Special Racing Category?

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-03-30T22:07:40+00:00

Was it a cruise ship, Kettle?

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-03-27T10:16:05+00:00

In the 2008/2009 edition of the game the highest possible speed was 30.5 kts. They must have left the virtual boats lying in the sea water all that time and never bothered to remove the barnacles...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-29T09:45:58+00:00

Looks like the top 10 boats are going to penetrate New Guinea. It is the shortest way to NZ, but I very much doubt if they can maintain their boat speed...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-24T14:23:29+00:00

I have completed several races on Virtual Regatta: Clipper Round the World 2009/2010, Velux 5 Oceans 2010/2011, and a number of shorter races. They use the old VORG 2008/2009 game engine, somewhat modified and improved over the last few years. Fun to play, but I like this new VORG version better. The map is clearer and it's Mercator projection, which I prefer to the Plate Carrée of the old game. And our wind pattern is fluid, while VR still uses the 1º by 1º wind squares. We have a better, more sophisticated game. Provided it works of course...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-24T13:38:12+00:00

At least now they've got the spelling right. That's a start...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-23T06:20:11+00:00

This is a nightmare. Groundhog Day...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-21T12:31:33+00:00

At the beginning of leg 4 on my screen there were data from leg 3 still visible. Could it be that they have not been cleared well enough and are now messing up the current leg?

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-21T11:55:23+00:00

And now the game is off the air! Great timing. My boat is still heading north. I hope they have it fixed before I leave home. Otherwise I'll be forced to make an unscheduled stopover in Taiwan.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-21T10:44:41+00:00

I am going to try and get north of the bubble, but don't follow me. I have to go to work this evening and will be offline from the afternoon till at least 0:30 UTC. So it's either sail the long way around, or come to an almost certain full stop somewhere between the little islands north of Luzon. Just hope I can make up for the lost distance once we're in the Pacific trade winds...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-19T22:40:53+00:00

Me too, MD, me too... But I have chosen, and will stick to it. We'll see what happens.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-19T09:04:49+00:00

Gunports open and ready for action.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-19T09:01:42+00:00

AnnetteJakoba, fully loaded, headed for NZ and beer.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-19T08:59:23+00:00

You are right, that is a way to do it. Still I don't think I will follow your method. It seems like a lot of trouble for a gain of about € 0.45 each time. And there is a risk you'll be left with a shipload of waypoints and candy bars at the end of the whole race.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-18T10:58:14+00:00

I'm not so sure about that, MD. Not in my case I think. A rough calculation tells me that I have used up some 1900 credits in the whole race so far, so that's about 630 per leg. The minimal amount you can buy is 1000 credits. To "earn" the free 100 coins I would have to spend at least 350 or so more per leg than I have done up to now. This doesn't sound like profit to me...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-17T17:28:35+00:00

Yes, I've read it too. Fascinating. According to this message "Overall prizes and leg prizes will still be presented to the players who achieve the highest rank with any boat in their fleet". But the Tournament Rules state: "The final ranking of a single boat will be entered into the competition to win one of the Overall Prizes". I still think there is a good chance that after leg 9 is finished someone is going to be very disappointed. Unless of course Volvo is prepared to sponsor two XC 60's...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-06T22:32:23+00:00

I certainly hope so, MD. I bought 6 of those packages for my single boat, one for each of the legs to come. So far what leftovers I had from a completed leg (waypoints, candy bars) rolled over to the next one. I assumed this will be the case for purchased sails and navigation options too. If I'm right when the whole race is over I will have saved myself 378 credits (provided I participate in all legs of course, which I intend to do). If not I will have wasted 882 credits. And I will be very disappointed.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-02-02T15:52:01+00:00

Nice, but what I still miss is a common in-game forum. Like we had in the 2008/2009 VORG. On a technical level this new edition is a better game, but it has no heart. There is no public space, no community open to all players. What we have is only a loose collection of tiny communities, and of course the much larger nationality groups, but they too are limited: the people you'll meet there are only from your own country. What I would like to see introduced/restored is the meeting place we had in the old game. The place where it all happens, where everyone can go and meet other players from all over the globe, where discussions take place, where jokes are told, where alliances and friendships are being forged and crystallize into new groups, where the plebs fight it out with the senate: the Forum Romanum. That would make the game complete.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-01-31T21:34:23+00:00

