Something I have been quietly working on behind the scenes last month or two has been the idea of a joint series between Aus/NZ communities on rFactor 2. Obviously the main idea behind it is to have a strong series with a good turnout of drivers, also representing their respective communities.
I have had pretty good feedback from various people from other communities and we are planning a get-together this Sunday on Discord to discuss. This is an open meeting - anyone can join. Or if you'd rather post your suggestions to this thread I can express those for you at the meeting. Ive posted below my initial proposal, and then the post for the meeting.
Hi, my name is Matthew Pluck and I am one of the main admin and series organisers at Kiwi Sim Racing (http://www.kiwisimracing.net.nz). As a community we have been operating for close to 20 years now, from the great days of Grand Prix Legends and NR2K3 through to rFactor 2. We all enjoy the great experience rFactor 2 delivers us but one constant issue we are fighting these days is the smaller field sizes - partly due to the variety available in Sim Racing titles, partly due to people not having time to race multiple times a week anymore.
What I and a few others have discussed is the possibility of running a combined series in a joint effort between some of the best communities in Australasia. This would help in several ways, obviously the first being it would provide us with a much larger field size; it would allow drivers to race against new racers from other communities; and also allow communities to showcase their drivers and racecraft which could also help attract other drivers to their community.
There is obviously quite a few logistics to work around to making this happen, but before we start working on that we need to agree on a common ground as to whether or not you and your community wish to be involved in this or not. Ideally, in my view, we would need to run a 'test series' first to ensure all our basis are covered - server hosting, race day and time schedules, direction of series etc.
I propose if you are interested in being involved in this series, we organise a time on Discord/Teamspeak to get together between our communities and start drafting some ideas. I'd like to consider all communties have an equal input into the series, what cars we run, tracks, night and time we race at, so be sure to ask around and bring any and all ideas to the table to discuss. Obviously our biggest hurdle will be the time difference between Australia and New Zealand so we will need to take that into our considerations.
I have a brief draft on what I suggest would be a good plan moving forward, which I will post below:
" Race Nights: Sunday
Race Time: Qualifying Starting at ~8:30pm NZ Time/6:30pm AEST
Racing to take place of up to 2 hours with an ETA finish time around 10:30pm NZT/8:30pm AEST
Series: 2018 Test Series
Mod: V8 Utes, Aussie Legends, Touring Car Revival, or one of the several GT3 mods available
Tracks: Familiar tracks around Australasia
Rounds every Sunday.
Series: 2019 Australasia V8 Supercar Series
Mod: FVR (unless a better mod is released before then)
Tracks: Following calendar when able, will find replacement tracks for rounds that aren't in game
Rounds to take place every Sunday following the real life calendar.
Numbers: This depends a lot on our server capability, but I feel around 32 is the max number before we may start having issues on server-side (this number could also change based on grid spots/pit stalls on each track). I feel each community will get an x amount of reserved driver spots (obviously depends on how many wish to be involved), but for example if there is 4 communities, each community has 6 reserved spots for drivers (making 24), then the remaining 8 spots can be open to anyone. How we delegate those whether its through qualifying times, first come first served basis, to be discussed.
Rules: All racing etiquette and rules to be discussed and agree on between communities"
Obviously only a rough draft at this stage, but is some food for thought, and something we can use as a foundation to build something on.
I have high hopes of what could be a great experience for all involved, and look forward to discussing further with you all. Please let us know if you are interested, and when would suit for a 'meeting' on discord to discuss further details,
Thanks,
Matt
Just a follow up to my previous post I sent to you all.
I have had great positive feedback from numerous people, which is a great starting point for this series. I feel the next step we should take is have a bit of a get-together on Discord and discuss what we all have in mind and share ideas etc between us all. Any and all are welcome to the meeting, not just admin - anyone who has an interest in this series is welcome to come along
I propose next Saturday (1st September) would be a good opportunity to do this. I thought around 10:00pm NZST would work best but we can work around this - please let us know ASAP if a different time would suit you.
Please get back to us if you are able to attend this meeting. Things to bring along for discussion would be:
- Mod/s to use
- Race Formats
- Preferred Day/Time
- Preferred Methods of communications (combined messageboard, facebook group etc)
- Track/s
- Driver Entries/Qualification to race criteria
- Anything else of importance
Our Discord Channel - https://discord.gg/5J6VMMd
I look forward to seeing you all,
Regards,
Matt