Commentary

Haven't seen a lot of objective comments or constructive criticism around the Forza world lately, so I thought I would fill that niche here.  It is here that you will get the honest but fair-minded opinion on simulation racing, and even on some real racing.  

You may not agree with the assessments, but you can be confident that the commentary will be unvarnished, direct, and void of all corporate or government influence.





The coverage of the ESL Forza Racing Championship was less than stellar. Yes, they were on all their usual social media platforms etc., but the way the information was laid out and promoted was what one might do if they really didn't want you to know a lot about it.  In practical terms there was ZERO coverage. Some might be saying, "huh?" Especially those at ESL and T10, but honestly it was no more than an average effort to inform the community of when exactly the final would occur.  Yes, they publish the time, but no international elaboration for world time zone differences? Which is a telling oversight for a "world championship event."  Come on boys and girls, not everyone in Germany or Australia is going to know right away what 11:00pm  in L.A. is going to be in their time zone.  Make it easy!  Post all the relevant time zones next time. 

It really is a matter of promotion and whether or not the "promoters" are actually good at it.  It seems that T10 is good at promoting their game, and ESL is good at promoting their tournament product, but neither is actually good at promoting organized racing.  I wouldn't want to say they don't care enough to do it the right way, but there is some of that.  T10 didn't want the job even though they would be the logical choice since they created the game.  So instead they handed it off to ESL, who really doesn't have the interest and experience in simulated motorsports that they do with shooters.  It's a bit of a head scratcher, and, it shows in the final result.  No live pre-race interviews, not even a webcam shot to say anything about TV.  No podium ceremony. No post race interviews either.  Just nothing like a real championship racing event really. Like watching local community cable program or something. FUBAR.

Don't take me the wrong way here, it has been about the best effort to date to create a unified organized competition that could include the entire Forza community and finally crown a champion, I get that.  What I don't get is the obscure promotional tools and small time effort for what should be a big time event considering the sponsors.  Ford and Michelin and Logitech must all be rolling their eyeballs and looking for ways to renege their cars and prizes.  They literally saw no audience, no views, and no hits considering the size of the Forza community. Even days after the final, the YouTube video recording of the event can't even crack 2000 views.  T10 sold nearly 2 million copies of Forza 6, seems a wasted opportunity when you only reach a tiny fraction of that number for your "big event." Just sayin.

Oh, and don't even get me started on those infraction !!! commentators who sounded like a couple of giggling teenage school girls at a sleep over.  I felt embarrassed for guest commentator and actual racer Tanner Foust who looked as if he didn't understand why he was even there. (Sigh)

Anyway, that's the way I see it. Obviously there should have been a much more serious ad campaign on TV and elsewhere as Gran Turismo did with their very successful "GT Acadamy."  Again, just sayin.  

 
AAR GTDon

It's good to see the league racing community is alive and well these days.  The effort to consolidate the community and produce fuller grids with fewer events seems to be working.  For a long time the number of different league series and events were so many that it was hard for leagues to have more than a single lobby of drivers at any one time.  Some of the change can be blamed or credited depending on how you see it on the lawless Forza public lobbies, a form of CoD with cars.  

Universally accepted as the worst kind of racing you can come by, FM6 public lobbies/hoppers are infamous for every form of cheating, corner cutting, and un-sportsmanship there is.  The only attraction to it is the hope that maybe you will randomly end up in that rare lobby where the drivers want to race you clean.  It's like finding a nugget of genuine gold in a sea of nothing but fools gold.  The interest and effort eventually wanes however and people move on. Some do find friends, and the luckier ones find friends who are into league racing.

In the safer confines of organized league racing, you'll experience many more nuggets of golden competition with drivers who are generally of the same opinion that the only real win, is a clean win.  Leagues are a positive place to work your race craft and reach the next higher skill level. In leagues, you can confidently go side by side with your bitterest rival and know his actions are limited by the enforcement of rules and replays.

It is a welcome sight to see "Turn 10" leaning into if not completely toward racing after ten long years of mostly turning a blind eye.  My speculation is that they simply ran out of non-racing enhancements and options to the point that the only new unexplored area of Forza, was that of racing.

Ironic isn't it? A racing simulation that has wanted virtually nothing to do with actual racing its entire run.  Well, it appears this is ending as we continue to see small enhancements and options geared toward a better racing experience for competitor and spectator alike.  The most recent FM6 update has included a feature that has never been offered in Forza, for the first time.  Manual grid selection.  The ability to move each driver to the desired grid position prior to the race start.  Such a simple and convenient option that really helps organized league racing.  Although not the most asked for option perhaps because it was assumed it was just too much to ask, a very welcome improvement nonetheless! 

