They are ovals, but they are different kinds of ovals. Short track ovals are very different from 1 mile speedways and super speedways. Phoenix has a weird shape. Arguing that all ovals are the same is like saying that Albert Park is the same as Monaco or Monza is the same as the Circuit of the Americas.
Monaco -
Monza -
Albert Park -
I'm not trying to argue that it doesn't take any skill to drive in the NASCAR or any other motor sport but personally I find boredom sets in watching NASCAR earlier than other motor sports.
I also like the different cars in F1, there was a recent race where both Mercedes cars were ahead and both suffered failures of the KERS system forcing them to use just the regular brakes, one guy still finished 2nd and the other one lost his brakes it resulted in a feeding frenzy behind them as everyone heard this and went super hard resulting in multiple overtaking and unfortunately one crash.
I'm not trying to argue that it doesn't take any skill to drive in the NASCAR or any other motor sport but personally I find boredom sets in watching NASCAR earlier than other motor sports.
NASCAR drivers can get a bit worried when you take them out of their element, though.
Okay, I looked at those courses. I admit that not all the courses are ovals, but out of the Sprint Cup courses (which is what everyone thinks of when they think of NASCAR), there are only two road courses. The rest are ovals or oval-like.
As far as not all ovals being the same, well, okay, there are differences between them. However, they all pretty much come down to races with only left turns. Hell, for the vast majority of races, NASCAR cars are weighted down on one side and have the tires, suspension, etc., tuned to be optimized for left turns and left turns alone.
There's a reason why they don't go to the right, and it's the same reason that European tracks mostly do turn to the right. If you're in a Nascar car, you sit on the left side. If you crash, you're slightly farther from the wall you're most likely to hit and thus a bit safer.
To sK0pe: What I'm saying is you can't say all ovals are the same, it's as absurd as saying all street tracks are the same or all road courses are the same. To Luke: What in particular are you speaking of with your wtf? The whole thing in general, or something in particular?
To sK0pe: What I'm saying is you can't say all ovals are the same, it's as absurd as saying all street tracks are the same or all road courses are the same.
However, ovals are inherently more similar to each other than the vast majority of street tracks or road courses.
The only real possible differences between ovals are basically the circumference of the course, the width of the track, the bank angle of the turns, and maybe some oddball "not quite oval" shapes like the Pocano triangular track. Compare that to most street and road courses and you have all sorts of variation in the number, direction, and type of turns, in addition to the length and width of the track.
Again, not to say that you don't need skill to drive on an oval course. Heck, one of my all-time favorite races is the Indy 500, which is on as generic an oval as you'll find anywhere (except for the bricks at the start/finish line). The main issue with Sprint Cup is that, with only two exceptions, all the courses are just oval after oval after oval. No right turns, no hairpin curves, nothing -- just generally gentle, banked left turns.
The whole thing, but particularly that half mile track. I'm sure there are a few major things that are being tested, things that determine who deserves to be the winner, but I couldn't see them. In either video.
I think the reason Nascar primarily runs the ovals is those are the tracks that they own. They also own Watkins Glenn which is why that remains the feature road track every season. I used to love the Nationwide series running at the Montreal F1 track and Road America though. You could tell who didn't want to deal with a real track by who had Jacques Villeneuve or whoever drive their car for that race.
Personally, I think NASCAR would be much more entertaining if it went back to its roots: a bunch of folks driving souped-up consumer cars through backwoods roads while smuggling moonshine. Essentially rally racing with an "edge" due to the smuggling aspect.
Heck, they don't even need to be carrying real moonshine -- jugs of water would be fine. Just bring back that old feel of running from the tax man.
I'm not trying to argue that it doesn't take any skill to drive in the NASCAR or any other motor sport but personally I find boredom sets in watching NASCAR earlier than other motor sports.
