PC1 Pcars: A community divided

[Nathan Robinson]

Continuation of Part 1: http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/banned-for-no-reason.47384/

Its hard to believe a game has taken a community over like this. Now with legal proceedings, its kind of become a joke for simmers. I have been at this a while now and have never seen a game invoke so much negative and positive reaction. May the discussions continue


Ps. While i continue to support pcars, i respect RD for allowing the freedom of expression to all its members.

 

[Marco80]

You are wrong chronus, they have "special rules" just at the PCars threads at nogrip, like what developer in Gods name goes to a site and just starts laying down laws just for their products' threads? Also, the owner of virtualr is supposedly employed by SMS, and people get banned for things they wouldn't getting banned for if it wasnt about PCars at both sites but see it much more often at nogrip, and Ian bell does post on virtualr, and I heard he has moderating privileges at one or both of those sites, I also heard some PCars paid members getting kicked out and refunded just for saying certain things on the website about some of the current shortcomings of the product, wtf? LOL

 

[bogdantw]

I also heard Santa's coming early this year, but why not stick to 'know' instead of 'hear'. Assumption is the mother of all f...kups

 

[Chronus]

You are wrong chronus, they have "special rules" just at the PCars threads at nogrip, like what developer in Gods name goes to a site and just starts laying down laws just for their products' threads?[...]I also heard some PCars paid members getting kicked out and refunded just for saying certain things on the website about some of the current shortcomings of the product, wtf? LOL

You are entitled to your opinion, Marco80, no doubt.

That said...

In my opinion:

hearsay is dangerous. You may trust what you hear, you are entitled to it, but whatever you heard may not necessarily reflect reality. What is worse, part of that hearsay can be quite damaging to SMS as it exposes alleged "internal practices" against members.

I think we can all agree on this: lies or improper statements about business practices or the internal workings of a company should be banished.

I seriously doubt it that people at the level of Gjon Gamal, Tim Wheatley, Dave Kaemmer, Ian Bell, Stefano Casillo, Doug Arnao, AJ, Andy Tudor, Andy Garton, Marco Massaruto, Diego Sartori - I seriously doubt that these people condone bad behaviour against critics or even haters, or advocate bans against members just because they posed questions or criticized something in their respective projects. If these people were in favour or even promoted bad practices, ultimately their businesses, their projects would suffer - maybe not immediately, but in the long run real, serious damage would come.

There is however one detail in this pCARS project and is related to its business model: manager level members. These bring in (brought in) a LOT of money, (the leadership of SMS) antagonizing them is probably not going to happen, for obvious reasons. Here then is the culprit, the mother of all...problems: most manager level members behave appropriately, they're actually interested in contributing and seeing the project flow without problems and finally deliver a solid product. For them, as I have been told, it's an twofold investment: money and personal (they want a sim of their "dreams"). But...

But take those perfectly valid, good manager level members and you're left with a dozen of them who have been highly damaging to pCARS, and it is these people that have caused bans be issued against regular members at several simracing sites.

In the end, it's not an easy problem to solve, but have no doubt it is a BIG problem because it leads many simracers in the community to believe criticism against pCARS is not tolerated - no, sorry, mates, the problem is not criticism, the problem is how some supporters react to that criticism, often resulting in threads being locked due to the usual ridicule and insults.

Plus...at the other end or the "divide" where we can find pCARS/WMD/SMS critics, we also find people who do not contribute to peaceful discussion of anything pCARS related.

I emphasize: my opinion.

And maybe we can all learn from this.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

What worries me is the manner in which modders and "hardcore" sim racers were treated and continue to be treated by some members at a number of these SMS friendly www's, I mean, I have a hard time getting my head around the concept of sim that won't appeal to hardcore sim racers.

The fact is, certain members{especially at nogrip} are attempting to redefine what a sim is, now granted, if we consider that juggle in reference to the worst sims or the worst sim cars, then who would complain, however, when Gears proposed pcars be GTR2 with DX11 GFX, they swamped him at WMD.

