DiRT Rally

[Gangrel]

....and i've added another game onto my "not nearly enough hours in the day to play with a kid" pile.

Oh willpower, where are thou?!?

[DChaps]

Rally 6 - Wales, Route 1
Vehicle Class: 2000s
Date range: Monday 05/23/2016 12:00 noon EDT - Monday 05/30/2016 3:00am EDT

Stage: Track: Conditions:
1 Wales, Sweet Lamb (L) Morning / Overcast
2 Wales, Geufron Forest (L) Morning / Rain
3 Wales, Pant Mawr (S) Midday / Cloudy
4 Wales, Pant Mawr Reverse (S) Afternoon / Overcast
5 Wales, Bidno Moorland (S) Night / Rain
6 Wales, Bidno Moorland Reverse (S) Morning / Rain

Full Season Event schedule here:

https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues/vie ... 43/current

[GB_Simo]

For proof that the concentration I need in order to play this is far beyond the amount I'm able to maintain when there are people with me, I have this evening enlisted the services of my girlfriend. I've presented the results below:

- Sweet Lamb: a decent enough run, not pushing too hard, punctuated by a daft little spin that cost me perhaps 6 or 7 seconds.
- Geufron Forest: I was enjoying Geufron Forest very much until I came unstuck, late in the stage, rolling midway through a narrow forested section and taking a penalty. The specific bit that caught me out was a 3 left into OOH I DIDN'T KNOW MY PHONE COULD DO THAT for which I was not sufficiently prepared.
- Pant Mawr: another roll, another penalty. My confidence in the Subaru is growing and I would have been quickest so far through here and Geufron without the penalties, which is some consolation after my misjudgment of a caution 5 right into what do you think of these shelves for the baby's room.
- Pant Mawr Reverse: relatively trouble free. I bounced off a couple of things but managed to face broadly the right way for the entire distance.
- Bidno Moorland: difficult on a dark, rainy night but everything was going reasonably until a 6 right, 80, 3 left tightens through it looks like Hazel's being induced tomorrow, during which she forgot to mention anything about there being logs outside.
- Bidno Moorland Reverse: false started, somehow, left the gas wide open for 10 seconds, rage quit.

Good fun, most of the time. I have no doubt the Citroen is the car to go for in that class but the Impreza is such a well-behaved bit of kit that I very briefly felt competent.

[TCrouch]

For proof that the concentration I need in order to play this is far beyond the amount I'm able to maintain when there are people with me, I have this evening enlisted the services of my girlfriend. I've presented the results below:

- Sweet Lamb: a decent enough run, not pushing too hard, punctuated by a daft little spin that cost me perhaps 6 or 7 seconds.
- Geufron Forest: I was enjoying Geufron Forest very much until I came unstuck, late in the stage, rolling midway through a narrow forested section and taking a penalty. The specific bit that caught me out was a 3 left into OOH I DIDN'T KNOW MY PHONE COULD DO THAT for which I was not sufficiently prepared.
- Pant Mawr: another roll, another penalty. My confidence in the Subaru is growing and I would have been quickest so far through here and Geufron without the penalties, which is some consolation after my misjudgment of a caution 5 right into what do you think of these shelves for the baby's room.
- Pant Mawr Reverse: relatively trouble free. I bounced off a couple of things but managed to face broadly the right way for the entire distance.
- Bidno Moorland: difficult on a dark, rainy night but everything was going reasonably until a 6 right, 80, 3 left tightens through it looks like Hazel's being induced tomorrow, during which she forgot to mention anything about there being logs outside.
- Bidno Moorland Reverse: false started, somehow, left the gas wide open for 10 seconds, rage quit.

Good fun, most of the time. I have no doubt the Citroen is the car to go for in that class but the Impreza is such a well-behaved bit of kit that I very briefly felt competent.

Been there every rally. What I started doing was using the headphones exclusively. "If you see these on, don't talk to me!".