NASCAR drivers can get a bit worried when you take them out of their element, though.
v8.put(NASCAR driver);
This was hilarious. There is probably a reason that there are a few Australians that get into WRC and Formula 1. We have enough of an infrastructure leading up to the V8 Supercars.
I did forget to mention I can put on the Supercars and watch them without getting bored with a couple of friends who are bigger petrol heads than me.
Personally, I think NASCAR would be much more entertaining if it went back to its roots: a bunch of folks driving souped-up consumer cars through backwoods roads while smuggling moonshine. Essentially rally racing with an "edge" due to the smuggling aspect.
Heck, they don't even need to be carrying real moonshine -- jugs of water would be fine. Just bring back that old feel of running from the tax man.
Sounds like World Rally Championship, in which case I agree, I honestly didn't even look up the roots of NASCAR.
Sounds like World Rally Championship, in which case I agree, I honestly didn't even look up the roots of NASCAR.
Love or hate NASCAR as a motorsport, it has an fascinating history dating back to the prohibition era in the 1920's. Despite alcohol being banned (by Constitutional amendment no less!), there was still a strong demand for booze all over the country. Much of this demand was satisfied courtesy of the backwoodsmen of the American South who had a long tradition of making moonshine in their proverbial backyards. Now that all alcohol was outlawed, these "outlaws" had as equal a shot at selling their product as the formerly legitimate distilleries. At first, they just loaded up jugs full of their stuff into their personal vehicles and tried smuggling it up to the larger cities and northern states that way. However, the Feds were on to them and would intercept these deliveries. The solution: have better/faster cars than the Feds! The moonshiners would purchase stock consumer cars (hence "stock car racing" -- the first NASCAR vehicles were simply modified versions of cars any person could buy), modify them to run faster, handle better (especially on rough back roads), and carry more cargo, and then smuggle the booze in their new hot rods (the era's Ford Coupe was a popular model as it already handled well, was easy to modify, and had plenty of space for a car its size to carry lots of cargo). Now all the moonshiners had to do to sell their product was outrun and out-drive the Feds, which they often did. This carried on well-past the prohibition era, only now they smuggled the booze just to get out of paying taxes on it.
Eventually, some of these bootleggers started bragging about how fast their cars were and how great they were at driving them. This soon resulted in informal races between the various bootleggers to settle these bets. Eventually, the racing became more attractive than the bootlegging and some of these former bootleggers got together to formalize rules on how to go about this racing, and thus NASCAR was born.
Some of the earliest sanctioned races were done right on the sand of Daytona Beach. However, eventually they realized that beach racing just didn't cut it and the Daytona International Speedway, home of the Daytona 500, was built. The rest came later.
By "relatively recently," do you mean the 1970's? :P
To be honest, I'm surprised they'd have a cigarette lighter and and allow smoking in a NASCAR vehicle, if only for all the fire safety stuff they try to put into them.
To be honest, I'm surprised they'd have a cigarette lighter and and allow smoking in a NASCAR vehicle, if only for all the fire safety stuff they try to put into them.
I looked it up - apparently, only him, and only during Yellow Flag periods. Apparently, because if they didn't let him, he'd probably just do it anyway.
By "relatively recently," do you mean the 1970's? :P
To be honest, I'm surprised they'd have a cigarette lighter and and allow smoking in a NASCAR vehicle, if only for all the fire safety stuff they try to put into them.
He was rookie of the year in 1989 so at least at that point. Maybe he did just bring a lighter for all I know though.
I also eat croutons and I almost never eat salad. (Couldn't you just season slices of toasted bread and eat that to avoid the argument?)
Steam sales have diminished in enjoyment for me but there are always titles you can buy. I also enjoy analyzing bad games in addition to good ones; so I'm a little bit of a black sheep.
I think I saw ungregiously unrealized potential; but no video or recording; sorry.
Still getting through 'canticle for liewbowitz' I'm at pg 57/159
Its poor sportsmanship when you take act in a way that diminishes the enjoyment of another player to where they wouldn't play again against your team or yourself because they couldn't enjoy the game.