We can only hope and speculate that this is the new trend for the future of Forza. Continued efforts to fill the racing gaps that place Forza on a more serious level of simulation racing. 

Forza has had all the better qualities of a top sim-contender in terms of graphics, physics, and gameplay, but like a ship without a rudder, or a race team without a series to race in, lacked direction.  It didn't seem to know exactly what it wanted to be and had a mission statement that was vague and relatively unknown.  It didn't know if it was just a car show game, or a driving simulator, car painting game, or a racing simulator.  It attempted to be all those things and allow the fans to dictate what it was, but this has proven to be a long term plan of failure because, without a clear vision for the franchise, there is no vision at all.  It's always better to define yourself rather than let others define you.

We like the racing direction Forza is headed and applaud T10 for finally taking us there.  We hope this continues and Forza can become the #1 racing simulator of all time.


AAR GTDon

It's high time that I said a word or two about the types of Forza racers there are out there in Forza land.  You know who you are!  And you don't need me to tell you.  But, others might not know who you are.  

The way I see it there are only 3 or 4 kinds of Forza racers not including the newb stage everyone starts off with.  There are hot lappers, public lobby specialists, organized league racers, and elitists otherwise known as "aliens" who do a bit of everything but tend to focus on big events.  Or put in other words, there are aliens, and then there are the rest of us. lol

See if you can place yourself in any of the camps.

1.Hot lapper's.  These are the purists among us.  They tend to be antisocial as a rule and prefer the non-interaction and non-contact of chasing a ghost for hours and setting the fastest possible times. Their Holy Grail is the #1 spot on the leaderboards, nothing else matters.  To them, this is what Forza is all about because whoever holds the number one top spot is in their minds the fastest of us all, period.  Often these racers are actually gamers and not car guys or even race fans.  To them, Forza is just another game to be conquered like any other video game which is why you often hear them refer to the tracks as "maps.".  They really could car less about racing cars door to door.  It's upsetting to their sensibilities and defeats the whole purpose of their singular effort to become #1 on the leaderboards for all to see and admire. But it is from the ranks of hot lappers that most of our aliens come from.  Once they have mastered the leaderboards a few dare to seek more and begin to dabble in actual racing feeling as though they are now fast enough to escape any revolting moments of physical contact between cars.

2.Public lobby specialists.  These are the villains and outlaws of Forza.  Drivers who revel in social and physical contact on and off the track.  These are the same racers who have multiple gamer tags and are proud to say they have been suspended countless times or banned by Xbox and T10.  These are the bad boys of the sport.  They specialize in public lobby cars carefully prepared to take you down when you least suspect by any means they like. Rules? Their motto is, "We don't need no stinkin rules!" Having honed their skills almost exclusively in the lawless confines of public lobbies, it's kill or be killed anything goes racing action to them.  Make no mistake these are very fast drivers who know how to drive in a crowd and will put you off into the grass at the slightest provocation too. Ask one of them to come compete in a league race, and you might as well be speaking Chinese however. They have no clue what you are talking about, and from what little they do know, want nothing to do with it either.  It simply goes against their idea of what Forza fun is. They don't want to be controlled by race officials and rules or penalized for dumping someone off the track.  They just want to race lots of random people and let the chips fall where they may after all, it's just a game, so get over it!  Commitment just isn't their thing.

3.League racers. These are the drivers who wish to compete in exactly the same way as their real life racing heroes do.  They come from the hot lap clan and public lobbies having had their fill of social isolation and chaos usually.  For the league racer it's all about honing your skills in a fair fight over an entire season knowing that a single race does not make you a champion.  League racers come in all levels of skill from novice to alien.  They tend to be car guys and race fans and regardless of skill have a strong sense of right and wrong driving because of years of experience in organized racing.  For them, this is why Forza is a simulator.  It simulates the sensations of racing hard door handle to door handle, lap after lap. And winning under such conditions could not be more satisfying to them.  It's the kind of gratification that actually goes beyond winning or gaining the fastest lap.  It's the kind that says, "the only good race is a clean race."