That's a guarantee that I'll have solid focus for 30 minutes, followed by 3 hours of arguing.

[Gangrel]

So I think I joined the league on the website. Not sure if anyone needs to approve me or not.

I have a grand total of about 45 minutes into the game so far, so please, if nobody hears from me, start looking over the side of the cliffs????????

[TCrouch]

Absolutely tanked this week's rally. Went too fast, rain had me screwed up, think I had 4 resets and a couple of times I was stuck unable to move for a good 15 seconds before it gave me the reset.

Damn!

[Fshguy]

For proof that the concentration I need in order to play this is far beyond the amount I'm able to maintain when there are people with me, I have this evening enlisted the services of my girlfriend. I've presented the results below:

- Sweet Lamb: a decent enough run, not pushing too hard, punctuated by a daft little spin that cost me perhaps 6 or 7 seconds.
- Geufron Forest: I was enjoying Geufron Forest very much until I came unstuck, late in the stage, rolling midway through a narrow forested section and taking a penalty. The specific bit that caught me out was a 3 left into OOH I DIDN'T KNOW MY PHONE COULD DO THAT for which I was not sufficiently prepared.
- Pant Mawr: another roll, another penalty. My confidence in the Subaru is growing and I would have been quickest so far through here and Geufron without the penalties, which is some consolation after my misjudgment of a caution 5 right into what do you think of these shelves for the baby's room.
- Pant Mawr Reverse: relatively trouble free. I bounced off a couple of things but managed to face broadly the right way for the entire distance.
- Bidno Moorland: difficult on a dark, rainy night but everything was going reasonably until a 6 right, 80, 3 left tightens through it looks like Hazel's being induced tomorrow, during which she forgot to mention anything about there being logs outside.
- Bidno Moorland Reverse: false started, somehow, left the gas wide open for 10 seconds, rage quit.

Good fun, most of the time. I have no doubt the Citroen is the car to go for in that class but the Impreza is such a well-behaved bit of kit that I very briefly felt competent.

I'm fortunate to usually have a mostly distraction free environment, this game requires absolute concentration.

[TCrouch]

Totally. I wish I had the distraction excuse. The problem is I knew I could blaze around Wales, so I pushed it way too hard. Trying to go too fast in Dirt Rally is like asking to be kicked in the balls with a spiked boot. I blew a tire in the first section of stage 4, had to putt-putt along for 75% of that one with no left rear. That made for an interesting drive, let me tell you. Then a bunch of penalties and off-tracks and a couple of spins. I was apparently not in the right frame of mind for this one. For the record, the twitch archive of that fiasco is here:

Rally 6, Dreadful Back Half

[mixdj1]

Yeah, I also pushed it too hard on this one as well. There are just so many spots in this one where just a tad too much speed or just a few inches to the wrong side and bam... ass in the air with no option but to take the penalty.

[Zeppo]

I blew a tire in the first section of stage 4, had to putt-putt along for 75% of that one with no left rear. That made for an interesting drive, let me tell you.

Did you know that if you come to a stop, a Y-button prompt appears allowing you to take a 1:30 penalty to repair the blown tire? I found that out near the end of a stage a couple of rallies ago, after I had limped along quite a while with a bare wheel. Too late to help me then, but now at least I know it's an option!

[Gangrel]

I blew a tire in the first section of stage 4, had to putt-putt along for 75% of that one with no left rear. That made for an interesting drive, let me tell you.

Did you know that if you come to a stop, a Y-button prompt appears allowing you to take a 1:30 penalty to repair the blown tire? I found that out near the end of a stage a couple of rallies ago, after I had limped along quite a while with a bare wheel. Too late to help me then, but now at least I know it's an option!

I learned that pretty quickly. And since then have had multiple opportunities to practice it!

[pk500]

I'm about ready to give up on this game, and not just because the servers are unreliable and I suck.

I'm seeing large pixelated blocks show up on my windshield in cockpit cam that almost look like fog on nearly every stage. They distract me and block my view. Sometimes they look like disco lights on my roll cage or steering wheel. Beyond frustrating.

