Chatter in Qualifying Sessions

Post by **Rick Stratton** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:43 pm

Corrado,
It's been my experience since being in Legends that we don't restart races on race day. Period. On the other side of things, if the server starts acting up [lag, instability, etc] it tends to be that drivers are kicked from the server and rarely is there enough warning to even make an announcement. In the past, we encouraged drivers to have Teamspeak at least loaded on thier systems in case of such an event [find out WTF happened] and/or what is being tried to correct it. Additionally, everyone should at least check the forum for any announcement as to the server status. Whenever there has been an issue, a post has been made to let drivers know if the server has been fixed or the race has been cancelled. A reasonably good example was this last weekend's race at Sepang. Once booted [with no warning] I was not able to reconnect at all until the server was restarted. The RD [Bret] was not even able to remote into the server [which leads me to believe it was an internet issue and possibly not a server one], so again it makes the in car chat issue somewhat irrelevant.

JMHO

Post by **JohnW** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:03 pm

I'm also in favour of the absolutely no-chat in quali and race. It can't be done (car to car) in real life, and it is a distraction when on-track.

I think if anyone does want to, the option is there for Teamspeak, where folk can hop into a private or team room and chat away to their heart's content, so I wouldn't see it as something denied. The chat is a lot of fun in Legends, and there is time for it in warm-up and post-race, so I think better to avoid the potential race or quali spoiling and go with the current system. For me it works well.

Corrado Toxiri · Post by **Corrado Toxiri** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 9:04 pm

Rick,

I'm fine with this proceeding, I actually found last week that the forum information was enough to manage the server issues at Sepang, I didn't even need Teamspeak to understand what was going on and what to do (just wait, LOL!)

On the other hand, I prefer a general rule rather than a setting in the INI file: it's easier also for new members, IMHO

Antonio Wojahn · Post by **Antonio Wojahn** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:47 am

The easiest thing would be if rFactor allowed private messages, global messages and race director's messages to be handled differently. Since we don't have that, I assumed it's NO chat during quali. Which it is!

TWFR General Rules

11. TEXT CHAT. YOU MUST NOT use chat during qualifying and racing sessions. It is distracting to other drivers even to use "Sorry", "Thank You", "Pit In/Out" etc. So, unless otherwise stated in the race announcement, the rule is NO CHAT WHATSOEVER during these important sessions, only the Race Director and his official Race Admin assistant(s) will be permitted to do so where deemed essential.

So how about we just follow that and the discussion is over. Sometimes it's more annoying to keep arguing...

Ciao,
Antonio

PS: For the non-English speakers:

EN: must GER: müssen (notwendigerweise!) ITA: bisognare (neccessario) FRA: devoir (nécessaire) ESP: estar obligado a hacer algo POR: tenho que (é imprescindível)

I did my best with my dictionary skills, but feel free to correct me.

Rouke · Post by **Rouke** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:35 pm

We are not arguing, its a discussion and sometimes there can be quite a few refreshing views on subjects wich can be overlooked when not discussing it.

Also threads like these are not just to pinpoint a problem its also about raising awareness as a group. very effective so far with loads of other stuff we discussed before

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:46 pm

Rouke is right, Antonio. The reason this forum section is here is to get full feedback from everyone, and to discuss important topics that HQ have the obligation of ruling for us.

Dave Kadlčák · Post by **Dave Kadlčák** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:49 pm

So what's the consequence to violating Rule #11 in the general rules?

Bret Metcalf · Post by **Bret Metcalf** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:28 pm

David Kadlcak wrote:So what's the consequence to violating Rule #11 in the general rules?

Hi David,

Please don't think I'm being sarcastic here, I'm not that type of guy but this is fact and not intended at all to infuriate.

Two consequence's actually, a driver's qualifying lap could be ruined and I have disgruntled members sending me emails

which happens too often imo.

As the RD I get asked what am I going to do about it? It is a problem, but the difference is that nobody here at Legends purposely chat's with the intention of ruining a persons lap, it is merely an oversight that's all. An example that has happened is when a driver is late joining the session, he joins when qualifying is on the go, the driver says "Hi All" then the day after the race my email inbox goes tilt. I do feel rather awkward for telling a driver off for saying hello to everyone-then what happens is I get a rather snotty email back accusing me of being petty-no fun

Then of course it's me who is the bad egg-I can't win

Public discussions like this are very informative and really highlight the knock on effects that this innocent type of chat has.

The other consequence-( I do not believe the stewards have imposed any penalty yet to any driver) is that potentially the "chatter" could have a points penalty handed down.

