Ok. Bear with me, I'm being stream-of-consciousness as usual, and verbose to match.
A further question then is, do we retain a seasonal points-race/ranking?
My first impression about GPCOS is that it's going to require some dedication on the part of drivers to maintain their race-to-race eligibility. I know we're just getting that system started for the first time, and it's bound to have some clumsiness while getting acquainted with it. But it *is* an added series of steps that take the driver away from
TG. The more steps, the more likely people will get lax about the whole thing. And the more players we have, the more the likelyhood expands.
If opening the league up to
TG-wide admittance, there could conceivably be 2 layers of participation... casual drivers, and championship drivers.
Assuming we can acquire a proper
TG server for GT Legends...
Casual drivers would include everyone. Open server running like most
TG game servers. No season points, no fixed parameters. Just a rotation of tracks with some preset car choices (full, single class, whatever).
Championship drivers would be like what the league focuses on now; a season with points, scheduled races, tracks, and cars/classes. Such events would use the same server, but would have more restricted access (registered for the championship at GPCOS, separate password than casual race access, whatever).
I like the thought of retaining the championship in some form as it feels like tournament play. Really focused, with potential for teamwork, etc. All the best of
TG in a racing package.
Casual racing would be like the open track nights, but *really* open. There would be a
TG password, but any registered TGer would have ready access to it. This would be pickup gaming, without scheduling apart from players posting if they'll be on and looking for fellow drivers to join them.
An alternative to fully stat tracked championship structure would be to forego the formality we've had and will use this coming series. Simply schedule a track and cars for a regular night like we already do for series events, giving a week for everyone to setup and practice as much or as little as they like. Anyone can show and race. The result file (a .txt on the server) could just be posted in the forum without any reformatting, or point tallying. Just a record of the event. This would eliminate all the backend work to track and compute stats. It would also allow more frequent events. Say 2 or 3 official races a week to accommodate player schedules if that were desirable.
I have mixed feelings about this option. It would be simple and almost no admin work. It would give *some* structure to the races... somewhere between open tracks and formal season races. A potential downside is lowered relevance, or importance of the events. Without full stat tracking, there's no continuity, apart from what people could themselves follow from one results posting to the next.
Hmmm... starting to write myself into circles here. Gonna stop.
Any bright ideas, I'd love to hear em. Feel like I'm starting to run in molasses the more my thoughts orbit this.
