The Modern Website Rant

As you may have seen already, I have begun to alter the look of Formula Rodrrico. It was about time really!

The layout I have used for such a long time has been both generic and dull. These changes are all aimed at livening up the blog. While most are fairly cosmetic, such as the new 'widescreen' width of the whole blog. Others enable me to share my content with the world in a simpler and more logical manner. For example, I used to re-post my 'Rodrrico - The Circuits Thread' over and over as I release new updates and entirely new circuits for public use. Now I have a widget on the left side of the blog that can be accessed from any page. These are direct links to my circuit downloads as available at Nogripracing.

I mainly use Nogripracing these days as my port-o-call one stop download location for my circuits. Once upon a time I used to upload my circuits through a free vendor such as Mediafire and Megaupload to Rfactorcentral. However once Rfactorcentral changed hands and began to take on a corporate facade asking us, the community, the creators / modders to 'pay' actual money to use their servers to race our own content, I like thousands of others began to lose heart for the website. While I do still have some circuits listed there, I no longer upload new creations or updates to Rfactorcentral. I doubt I ever will again, so if you see any of my new content there, please let me know so I can remove it.

Nogripracing is, for me, fantastic. It allows me to track how many downloads I have received, see who likes them (with the 'thanks' feature, a gimmick, but a good gimmick), and communicate feedback with the users and modders out there. While Rfactorcentral also has this sort of community talk, it is stark and stale. Most people are genuinely beginning to abandon the moribund site. Don't get me wrong, I am not a 'player hater' Rfactorcentral will still have a good community who upload and release mods there. They have a great Rating system for community content as well as the hall of fame feature. However, in my eyes, it has had its day and no longer reflects the true community that is Rfactor.

Nogripracing also has its flaws. For stupid reasons, any screenshots that feature content not released on Nogripracing cannot be uploaded. This means for people like me who enjoy making screenshots from content such as the F1-1967 Mod racing around my circuit Brands Hatch 1950, which I then batch together into a silly loading screen for the same circuit - cannot be used. Further more, if I do upload one of my 'loading screens' with content disapproved my Nogrip moderators, then my files are suspended and or deleted until I rectify the situation. The same goes for videos, which annoys me considering I only upload videos that others have made of my circuits as support material (along with screenshots) for those contemplating a download of my latest creations.

The problem is that neither website is ideal for what I (for one) want from a Rfactor website. Rfactorcentral is a dedicated Rfactor website, however if you submit any content, you are effectively giving it away. While Nogripracing is not a pure Rfactor website where many gamers from multiple games all complain on your circuit's link to "make a conversion" to their favourite racing sim so they can use it.

So for now, I shall continue my blog, as it seems to be the only bloody place I can see the stuff I want to see!
Thank you for reading, now have a look at all this new useless crap I have added!

Rodrrico.