Ah well,
Let's see how the next qualifying session goes.

Dave Kadlčák · Post by **Dave Kadlčák** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:35 pm

Sorry Bret,
yeah I meant penalty-wise, if there were any (similar to say doing donuts during a formation lap

).

I have to admin I don't remember the details of the rules, so I was just curious if you guys had penalty points assigned to those who break the rules. That's all.

I realize that usually the consequence to breaking rules like chatting is exactly as you describe in the first scenario

- I know, I used to be a league admin. Been dere done dat.

Thanks,
Dave.

Bret Metcalf · Post by **Bret Metcalf** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:40 pm

No need at all to apologies David- I am so glad, believe me, that this is being discussed and that I did not kick off the discussion

Regards,
Bret

David Kadlcak wrote:Sorry Bret,
yeah I meant penalty-wise, if there were any (similar to say doing donuts during a formation lap ).

I have to admin I don't remember the details of the rules, so I was just curious if you guys had penalty points assigned to those who break the rules. That's all.

I realize that usually the consequence to breaking rules like chatting is exactly as you describe in the first scenario - I know, I used to be a league admin. Been dere done dat.

Thanks,
Dave.

Rouke · Post by **Rouke** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 8:12 pm

Up to now though a penalty for chatting has never been discussed in the Stewards Office or, if i recall correctly, never has been a serious item.

Also chat-infrictions have not been implemented into the penalty-system.
As they are more behaviourable incidents rather then racing incidents it remains dabatable if they would or should be implemented. thats an entire different discussion though.

Petra · Post by **Petra** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:57 pm

I want to bring an additional aspect to being distracted while being on a quali run:
it`s not the occasionally "Hi all", or "hello" what distracts me on a quali run to be honest, I simply ignore chatter - when I am on a quali run I only see the track and concentrate
What me bothers most is: if a driver JOINS while I am on a run because everytime my game will stutter and THAT`s why my lap ruins, not the "hi" and not the "Hello"

I think I brought this topic up for several times, I would much prefer to have closed quali session because of that stutter, that`s far more annoying and definitely has an impact on my laptime.
But then I also see if somebody gets discoed that this driver had no chance to rejoin before the warm up - so everything has its good and bad.

But honest again: I would also prefer that everybody keeps his fingers taped on the desk

till everybody is done with his laps, some people really feel distracted when there is chatter
So the "non chatting" rule is perfect

Corrado Toxiri · Post by **Corrado Toxiri** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:34 am

Petra wrote:What me bothers most is: if a driver JOINS while I am on a run because everytime my game will stutter and THAT`s why my lap ruins, not the "hi" and not the "Hello"

Petra,

as far as I know, this was an issue with the first versions of rFactor (1.150 or before) because the game was trying to load the joining driver's information (including the car's skin) while you are on track.

This issue was addressed with the newer rFactor releases, but it's possible that you have to change a "PLAYER.INI" or "MULTIPLAYER.INI" parameter if your player profile was created before the new game version and you didn't "update" the player ini properly during the rF version update.

Maybe it's not your issue, but who knows...

Petra · Post by **Petra** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:52 am

Corrado Toxiri wrote:
Maybe it's not your issue, but who knows...

no, it`s not my issue ... sigh
I know all that, so when a driver joins while I am on a run I only see a temporary car - that grey thingie - from the new driver if he is on track too. The game will load the texture when I am in the pits
All this I know .... and is set correct in the PLR file, I checked for 1000x

OTOH it couldn`t be even a left over from the old version because we had to do a fresh install and reactivating our game again for 1255 AFAIR, so there you go, no old files left from older versions of rFactor

forgive Corrado when I sound a bit strong about that, but fact is everybody who joins during a quali session will ruin my lap when I am on a flyer, this is a fact. So the chatter is really no issue for me if kept down to a minimum.
The stutter has such an impact that before I bought my new graphics card the screen "hang" around for 2-3 seconds and this showed in the laptimes! Now with the new graphics card it`s much better, but still there is a small stutter, maybe 0.5-1.0 seconds. It`s my old computer that causes this, I need a stronger machine but don`t have money for it.
A new machine is planned when Windows7 gets released given this current old crappy thing will last that long

I maybe should start a competition with the following questions:

how old is your OS
for how long do you use this unchanged i.e. no reformatting no reinstall
how old the hardware
how old the latest hardware and what kind of is it
what of of monitor you use? How old is it?

I bet I win the competition

Corrado Toxiri · Post by **Corrado Toxiri** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:04 pm

Petra wrote:I bet I win the competition