4.Aliens. Well, we all know them don't we.  They are found in every segment of Forza.  These are the crazy fast drivers who are at a level that few of us will ever reach.  And yet they do seem to have some commonalities. Aliens, as a rule, seem to possess a little bit of each of the other three group characteristics. They tend to be loners, but can be found in public lobbies from time to time, they do some league racing but never for very long, change gamer tags a lot, don't like to be committed to anything for very long, can be anal about rules, and prefer to race only the fastest cars of a class.  More social than a hot lapper, aliens tend not to hang around other aliens. And they prefer not to organize clubs or leagues.  These are the professionals of our sport. The real gunslingers as it were. They have won real cars and cash for their talents, and are treated with a certain amount of honor and respect by the rest of us.  Fortunately, it is rare to compete with an alien on the track, and should you by some stroke of luck happen to beat them, try to keep it to yourself because we know you got lucky.


Hot lappers of note
IIxcamxII
popcandy
backONEabs
Generl E Live

Public lobby specialist of note
pimpmackdaddy
vdubz
cruizecontrl

League racers of note
Brizzho
F4H Diablo
inviseco
eries
AAR GTDon
nelly
echovelocity
LER Visionthing
Roscoepcotrain
Manuel
Flyin Mikey
Berpdater
RidenSideways

Aliens of note
IIxcamxII
3wide
Rayzor
SP33D RAC3R
Laige
Lightening
Zermatt
Harmonic
Daveyskillz
b0x
Chemical


Yes of course there are many more than these, but these were just off the top of my head.


Have fun,
AAR GTDon

It's like David Attenborough did a Forza documentary

Lol thanks, i think lol

We here at the IFCA support and promote all organized simulation racing from clubs to leagues, to national and international events.  So it pains me to have to say anything negative about a particular event.  

Season 3 of the Forza Racing Championship has turned into a less than stellar effort. After T10 switched from ESL to Gfinity as the E-sports organizer, it was hoped that improvements would be realized.  With a slightly different format to include racing and not just hot lapping, it showed they were listening to some of the racing communities objections as noted right here on the IFCA in our interviews section.

All was going along well when suddenly at the last minute on race day for North America all the races were canceled.  No immediate reason was given. Eventually, Gfinity would put out a statement with a somewhat blurry explanation suggesting some kind of disruptive activity had to be addressed before going forward.  We call that BS (Barabra Streisand) around here.  It's political CYA speak if you know what I mean.  

No one seems to know what the real problem was, but speculation ran from not enough race officials to a poorly thought out points scheme.  Whatever the case may be it can be summed up in one word, 'debacle.' 

With only lukewarm attention being paid to the ForzaRC to begin with, as noted by the less than huge numbers of participants, this jerky start really hasn't helped.  Neither has the car choice.  Porsche is a fine automobile maker and builds fantastic cars that are wonderful to own and a joy to drive, but not so much in Forza.  For whatever reason Forza Porsche's have always been at odds with the T10 physics and seldom simulate the true virtues of the real Porsches.  Without a little tuning, a Forza simulated Porsche exemplifies or amplifies all the worst handling traits of a real Porsche making them perhaps the worst cars to drive in all of Forza Motorsports. 

Then there is the uninspired format itself.  We give Gfinity a B+ for trying, but a D- for execution.  We give T10 an incomplete grade for their lack of effort and understanding of what makes racing popular.  

Instead of doing the boring old leaderboard measuring stick via hot lapping which really has no intrigue value (because everyone can plainly see who is the fastest on all the leaderboards) why re-invent the wheel?  Why not simply do what professional race organizers do and have a full season of racing with pre-race qualifying? Have your Division Champions, then your Regional Champions, then your National Champions, and then your World Championship. Make people race! Duh!  Allow some tuning!  Allow teams to form up and support 2 or more cars! Make it a grass roots effort so that strong fan support is cultivated!  Make celebrities out of the winners so they can have a fan base that will follow them and the racing!  This is how you build a professional racing league!  Just ask the FIA, NHRA, SCCA, IMSA, and NASCAR!  They can't all be wrong, they've been doing it for over 50 years!

So how bout it Mr. Greenawalt, man up and get serious, go big or go home!


AAR GTDon

After talking with several T10 insiders who will remain unnamed, it was clear that even they were not confident that T10 understands what path to take to popularize organized Forza simulation racing on a global scale.  

Turn 10's basic theory seems to be, have a hot lap challenge to eventually bring all the fastest drivers together. Simple enough, and logical.  But it misses the obvious.  We already know who the fastest hot lappers are, just look at the boards!  Don't get me wrong, many of the same people who are in the top 20 leaderboards are going to be in the finals of any format you can create.  But this only further supports my premise that we need something more dynamic than a hot lap measure of driving skill.

