The Unfortunate Truth

Remember the days where A lobby was an accomplishment? When we had 150 entries for ONE series? Now TORA struggles to have more than one lobby (Big Rig, Touring Masters, etc.) and there's nobody to blame but themselves.

To be honest, we all put a TON of effort into these series. We practice, paint and tune for hours. Many people including me put a lot of work into promoting these races on Twitter and other social media outlets, hoping to grow sim racing and make it enjoyable.

The way we're treated in response is nothing short of disrespectful. It seems like every series takes more time to get through in a night than the one before, and there's no end in sight. You have series' where ONE GUY does the builds for over 10 cars. You have persistent doc issues and constant delays. And the staff seems to put in no effort compared to what the competitors dedicate to the same series. 

I signed up for a British GT race at 3:00 est, and had plans at 6. While you guys can't help a clock change, there's no way an 8 minute qualifying session and two 20 lap races should take more than 2 hours. What we witnessed was an hour and a half timeframe before you even SENT AN INVITE! I'm sorry guys, but this isn't the first race you've run. The excuses and finger pointing won't get it fixed. You need to once and for all sort it out. 

What I'm saying is probably not what you hear, and it isn't what I want to be saying (especially when I put over 15 hours into practicing tuning and painting for a series that I'm no longer racing...). But to be honest, I am insulted. My time is valuable. I have other things to do. Sim racing should be a hobby, not a full time job. Nobody should have to wait as long as we did tonight for a 50 entry race. 

Until you guys can start to respect your drivers, I'm likely no longer participating in your series

Here's your first test in being productive. Let's see if you can move this to the correct place before its 2017....

Just so you know, this is the iRacing forum section, where things have a set time and dedicated server/schedule that runs on time. But I feel your pain as I have been hearing from various team members about tonight.

I've been saying this for months now, hence my full time move to iRacing, but even then the numbers dwindle as the races go on. All the time, effort, promoting, planning, painting and tuning are wasted due to certain staff at TORA puting no effort in and failing at their own site.

F4H ForceOne wrote:Remember the days where A lobby was an accomplishment? When we had 150 entries for ONE series? Now TORA struggles to have more than one lobby (Big Rig, Touring Masters, etc.) and there's nobody to blame but themselves.

To be honest, we all put a TON of effort into these series. We practice, paint and tune for hours. Many people including me put a lot of work into promoting these races on Twitter and other social media outlets, hoping to grow sim racing and make it enjoyable.

The way we're treated in response is nothing short of disrespectful. It seems like every series takes more time to get through in a night than the one before, and there's no end in sight. You have series' where ONE GUY does the builds for over 10 cars. You have persistent doc issues and constant delays. And the staff seems to put in no effort compared to what the competitors dedicate to the same series. 

I signed up for a British GT race at 3:00 est, and had plans at 6. While you guys can't help a clock change, there's no way an 8 minute qualifying session and two 20 lap races should take more than 2 hours. What we witnessed was an hour and a half timeframe before you even SENT AN INVITE! I'm sorry guys, but this isn't the first race you've run. The excuses and finger pointing won't get it fixed. You need to once and for all sort it out. 

What I'm saying is probably not what you hear, and it isn't what I want to be saying (especially when I put over 15 hours into practicing tuning and painting for a series that I'm no longer racing...). But to be honest, I am insulted. My time is valuable. I have other things to do. Sim racing should be a hobby, not a full time job. Nobody should have to wait as long as we did tonight for a 50 entry race. 

Until you guys can start to respect your drivers, I'm likely no longer participating in your series

I know this was aimed at BGT, but since you did mention "my" series, Touring Masters, as barely one lobby...

We had two lobbies in the UK session, and three in the US. The races in the UK were top notch, with the whole field on the same straightaway the entire race in all three races. When the winner is just 1000 feet ahead of last, at the end of the race, there's not many series can say that.

I do remember there being some five lobby events in the past, but I also remember the delays associated with that sort of big series. In the Touring Masters, we had Q and all three races done well within two hours.

I'm sorry, but this is exactly what I expected from TORA staff. I don't mean for you to take offense, but you can't try and deflect the issues. Instead of saying "things went decently well," it's time to collectively start putting effort into improving. Believe me, 6 lobbies over 2 time slots shouldn't be a benchmark. You guys should start trying to make each series better than the one before it. The only way you guys can pull that off is if you become more organized, more inviting, and much simpler for new members.

Id rather this wasn't in the iRacing section...

can this be moved to somewhere but here?

I already asked for it to be moved....

Moved.

It was a one off that occurred because of a technical issue. It's not exactly like it happens all the time but I do understand the frustration.

But yes we will of course get it all sorted for the next round and I'm sure we can make it run smoother.

If you feel like your input can help improve then by all means contact us and we'll see what we can do.

And to think the Staff as a whole don't put in a lot of effort is a bit insulting. We all have real lives and many of the Staff and other groups work hard to make TORA tick in our own time. The doors are open if anyone else wants to help, but sometimes few do.