I have the GTR2 demo and the GTR2 carpack mod for RACE07, and GTR2 is not a difficult sim to drive at all, but then neither is GSC, netkar, Simbin, FVA etc, it's really only the worst cars in rf2 and iracing, yet when lowly GTR2 was offered as the physics model, it was deemed as crazy and impossible to sell, if so, how is this going to be a sim without sim quality driving model and FFB, something which hit a very high standard with GTR EVO 4 yrs ago.

 

[Marco80]

hahaha ok Chronus, whatever you say.

Its like when "the people" accuse the government of something bad, obviously the government is going to reply with some speech on how they would never do that, how could they do that, why would they wanna do that to their people, blah blah blah, thats pretty much what you just did but ok.

I have enough contacts that have been heavily involved in the forums at virtualr and even more so nogrip for many years. I have seen what has happened to others on pcars threads, while way worse stuff has been said on other threads for years and years, but only the people in the pcars threads get treated like criminals. I have talked to people that paid SMS or WMD or whatever they are called, and were kicked out and refunded because they were posting shortcomings of the sim, as if noone is allowed to speak their mind (just like in the government regime take over examples i used),

Then on top of all of that this...

"A second part of your 'job' is to make sure that the game is shown properly and promoted to the 'outside world', i.e. on the internet outside the forums. That means that you can tell everyone about the project and encourage them to join, and when promoting the game through videos or screenshots you should make sure that you stress the good sides and not what needs fixing or what is absent. When making pictures or videos of problems with the game, post them only on the WMD forums or use links that are 'private'."

hahaha wow can you say PROPAGANDA???

I dont even know where to start with that entire paragraph, is this for real????

If WMD/SMS ever sent me a message like that after I paid them money I would tell them where to shove my money. Telling me to make sure I keep pictures of the game private and only on the private forums, but if its a picture that doesnt showcase any flaws then I am free to show it to the world?? LOL. Make sure the game is shown properly and promoted to the outside world??? WOW. Mwhahaha keep spreading the propaganda my slave investors/customers!! Make sure you stress the good sides and not what needs fixing or is missing?? Excuse me, I will make a video/picture of whatever the hell I feel like, what is this a DICTATORSHIP???

Who talks like this? Who tries to maniulate and control the masses, and even their own customers like this? Its a video game what the hell is wrong with these guys. I am not heavily involved in other video game forums, but I doubt that other games like Battlefield and Call of Duty run there "private" group of slaves, i mean customers, like a Dictatorship.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

"A second part of your 'job' is to make sure that the game is shown properly and promoted to the 'outside world', i.e. on the internet outside the forums. That means that you can tell everyone about the project and encourage them to join, and when promoting the game through videos or screenshots you should make sure that you stress the good sides and not what needs fixing or what is absent. When making pictures or videos of problems with the game, post them only on the WMD forums or use links that are 'private'."

To be fair, this isn't unreasonable as it's a WIP.....but what is unreasonable IMO is the aggressive nature some of them show, especially those in power, for example, I was banned twice from unbiased VirtualR just for expressing my negative views regarding pcars, that said, it was mainly a reaction to the outright horsepoo some of them were spewing, suggesting that simcadey pcars is as good or wait for it, "better than GTR Evo", and when I pointed out to them how absurd that was, they threatened me, manhandled me, and banned me twice.

I certainly hope Ian Bell doesn't endorse this type of insanity, and as it is I spoke with him and Mica$$ at some length via PM's, and truth be told, Ian is very likable, but unfortunately his minions often turn my stomach with their extraordinary arrogance and apparent contempt for proper sim racers.

 

[Chronus]

hahaha ok Chronus, whatever you say.

Its like when "the people" accuse the government of something bad, obviously the government is going to reply with some speech on how they would never do that, how could they do that, why would they wanna do that to their people, blah blah blah, thats pretty much what you just did but ok.

I think I did not do that at all, but, again, it is your opinion, I respect it and the way you put it.

Bear with me for a few more lines, Marco.