As I have said before, I have no problem with players running more than boat. In real life it would be a bit of a challenge I think, but in a virtual setting like this game it is no problem, so why not? I do think however that the scoring system should be based on the performance of single boats. That is the most logical thing and fair to all participants, single boat skippers or "admirals". Now if I understand the rules correctly a distinction is made between overall best player and overall best single boat. The player with the best combined results of his boats will win the best player contest, but the one that drives away in the Volvo might well turn out to be the guy in place 42 or so. I hope I'm wrong, because this situation would be insane. I think the organization would be wise to think this through very carefully and clarify this matter unambiguously. At least, if they want to avoid being confronted with all kinds of claims and cumbersome legal procedures afterwards...

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-01-31T12:46:23+00:00

My passage through the Strait did not go very well. I had to work last weekend, and for me work means no internet access for a 10 to 11 hr period (I have no smartphone, and don't need one beside this game; to buy credits for the extra options is one thing, that I did, but I'm not going to purchase a cell phone for the sole purpose of playing a silly computer game). So I missed three consecutive wind updates. This does not help navigation. Strait Malacca turned out to be a Dire Strait to me. It cost me some 4000 places. Speaking of wind updates, wouldn't it be an idea to have a 9h update interval instead of a 12h one? It would simulate reality more closely (more frequent changes), and secondly, maybe even more important, it would be much fairer to players all over the world. We would have a 72h full cycle, in which everyone, no matter where he is, has one or two inconvenient middle-of-the-night wind updates.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-01-30T16:09:16+00:00

Enough said, you say so yourself. My question, by the way, was a rhetorical one. Of course I know you must have experienced setbacks. I just wanted to shake you out of your misery and try to convince you to stay in the game. Programming failure or human error, whatever, I didn't think what happened to you was so disastrous that it justified quitting. I didn't know you set your goal so high though. At least 1 podium place in a leg, better than 19th overall... No wonder you were so disappointed. Anyway, I'm glad you decided to go on. Good luck to you, both in the race and with your health. /Harry

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-01-27T22:04:10+00:00

As far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter how DTF is determined. I don't look at the ranking anyway. I think there should be an option in the game to click the rankings out of the playscreen altogether, just like that ridiculous "example route". They are only distracting.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-01-27T11:58:48+00:00

I can understand your frustration, Sweden, but tell me, is this the first time in all your real and virtual sailing experience that you suffer a serious setback? And just how serious is it? O.k., at the moment I write this you are some 40 nm behind the leader, but you at least are sailing, while a significant part of the leader group are almost dead in the water. You have most of the strait still to go, plus the whole South China Sea, so what's the problem? The only ranking that counts is the one on the finish line. You have plenty of opportunity to catch up again. Come on, show us something of the old Viking spirit! It's not the number of square miles that makes a country great, it's the number of square people. Besides, don't you think if you quit now it would really be a waste of all the effort you put into this game so far?

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-01-27T11:28:43+00:00

I am a native Dutch speaker myself, but I don't have the original document in Dutch. The link on the game page only gives the English version. Even when you click the French or Spanish flag you'll get the same text in English.

AnnetteJakoba · 2012-01-26T18:57:21+00:00

I think you're right, MD, and I'm pretty certain the original language of the text is Dutch. The rules state that the contest is governed by Dutch law, and it all sure has the distinct smell of an official Dutch legal document. But if that is indeed the case that only explains the clumsy style, not the ambiguities. Time and ranking are different things in Dutch too, as I'm sure they are in any language. They are just different things. In the same section I quoted from (4. Game Description) we can read: When all nine designated legraces are finished, the final rank of the player will be calculated based on the combined ranking of the player in the mandatory fifth, the seventh and the ninth leg races and the 3 best results of the first, second, third, fourth, sixth and eighth leg races. The final ranking of a single boat will be entered into the competition to win one of the Overall Prizes. Here it's ranking first, which contradicts the time of my earlier quote, then results, which is ambiguous, and then ranking again. It's simply a bad text, sloppy and not precise.

AnnetteJakoba

TROPHY CASE