Anyone else seeing this? If so, what was your fix. I pray it's not, "Use another camera angle." I love cockpit cam.

It's also very frustrating to lose times due to the server. Just ran a 7:30 on the second stage in Wales with no pixelation in my view, which was only 15 seconds off the best time. But the server didn't save the time, and I had to do it again, running an 8:03 with my windshield full of pixelation fog. Where the f*ck is the graphics defroster when I need it?

GRRR. This game is pissing me off. Sad, because it's brilliant when it works.

[DChaps]

I'm about ready to give up on this game, and not just because the servers are unreliable and I suck.

I'm seeing large pixelated blocks show up on my windshield in cockpit cam that almost look like fog on nearly every stage. They distract me and block my view. Sometimes they look like disco lights on my roll cage or steering wheel. Beyond frustrating.

Anyone else seeing this? If so, what was your fix. I pray it's not, "Use another camera angle." I love cockpit cam.

It's also very frustrating to lose times due to the server. Just ran a 7:30 on the second stage in Wales with no pixelation in my view, which was only 15 seconds off the best time. But the server didn't save the time, and I had to do it again, running an 8:03 with my windshield full of pixelation fog. Where the f*ck is the graphics defroster when I need it?

GRRR. This game is pissing me off. Sad, because it's brilliant when it works.

I have had this exact situation in both the cockpit and dashboard views. There are posts about it in the Codemasters forum, but I have not seen a definitive solution. What I have found for me it was related to specific cars. If I picked a different car to race with, then it would go away. Very strange, and annoying. I first was afraid my TV was going bad. I don't think this could be it, but in one post they were talking about pixellation and Plasma TV. I do have a Plasma TV but I have never seen this in any other game on the Xbox One.

[Wilk5280]

Don't give up on it, PK.

I saw that issue a few times back when I first got the game, but not more recently. I'm not saying this is the solution, because I don't know, but I only remember seeing it when I used cockpit cam. I changed to dash cam awhile back and haven't seen it since.

I can't remember if this worked either, but when I saw the issue I think I paused the game and cycled through the camera angles and it may have cleared it up. Worth a shot if you haven't done it already.

[AcemanPR]

I see that same pixelated issue as well and freaked out the first time I saw it. I've only seen it using the cockpit view in two cars. It is very distracting, but I try to avoid using those couple cars if I can. Hopefully Codemasters can fix it.

[Zeppo]

I've seen that disco pixelation issue as well as one or two other graphical anomalies. A quit and reboot of the game has solved the problem in every case.

As far as times not getting uploaded in the league rally, that happened to me one time. Since then. whenever I get that "unable to upload, do you want to try again?" prompt, I select "No," it quits me out to the main menu, and then I select the league again and once I am able to get into the league (usually after several attempts with the "Racenet servers are unavailable" message) it puts me into the following stage. So I've only ever been forced to re-do a stage on one occasion.

The worse problem for me is after it successfully uploads the time, sometimes it will be unable to download the leaderboard, and then I get stuck in that "Try Again Later" loop with no option to say "skip it!" That requires a quit and reboot of the game. I've taken to spamming the A-button after the time has uploaded and that seems to sort of force the game to not bother with trying to download the leaderboard, but I have no idea if that's actually an effective fix.

Anyway, don't be foolish and abandon this awesome game over this little graphical issue. Try a quit and reboot and also trust that they will patch in good time.

[rmagruder]

I had a little thing where the steering wheel was all pixellated trash once, but it hasn't come back.

I can't help but wonder if it's corrupted data in the game files? Maybe reinstalling the game?

As far as Racenet is concerned, it was horrible a week ago, but hasn't missed a beat this week. So I don't know.

