If you ever played Papyrus’ seminal Grand Prix Legends then you’ve read his name. Rich began working as a tester on NASCAR Racing (1994) and was with Papyrus at the end. In this interview, published in 2022, we discuss his time at the legendary studio and the design of Grand Prix Legends, including initial feelings of hurt at not being asked to join iRacing.
Shortly after the release of Grand Prix Legends the sim racing community looked forward to another title that promised to offer a similar insight into historic racing. Trans-Am Racing ’68-’72 ultimately never released, a victim of a publishers shady dealings, but as a part of my research I uncovered a VHS of a never-released trailer for the game. Watch the trailer and read about what sim racing missed out on.
Competition Company have announced that users of Rennsport will be able to take part in league events beginning December 20, 2023. The lobby, matchmaking and race scheduling system appears to be a wholly new feature and can be seen in the screenshot below. More details can be found in their text below the screenshot.
So if you have a key for Rennsport and actually enjoy driving it… Enjoy!
Their text:
Ladies and gentlemen – welcome to the competition.
One of our core visions with RENNSPORT is to create a place where competition matters. Not just for the professional esports driver, but for everyone. Our rating system and the way our splits work have been providing racers in the closed beta with fair lobbies so far, but now we want to take it one step further and let you participate in multi-contest leagues where consistency and track knowledge will be the key to success. There are also unique in-game prizes that you can win! We’ll start it off easy this year with a Holiday League now in December, and once we’re in the new year you’ll be able to prove yourself in different leagues, competing against players of similar skill to you. For now we’re only offering Official Leagues, made by us, but we’re also planning for you to be able to create league races in the future.
Kicking off this new era of RENNSPORT competitions is the Holiday League, designed to take advantage of all the content we have in the game right now and for the first time offer multi-contest competitions with the first Holiday League winners to be crowned. Let’s break the Holiday Leagues down first, and after that, we’ll have a look at the Competitive Leagues for 2024.
The Holiday Leagues are broken up into four different categories;
Porsche GT3 Cup Holiday League
GT3 Masters Holiday League
Front Wheel Drive Holiday League
Derby Holiday LeagueThese are then split into two different timings with the first starting on December 20th and the second one starting on December 27th.
Holiday League Schedule December 20-23
19:00 FWD
20:00 Porsche Cup GT3
21:00 Masters of GT3
22:00 DerbyTracks: Spa-Francorchamps, Daytona International Speedway®, [REDACTED], Monza, 8ETA
Holiday League Schedule December 27-30
19:00 FWD
20:00 Porsche Cup GT3
21:00 Masters of GT3
22:00 DerbyTracks: Nurburgring, Hockenheim, Spa-Francorchamps, Road Atlanta, 8ETA
All of these races are ranked and have damage off. You will also need a Safety Rating of +0.9 to enter. This does not apply to the Derby League which is unranked and has no Safety Rating requirement.
There will be events created on our Discord to help you be reminded of when the different races start.
To make the Holiday Leagues as fair and competitive as possible we needed to create a points system that takes into account different player’s skill levels and multiple splits. The points will be calculated based on several things which we will go through shortly. But the most important question is, how do you earn points? There are three main things to factor in:
Finishing position
Average RENNSPORT Rating in your split
Number of players in your splitWe’re calculating the points based on the strength of field (SOF), like this:
Example 1 Example 2
SOF 1000 SOF 2000
Pos Points Pos Points
1 100 1 200
2 90 2 181
3 81 3 163
4 72 4 145
5 63 5 127
6 54 6 109
7 45 7 90
8 36 8 72
9 27 9 54
10 18 10 36
11 9 11 18
12 0 12 0SOF is the average RENNSPORT Rating of the players in the split, meaning the higher the skill level of the lobby the more points you get per position. The point value will also be changed based on the number of players in each split.
The maximum points you can achieve is 10% of the SOF. Everyone else gets a percentage of those based on the finishing position.
Our calculations are done as follows:
max_points = 0.1 * SOF (average rating of all participants in the split)
points = truncate(max_points * ((entries – position) / (entries – 1)))
What this means is that the maximum points that can be earned are 10% of the average RENNSPORT rating across all drivers in your split. Your points specifically will then be factored by the number of drivers in your split, to ensure a fair distribution of points for when drivers are racing without a complete grid. To achieve this we multiply the maximum possible points by a ratio based on your position and the number of drivers on the grid, rounded down.
Example: SOF = 1000, P5, 12 Players
Points: 100 * ((12 – 5) / (12 – 1)) = 63
So far, you’ve been given a GT3 car that you own by simply creating a RENNSPORT account, and while all cars that are available in the closed beta can be driven by anyone, the car you own is unique to you with the EVIN number you have. It’s also the only car you can collect data on, like how long you’ve owned it and kilometres driven. This history is meant to create a bond between you and your car, as you will have it in your account permanently. And by adding more cars to your collection with a unique EVIN you create your garage history. The car you can win in the Holiday League will have a special EVIN number, indicating the car came from the first-ever RENNSPORT Holiday event, and in the future, you can always remember where you got the car by looking at the EVIN.
So, what car can you win?
While the winner of the Porsche GT3 Cup competition will win a Porsche Cup Car, it’s a bit more complicated for the winners of the GT3 and Front Wheel Drive Leagues. We’ll reach out to the winners via email in early January to confirm what the desired prize car would be. If we don’t hear back by the end of the month, you’ll receive the car you earned the most points in from the competition. There will be no prize for the Derby League winner as this is more of a fun side activity.
Starting on January 11th, 2024, the Leagues will be in full effect. Here the goal is to let you compete against people of similar skill and therefore, you can enter leagues based on your RENNSPORT Rating and Safety Rating. The leagues we will offer at the start are planned to be the following:
Beginner League
Safety Rating: 0.5+
No min rating, max rating: 1550
Class: Touring Car (GT3 if unavailable)
Tracks: Any/All
Damage: Off
Date/Time: Sundays @ 20:00 CET
Amateur LeagueSafety Rating: 1+
Min rating: 1400, Max rating: 1800
Class: GT3
Tracks: Any/All
Damage: Off
Date/Time: Saturday @ 20:00 CET
Semi-Pro LeagueSafety Rating: 1.15+
Min rating: 1505
Class: GT3
Tracks: Any/All
Damage: Off
Date/Time: Thursday @ 20:00 CETPraga Cup
Safety Rating: 1.15+
Min rating: 1505
Class: Praga Only
Tracks: Any/All
Damage: Off
Date/Time: Sunday @ 20:00 CET
Derby LeagueSafety Rating: 0
No Rating Requirements:
Class: Any/Multi
Tracks: 8ETA
Damage: On
NOTE: Does not impact your safety rating
Date/Time: Friday @ 21:00 CET
Note that there might be changes to this structure before they’re live in the game.That is everything you need to know about our new leagues, for now. You’ll find a new button in the main menu, called “Leagues” after the next update, and that is where your journey begins. We hope to see you in the lobbies during the holiday season. We will keep expanding on this system in 2024 and beyond, and as always, we’re very open to your suggestions and feedback. There will be a dedicated server on our Discord called “Focused Feedback: Leagues” where you can discuss everything surrounding this directly with us.
See ya on the track.
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