Read the latest thread closed at NG and pay attention to the details (if you haven't already) that prove what I said about some manager level WMD members:
- NG member gears puts forth a few comments (right or wrong, he did not offend anybody, it is his right to post a comment) about an interview by Andy T. to ISR
- name calling begins against him
- some try to discuss reasonably (the comments on the interview led to an interesting discussion on track realism), but the usual people repeat offences
- others try to call these people on what they're doing
- more insults and outright lies, this time around against someone who is quoting/exposing their actions
- thread is then closed for straying off-topic

This is what I am referring to, and I am certain this behaviour by some manager level WMD members has caused many flame wars that eventually led to someone being banned. It is only a few, but it certainly is more than enough to cause mayhem.

In all the companies I have worked for, these people would be out of a job in no time. But in this case, they're also investors, which complicates things. [By the way, if this type of behaviour happens at ISI forums, Tim W. or someone else takes care of these people; incredibly, even iRacing acted at times against this behaviour, as I know of 2 people (of what people known as "iRacing fanboys") that were banned from the forums (one of them from iRacing itself). But in a business with investors, if some misrepresent the company, dealing with them is obviously not simple (understandably).]

Remove them, and you can discuss things pCARS related.

You don't agree with me, but that is fine.

 

[Marco80]

what is unreasonable IMO is the aggressive nature some of them show, especially those in power, for example, I was banned twice from unbiased VirtualR just for expressing my negative views regarding pcars, that said, it was mainly a reaction to the outright horsepoo some of them were spewing, suggesting that simcadey pcars is as good or wait for it, "better than GTR Evo", and when I pointed out to them how absurd that was, they threatened me, manhandled me, and banned me twice.

Yup I have seen that happen to a number of people on virtualr and nogrip.

In all the companies I have worked for, these people would be out of a job in no time. But in this case, they're also investors, which complicates things. [By the way, if this type of behaviour happens at ISI forums, Tim W. or someone else takes care of these people; incredibly, even iRacing acted at times against this behaviour, as I know of 2 people (of what people known as "iRacing fanboys") that were banned from the forums (one of them from iRacing itself). But in a business with investors, if some misrepresent the company, dealing with them is obviously not simple (understandably).]

Nope, the only people to get banned at the ISI forums are people who directly insult and call other people names. People dont get banned for saying "this sucks and that sucks", noone on any forum of any game gets banned for that, unless they just are straight trolling.

Also there are no rules when you get the rfactor 2 public development build (or live for speed, or any beta of any game I have ever experienced in my life). It doesnt say anywhere anything like " Hey guys now that you got RFactor 2 your job is to make videos and pictures of this game and spread and promote the crap out of the game on every video and picture website that you can. Oh but if there is a video or picture that shows any flaws or missing parts of the game then dont do it, as any negative things about the game should be kept private so that we dont tell the general public our flaws, we only show them the amazing stuff so that they are COMPLETELY MANIPULATED AND MIS-INFORMED and therefore think that this product will be the "be all, end all" of racing games, and the most awesome and amazing flawless racing game of all time. So make sure you pump out all those amazing videos my slave investors."

Sorry but NO, they dont say anything even remotely close to that anywhere, neither has any public alpha/beta, of any type of video game, that I have ever read about or experienced in my entire life.

 

[Nathan Robinson]

They dont want the public to see the flaws because its still in development, why cant you get that? If it was retail release and they were still asking this than id understand being upset. Everyone that signs up for pcars understands this beforehand and dont have an issue with it. SMS have a riight to run the development as they see fit and if you dont agree than dont join. But a lot of what you say here about pcars is heresay and not personal experience so you really shouldnt be talking. A lot of the sms guys were mods at nogrip before they were part of pcars and its all new territory for them. So just relax and let pcars play out and dont be so whiny.

 

[Chronus]

Nope, the only people to get banned at the ISI forums are people who directly insult and call other people names. People dont get banned for saying "this sucks and that sucks", noone on any forum of any game gets banned for that, unless they just are straight trolling.

Alright. Regardless of type of forum (flight sim, racing sim, FPS), banning people for saying "this sucks" (no matter how devoid of intelligence such comment is) is at odds with freedom of speech. Obviously.

