NASCAR

A collection of articles revolving around oval racing games.

Reader Submission #24 – NASCAR 15’s Free DLC isn’t actually Free

~ James ~ 3 Comments

We received this hilarious tip today from PRC.net reader Ben C., telling us about a new batch of DLC released for NASCAR 15, a game that we absolutely shat on when reviewed it a few months ago.

You have to see it to believe it.

Seriously.

We all know that the NASCAR games by Eutechnyx have been shambolic lumps of frozen piss for years, but I saw this on Steam and thought of you:

A free “Thank You!” skin pack DLC that is not, in fact, free. It doesn’t show up on the game’s main page; I only saw it because it came up in the new releases section. I thought at least you could get a quick laugh out of it, if nothing else.

Holy shit this is real.

are you seriousEven worse, the few NASCAR 15 players in the Steam forums are reporting problems with the “free” DLC:

free lolI’ve said it in our review, and I’ll say it again: NASCAR needs to get their act together and not let this continue; what was once a fantastic line of games is now an embarrassment to the brand’s public image.

~ James ~

Twitter can be a pretty crazy place, and the world of auto racing has found a home in the popular social media platform. Fans can often bombard their favorite drivers all sorts of casual questions as if they’re right with them in the autograph line, and sometimes those questions or comments bring driving games into the mix.

A few different Twitter users are discussing the Nationwide Xfinity race before Twitter user Mike Ellis switches the subject to iRacing.

nationwideBoth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Alex Bowman, and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Ryan Ellis, voice their pretty blunt thoughts on iRacing, thoughts that when we’ve shared them in the past, lead to an IP ban:

slamThese aren’t old farts on the grid who consider computers as nothing more than expensive Facebook machines, but young kids who are fully capable of setting up a racing sim properly in an effort to get the most out of it – and whaddya know? They’ve come to the same conclusion that we have.

alex-bowman-nascar-kobalt-400-practice-850x560

Ryan Ellis, FDNY Racing Chevrolet and Scott Laggase Jr., NTS Motorsports Chevrolet

What happens when modders can’t surpass what’s found in the vanilla game?

~ James ~ 10 Comments

Bit of a flashback to six months ago on Reddit, but it brings up a larger point of discussion that I’d like the readers of PRC.net to voice their opinions on. PC gamers have the luxury of being able to download third party modifications for whatever game they please, and when it comes to driving games, mods usually extend the lifespan of a game by several years by adding a whole new roster of cars and tracks for people to mess around with Unfortunately, for every good mod, there are several bad mods, and longtime rFactor players know this all too well – some of the vehicles and locations available for the landmark ISI racing sim are horrible conversions who’ve aged worse than the stereotypical High School slut at your ten year reunion.

About six months ago, TeamOm3ga put out a mod for NASCAR Racing 2003 Season based around the 2000 NASCAR Winston Cup Series. As we’ve described in the past, most mods for NR2003 do not change how the cars handle, and are simply aesthetic changes to pre-existing sets of physics found within the game.  It is therefore integral for all visual aspects of the mod to be absolutely perfect because this is literally the only purpose of any mod for the classic oval racing sim.

On the left is Jeff Burton’s #99 Roush Racing Ford Taurus from the summer of 2000, in the middle is the default NR2003 car model with Jeff Burton’s 2000 Exide livery on the body of a 2003 Ford Taurus, and on the right is the brand new Cup2000 model, intended to be a much more precise car model than the default game has to offer, designed specifically to adhere to 2000 Winston Cup rules and regulations.

i49frLIAs one user in the Reddit thread graciously analyzed for us:

