29.03.2024   Category: Site news

I have been working on the multi-player event structure for the past 3 months trying to come up with a structure that is both in line with what you are used to in terms of event selection and racing, and implementable. Don't underestimate the complexity of this project, we have allocated 9 months for the implementation and the testing.

In a series of news items I will lead you through the whole process, showing mock-ups of new website and in-game event and multiplayer screens, and explaining how this new structure is going to work.

We are not in a position to offer server based and scheduled multi-player events like for instance iRacing does. That is a much more complex and expensive development which is totally out of the scope of VRC. Our multi-player structure is organizer based, meaning that we will need organizers to setup the multi-player events and run the multi-player sessions. This is very much like r/c racing is organized in real life. A club announces a race, the organizer (usually a team) runs the whole event and you have to be present and race at the proposed time schedule.

We feel it is important to offer a multi-player event organizer (MPEO) an incentive to organize m-p events, after all, he has to spend his time for you to race and possibly even in new hardware. At a real race you also pay an entry fee so this is not different. The MPEO sets the entry fee between 1 and 5 vEuro's and when registering for a m-p event you need to pay this fee with vEuros, available in the VRC e-shop. The MPEO can exchange the vEuros he has 'earned' with organizing m-p events for real cash against with a discount. We will set a discount % for these reimbursements which will get lower the more a MPEO receives on entry fees.

How to become a multi-player event organizer (MPEO)? He has to apply for this MPEO 'role'. He has to be an experienced and full VRC member of course, must have an all-inclusive license for at least 6 months and must be willing to pay the MPEO license fee of between €50 and €100 depending on the organizer level he is applying for. This fee is non-reimbursable, and is required to make sure that only serious MPEO's apply for this role.

The MPEO can select the organizer level which will let him organize m-p events for 1 or more countries or states in case of the US, up to 10, or nationwide or even continent wide. These limitations are necessary as the quality level of multi-player racing depends very much on latency, this is the multi-player time delay between the player and the organizer, ideally not more than 100 msec. And there is the issue of time zones as well, for racers to race at convenient hours time zone difference should not be more than 3 hours.

Another issue the organizer has to cope with is language. Organizing m-p events requires good communication between organizer and participants! The MPEO will therefore have to specify what language will be used by him running m-p events.

The image shows the MPEO role application form and gives you an idea of the various options and restrictions!

When selecting m-p events to participate in you will automatically see which m-p events organized by which MPEO. By the way, we are also planning to let participants rate the organizer after a multi-player event. This will ensure a good quality level for m-p organizers. Those who don't perform will receive bad ratings and will be ignored more and more.

MPEO's will be able to run their own m-p series, very much like the current series structure. The event options are very similar to the current (non-mp) event structure, not like the limited club event structure.

Hope this gives you a good feel of the m-p structure we are working on. I hope you understand that we have to work through multi-player event organizers and that we have to offer them a financial incentive in order to spend their time for you to organize these m-p events.
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Next will be how you select and join a multi-player event.

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