[pk500]

I have had this exact situation in both the cockpit and dashboard views. There are posts about it in the Codemasters forum, but I have not seen a definitive solution. What I have found for me it was related to specific cars. If I picked a different car to race with, then it would go away. Very strange, and annoying. I first was afraid my TV was going bad. I don't think this could be it, but in one post they were talking about pixellation and Plasma TV. I do have a Plasma TV but I have never seen this in any other game on the Xbox One.

Thanks for the tips, The Donald. I never thought it would be car-specific. I've seen it on quite a few cars.

I also proudly rock a plasma TV.

Hmm. I say I'm exasperated, but this game is FAR too good to raise the white flag. It's welded to my game stack.

[pk500]

I can't remember if this worked either, but when I saw the issue I think I paused the game and cycled through the camera angles and it may have cleared it up. Worth a shot if you haven't done it already.

Thanks, Wilk. Excellent tip.

Frustrated after Wales. Lost 30 seconds on the stage I redid with pixelation, and I may have finished fourth if my first try through Stage 2 recorded on RaceNet.

I can't run with Terry, Fish and Randy. I would have been content with fourth!

[pk500]

I can't help but wonder if it's corrupted data in the game files? Maybe reinstalling the game?

Another good tip. Thanks, Randy!

[Jimmy_Lazerbeams]

Hiya guys

I'm MetaSacamano (Alan) in the league, came here from SG. Big Rally Racing fan - this one floats my boat more than any since Rallisports Challenge 2.

So the RS200 takes quite a bit more taming than I was hoping.... Poor choice there for the previous rally.

As to the league setup, everything is great; no restarts is crucial, and I could live with the long tracks being in the middle or end too as some suggested but I don't have any great preference.

I wonder what future updates will bring? Ghost rally multiplayer or leagues would be special, ah wishes...

[Jimmydeicide]

Why aren't we Rally crossing. Haven't had time to really do the rally's. Ill get to one here hopefully.

[Gangrel]

I got DQ'ed on the last stage in Wales. I think after coming out of a ditch i was going the wrong way, but since i'm a manly man and turned off all the HUD stuff, I didn't know it and BAM! I was DQ'ed. Damn shame, I was finally putting together a sub-one-hour stage time.................

Actually, I did some more career after the DQ, and am getting more of a handle on how to drive safely, if not quicker. So, next rally hopefully I finish 2nd last, with 20% of my car left intact.....

[pk500]

No restarts, for sure. Man's rallying. LOVE it.

[DChaps]

Inaugural DSP "CMR2/Sports Reviewers Memorial" DiRT Rally Championship

Rally 6 - Wales - Final Results

https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues/lea ... dsp-racing






















FINAL Standings after 6 Rally's:




Congrats to Terry for the overall championship and congrats to Fshguy for a convincing Wales Rally win! Thanks to everyone who participated, this was really fun and what I have been hoping for in a console rally sim for years. I am going to try to have all the stage results from each rally and some season summary stats up as well. I have it all tracked in spreadsheets, I just havent gotten around to finishing the pivot tables and compiling the results. That is one thing that would be great if Codemasters could improve on the web based results and archiving.

I will try to get the next season up soon. Based on your feedback and that it is the summer months coming up. I will probably do another 6 week season, but with a drop week or two, meaning you could drop your two worst rallys from the points. It looks like the league management will allow me to do this via penalties, I just don't know if it will let me do it after the season is over so that if would be fair to everyone. Worst case I can do the points manually. My thinking was 6 weeks is still short enough that people stay involved and don't give up if too far behind in points, and with one or two drop weeks, vacations will not get in the way as much. We did Route 1 of all 6 rally stages, we could do Route 2 for the next season and I will do a better job of mixing up the long and short stages and the ones that are reversed. Truth be told, I just did the Route 1 events in the order that the league management interface gave them to me, not realizing that many times the two long stages were back to back or reverse stages were back to back. I also like the idea of sticking with a series for more than a week or maybe the whole 6 week season, so that you really get used to a car. Any preference on where we start? We have not done the modern rally cars yet, so we could go there.