Again, if you can see the errors where we can't then by all means help improve what it is with constructive criticism.

Standaman94 wrote:It was a one off that occurred because of a technical issue. It's not exactly like it happens all the time but I do understand the frustration.

The thing is though guys, just about ever time I hear about things going on at TORA....that is exactly the issue.

F4H Lightning wrote:

Standaman94 wrote:It was a one off that occurred because of a technical issue. It's not exactly like it happens all the time but I do understand the frustration.

The thing is though guys, just about ever time I hear about things going on at TORA....that is exactly the issue.

But do you hear about every time we run races on time etc?

A falling tree is louder than those still standing

I am not sure where to put this so the staff will see it, but PLEASE for the love of God, make a Discord. You can have multiple text AND voice chat rooms so everyone in a race lobby can talk to each other and you can make important announcements in the text chat. This would be such a massive improvement on the "what the **** is TORA doing, why isn't the race starting" front.

That's not a bad idea, we do use Discord for the live streams

Also I don't want people to take this the wrong way. I want TORA to do well and understand that the current state of forza is not helping you guys, but things aren't going to fix themselves. Here's a few suggestions...

1) Limit the size of lobbies to 16 drivers. We don't need massive lobbies for entertainment when often times most drivers rarely move up or down a few places. Also with party chat restrictions this is likely the best course of action. The only exception I can think of is when there is a multi class situation, where each group is in their own party.

2) Open lobbies half an hour before a race. Waiting around and staring on time is a lot better than rushing to get going 5 mins after the fact. 

3) similarly, if someone isn't there by 5 after, tough! I know that this sounds harsh but in real racing if you aren't on grid you don't race. It's better off making 15 people happy with how the race is run rather than catering to the one guy with internet issues. 

4) Try to have dedicated commentators for races. I know people have lives but this would be a HUGE step for making the series more professional looking and it would also invite more sponsors. If need be, I'd happily commentate some of the U.K. races that occur during the week. I have experience in casting some local kart races and I'd love to do it here as well.

5) I really like the discord server idea! Let's get that going for 2017

6) Docs don't matter! If the live timing isn't working, we can fix it later. Take screenshots of qualifying results and order them manually if need be. There should be no more than a 25 minuite wait after a quali session, or players will start to get bored/angry

7) Streamline the number application process. Many people don't know that they need to apply for a number when they join the forums. Maybe when they join, you can simply give them a number straight off the bat, with the option to change it in the future.

Don't be afraid to create series that aren't 100% realistic to real life. We don't have that many options for race cars in game, and the series are getting stale. With a huge list of production cars we could totally come up with some new series to race in!


These are the main things I could come up with. I think if everything was made quicker and people were more aware of what was going on, everyone would have a much better experience racing with the site

Frankly, there certainly is a great amount of room for improvement upon event preparedness among organizers. I'm sorry, but the only series' I have run in the last year or so that has consistently run smoothly and on time, have been done by Radiation Louis. Like him, race organizers need to know EXACTLY how everything is going to run days, if not weeks, before the event is run, and they need to be there setting it up no later than 30 minutes before it starts (this is assuming you already have everyone on you friends list, which is almost never the case). When I have to fully run an event, I usually log in the day before to add everyone to my friends list. From my experience hosting and standing in as the organizer, this is the only way stuff gets done smoothly.

In this regard, I do have to give props to Stan for his improvement with ABRC. The first round took almost 3 hours for a 6-lap qualifying, and 2 25min races. Now it takes us half the time, which is right where it should be. Cheers Stan

I have no clue what went wrong today, I wasn't here. But from this, and my own past experiences as a driver & host, organizers seriously need to step up their dedication and be prepared, or step away and let those of us who can get it done move up.

Also, as much as I agree that a discord server would be much better than XBL Parties, its not going to work. Not everyone has a PC or phone next to them while they race that they can use to jump onto Discord, let alone a mic that they could use with it.

TechnologicMau5 wrote:Frankly, there certainly is a great amount of room for improvement upon event preparedness among organizers. I'm sorry, but the only series' I have run in the last year or so that has consistently run smoothly and on time, have been done by Radiation Louis. Like him, race organizers need to know EXACTLY how everything is going to run days, if not weeks, before the event is run, and they need to be there setting it up no later than 30 minutes before it starts (this is assuming you already have everyone on you friends list, which is almost never the case). When I have to fully run an event, I usually log in the day before to add everyone to my friends list. From my experience hosting and standing in as the organizer, this is the only way stuff gets done smoothly.

In this regard, I do have to give props to Stan for his improvement with ABRC. The first round took almost 3 hours for a 6-lap qualifying, and 2 25min races. Now it takes us half the time, which is right where it should be. Cheers Stan

I have no clue what went wrong today, I wasn't here. But from this, and my own past experiences as a driver & host, organizers seriously need to step up their dedication and be prepared, or step away and let those of us who can get it done move up.