Haha! Hey! Do you consider my dominion play ungameswomanlike (lol)?
My personal rules of sportsmanship: 1. It is most respectful to my opponent(s) to play to my best ability and/or optimally. 2. A large skill disparity should be compensated to create value for the loser (aka losing should be fun). Acceptable compensations include a handicap or additional challenge, a lesson in strategy, post-game discussion etc. 3. If I am behaving in a way that effectively insults, disrespects, or upsets my opponent, I should cease that behavior. Trash talk and teasing are only as fun as they are to the receiver. A loud bandwagon is a mindless steamroller. 4. Appropriate response to winning is encouragement and humility. Appropriate response to losing is acknowledgement of winner's gameplay. 5. No hypocrisy. e.g. I can't complain about someone taking a long turn if I also take long turns.
From this perspective, I regularly have moments where I regret, dislike, or reconsider playing games with members of the FRC. I lose my temper & patience at those times. But I know that our cultures of gameplay are different (I would say your behavior in JK2 is super dickish). In addition to the skill with which the FRC plays games, the cultural difference adds a meta-challenge which I intend to master. Bold unruly mouth, with no breadth of excellence: empty whispering.
The problem is that those players have made up a house rule in a public game without the consent of all players, and which is in no way enforced in the game itself. It's neither part of the posted "rules" of the game, nor visible anywhere except in player chats (there was no effective voice chat) or in the "community" forums.
The best analogy would be if I joined a game of Settlers among strangers at a con, and without saying anything prior they quietly never used the robber to hurt anyone (always putting it in a benign place like the desert). Then, when I have the opportunity to use the robber, I attack the winning player and take his stuff. They all get super mad and kick me out of their game.
At least in tabletop games in person, however, there can be a negotiation of the rules, including house rules, prior to play, the default assumed to be the rules as-written. All players can consent to rules changes, or choose not to play.
But, with a public, open, deathmatch videogame, there is no such consent. Play to win, follow the rules as-written. Force lightning in that game was the same as the AWP: some players would demand you not use it, but there was no way to stop you short of killing you.
(That actually happened at RIT: there was a deep and longstanding culture of never attacking anyone with the robber, and also of "bribing" the player wielding the robber with resources. We were HATED for actually playing to win).
We used to have a gentlemen's agreement when playing the SWCCG by Decipher to not use the force drain mechanic. Went to my first tournament and realized that other people were very intent on winning and were not playing to have fun.
We used to have a gentlemen's agreement when playing the SWCCG by Decipher to not use the force drain mechanic. Went to my first tournament and realized that other people were very intent on winning and were not playing to have fun.
You know, people keep saying this. That somehow playing to win is the opposite of playing to have fun. I call bullshit.
You know what's ridiculously fun? WINNING. If you don't have fun winning, and have more fun playing the game in a way that does not result in winning, then what are you complaining for? We should both be able to play together amazingly. I will win. You will get to have a bunch of fun with all your losing strategies. It will be beneficial for everyone.
By "relatively recently," do you mean the 1970's? :P
He was rookie of the year in 1989 so at least at that point. Maybe he did just bring a lighter for all I know though.
You and I have different definitions of "pretty stock." Except for a cigarette lighter and the cosmetics of its body shell, there is nothing at all stock about that car.
We saw the force drain mechanic as a cheap way to win because we did not have the problem of players turtling. That particular mechanic exists to force players to engage their opponents.
In our case if there was a location to do battle we would head there. For our group we played the game for the battles and the direct player vs player confrontation mechanics.
Once our group entered the tournament scene and cross pollinated with other groups we were exposed to other ways to win the game. Suddenly we understood why force draining was necessary to counter the players who always tried to avoid direct confrontation. There was also the issue of time limits which dramatically changed the way an even game played out. With the winner of a tie going to the player with the most cards in their deck cards like Traffic Control and Reactor Terminal (place cards from hand back into your deck) became useful.
