Next build will not support XP or MS Server 2003

[Bogdan]

Sorry I haven't been around much lately but real life has reared it's head again, my daughter had her baby last weekend and I spent Sunday out there visiting her and holding my grandson

Congrats, Dale! That's wonderful news. Enjoy the moments.

[Rouke]

Yes congrats Dale, that's excellent new man


Fwiw guys I am not too concerned with the grid sizes, sure its disappointing to see it diminish, especially when allot of work has gone into it (one of the reasons why we stripped down TWFR35) but if I recall correctly it was about the same when I first joined legends and there no reason why 8 to 12 guys can't have great championships and fun.
But we are already a glorified pickup server in special events, how many drivers last sunday? 3? 4? and for championships it seems to close in on that notion as well if this keeps up.
From an admin pov the work somehow has to be rewarded, the best award is people joining in and have fun. I still recall how pissed off Grant was when he organised an event and hardly anyone showed up despite indications it was going to be good. nothing disheartens an admin more then that and that was just 1 fun event.

Rule of thumb for me, if you want something, better be prepared to take action. like I said before, wishful thinking aint gonna cut it, things don't just magically happen.

As for AC Steve, no we aint panic-shifting to another sim, its just an option we should at least discuss. Because at this point I am more concerned about Legends surviving somehow then figuring out what to do in terms of simracing.
We are going to have to pay the bills in December and imo Legends should only ask for money from its members when it has something in the pipelines.

[SteveC]

Congratulations on the enlarged family Dale

24 is better but 8 - 12 starters is perfectly ok. My feeling is tho once things dip below 8 things start getting silly. I think 8 is about the threshold, and 8 is what we have currently.

I am not speaking for myself, but is is inevitable that people may race elsewhere soon the way things are, you could not blame anybody if they did. I am happy to wait, but the point is we are already on threshold of what you can call a raceworthy grid. Delaying too much now discussing other sims or other things could be a costly mistake.

We should rent that 19 euro server for 3 or 4 months, and get something happening on RF and stop people from leaving pretty quick. 1 more season on RF, then if you want to change sim you can discuss it properly during the season at your leisure and do what you want afterwards. You will stil have the full crowd of drivers.

Bogdan is waving his cheque book around practically every day, I can make a small donation, maybe we should have a whip around? 57 euro for 3 months seems good value, and gives us the opportunity to continue. We can be back in business tomorrow. Dunno what these bils in december amount to but this server you have at present is not worth having, I would try and get out of that agreement. Or upgrade it, even put win 7 pro on it? You need a server pronto either way unless you gonna throw towel in, or take break to think about things which I think could be fatal.

I did FR35 race on Friday, a new league of Spanish drivers only everybody is Spanish except me. They call me 'The Alien' I think they mean 'foreigner' but I like to think otherwise They set max grid 24 cars, we had 24 cars although 3 did not show. Miguel Reyes was one of them he wrecked out T1 If they can do that with purely Spanish members surely we can do it internationally? I did a race last weekend with ISR, approaching 30 starters there was. It IS possible to make a successful league on RF2 other people are doing it.

If you want more drive from members i am happy to contribute, I never have before as I did not eel it was my place.

- Rent a server, and run another FR35 season is what I say. You cannot beat the FR35 for a open wheeler that rocks and is highly popular.
- Ask core members to confirm if they are still up for another FR35 season, if 8 of us confirm we are ready to go for sure.
- Start running these other events you used to run, like the 'Lord of the Ring' or whatever it is. Get up and running then run the Nascar at the Ring when Nascar comes out.
- CRUCIALLY get getmod working and keep it working. Else everything else is null and void.
- Maybe try and start a B league on week day night euro time, not great for Dale and Rick sadly but it could be a good thing for generating activity.
- American members could always try the same, week day night USA if they want to.
- Interseason make a list of viable mods and put them all in one big vmod and hld a hot lap competition interseason, and choose a new mod at same time.
- Get the vmods and everything sorted a race in advance so things cannot go tits up with no notice.
- Post everything on ISI which we have only done occasionally.
- After each race on sunday switch the vmod to next one immediately and post on ISI the next weeks event.
- Get rid of the auto server reboot, or make it 1 hour earlier. A few times some of us shown up early to practice and the server got busy a couple of times - then they all get booted 5 mins before the event starts! Lets stop that.

