GeneRally - What is it to you?

General discussion about your experience with the game.
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Haruna
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GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Haruna »

I'm surprised there is not a thread on why one still insists playing GR, even after all these years.

The question is simple: To you, what is GeneRally?

Even though it may be a simple question, my answer to the question is not.

I was very passionate about cars as a very little child. Gaming, drawing, playing with Matchbox and Hot Wheels toy cars in the living room of my old apartment - it was a never-ending love for all things with four wheels and an engine. When I grew up, gaming was my main way to living out my love for racing and cars, but it was really expensive trying to keep up with all of the games. There were simply too many to play and not enough that had lasting appeal, even mere weeks later. Games with built-in editors were cripplingly limited (Re-Volt, Rally Cross 2, V-Rally 2, R/C Revenge...) or completely non-existent.

In 2004, I browsed around for some freeware games, hoping they would be good enough to keep me away from commercial games.
A few of my favorites were TORCS, Racer (Free Car Simulation), and GeneRally (of course!).
But today, of those three, only GeneRally has remained with me. Why?

Because even though I'm older than I was ten years ago, I still think back to the days of old. I remember building a fairly faithful recreation of Grand Valley Speedway's layout from Gran Turismo, for instance.

But GeneRally is far better than any collection of Matchbox or Hot Wheels toy cars. If I could envision it, I could build it. Juan's Car Editor gave me the ability to literally create my own car collection, the exact way I wanted it. No more slapping Lego pieces on the back of Ford GT40 toy cars in a feeble attempt to recreate the Ford GT LM Race Car Spec II! No more trying to arrange pencils and domino pieces in vain trying to get something that vaguely resembled Mid-Field Raceway; I could build it in GeneRally's track editor with plenty of time (not to mention it would last longer)! GeneRally is the infinite toy box every car-loving kid dreams of. What is in that box is up to what you want, what you can imagine: it seems then, imagination is the only real limiter to one's enjoyment of GeneRally.

GeneRally is then, a quasi-realistic racing sandbox: you can race whatever you can want, against AI drivers with whatever names you want for them, on whatever tracks you want, with whatever settings you want. You want to race hyper-tuned "Works" race cars with anime characters at some nonsense street circuit? Sure thing! Want to race real authentic F1 race cars with the real drivers on faithful recreations of the real tracks? Easy as pie.

Long story short - I still play GR because the possibilities are limited only by my imagination. Even if today this mainly composes of quasi-realistic cars on believable fictional tracks or faithful representations of real tracks, that's still a lot of car and track combinations.
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zgr
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by zgr »

Its the perfect mix between fun and ambition, and that is what i love
generally is the best freeware game, i ever found

:gr: :love:
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DuklaLiberec
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by DuklaLiberec »

And you know, we've got a community with people who likes GeneRally, and I'm one of them. :) There are guys who make awesome tracks, and some of them are making awesome cars. :bg: There are also racing competitions which are exciting, and even the :tom: & :com:. :D IMO track making and car making in GR is easier than in many other racing sims, like rFactor, Grand Prix 4, F1 Challenge 99-02 etc. The reason is: Simplicity!
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MegadriXxX
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by MegadriXxX »

Wow you are all still alive??
And I can see there's people working on the game code... GREAT!!!.. Let me find my old tracks and stuff, update and reupload. see ya soon! :up:

also, gene-Rally meant like 5 years of hardcore gaming for me... until my computer was stolen and got a MAC. lol
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LongBow
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by LongBow »

MegadriXxX wrote:Wow you are all still alive??
Well, I'm for sure but I thought you were "dead" for good :taped: I was trying to get in contact with you for quite some time now...more in the PM ;)

GeneRally is simple yet complex at the same time. Its limiting you at every step and giving you endless possibilities at the same time. I just love this combination :love:
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TuomoH
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by TuomoH »

Nice to see you back, MegadriXxX. :cool2:

For me, GR is simply the best game I've ever played, I especially love the trackmaking and the freedom in it. :love:

At the same time the community is the other half in it for me, apparently. :D
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XYY
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by XYY »

GeneRally is the only game I found so far which offers good abilities to make nice tracks and cars also for beginners (I guess a rookie can't easily make good-looking rFactor tracks or cars :D ) Also it's nicely balanced between reality and fun :bsmile: So, it's simply my favourite game :)
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Buka
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Buka »

GeneRally is simply the greatest game ever. And it's definitely together with the community one of the good part of my life. :roll:
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by pepsibottle1 »