The way T10 is now about competitive simulation racing is contrary to real racing and even other forms of simulation racing. Their idea is to have hot lap contests producing small elimination grids, using short sprint races without any pit stops. The idea is that this will be exciting because the pressure will be very high in shorter races, and the fans short attention span will be matched by the quick results. Unfortunately, this strategy results in virtually pre-ordained finishes, and/or risky dirty racing.  Why? Because the drivers are in a sprint race with not enough laps to recover from mistakes or contact practically guaranteeing the pole sitters a win. This is not interesting let alone exciting racing at any level is the problem.  It is a short term vision with short term marketing in mind.  This is not how real racing bodies or organizations have gained popular success.

Real success comes from grass roots participation in racing. IMSA, the FIA, and NASCAR all owe a piece of their success to the SCCA founded in 1944 by American sportscar enthusiasts and benefactors such as John Bishop and Gen. Curtis LeMay.  They organized a system of divisions and regions each having their own class championship events so that more people around the country had access to compete, culminating in the annual SCCA National Championship Runoffs where division and regional class champions come together. 

This is how you build long term success.  This is how you cultivate a fan base, interest, and enthusiasm, AND then sponsors.  You structure your organization so that the slowest amateurs have a shot at competing at some level. This ensures that the masses have some skin in the game, and this, in turn, manifests into broad popular support. 

As for the format itself, sprint racing isn't it.  It places too great a premium on pole position, doesn't allow enough laps for recovery, lead changes, pit strategy, or clean tactics while racing.  It's too short, predictable, boring, and lacks suspense.  

Season 2 of the ForzaRC is a good example for why sprints should be abandoned.  Laige was the fastest driver on the tracks selected but because there was a static grid where Lightning was always on pole for all three races, Laige did not have enough laps to catch Lightning, and Lightning easily won the event. In a full blown 25lap+ with a pit stop race, Laige would have had enough time to catch up and perhaps pass Lightning is the point. There is also the intrigue of random results not because the races are too short and forcing risky driving, but because they are long enough for mistakes to emerge and even fatigue to set in.

The other key ingredient is the "build up" and anticipation of a championship event.  This only occurs when there has been an entire season of divisional and regional championships leading to a national or international event.  One of the most exciting things about racing or any contest is this lead up to the actual championship race.  Whether it's the Indy 500, Daytona 24hr, Daytona 500, 24hrs of LeMans, or 12hrs of Sebring, the excitement builds to enormous proportions just prior to the race, but it started weeks or months earlier.

So listen up Turn 10!  You wanna go big? Then go small first! Build this more from the bottom up instead of the top down. Get the little guys involved who number in the tens of thousands, and instead of struggling to get a couple of thousand views on Twitch/Youtube/Beam, you'll get hundreds of thousands!  And then your sponsors will be happy, and Microsoft will be happy, and more sponsors will want in!  This is how you create a racing organization.  It can't be done with just the elite drivers with a short term vision, here today gone tomorrow strategy, it has to be looooong term.  It has to be grassroots focused.  It has to include serious marketing beyond social media, including TV spots and coverage. There has to be widespread outreach and contact with all Forza drivers.  It has to be simple to join and easy to understand.  It has to be like real life racing if you want the real life attention.

Here's what you do T10: Create your regions, and divisions per country, create a points table for sanctioned races of 25laps or more with a pit stop. Drivers who collect the most division points advance to their respective regionals.  Drivers who then collect the most regional points advance to the nationals. Drivers who collect the most national points then advance to the final world championship.  As a result, actual national champions will be competing against each other in the finals. This is how you promote and cultivate fan interest.  You give them something to cheer about!  This is why the World Cup is so popular.  Get it? lol


Just sayin,
AAR GTDon

So what are we to take from this somewhat unprecedented world event piggybacking on the 24hrs of LeMans?  Was it all that it was promoted to be? Did it live up to the hype? Is it the dawn of a new age in e-motorsports?  Hard to say to be fair, and this in and of itself is telling.  It suggests that the overall answer is perhaps, "not so much."  

As compared to the promotion, production, and coverage of season 2, certainly it was better, but then that wasn't a really high level to reach to start with.  The commentary was slightly improved, the media coverage was slightly better, the hype was pumped up, but the format was still hard to follow and, unlike any form of real racing known to man.  And as earlier stated, herein lies perhaps the root problem.  