Another plus will be that we have the server 7 days week which at present we do not.

None of these things can be a magic solution, but if the server is running good and activity is happening well then it just takes work and time. IF you get everything working and have a more regimented weekly routine, posting on ISI etc, and after 12 months of trying everything is still dead then sure yes at that point you can give up and say RF2 is dead. For other leagues it is not dead, but is hard work for them all. Probably it is on AC and GSC too. Making any conclusions from the past season is null and void as we had too many server outages and complications.

Then if everything is running good, next time a mod comes out and traffic goes up 500% then likes wise you have 500% better chance of new members. Not so long back when things were pretty busy, you had no chance because no getmod, it was tragic. Now we are looking back asking questions of ourselves, there is no point.

Lets throw in the towel now or make a go of it on RF, then stick with RF or change sim. We need to spend a few quid but nothing too major.

I can help with server admin, and website developments, ralph can do the photoshopping, I hear Justin is happy to help where possible I think on the RF2 side, Rouke can put his feet up and Gret too (a little )

I had a discussion last night with boss of an American league which is in a bit of a fix with their server too about sharing. No news yet, I would not hold your breath but it is a possibility. The races do not clash.

Well anyway my point it is it is probably best to do something quickly and decisively. Run a season on RF or change sim, protect the core drivers we have at present and as far as I know we still do. Bogdans sounds like he can send some money, I can send a bit, discussing this for a month is a big mistake if you want to change things do so immediately or run RF whilst you draw up other plans.

[MarkF]

Just pointing out, the 19 euro server increases when you add windows OS by 10 euros a month also 19% tax needs to be added, so about 35 euros a month.

[SteveC]

Yes good point Mark. I forgot windows costs 10 euros extra.

I should say I have not checked everything out and cannot gtee we will not have start lag on cheap server, should be ok with 12 driers i think. I just know others use these servers albeit the 29 euro one.

I cannot believe I did not think of this earlier, but perhaps there is a miracle solution. Perhaps there is a league with surplus server capacity who would host for legends for a period in exchange for a few readies. I shall utilise the magic of teamspeak later today and see if such a thing is possible. Your own server would be better but if we can race on 860 from a dedicated server temporarily for cheap as chips that must be good.

A Teamspeak server is another thought but not important now. I am not a huge fan of being on TS but it is sure useful for building a community when you can talk to each other, and it is useful at pre-race and race starts too.

[MarkF]

It is a shame, 2 months ago I could have temp hosted RF2 for you on a 100mbit server in Amsterdam, now we are running two flight sim servers which is pushing the CPU to the limit on three cores, but plenty of bandwidth left, hosting 70 players on one and 50 on the other so its a push.

[Justin Bright]

Well, I must say I can totally sympathise with Rouke's frustrations with rF2. I'll be honest, I really hope we can find a way to stick it out with rF2 for a while longer. I actually came here, to get away from iRacing for a bit, not because it's a bad sim or anything. I was just frustrated with the state of the physics (specifically the tyre model). Things are much better now in fairness and I do still enjoy turning the odd lap here and there, certainly I will be renewing my sub, when I need to, so I wouldn't object to racing with you chaps on iRacing. Cost is an issue for anyone who has never tried it. The subscription fee isn't bad, I usually go for the black friday sale (around end of October?) which gives you a year half price (works out around £50, if I remember correctly). The biggy is shelling out for the content, mostly the tracks are the biggest expense as you will need those if you want to participate in most of the official races, but its best just to get what you need in dribs and drabs as and when required. So the expense is spread out and doesn't seem so bad.

I dread to think what I've spent on it in 4 years though!