I ended up becoming the local tournament director for the Bristol CT area and started making the craziest decks that would exploit any loophole in the rules I could find. I then played these decks with the kids who got byes at my tournaments. This did several things:
1) gave kids something to do when they had no game for that round. 2) showed those kids strategies that they themselves had not thought of. 3) provided me with the chance to teach these strategies to help those kids do better in future tournaments.
This is not to say that you can't win and have fun. A better wording may have been to say that the tournament scene is far more cutthroat than the friends scene.
Comments
Monza -
Albert Park -
I'm not trying to argue that it doesn't take any skill to drive in the NASCAR or any other motor sport but personally I find boredom sets in watching NASCAR earlier than other motor sports.
I also like the different cars in F1, there was a recent race where both Mercedes cars were ahead and both suffered failures of the KERS system forcing them to use just the regular brakes, one guy still finished 2nd and the other one lost his brakes it resulted in a feeding frenzy behind them as everyone heard this and went super hard resulting in multiple overtaking and unfortunately one crash.
As far as not all ovals being the same, well, okay, there are differences between them. However, they all pretty much come down to races with only left turns. Hell, for the vast majority of races, NASCAR cars are weighted down on one side and have the tires, suspension, etc., tuned to be optimized for left turns and left turns alone.
What I'm saying is you can't say all ovals are the same, it's as absurd as saying all street tracks are the same or all road courses are the same.
To Luke:
What in particular are you speaking of with your wtf? The whole thing in general, or something in particular?
The only real possible differences between ovals are basically the circumference of the course, the width of the track, the bank angle of the turns, and maybe some oddball "not quite oval" shapes like the Pocano triangular track. Compare that to most street and road courses and you have all sorts of variation in the number, direction, and type of turns, in addition to the length and width of the track.
Again, not to say that you don't need skill to drive on an oval course. Heck, one of my all-time favorite races is the Indy 500, which is on as generic an oval as you'll find anywhere (except for the bricks at the start/finish line). The main issue with Sprint Cup is that, with only two exceptions, all the courses are just oval after oval after oval. No right turns, no hairpin curves, nothing -- just generally gentle, banked left turns.
Heck, they don't even need to be carrying real moonshine -- jugs of water would be fine. Just bring back that old feel of running from the tax man.
There is probably a reason that there are a few Australians that get into WRC and Formula 1. We have enough of an infrastructure leading up to the V8 Supercars.
I did forget to mention I can put on the Supercars and watch them without getting bored with a couple of friends who are bigger petrol heads than me.
Sounds like World Rally Championship, in which case I agree, I honestly didn't even look up the roots of NASCAR.
Eventually, some of these bootleggers started bragging about how fast their cars were and how great they were at driving them. This soon resulted in informal races between the various bootleggers to settle these bets. Eventually, the racing became more attractive than the bootlegging and some of these former bootleggers got together to formalize rules on how to go about this racing, and thus NASCAR was born.
Some of the earliest sanctioned races were done right on the sand of Daytona Beach. However, eventually they realized that beach racing just didn't cut it and the Daytona International Speedway, home of the Daytona 500, was built. The rest came later.
http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/7/30/4567960/dick-trickle-suicide-nascar-profile
To be honest, I'm surprised they'd have a cigarette lighter and and allow smoking in a NASCAR vehicle, if only for all the fire safety stuff they try to put into them.
(Couldn't you just season slices of toasted bread and eat that to avoid the argument?)
Steam sales have diminished in enjoyment for me but there are always titles you can buy. I also enjoy analyzing bad games in addition to good ones; so I'm a little bit of a black sheep.
I think I saw ungregiously unrealized potential; but no video or recording; sorry.
Still getting through 'canticle for liewbowitz' I'm at pg 57/159
Its poor sportsmanship when you take act in a way that diminishes the enjoyment of another player to where they wouldn't play again against your team or yourself because they couldn't enjoy the game.