But that is not the case here.

In my line of work (from classified projects, to normal physics or IT projects) co-workers are not allowed to waste valuable time of ANYBODY. I think this was stated many times by redi and Ian Bell: WMD forums are not a typical forum, they're what they call a "virtual office". In an office or virtual office, regardless of your position (developer, marketing dept. worker, designer, accountance dept. worker) you are not allowed to (a) derail threads or send inflamatory emails and (b) waste valuable resources (at the very least, TIME) .

As I said in my previous posts, it is undeniable that some manager level WMD should not be part of the project for they help derail threads. But these individuals are just a very small minority - the rest of the WMD members want to see work being done, progress being made.

That is how it is: in a forum oriented towards development, design, discussion of project features, there should be no posts that are either inflammatory or mere opinions without at least a modicum of reasons ("I think this is too arcadish", "This sucks", "this is light-years away from sim A or sim B" or "This is the best sim of all times", "No sim on the market beats this" are examples of that).

The picture changes completely when we move to the outside world (i.e., forums outside WMD). People can post or say whatever they want, it is up to those websites/forums to decide whether to accept those posts or not.

" Hey guys now that you got RFactor 2 your job is to make videos and pictures of this game and spread and promote the crap out of the game on every video and picture website that you can. Oh but if there is a video or picture that shows any flaws or missing parts of the game then dont do it, as any negative things about the game should be kept private so that we dont tell the general public our flaws, we only show them the amazing stuff so that they are COMPLETELY MANIPULATED AND MIS-INFORMED and therefore think that this product will be the "be all, end all" of racing games, and the most awesome and amazing flawless racing game of all time. So make sure you pump out all those amazing videos my slave investors."

Sorry but NO, they dont say anything even remotely close to that anywhere, neither has any public alpha/beta, of any type of video game, that I have ever read about or experienced in my entire life.

That is the perspective you have.

Again: a WMD member is not (should not) equivalent to a RD member or a NG member or a SimHQ member, in that things which are obviously internal matters should not be discussed in the outside.

People signed on to WMD aware that development matters are internal matters. So, any discussion about bugs or problems should remain internal.

As for presenting the best face of pCARS to the outside world: why not? To my knowledge, no one is being asked to LIE about the physics or the features. But isn't it natural to avoid emphasizing the existing shortcomings while still under development? I say it is.

In my opinion, of course.

 

[Marco80]

Ok chronus sure, you sound like a lawyer doing all he can to defend a guilty client, but ok that's your opinion sure.

 

[Chronus]

Eesh, mate, with all due respect to lawyers...

Question: What's the difference between a porcupine and two lawyers in a Porsche?
Answer: The porcupine has the pricks on the outside.

Question: What is the best way to insult a physicist?
Answer 1: call him a light bulb.
Answer 2: call him Schroedinger's cat
Answer 3: wrong. Call him a lawyer.

Geez.

--

I know curiosity killed the cat (not Schroedinger's I hope), but I am curious: they're guilty of what exactly?

 

[Kazumi]

They designed the rules (the "virtual office" environment) so they can act like that. Can't say if they properly communicated that, because that would probably have avoided some confusion.

 

[Chronus]

What could be the alternative?

 

[David Ignjatovic]

The problem isn't necessarily the state of the game, it's the LIES regarding it's state and the manner in which people are treated because some favour profit over truth.

 

[Marco80]

The problem isn't necessarily the state of the game, it's the LIES regarding it's state and the manner in which people are treated because some favour profit over truth.

Holy smokes, in a nutshell......YES

 

[Adam B. Shaw]

Alright. Regardless of type of forum (flight sim, racing sim, FPS), banning people for saying "this sucks" (no matter how devoid of intelligence such comment is) is at odds with freedom of speech. Obviously.

But that is not the case here.

In my line of work (from classified projects, to normal physics or IT projects) co-workers are not allowed to waste valuable time of ANYBODY. I think this was stated many times by redi and Ian Bell: WMD forums are not a typical forum, they're what they call a "virtual office". In an office or virtual office, regardless of your position (developer, marketing dept. worker, designer, accountance dept. worker) you are not allowed to (a) derail threads or send inflamatory emails and (b) waste valuable resources (at the very least, TIME) .