AC, well I have it, I like it. But out of the 3, it is probably my least favourite. Not really sure what it is I don't like about it if I'm honest. People go on about to much grip, but I'm not so sure its really that. It just somehow doesn't feel anywhere near "alive" as rF2 or iRacing. Multiplayer when I tried it was.... "interesting" . However that was in it's infancy and I am told it is much better now.

If there is anything I can do to help, I'm more than happy to. I'm absolutely clueless about internet/website stuff, but any "dogs-body" jobs that need doing, that can help in anyway. Give me a shout...... and of course I'm more than happy to spare a bit of money to help towards running costs.

In short, I have no objections to what we race and where we race. But I would love to be able to stick it out with rF2 if at all possible... but ONLY if that is what everyone else wants.

Oh and congratulations Dale on your daughter's new arrival and I hope your Mum is ok and makes a speedy recovery.

[Rouke]

I'm hesitant to reply because I don't want to come across as a cannot-guy. which i'm not, but some things are debatable and not as black and white as we would like them to be.

Delaying too much now discussing other sims or other things could be a costly mistake.

We have been delaying for quite a while now, there's no harm in taking our time, there's no rush either. effectively we would be entering the realms of re-inventing ourselves or starting from scratch.

Bogdan is waving his cheque book around practically every day, I can make a small donation, maybe we should have a whip around? 57 euro for 3 months seems good value, and gives us the opportunity to continue.

Its not just server costs, we have to pay our site host & domain costs. which one is more important (site or server) remains to be seen (if we would have to choose that is)

- Rent a server, and run another FR35 season is what I say. You cannot beat the FR35 for a open wheeler that rocks and is highly popular.
- Ask core members to confirm if they are still up for another FR35 season, if 8 of us confirm we are ready to go for sure.
- Start running these other events you used to run, like the 'Lord of the Ring' or whatever it is. Get up and running then run the Nascar at the Ring when Nascar comes out.
- CRUCIALLY get getmod working and keep it working. Else everything else is null and void.
- Maybe try and start a B league on week day night euro time, not great for Dale and Rick sadly but it could be a good thing for generating activity.
- American members could always try the same, week day night USA if they want to.
- Interseason make a list of viable mods and put them all in one big vmod and hld a hot lap competition interseason, and choose a new mod at same time.
- Get the vmods and everything sorted a race in advance so things cannot go tits up with no notice.
- Post everything on ISI which we have only done occasionally.
- After each race on sunday switch the vmod to next one immediately and post on ISI the next weeks event.
- Get rid of the auto server reboot, or make it 1 hour earlier. A few times some of us shown up early to practice and the server got busy a couple of times - then they all get booted 5 mins before the event starts! Lets stop that.

Most of these assigns a workload to 1 or more people, this has been mentioned before, its doubtful to me we have such a team at the moment.

And fwiw, we have a long history of league racing, current and past teams have done pretty well and gained allot of experience, for the seasoned admins here its not difficult to create simple or complex structures. but it does require allot of work and again brings us back to where we are now. whom is gonna do it.

Another plus will be that we have the server 7 days week which at present we do not.

We actually do and it used to be tightly scheduled 24/7. the last couple of months it was slacking due to weird rf2 errors and admin shortage.

Then if everything is running good, next time a mod comes out and traffic goes up 500% then likes wise you have 500% better chance of new members. Not so long back when things were pretty busy, you had no chance because no getmod, it was tragic. Now we are looking back asking questions of ourselves, there is no point.

We had some good flows in rf2 mind you, we ran for months with several builds without any issues. and that time that a particular build saw 99% of the servers go down we where one of the very few without any issues. and we tried hard to capitalize on those times.
But it gave us little gain and we are not sure why. it seems for simracers in general the landscape has shifted, less dedicated drivers out there and of course one of the main reasons is that rf2 is not or less hackable so the thousands of cracked-drivers we saw in rf1 are all gone.
A functioning server is by no means a guarantee for success. its just the minimum any community has to start with.