You can fault me for being too disparaging, or too negative, but there has to be a real reason for why the spectator numbers were exceedingly low. From sample surveys we took reading the temperature of the Forza community, we could find no one who was truly hot for this competition.  What we did find was lukewarm attention at best, and uninterested at worst.

It didn't help that the first round at the start of the season had to be canceled at the last minute for mysterious reasons. But again, the heart of the problem is not so much with promotion or management or marketing, but with the format. Even though T10 took our collective advice after season 2 that something more needed to be added to avoid making it look like a pure hot lap challenge, the response was just a band-aid when it needed a tourniquet.  The patient continues to die on the operating table as we see it because the doctors don't know what is ailing their patient.  They have all the right tools and equipment to not only save him, but to make him better than ever, but lack the knowledge of what makes racing the greatest spectator sport in human history.

It's great that T10 was able to direct such an event on the coat tails of the 24hrs of LeMans don't get me wrong, but if no one in the simulation racing world watches, then does it matter? The problem appears to be everything to do with the format.  It is a 'who cares format' essentially. 

The core problem is that it is still fundamentally a hot lap competition offering no dramatic intrigue for the fans to follow.  It was complicated to join, and understand, and in duration so brief that by the time anyone understood what was happening, the round was over.  The 4 race format for the finals was 4 sprints races of less than 10 laps each and no pitting.  Designed to create high-pressure thrills and spills forcing the drivers to make risky moves. Instead, you had drivers unnecessarily destroying cars with bad driving, and having no time to recover with so few laps left.

From what we could tell CAR Laige was actually the fastest on a per lap basis with CAR Lightning second, and AMS RoadRunner third fastest. Had the format been a traditional type of racing with at least 30 laps and pit stops, Laige would have likely overtaken the leaders and won the event is our point.  Instead, we got a random result produced by poor driving without enough laps for the victims to recover their lost positions. Is this really what you want?  Or would you prefer to see the best Forza drivers in the world show that under the same conditions as real racers they also have the same amazing skill to win?

In the end, we still applaud the effort however misunderstood because it is the first step towards a bigger and better event in the future.  We congratulate the Forza Racing Champion who also happens to be a former IFCA FWC (Forza World Champion) AMS RoadRunner.  Due to his excellent result, he has climbed up to the 4th position on the IFCA Computer World Rankings list just behind CAR Lightning in 3rd.



See you at the track,
AAR GTDon

I watched most of the racing on Saturday, but unfortunately missed most of it on Sunday (time zones). No idea how RoadRunner managed to get into the position he did, but congratulations! I've raced with him a few times and like many of the other drivers there, they're on a different level.

Pros:
-Event was more organized
-Had more excitement than the 24 Hours of Le Mans at times
-Had a surprise winner
-Sharing the podium was a great moment for racing esports
-Commentary and the stream were good (not great, but much improved)

Cons:
-Still seems like the format leads to obvious winners (*see below)
-Huge delays in results. Yes, stewarding is important, but with any sport, you want to see the winner... win. Waiting for official results robs the drivers of a proper celebration.
-Extending the qualifying places out to 128 people was a move that wasn't needed and cost Microsoft more money and trouble than they should have spent. Just go with the top 16 or top 32, pay for everything, and get the best of the best going against each other.
-Still lacking in promotion for the event - maybe we'll be able to watch future seasons from within Forza 7 with a more obvious event banner in the game itself.


*Don, I'm kind of with you when it comes to the format of these events. Laige is clearly the fastest driver and as long as he doesn't get hit or get a penalty, he'll win. It's amazing how good he is, but it makes things a little stale for viewers when someone is expected to win.

Perhaps they could group the teams together and have more matches like CAR vs. F4H or JSR vs. AMS, with two teams on track, a slightly longer sprint race, and a knockout-style tournament.

Take out the delays in final results, have a bigger focus on the individuals (did you see the feature for CAR Lightning? What an awesome moment, he made a bunch of new fans who otherwise wouldn't know him), and maybe either format would be a lot more exciting.

As much as I love organized endurance racing, it doesn't fit the mold of an esports tournament. That said, I'd love to see the great racing that happens at places like TORA, SimR, and ORL receive more support and attention from Turn 10. Maybe it needs better cross-promotion, the Forza channel on Mixer to host a broadcast, more prizes, or even just support from a few Turn 10 or Gfinity people. There's some great racing going on and the people involved work their asses off to show how Forza Motorsport can have that same combination of fun, diverse, and exciting that real racing series live by.