  • The front shape of the car on Original Cup is much closer than the Cup2000 car. That’s one point to Original Cup.
  • As we can see on the real car, the blue and pink lines on the front do not blend into each other, handing another point to Original Cup.
  • The headlights on all default Cup2000 templates are absolutely horrendous except for the Pontiac. The Ford is arguably joint-worst with the Dodge. Another point to Original Cup.
  • The sponsor arrangements on the hood of Burton’s car is much closer on Original Cup than Cup2000. Look at the Exide and SKF logos for example. Yet another point for Original Cup.
  • The front fender on the Original Cup car resembles the real car much better than what Cup2000 has done. The Clevite logo is absent on the Cup2000 car. One more point for Original Cup.
  • Same case with the side contingencies, they must have been based on this photo as they’re all on the correct spot. Cup2000 hasn’t done this.
  • The roof contingencies on the cars results in another clear win for Original Cup. The Coca Cola logo is present on this model while it’s absent and replaced with a Ford logo on Cup2000.
  • However, the #99 on the Original Cup car has way too thick an outline, and in a rare case the Cup2000 car has replicated the number much better. However as can be seen the number is still too large.
  • Both artists seem to have taken creative liberty with the quarter panel contingencies though, as neither of them resemble the photo. Half a point to each mod.
  • The roof line on the real car and Original Cup is curved. The roof line on the Cup2000 car is angled. Another point to Original Cup.
  • The shape of the back is a major disappointment too. To accentuate this, I have copy pasted the rear ends of both cars onto the rear end of the real car just to show how much closer the Original Cup 2000 mod is to Om3ga’s Cup2000:

35mejro.jpg

  • By the rear quarter panel though, the Cup2000 is almost 100% accurate to the real car and the Original Cup car has slipped. Look at the placements of the Exide and rear bumper logos. For those the Cup2000 mod can have two points. The rear spoiler is also more accurate in terms of shape and texture. One more point for the new mod.

Final Points:
Original Cup – 9.5
Cup2000 – 4.5

In conclusion, the new Cup2000 mod is actually half as good as the plain old Papyrus-made Cup. The time could have been better spent elsewhere, particularly on a 1995 mod which I have advocated for in the past.

After a detailed analysis by someone who isn’t me, modders who developed an entirely scratch-built visual modification were out-done by content already in the game. So is it wrong to criticize this? Why spend time developing entirely new 3D models when they are of an inferior quality to vanilla content already found within the game, created twelve years ago?

And another argument I see all the time, including in our own comments section, apparently if you aren’t part of a mod team and haven’t made a mod on your own, you aren’t allowed to criticize other people’s work:

mad

Am I missing something? Am I just a total asshole who hates everything to feel good about himself? Are we just supposed to accept sub-par mods because someone worked really hard on it and you might hurt their feelings? Or is this a logical fallacy? Look man, I ain’t a chef by trade, but I know when I’ve eaten a shitty undercooked pizza. And I don’t need to be the head of a mod team to line up three shots of the same car and see that one of them is way off. But if this sort of criticism isn’t allowed, prepare your collective anii for GT3 cars with 8-speed transmissions and front wheel drive F1 cars since if you haven’t made anything, keep your armchair mod making comments to yourself!

The NASCAR Racing 2003 Season Physics Editor Can Be Found Here!

~ James ~ 1 Comment

NR2003 2014-03-23 17-42-14-11It’s common knowledge to those in the Sim Racing modding scene that NASCAR Racing 2003 Season was not intended to be cracked open and modded. Despite the game being horrendously outdated and requiring several third party modifications to be brought up to 2015 standards, NR2003 has been the primary alternative for virtual oval racers unwilling to spend outrageous amounts on iRacing, or dislike how ISI’s engine handles stock car racing.

Previously, this was accomplished through modders messing with the track.ini files, giving the racing surface less friction, more grip, or in some cases, artificially adjusting the weather for the engines to make more horsepower. The end result was to keep the behavior of the cars relatively in-line with the rule changes NASCAR makes to its top three series each year. While it may seem tedious, NR2003 was unlike rFactor in that the source code and vehicle physics were not easily modified, leaving modders to think outside the box and hex edit the game’s executable file in order to change vehicle dynamics.

This package of files will you allow you to edit NR2003’s physics – something that several mod teams have tried over a decade ago but were shut down by the suits in Massachusetts. I’m not happy with the direction iRacing’s taken and feel their current selection of cars do not hold a candle to what else is available on the market – including rFactor mods made by small groups of individuals in their spare time.

However, the underlying physics engine is very good.

I don’t even know where to begin with this stuff, but hopefully others out there will try their hand at it. Documentation is included. 

Click HERE to download the NASCAR Racing 2003 Season Physics Editor.