As I said in my previous posts, it is undeniable that some manager level WMD should not be part of the project for they help derail threads. But these individuals are just a very small minority - the rest of the WMD members want to see work being done, progress being made.

That is how it is: in a forum oriented towards development, design, discussion of project features, there should be no posts that are either inflammatory or mere opinions without at least a modicum of reasons ("I think this is too arcadish", "This sucks", "this is light-years away from sim A or sim B" or "This is the best sim of all times", "No sim on the market beats this" are examples of that).

The picture changes completely when we move to the outside world (i.e., forums outside WMD). People can post or say whatever they want, it is up to those websites/forums to decide whether to accept those posts or not.



That is the perspective you have.

Again: a WMD member is not (should not) equivalent to a RD member or a NG member or a SimHQ member, in that things which are obviously internal matters should not be discussed in the outside.

People signed on to WMD aware that development matters are internal matters. So, any discussion about bugs or problems should remain internal.

As for presenting the best face of pCARS to the outside world: why not? To my knowledge, no one is being asked to LIE about the physics or the features. But isn't it natural to avoid emphasizing the existing shortcomings while still under development? I say it is.

In my opinion, of course.

big difference between "investors", and employees.

when i signed up, i was still not aware they had cut rally. i didn't know they didn't have mulitplayer at all yet. and that the physics were meh at best, because all they were advertising was glitz and glam. the game needs work, and it's a disservice to only tell people how awesome it is (looks). so long as people are including that it is still in alpha and has a build number and date, wmd is due that much, but that's it.
investors dont ass kiss or blow smoke, broke dev teams do. if they wanted all the control, they should have managed to get more cash on their own, not sell the game early and hand it out half done to keep the ankle biters at bay.

 

[zehnder.eric]

big difference between "investors", and employees.

when i signed up, i was still not aware they had cut rally. i didn't know they didn't have mulitplayer at all yet. and that the physics were meh at best, because all they were advertising was glitz and glam. the game needs work, and it's a disservice to only tell people how awesome it is (looks). so long as people are including that it is still in alpha and has a build number and date, wmd is due that much, but that's it.
investors dont ass kiss or blow smoke, broke dev teams do. if they wanted all the control, they should have managed to get more cash on their own, not sell the game early and hand it out half done to keep the ankle biters at bay.

If you believe you were lied to about the features finished or state of the game (though it says Pre-Alpha EVERYWHERE) then just get a refund and try it when complete. I did the same with rFactor 2 when I realized it was actually in Alpha, not Beta and also had serious G27 wheel issues. When the game is finished I will give it another go.

As for the rest of this thread, you should probably ask yourself why you're so angry about what a portion of the Sim community believes to be a step in the right direction physics-wise. In my opinion it's because you don't like this large portion of the community that enjoys the game. It's an affront to the established racing games and you're simply angry that there are those whose opinions on what a Sim is differs from yours.

 

[Adam B. Shaw]

what exactly is it they are doing right physics wise? because at the moment it's not anything i would call impressive. graphically, it's glorious. but the driving side isn't there yet. every time ive used a wheel it's been insane with the ffb to the point it isn't usable. i can adjust and adjust and adjust some more, but every friday i get to play that game all over again, what fun. so im left with a controller, what sim would you like to play with a controller?

and they can hide behind the title pre alpha all they want, and be upset when someone knocks the game, but bottom line is they put the product out early. they know it's rough. apparently they cared enough about the graphics to have them kick ass, but they still fall short in plenty of places. why are we obligated to tell people "it's great" when it clearly needs work, and not just text boxs and images being filled in. real, actual work.

 

[Chronus]

what exactly is it they are doing right physics wise? because at the moment it's not anything i would call impressive. graphically, it's glorious. but the driving side isn't there yet. every time ive used a wheel it's been insane with the ffb to the point it isn't usable.

Why exactly do you believe that your bad experience with FFB is in any way connected to physics?