Conelanders League – Status Quo

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the changes of the Conelanders league that took place since I presented this online community for the very first time.

In article #150, I presented the Conelanders league which is a small community of computer game players who enjoy playing racing games and uploading videos of their runs to YouTube. In particular, the Conelanders league featured weekly DiRT Rally events which could be completed by the league’s members. Also, the league was created with the intention to give every player the chance to participate in the virtual racing events without having to be really competitive. Of course, some drivers enjoyed the competition with other drivers as well, but the main idea was to just have fun and to share the runs with others.

Assetto Corsa

Since the early days of the Conelanders league, many new drivers have joined the league and formed a supportive community. By now, the DiRT Rally league has 191 members in total of which at least 50 have participated in every event. Furthermore, skilled and more experienced drivers help and support others to improve their driving skills and no one really focusses too much on the competition.

In addition, the Conelanders league expanded in May as Assetto Corsa became the second racing game that is played by the community. In contrast to DiRT Rally, Assetto Corsa features circuit races during which the drivers directly compete against each other. The goal of the Assetto Corsa races is to create exciting content that allows the viewers to watch the races from any perspective. After the first season, this new format already showed its potential which will be refined over the upcoming seasons.

Moreover, some members of the league provided additional input to increase the spirit of this community. For instance, a database was created that shows the results of every Conelanders race and allows users to explore the career of every driver. Also, custom liveries were created for the Assetto Corsa cars to add a certain style to all the circuit races. Finally, the races were even commentated the same way as real world races.

Ultimately, the Conelanders league shows the potential of online communities that work together and try to achieve something meaningful. Players from all over the world are united by the spirit of racing and created a huge amount of data within a short amount of time.