Be warned that it is not as simple as opening a user-friendly program and changing a few numbers. Ideally, this is only to benefit large mod teams curious to try their hand at improving NASCAR Racing 2003 Season.

NR2003 2014-04-02 16-56-23-79

Reader Submission #15 – NASCAR 2003’s Modding Community Is Perfectly Fine With Stalking You

~ James ~ 147 Comments

tbirdredAbout a week ago, we ran a lengthy article about SimRacingDesign.com and some of their interesting extra-curricular antics that have little to do with modding NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. The post merely scratched the surface of what’s become a serious problem in the remnants of the NASCAR 2003 community, and is so batshit insane that it becomes increasingly obvious as to why the game is on its last legs. Supported only by boomers with a diminishing social life, and teens with computers that can’t handle modern video games, the community surrounding NASCAR 2003 is essentially – and a few talented people who have chosen to slowly distance themselves away from it all.

To summarize the 2500+ word post, one guy with graphic design experience made high resolution painting templates better than what an entire dedicated mod team could produce. The mod team’s response was to dox the guy, dox some girl he hung out with, figure out his daily routine, , threaten various lawsuits, write songs about him, and maintain a 43-page thread dedicated to accusing the dude of being schizophrenic, all while claiming that they were the good guys and everyone was out to destroy SimRacingDesign.com. This isn’t exactly taking things out of context, they even made this nice little graphic for us.

browse.php

My first introduction to this drama was in the Spring of 2014. As I’ve said in the original article, I’d compiled my extensive collection of NASCAR 2003 mod backups and uploaded them as a gift to the community. Instead of being thanked for uploading mods and carsets that hadn’t seen the light of day in years, I was accused of being someone named Todd from Portland and told I was ruining the community with my schizophrenic behavior. After opening up my wallet and consulting both my Driver’s License and MasterCard, I was able to confirm that I was indeed not somebody named Todd, and did not reside in Portland.

Today’s Reader Submission comes from the victim of all this garbage, a guy who’d prefer to go by the name of not toad but Todd. Despite all of this ridiculous drama, the remaining members of the NASCAR 2003 community not influenced by SimRacingDesign have allowed Todd to take over as a moderator of the NASCAR Racing 2003 Subreddit.

James, wondering your thoughts on this. I essentially posted the entire situation in the Reddit sticky.

Minutes after doing that, I received the following private message from Danny Coral, the guy who initially sent the fraudulent DMCA in order to dox my information back in 2013 (at the time he messed up and came away with someone else’s info). He’s now somehow doxxed me to learn my actual name. He’s trying to threaten me over a DUI from 1998 – which I was never even convicted of because it was a case of mistaken identity and dropped. I have no criminal record whatsoever or even been convicted of anything beyond a speeding ticket (my last ticket even was 12 years ago).

Here’s his PM with my name taken out:

Those dudes totally obsessed with me over NASCAR 2003 and it’s fucking creepy. At this point I’m leaning towards a face to face with a rep at my local FBI office (which is minutes away). If that gets nowhere, I would guess a cease and desist?

What it amounts to is that they are fearful of the multi-year stalking campaign targeting me and others being exposed to a broader audience. They want it to remain strictly contained within the nr2003 community (preferably the SRD message board) where they can participate in 86-page threads in a controlled environment revolved around photoshopping both me and my friends personal pictures in addition to the cyber-stalking and the rest of the lunacy.

I never disclose my actual name online, so how he became privy to that I have no idea.

I just renewed my site for a year using my credit card (perhaps that way), or perhaps some other means, like stalking friends of mine through Facebook. I’m not sure what the point of that PM even is, I’ll be 38 in October, he’s doxing up a DUI from 1998 on me, of which I wasn’t even convicted (I wasn’t even arrested behind the wheel of a car for the alleged DUI), and that’s public record too.

Furthermore, I was under 21 at the time. The other instances are minor domestic violence charges that were also dropped because a girl I was seeing liked to dial 911. Like I said, I have never been convicted of a felony charge in my life and none of that stuff is even on my record outside of an online mugshot search. I’m not sure what he’s even threatening me with, yet more cyber-stalking threads/sites and picture photoshopping?

