Race not Open - again?

Based upon your response above, service downtime seems to be a consequence of a successful service.. I am not sure this is something that should become something that 'happens'. If you (iGP) are not capable of providing a service of the same standards to all members world wide, then surely it's only common sense that those members around the world who do not race at peak times when the system is not under load have a distinct advantage in that their service works flawlessly.

I am sorry to say that for an issue to be happening at peak times, when the system is at its busiest or under its highest load, which continues to affect the same people, who continue to inform you developers of these issues.. This is a fundimental flaw. I would imagine that until you provide stability fixes in whatever shape or form, as long as there is an open forum upon which feedback can be left, it will continue to be left. Can you seriously expect anything else? Should users (subscribers and free users) continue to pay for services if they do so and then when they cannot access the service level they have paid for not once but multiple times over consecutive races, should they just sit quietly and actionless while it appears nothing happens to change the unreliable situation? I can understand it may be annoying to read of peoples issues, but frankly if people didn't care, they wouldn't bother to post. I would personally love to be posting nothing but praise, but having discovered iGP and enjoyed several problem free seasons, then to have (following updates) a raft of unreliability, I cannot continute to put up with issues without speaking my mind, and I am sure I am not alone. 

From your post the impression I get is that I am (along with others) suffering the same [kind of] issues at the same times simply because those times are the peak times at which the simulation is popular and used the most. So in effect by being involved in league races which run at peak times, we are effectively sealing our own fate as we are racing at peak times.. It's a seemingly neverending circle.. 

The point about updates and fixes was meant only as a reminder that its easy to patch a game with new features and create a hype which can overshadow fundimental issues remaining below the surface. I intended to say that if the base is not strong and stable, adding newer features will be great.. but it's greatness will be limited if your peak-time userbase cannot enjoy them to their full potential because of existing underlying issues.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Not to be insensitive to the developers, but the problem is becoming more common, not less. This is my fourth season, and never once through seasons 1-3 did this happen. Now it's happened twice this season alone, both following the patch. Obviously it's a usage issue, but you'd think that they'd prepare for that since they probably have at least some data on when the majority of users have scheduled their races (if they don't, all they really need to do is keep an eye on Spectate and see when there are two or more pages of races running at once).

This downtime affects users more than I think some people realize. Today, for example, there were only two of us present for the live race, and we started out by quickly gapping the third person, who was not present. We were doing quite well, then the site went down and we watched in frustration as our Options heated and became useless. It's just depressing to watch a dominant lead crumble because of something out of our control.

The only thing I can think of, if this is purely a load issue, is to find a way to divert more resources to the smooth operation of the game whenever they know it's going to be busy. The two times this season that this has happened to us were on Wednesdays at 9:00PM GMT. That might be a good example of a time when they shore up their servers. I'm sure there are others, particularly on weekends and Fridays, where they could say "Okay, time to brace ourselves" and focus more on the stability of the game than any development.

And didn't we move to a new server during the patch? Or am I misremembering? Because if we moved to a new server, I'm of the opinion that the old one was better.

Yes I believe they had moved servers and I recall no such connection issues with the old servers. OK there were a few bugs but to be honest I would rather go back to that than what we have now, which is totally unreliable or acceptable. For Jack to say this is down to the peak usage is just not acceptable. The developers should get on to whoever is providing the server and demand more resources or ask for compensation.

I would hate to see this game die because of these issues but it will if they persist much longer.

For what it's worth Jack the simulator has been playing up for the last dew days atleast. I have a few different log ins in a few different leagues at completely different times and the only time I ever have problems with the simulator is around the "heavy traffic" time you guys speak of.

2D is been practically unplayable for me over the last week, so even when it has been working it's still completely annoying. Cars are spiking around the track non stop, swapping positions, going slow/going fast, rewinding a lap then fast forwarding a lap etc, jamming etc. It's not my connection either, I've got the same problems on two different connections (work and home)