And its very easy to fill a server mind you, just pick the most popular or latest release content and pickup-drivers will fill the slots in no time. And we have done so with rf2 events.
But that is questionable in itself, we are still a league, not a pickup server following the latest hype. plus 95% of the people occupying a popular server you will never see again, they will just hop onto to the next popular thing, let alone attracting them as new members.

Well anyway my point it is it is probably best to do something quickly and decisively. Run a season on RF or change sim, protect the core drivers we have at present and as far as I know we still do. Bogdans sounds like he can send some money, I can send a bit, discussing this for a month is a big mistake if you want to change things do so immediately or run RF whilst you draw up other plans.

I agree, we have plenty of options. the only thing stopping it is a small team of dedicated admins prepared to invest their free time into it. and that's where it falls flat imo. in my opinion that has to be solved first, then everything else will follow no problem.

But as I've stated before, personally I would be very hesitant to accept money if we don't have much to show for in organising things.

Again, I don't want to put down any incentives or enthusiasm but we have to be realistic as well.

[SteveC]

Yes you have made many good points Rouke. I was just thinking in simpler terms of making the best of the assets and resources we have already. I know many factors exist aside from that, it was not intended as an action plan or critique of anything, what currently exists is excellent. My thinking was purely how to change the odds in our favour a bit for not much work, although some of them points would indeed take some work, they are just ideas not a plan for future.

I seen the iRacing guys talking about SOF all season, now I see from Riks geek sheet it means Strength of Field, and at LL the SOF is extremely strong. I saw that PiortekKeeper joined at Monza who is as fast as anyone (even if he did take me out... ), drivers that fast can come here and have a race, normally they are driving around by themselves getting bored of winning all the time. This must be a good thing worth keeping I think. If the grid was small and crap it may be different, the reverse is true we should not forget the value of this

And its very easy to fill a server mind you, just pick the most popular or latest release content and pickup-drivers will fill the slots in no time.

Rouke you must cease with this hopelessly over-optimistic rose tinted view of RF2

[Rouke]

Nah not over optimistic hehe, we have had quite a few rf2 events where we picked popular content (meganes/mills/slow cars etc. or newly released content like Karts and the numbers went up 500% every time.
So its easy to fill up the server on occasion, or even weekly I suppose, but it does not gain the league much as those drivers are not interested in the more difficult content (trust me, allot of people are too fearful of cars like the FR3.5) or interested in returning or dedicating themselves.

And no, I didn't see your points as critique at all, they are very sensible in fact and nothing we have not thought of or done so ourselves of the past periods.
Truth be told though, most of your points have been covered extensively already, since we started with rf2 we tried just about everything we could think off to change things around. for example on the last few events we have not advertised on ISI, before that, every single week. it did not bring much gain at all.

Also don't be fooled by the levels of driving standards at legends, the main reason we have seen so few accidents and excellent behaviour in TWFR35 is because of our small grids. there is simply more room for error and less stress driver vs driver when cars are so far appart.
At our peak days in rf1, running a tight ship, many admins, full blown stewards office, we saw loads of crazy accidents, weird stuff coming from seasoned drivers, aliens buried under, admins almost getting race bans (me) etc etc.
why? full packed servers, high stakes, hyped tensions and nerves getting the most of people. season after season the top 6 would finish within 10 points, top 3 within 3 points, many complaints, bitching, investigations, penalties and drivers going for the next event with vengeance on their minds

In short, just like real racing!
(driving standards where still pretty great though I have to say, just too much, too fast, too many stakes, incidents will be inevitable even from the best drivers when championships are so high profile)

[SteveC]

Yes it can be busy when ISI mods come out, and I have also been thinking throughout this discussion we do not want to be out of action when the Nascar mod comes out, that would be really bad. I heard the NSX is being released this week which is good as they do no normally release mods back to back, Nascar will get a lot of activity going I think.

Well I am stuck at home again this Thursday, is anyone showing up for club night? Now Mark laid on the server we may as well use it!