GT Legends - still fun

It appears to be 2004 that I last posted in here, but never mind... after
a long break from sim driving, for health and other reasons, I've
reinstalled GPL and GTL. The former is just to mess around with, but I
did want to try GTL online again. I have a better PC now than I did a
couple of years ago, with a 9600GT rather than a 7600GT (though I still
use my old MSFF wheel!) so it was nice not to have to compromise on
graphical quality to get a smooth frame rate.

Catching up with events (not easy when RSC is down - I think last time I
had a break was when RSC had that *huge* downtime a few years ago,
actually!) I found that GTL has now reached the "lots of mods" stage,
which is something I always have mixed feelings about as it does fragment
what's already a shrunken audience still further. Still, off to the
server list I went...

....several servers dedicated to various mods, as expected, so they were
out. Altbierbude looked promising at first, but further investigation
showed that I'd have to spend the entire afternoon downloading addon
tracks and car skins for the thing to work at all. Too much effort,
though if they ever get the "one-click" update they talk about on their
site that might change. And "Russian drunk-driving" was hardly an
enticing server name, though beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

Which left a TC65-only server which turned out to be the good old Gamers
Crib people under a different name. This looked much more promising:
unmodded physics, original tracks, short races and drivers who were there
for the right reasons. I started out in the Lotus Cortina as I'd barely
turned a wheel in over a year and wanted stability. Shame it's so slow!
At least I got complimented for being a very clean driver, which was nice.

Eventually I traded up to the Alfa, which is much faster and had always
been my favourite car in this class. I'm hopeless at setups, so tend to
use downloaded ones; even if not perfect, they're much nicer than the
ones GTL provides as defaults. I wasn't too happy with my performance at
Magny-Cours Club (mainly because it's a horrible track) but a third place
at the much nicer Anderstorp GP encouraged me.

By now it was late in the evening, but I had to stay for one more race on
one of my favourite circuits, Donington National. It all came back to me,
and (with the help of the fastest driver of the session having left us) I
managed pole. I was thrilled with that, and would have been an awful lot
more thrilled had my car decided enough was enough before the first
corner. Gah. Oh well, that's racing!

It was great to find I still enjoyed the races so much, and to find that
this server was all about good, clean racing rather than showing off or
being stupid. This may be a very old game now (and yes, I've looked at
iRacing: it seems a bit cold and clinical to me) but GT Legends online is
still a tremendously enjoyable experience.

--
Bewdley, Worcs. ~90m asl.

On Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:53:06 -0500, David Buttery wrote:

<snip>
> I was thrilled with that, and would have been an
> awful lot more thrilled had my car decided enough was enough before the
> first corner.
<snip>

Whoops... "had my car *not* decided enough was enough", I mean.

--
Bewdley, Worcs. ~90m asl.

On Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:53:06 -0500, David Buttery wrote:
> It was great to find I still enjoyed the races so much, and to find that
> this server was all about good, clean racing rather than showing off or
> being stupid. This may be a very old game now (and yes, I've looked at
> iRacing: it seems a bit cold and clinical to me) but GT Legends online is
> still a tremendously enjoyable experience.
>

Hi David,

good to see you again here in RAS, and I'm glad to hear your health has improved.

If you're into GTL you should check out the P&G mod for GTR2, and of
course the HistoriX mod for rF. I think you'll find more servers
online there than stock GTL servers as most people have switched by
now (and the other two titles don't install Starforce as a bonus).

All the best,

Uwe
--

On Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:40:15 +0000, hoover wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> good to see you again here in RAS, and I'm glad to hear your health has
> improved.
>
> If you're into GTL you should check out the P&G mod for GTR2, and of
> course the HistoriX mod for rF. I think you'll find more servers online
> there than stock GTL servers as most people have switched by now (and
> the other two titles don't install Starforce as a bonus).
>
> All the best,
>
> Uwe

Thanks Uwe. I don't actually own either rFactor or GTR2 (not yet,
anyway). I think I'm right in saying that GT Legends is in fact the
newest driving game of any sort I own - I told you I was out of touch!

Those mods are both huge, about a gig each, so very big downloads even by
2009 standards. That means that I need to think about it for a while...
and before that, there's the question of which base game to buy. I don't
think I'm going to have time to learn both games, so I need to choose
between them. Of course that's where demo versions come in, and at the
moment I really don't know which I might prefer.

Really it's going to depend on which one "feels" better. GP2, GPL and GTL
are the three in my time that have got it right. Some others - GTR1 is
one of them, actually - just didn't manage capture my imagination. As for
GTL itself... I know that all sims age eventually (well, except for GPL!)
but there's still a part of me that doesn't want to leave it behind. I
suspect I might be stubborn and stay with it for a while, at least while
the TC65 server is still in existence.

--
Bewdley, Worcs. ~90m asl.

> 2009 standards. That means that I need to think about it for a while...
> and before that, there's the question of which base game to buy. I don't

Hi David,

considering the fact that GTR2 is end-of-life and rFactor enjoys
probably the biggest and most vibrant modding community of any sim at
the moment, the question should have an easy answer. rF's price tag is
ridiculous considering the stuff that's up for grabs for free out
there. I'd pay a hundred Euros for rF 1 without giving it so much as a
second thought, even taking its age into account.

With rF2 on the horizon (and a possible rebate for rF 1 owners, who
knows), purchasing rF is the way to go IMHO opinion. You can always
pick up GTR2 in a bargain bin if you feel like you're missing out on
something later on.

All the best,

Uwe

On Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:09:34 +0000, hoover wrote:

> considering the fact that GTR2 is end-of-life and rFactor enjoys
> probably the biggest and most vibrant modding community of any sim at
> the moment, the question should have an easy answer.
<snip>

Aha! Right; that would seem to settle the issue. One further question,
though: the rFactor site gives various links to buy the game on DVD, and
the thought of saving *another* gigabyte download is attractive. However,
the only discs around (eg from Play.com) are labelled "2008 Special
Edition". I'm a bit wary of that wording: is it the full game, or simply
a demo or something?

--
Bewdley, Worcs. ~90m asl.

On Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:00:20 -0500, David Buttery wrote:

> Edition". I'm a bit wary of that wording: is it the full game, or simply
> a demo or something?
>

I can recommend the rF lite download which is only 100MB or so. It
only includes one car & track I think, but you'll mostly be racing the
mods anyway. Also, rF lite is perfect for keeping multiple installs on
your drive (I have three separate installs for example: one for league
racing the BMW E21 320 [yes, we'd be happy to have you ;-], one for
testing and another one for the Bt52 Simracers Revival series.

http://www.rfactorcentral.com/rFactor_Lite.cfm

Also register with rf central while you're there, it's the #1 site for
keeping up with rF stuff (and of course rF Rank, but I guess you
already know that ;-)

All the best,

Uwe


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