GR is my way of passing time throughout school; just don't tell the teachers ;)
Hannu, who art in Finland, Räbinä be thy name. Sim racers come, races are won, at Agari, as at Xupong. Give us this day our version 1.11, and forgive us all our impatience, as we race against those who challenge against us. Lead us not into boredom, but deliver us from work. For thine is the GeneRally, and the AI, and the race cars. Amen!
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Martyn
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Martyn »

A great way to combine my 2 biggest hobbies, design and motorsport
Hannu, who art in Finland, Räbinä be thy name. Sim racers come, races are won, at Agari, as at Xupong. Give us this day our version 1.06, and forgive us all our impatience, as we race those who challenge against us. Lead us not into boredom, but deliver us from work. For thine is the GeneRally, and the AI, and the race cars. Amen!
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resir014
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by resir014 »

Like many guys have summed it up before me, it has a unique feeling of the endless possibility you'll get. I usually play this to relax and as an escape from the mainstream gaming world.

I also LOVE the community here. The mood here is very calm, and we can download a s**tload of add-on tracks, cars and many more, as freely as we want.

GeneRally is not just a game. It has become a piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle of my life.
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Scholl
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Scholl »

To me it´s relaxation.
Especially track-making: Listening to music and doing some pixel-work really calms me down every time ;)
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RacerBG
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by RacerBG »

I love freeware games and that is one of the main reasons. Second reason is that I love games that require low specs not like today's monsters. Third is that I love games which are editable a lot like GR.

From now on I will enjoy it because Im new player here. :bg:
Gentlemens, start your engines!
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DuklaLiberec
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by DuklaLiberec »

RacerBG wrote:(..) Second reason is that I love games that require low specs not like today's monsters.
:iagree: Games which are fun don't need excellent graphics. For example Grand Prix 2, this game is 15 (!) years old and there are GP2 friends like you & me who still play it and release new tracks, new carsets and so on. And they don't care about the graphics, you know, there are games which have got very good graphics and they're still crap. ;)
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RacerBG
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by RacerBG »

Bob Barker wrote:
RacerBG wrote:(..) Second reason is that I love games that require low specs not like today's monsters.
:iagree: Games which are fun don't need excellent graphics. For example Grand Prix 2, this game is 15 (!) years old and there are GP2 friends like you & me who still play it and release new tracks, new carsets and so on. And they don't care about the graphics, you know, there are games which have got very good graphics and they're still crap. ;)
Yes I know. :)
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Rebellion765
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Rebellion765 »

GeneRally is the only game that I don't get bored of playing and creating stuff for it, just because of its simplicity. Like Haruna said, it's only your imagination what limits you. And sometimes, simplicity and fun are much better than those full-of-tech games from today. That's why I play GR.
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Genetleman
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Genetleman »

I get the strange feeling that the GeneRally community is constantly getting smaller, not sure why but the forum activity seems to be limited to only a few people, there are no new releases of the game (1.10c was a good step but now this has been lots of months ago), there are no new websites etc. What can we do to get things rolling again?
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Lukeno94
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Lukeno94 »

There are no new releases of GR since 1.10c because they'll be working on a lot of things big and small to improve it. ;) I would actually argue the community is growing, but the old, perennial post-a-million-things-a-day people, like myself and Dan Hakulin, for example, are releasing less stuff. ;)
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DocWalt
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by DocWalt »

The GR community is bigger now than it was in '07-ish so I wouldn't really complain too much. At least I can play GR again with the new releases. Might throw together a track or something. I miss playing all the time. :(

btw, my name isn't what it used to be :p
AgentSufkop
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by AgentSufkop »

Haruna wrote:Games with built-in editors were cripplingly limited (Re-Volt, Rally Cross 2, V-Rally 2, R/C Revenge...) or completely non-existent.
Try TrackMania.
OT: Well, i'm not addicted, but i like the game, that's for sure.
Edit: sorry for the slight bump.
Maxi
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Maxi »

Hi, everyone. First time posting here.

Since the Formula One 2012 season starts next weekend at Melbourne, I became hyped and searched my hard drive for GeneRally folders with the F1 cars and tracks. After doing some laps on several circuits I googled Generally and found out the project had been continued :O (version 1.1). The support for 16:9 resolutions was more than welcome. Then I found my way to this forum.

