards to finding and keeping GT5 friends, I recognized this problem along time ago and came up with an alternative way It has served my group very well but yet we still suffer from replacing those that move on due to the private nature of the set up. This idea really should have taken off but allot still do not understand despite it being a very simple way to make it easy for like minded racers to meet and race with a "managed" group of clean racers.
Hopefully now PD have understood the importance of the community aspect of GT now and for the future. For GT6, it is important that those wanting to reach out to other racers and form groups need to have the tools to do so. It needs to be made easy for like minded racers to find each other, and for these groups to easily flourish and manage and promote their group to others with the success of a group being determined solely by those that are members of the group, the standard of racing and events etc
It is promising now, as it looks like those with the desire, will be able to form Gran Turismo clubs/teams, all within the Gran Turismo world. Here's hoping that the formation of such clubs will not be limited to 100 members as the PSN friends list is limited. It looks like the creation of online events and leagues will now be possible, minimizing the labor that race organizer have to constantly do to run a group and any events that group takes part in. I have personally had to organize countless online events and record stats over the past 3 years and it is pretty time consuming to put it lightly. If those of us who work so hard organizing events that benefit the GT5 community stop for one moment then it all grinds to a halt. There are guys out there who have boundless energy and have done a hell of allot for the community, Guys who tirelessly organize races and events for us, ensuring that the standard of racing is professional and fun. I respect you guys a great deal.
GT6 will make it easier for GT5 communities to flourish, but this does not mean to say that the community should not strive to work together a little more and not be so disbanded and isolated as they are now in their own little groups.
Also, I feel that GTP could and should have done more for organizing the community, after all GTP has most of the community so perhaps a little responsibility lies there?. WRS is great but is so prologue. I would have liked to have seen a proper structured system of GTP run events carried out over a season and expected so when GT5 hit but nothing ever materialized. I guess it would be allot of work for a bunch of mods and admins that already do so much but saying that there are plenty of members here going it alone and organizing all of the events we see now on GTP past and present. A bit of direction and structure and these guys would have happily took on the responsibility I am guessing.
Anyway, I hope for some robust online community features for GT6. PD have a habit of making things sound good but in application they often struggle but one can only hope and be optimistic.
I am pretty excited about the new community features announced for Gran Turismo 6.
The Gran Turismo series has always been about making your own fun from the huge array of cars and tracks. Prior to GT5 and online, fun was often achieved among friends or alone hot lapping against yourself or perhaps posting lap times in community forums like GTP for comparisons with your racing peers. For GT5 we finally got online and some basic features and tools that allowed like minded racers to get together and race online. On the surface it was heaven and all that we wanted but in practice GT5 online was frustrating and lacked important features that encouraged the bringing together of the like minded. The fundamentals of GT5's online never had a solid foundation that allowed groups to gather and prosper. GT5's online features did what they were supposed to do but left the casual and serious organised racer a little frustrated and wanting more.
It seemed that the biggest problem for many had always been the pursuit of finding clean, active and reliable racers/races. GT5 online was split, public vs private. Public allowed for the instant ability to find a race with random people which was always a lottery, where you would rarely score a win by finding a clean reliable group. When you did, finding that same bunch the next day was never easy unless you sent FR's which brings us to the private online set up which I will touch on in a moment. Public racing offered plenty of variety and opportunity to meet new people but only for those with a brash determination and lots of patients. The amount of so called pro rooms where the standard of racing is terrible is shocking, even the best rooms with strict enforcers that boot the dis respectful still struggle to constantly maintain a hassle free night of racing. The best public rooms I have ever been in still do not come close to racing with your friends.