I do have to give props to Louis. Every Indycar event I did, the invites were out 20-30 minutes before qualifying, and it was run like clockwork. In contrast, all TEC events I've done this year have been poorly run, disorganized, and way off schedule. It's always late-it's a running joke in parties- "Only 20 minutes late, doing good by TORA standards." Meeting standards of mediocrity isn't good-we should be striving to improve, to get rid of delays and stuff.

One thing I'd like to say is that I would be streaming if I wasn't racing, but I have made it clear that no one's race is to be sacrificed just to have a stream, be it one of the Media team or valued helpers, or having to make space due to a packed lobby.

Also, we are operating with very few broadcasters, I have been asking for weeks for people interested to help out, but at the end of the day we all have lives and those that can are constrained by real life. We're all volunteers, any roles or responsibilities are voluntary. So, if you can stream and would like to contribute, I'm your man. But otherwise, we might have constraints.

I'm not going to comment much on the race because I had an up and down evening. One success was bringing in such a high calibre of drivers, but a lot of the things we need to work on and bulletproof test have been mentioned already.

HCR Motorhead wrote:One thing I'd like to say is that I would be streaming if I wasn't racing, but I have made it clear that no one's race is to be sacrificed just to have a stream, be it one of the Media team or valued helpers, or having to make space due to a packed lobby.

Also, we are operating with very few broadcasters, I have been asking for weeks for people interested to help out, but at the end of the day we all have lives and those that can are constrained by real life. We're all volunteers, any roles or responsibilities are voluntary. So, if you can stream and would like to contribute, I'm your man. But otherwise, we might have constraints.

I'm not going to comment much on the race because I had an up and down evening. One success was bringing in such a high calibre of drivers, but a lot of the things we need to work on and bulletproof test have been mentioned already.

Like I said I'd love to stream. One person isn't going to fix this, we need to collectively improve. It's a shame that there isn't much of a motivation for people to chip in and help

Sure, the docs breaking doesn't help, but there wasn't even a lobby set up by 7:50. Qualifying invites were still going out at 8:20, by which time they should've been onto race lobbies. Like ForceOne I've basically canned my participation in the BGT series, because by the time race lobbies were set up it was way too late, and the lobby was only half full by this time. Completely ridiculous that it should take this long.

As has been mentioned, IndyCar seemingly ran on time, if not ahead of time, and this was perfect for me, but 1h30 delays on SPRINT races is atrocious. I expect that in TEC, not BGT.

all it needs is one person to take all the times from all the loby leaders on qoly put the down on each loby the need to go into then you can put it all on the froum arfter wolds cose it will save time and it a back way so the race can start on time that just my feelings on thee matter

Firstly apologies for the delays last night and thank you to those who showed patience and sportsmanship in a frustrating situation.
A negative point first then onto what we're going to do. Please remember that EVERYONE who is on staff here and who hosts are volunteers. They give up their time freely to help make these series happen and often this means taking time out from family or other events to keep the ball rolling. For me, this weekend was my wedding anniversary, our first without family and I took time away from my wife after rushing back from our day out to make sure the event could run smoothly. 'Oh but you should expect 'x' or 'y'' I hear you saying. Well yes and no. Like I said, we're not paid, we don't actually owe anyone anything here. We run these series because we are passionate for the sport and this is how we get involved.
Anyway, last night would have been significantly smoother but for a few key points;

a) Sunday morning I assessed the lobby requirements based on the numbers we had and built qualifying lobbies accordingly. In the time between this and my return from my day out with my wife many more driver had either signed up to the series and/or signed up to the race. Unprecedented and considering the notice given of the race, an administrative nightmare.

b) Despite three reminders in the Brands Hatch thread to use the automated sign in thread many didn't which led to a few issues in making sure everyone who had signed in were in fact on the sheet as well.

c) Upon reassessing the lobby requirements our R1 data sheet - essentially a back page for the Live Timing seen by members broke. We are unsure as to how and why and no amount of changes could undo the issue.
I took the descision to use the R2 sheet (essentially Silverstone's data sheet) to allow us to input times etc. However we soon discovered the data would not transfer across to Live Timing and alterations I was able to make in previous series to force that sheet to recognise the new page wouldn't work on this occasion.
This led to a very frustrating job for the staff behind the scenes trying to balance both the lobbies and the class breakdown within them. Normally a significantly more straightforward job.
Massive thank you to Andy, Kev, Adam, James and Travis for assisting last night and making the event run.

Once again, I am sorry to those who feel they wasted their time last night - the racing was actually very good and those who know us will appreciate that things like this are rare in the grand scheme of things. We know what we're doing to improve already so stay tuned for a post later today.
Thanks

Again just to underline my previous point 9 times out of ten series do run as close to the anticipated running times and from personnel experience I've enjoyed the last 12 months of racing here.......long may it continue

There are always going to be delays but what's worth remembering is we all have a love for motorsport and at the end of the day racing is what we all love to do.
Granted it was an extraordinary long delay and yes we could have maybe keep in the loop .....however to try and get 50+ drivers in parties to notify them could have also been a logistical nightmare.... I'm not staff nor am I making excuses I just thing it should be seen from both sides of the coin.