Ok so... where to begin? I first heard about the game in 2003 at the time of F1 Italian Grand Prix. From its name I first thought it had something to do with Marc Gene who would replace injured Ralf Schumacher in the Williams for the race.

It didn't take long till my brother started to design F1 circuits and cars for the game and we started to compete with them against each other and the AI players. From the beginning, though, it felt frustrating to drive against AI players but without max. amount of cars on the grid the racing felt quite hollow.

Then, in 2005 we were able to arrange things a bit and held a GeneRally F1 tournament with six human players for the first time. Three monitors and keyboards were plugged into my bro's PC. Both the F1 circuits and cars were self-made, with all the cars with exactly similiar specifications. A total of 3 tournaments were held in 2005. The latest tournament was held in 2008 after which I've been inactive in playing the game. If you like, you can download the cars and tracks from here: http://hovinet.com/files/GeneRally/ (the site is in Finnish)

I do hope there's going to be an online feature in GeneRally in the future
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TuomoH
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by TuomoH »

Welcome, Maxi. :) Please post to the link to your site to this thread as well. :cool2:
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Krisu
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Krisu »

I got my first touch to Generally back in 2003, when 1.04 was the newest version released.

It's beyond comprehension how fantastic game did the two Räbinä brothers create, just as innocent students.. They sure didn't know what the actual heck were they creating!

Anyway. So it's the year 2003, Krisu being a 11-year-old Gran Turismo obsessed boy who couldn't get enough of different cars, comparing, tuning and of course, racing them. Then something even as big was rushing through the forests: Formula 1. It's even weird that as a such car-obsessed boy I didn't have any interest in F1 before 2002, more 2003. What was too bad, Gran Turismo couldn't satisfy me in terms of Formula mania, neither could really the EA F1 games back then. Then I found Generally and Generally found me.
A friend of mine back then showed me Generally, and sure he didin't know how large of an impact would it be. I haven't been in touch with the guy since 2005, but he left me his legacy in form of Generally.

So I could begin combining the vast car variety of Gran Turismo with Formula one, and other open-wheelers. With track layouts only my imagination could limit. Be they from Gran Turismo, Formula 1, Finland, Crash Team Racing or from any f**king where you wanted to. Oh, forgot my mind. Purely original tracks.

When I realised there was the Generally track databased, my life was blessed. I could download bloody fun tracks like BigRamp, whose author I sadly can't remember. Or Gábor Kozma's incredible Formula 1 venues. Yeah!
All these with such add-on cars like Strava's 1930's, 1960's, GP67 or the legendary from-who-I-don't-know Formula X. And ChampCars.

Feature-wise, Generally was near perfect: You could have it semi-sim like with fuel consumption/mass, tyre wear and even damages on, something that you couldn't have even in Gran Turismo, only tyre wear! (when GT3 was obviously the newest)
Having the opportunity to have adjustable AI was great: There could be some pathetic rubber-burning douches against the top, nearly unbeatable F1 drivers.
ALL IN THE SAME RACE. No more slowish AI like in Gran Turismo if I didn't want to.
No need to mention about the possibility to change points system/starting order/race length/championship length/etc...

Then years started slowly to pass and I slowly self-learnt the secrets of Juan's car editor. Starting from modifying some existing cars, up to the point I could start a car perfectly from scratch and end it up just I wanted to. 40 polygons, 30 vertices, no limits. Now I could race every historic F1 car I wanted to, against who I wanted to, where I wanted to, how I wanted to. I have a dream... completed.

Still the greatest universe of all was still not found... Then, back in the lazy but important summer 2007, I completed the expidition: RaceSimCentral's Generally forum was found!! :shock:
That's equal to having a new, third Testament added to the Holy Bible.

An era has begun.


Now I'm still here, after nearly 5 years and a c*apload of things have happened to me during these years. But Generally has stayed with me, sometimes closer, sometimes less so, but never, ever abandoned me.

Without Generally and it's community, I would have never talked to people like Haruna or Luke :shy:

What's up now, I'm even planning about making track(s)! It's been nearly 4 years since I last made a (serious) track. Oh gawd, my time with Generally definitely isn't over :mrgreen:

Thanks to all people who have made this possible. Generally isn't just a game, it's a way of life.
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Glen »

IMHO, for me it is simply a program that have not yet shown its limits.
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Re: GeneRally - What is it to you?

Post by Areen »

One of my first games on PC and actually the thing that takes most of the time which I spend on my PC. As Nielske said: "The power of simplicity in the hands of individuals (...)"
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