Notice too the ridiculous inflated ego over NASCAR 2003 modding, signing off on that PM with ‘Bodacious-Bull’. Here is a 44 year old guy obsessively stalking me for years on end already, in addition to filing numerous fraudulent DMCA complaints to kickstart all that, and then informing me of how much of a social life he supposedly has. I’m including another screen shot from the 86 page ‘musings of a madman’ thread also posted by this guy. This was the same week that he filed the DMCA against my site in order to dox me for personal information, boasting about comparing pictures of ‘life achievements’ and other nonsense:

And here’s the initial post on Reddit that set Danny Coral off:

triggered

Couple things to address here, and given that this is a public response, I unfortunately have to dance around some things. We’ll give it a shot, anyways. Hopefully others can chime in with their advice, since a lot of people seem to hang around here.

First, it’s clear to readers of PRC judging by the comments on the last article, from a diverse group of individuals all from many different backgrounds and ideologies, that you haven’t done anything wrong and this is pretty batshit insane. As I said in the opener, you literally made some nice ass car templates and SRD’s response was not to create an even better template, but to chase you around the internet and accuse you of being schizophrenic while writing songs about you. And then file bullshit DMCA complaints so all your shit would get taken down. One of the main reasons I air this drama here is because it allows the unbiased third party to see it for what it is – insanity, and that’ll help in the long run. As Mr. C has taught me, if one person says you’re drunk, you’re probably not drunk, but if ten people say you’re drunk, it’s probably time to leave the bar. Ditto for this mess. More people calling out the insanity than SRD has active members, and shit will change.

Second, online harassment is an interesting legal gray area. I’m not defending SRD, but actually getting something done about online harassment is next to impossible. As Tyler the Creator wrote:

This doesn’t change as you get older, and the gang at SRD can unfortunately weasel their way out of some shit if this were to be pursued legally. Is all your information easily obtainable online? Well there’s your first problem, because lawyers will ask why you allow that to happen. Is the information about the mistaken identity DUI available online? Well then they’re not really spreading misinformation then, as libel is only an issue if what a person claims is demonstrably false. Are the domestic violence incidents on record? Well regardless of what actually happened (I believe you, 92% of women lie, hence why all Cell Phones have a “sound recording” app), what they could spread isn’t really libel since the info is readily out there and anybody can check it out if they’re bored. Even if you look at extreme harassment cases like Jessica Slaughter Leonhardt and Rehtaeh Parsons, online harassment is basically ignored.

That doesn’t mean you don’t have a case because everyone and their dog can see how weird this shit is, but..

Third, good luck explaining the in’s and out’s of an obscure video game modding community to people who usually sort out issues with psychotic ex-girlfriends/ex-boyfriends showing up at 3am on their partners doorstep, or sending lengthy obsessive messages long after the relationship has ended. I mean, when it comes to stalking/harassment laws, that’s the kind of people those laws are intended for so it’ll be tough to get anywhere just with “hey these guys from this old NASCAR game are like, making photoshopped pictures of me, posting where I live, and getting my website taken offline.” The internet is basically the new Wild West and there’s all sorts of crazy shit that happens, just spend a few minutes on 4Chan to see what I mean.

And even if you jump through all hoops necessary to pursue this legally, SRD can all hide behind the glorious excuse of “there’s no way to prove I was the one who posted all of that weird stalkerish garbage.” In Canada, this is your get out of jail free card. Even pedophiles literally walk free up here because of “nope you can’t prove I was the one who uploaded all that child porn even though it was on my computer in my house lololol get #rekt n00bs.” If you’re lucky like myself, an RCMP officer will explain how technology evolves too quickly for laws to keep up, and they’ll at least see things on the same level you do and get in contact with your fan club to let them know that what they’re doing isn’t cool.

The best way to get all this to stop is to basically just embarrass these guys. Talk about the issue, share the screencaps, put it all out in the open as we’re doing now. Eventually one of their own will clue in that this is all weird as fuck, and they can’t kick everybody out of their little group otherwise it would definitely look suspicious as hell that they’re being creeps and maybe Todd wasn’t the bad guy they all said he was.

2015