For me anyway, racing privately has always been the best way to race with the like minded. But for those who wanted access to good racing often, the private lounge option was still not up-to the task; sure the standard was way better but when you could race and how often very much depended on if, or if not your racing friends were online at the same time as you! The more friends you had the better your chance but what if that same bunch of great racing friends were racing out of the lounge of another racer you was not PSN friends with. This added complications and often meant constantly adding new people on PSN so you could all access each others private lounges so that you could all race together. This private way to race worked well enough but by nature of it being private meant that finding new friends to race with was often zero as new people would never be able to find and access a private racing lounge of a host they were not PSN friends with, and with no real way to find where the good racing was sucked. Of course your PSN friends would introduce others, so new faces to race with among your private group was always a possibility but never a constant guarantee that would work over time and replenish those that moved on, and of course a new racer in the group would mean everyone in that group would need to be PSN friends with him so that they could all access his lounge should that be where the racing is at!!! Argghh
As time passed and GT5 settled in, maintaining a reliable and active bunch of quality racing friends for private lounge racing has become more difficult. A reason for this is that racers who were once active move on to different games or simply life takes them in a different direction leaving you with no one to race with. (How dare they ! lol) This worrying theme has forced many back to public lounges in pursuit of finding Some quality racing. I must admit 3 years on, the standard of racing publicly has improved, as many of the casual GT5'ers have moved on to other games, leaving a more serious and dedicated core. Still, although the standard of public lounge racing has improved substantially, it is still not a patch on the guys you may have raced with for years. Personally I have raced with a slowly dwindling bunch since November 2010. The standard is exceptional and not even the cleanest and most respectful public lounge comes close. Nothing matches the respectful racing that comes from knowing the people you race with personally, and by first name.
The sad thing is, there are still loads of very active and clean racers out there but many move on or have headed back to public racing, they are like nomads, searching from lounge to lounge for the off chance of some regular and quality clean racing .
Full lobby, casual clean and consistent racing every night of the week is hard to find and it is becoming harder. I have seen very successful racing league numbers dwindle (including my own) and many vanish all together. A part of the problem is that many small groups like to go it alone, the initial excitement of GT5 when it was new meant that many groups quickly formed, with many setting up their own websites to make managing their racing easier, and then as time has passed due to mainly lack of resources and experience as well as absent community features and tools within GT5, these small communities struggle to attract new members fast enough to replace those that move on.
Sadly, rather then these dwindling groups who all want the same thing joining forces and organizing themselves a structure that promotes the attraction and retention of racers they sadly contract and eventually vanish. This sad fact in the end only hurts community and the franchise as people put the game down and look elsewhere for their virtual fun. Lets face it other than hot lapping GT sucks racing alone with poor AI. Its all about quality online racing.
With regards to finding and keeping GT5 friends, I recognized this problem along time ago and came up with an alternative way It has served my group very well but yet we still suffer from replacing those that move on due to the private nature of the set up. This idea really should have taken off but allot still do not understand despite it being a very simple way to make it easy for like minded racers to meet and race with a "managed" group of clean racers.
Hopefully now PD have understood the importance of the community aspect of GT now and for the future. For GT6, it is important that those wanting to reach out to other racers and form groups need to have the tools to do so. It needs to be made easy for like minded racers to find each other, and for these groups to easily flourish and manage and promote their group to others with the success of a group being determined solely by those that are members of the group, the standard of racing and events etc
It is promising now, as it looks like those with the desire, will be able to form Gran Turismo clubs/teams, all within the Gran Turismo world. Here's hoping that the formation of such clubs will not be limited to 100 members as the PSN friends list is limited. It looks like the creation of online events and leagues will now be possible, minimizing the labor that race organizer have to constantly do to run a group and any events that group takes part in. I have personally had to organize countless online events and record stats over the past 3 years and it is pretty time consuming to put it lightly. If those of us who work so hard organizing events that benefit the GT5 community stop for one moment then it all grinds to a halt. There are guys out there who have boundless energy and have done a hell of allot for the community, Guys who tirelessly organize races and events for us, ensuring that the standard of racing is professional and fun. I respect you guys a great deal.
GT6 will make it easier for GT5 communities to flourish, but this does not mean to say that the community should not strive to work together a little more and not be so disbanded and isolated as they are now in their own little groups.
Also, I feel that GTP could and should have done more for organizing the community, after all GTP has most of the community so perhaps a little responsibility lies there?. WRS is great but is so prologue. I would have liked to have seen a proper structured system of GTP run events carried out over a season and expected so when GT5 hit but nothing ever materialized. I guess it would be allot of work for a bunch of mods and admins that already do so much but saying that there are plenty of members here going it alone and organizing all of the events we see now on GTP past and present. A bit of direction and structure and these guys would have happily took on the responsibility I am guessing.
Anyway, I hope for some robust online community features for GT6. PD have a habit of making things sound good but in application they often struggle but one can only hope and be optimistic.
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Maybe a day improves the game online but in Brazil you guarantee only when all have internet with fiber optic and I still have my doubts because you pay 100 you get 10 Megs megs