Jedi Knight 2 was fun.
Note to self: listen to podcast more regularly.
My personal rules of sportsmanship:
1. It is most respectful to my opponent(s) to play to my best ability and/or optimally.
2. A large skill disparity should be compensated to create value for the loser (aka losing should be fun). Acceptable compensations include a handicap or additional challenge, a lesson in strategy, post-game discussion etc.
3. If I am behaving in a way that effectively insults, disrespects, or upsets my opponent, I should cease that behavior. Trash talk and teasing are only as fun as they are to the receiver. A loud bandwagon is a mindless steamroller.
4. Appropriate response to winning is encouragement and humility. Appropriate response to losing is acknowledgement of winner's gameplay.
5. No hypocrisy. e.g. I can't complain about someone taking a long turn if I also take long turns.
From this perspective, I regularly have moments where I regret, dislike, or reconsider playing games with members of the FRC. I lose my temper & patience at those times. But I know that our cultures of gameplay are different (I would say your behavior in JK2 is super dickish). In addition to the skill with which the FRC plays games, the cultural difference adds a meta-challenge which I intend to master.
Bold unruly mouth, with no breadth of excellence: empty whispering.
The problem is that those players have made up a house rule in a public game without the consent of all players, and which is in no way enforced in the game itself. It's neither part of the posted "rules" of the game, nor visible anywhere except in player chats (there was no effective voice chat) or in the "community" forums.
The best analogy would be if I joined a game of Settlers among strangers at a con, and without saying anything prior they quietly never used the robber to hurt anyone (always putting it in a benign place like the desert). Then, when I have the opportunity to use the robber, I attack the winning player and take his stuff. They all get super mad and kick me out of their game.
At least in tabletop games in person, however, there can be a negotiation of the rules, including house rules, prior to play, the default assumed to be the rules as-written. All players can consent to rules changes, or choose not to play.
But, with a public, open, deathmatch videogame, there is no such consent. Play to win, follow the rules as-written. Force lightning in that game was the same as the AWP: some players would demand you not use it, but there was no way to stop you short of killing you.
(That actually happened at RIT: there was a deep and longstanding culture of never attacking anyone with the robber, and also of "bribing" the player wielding the robber with resources. We were HATED for actually playing to win).
You know what's ridiculously fun? WINNING. If you don't have fun winning, and have more fun playing the game in a way that does not result in winning, then what are you complaining for? We should both be able to play together amazingly. I will win. You will get to have a bunch of fun with all your losing strategies. It will be beneficial for everyone.
- The end of a tabletop game involves counting victory points
- I am playing with strangers
- Everyone announced final scores and they are within a point or two
- I realize I forgot to give myself points for something (but my opponents did not)
- Those points would put me in first place
I will simply carry that knowledge to the grave. This has actually come up.In our case if there was a location to do battle we would head there. For our group we played the game for the battles and the direct player vs player confrontation mechanics.
Once our group entered the tournament scene and cross pollinated with other groups we were exposed to other ways to win the game. Suddenly we understood why force draining was necessary to counter the players who always tried to avoid direct confrontation. There was also the issue of time limits which dramatically changed the way an even game played out. With the winner of a tie going to the player with the most cards in their deck cards like Traffic Control and Reactor Terminal (place cards from hand back into your deck) became useful.
I ended up becoming the local tournament director for the Bristol CT area and started making the craziest decks that would exploit any loophole in the rules I could find. I then played these decks with the kids who got byes at my tournaments. This did several things:
1) gave kids something to do when they had no game for that round.
2) showed those kids strategies that they themselves had not thought of.
3) provided me with the chance to teach these strategies to help those kids do better in future tournaments.
This is not to say that you can't win and have fun. A better wording may have been to say that the tournament scene is far more cutthroat than the friends scene.