trace

When DiRT Rally launched, it carried over all of the leagues from GRID Autosport. This includes a Giant Bomb league I created on a stupid whim, Gran Turismo joke and all. That Gran Turismo/FIA joke doesn't even make sense in this solo racing context.

Sure, OK. That's weird, but whatever. We might as well roll with this.

How to Join

1. Go to https://www.dirtgame.com and sign into your RaceNet account.
2. Go to the Leagues section, select Find a League, and search for Giant Bomb. Alternatively, just go here: https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/leagues/league/4916/giant-bomb
3. Join. Maybe race in our league. I don’t know. Do whatever you’d like. Events will happen as long as there's interest.

Current Season

Season 12: Giant Bomb Dirt Rally CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION!

That´s right. 4 weeks of rallying with each week gaining you championship points towards an overall standing - the winner will be crowned at the end of April!

Week 1 - The Blizzard Controversy

This one's all about the rear...wheel drive. And Blizzards.

• CARS: Group B RWD
• STAGES: 6
• REGIONS: Sweden/Monaco
• SERVICE: S4
• CONDITIONS: A lot of snow.
• CHANCES OF SURVIVAL: meh.

Week 2 - Fairweather Friends

A long summer day.

• CARS: 1970s
• STAGES: 6
• REGIONS: Greece/Germany
• SERVICE: S4
• CONDITIONS: Sun!
• CHANCES OF SURVIVAL: good.

Week 3 - Those damn millennials...

They just wanna be high and fly.

• CARS: 2000s
• STAGES: 6
• REGIONS: Finland
• SERVICE: S4
• CONDITIONS: slowly improving.
• CHANCES OF SURVIVAL: alright.

Week 4 - The Dark Below

Don't lose your head...lights. I'm getting really tired of these bad descriptions.

This is long and brutal. It's the finale after all.

• CARS: 2010s
• STAGES: 6
• REGIONS: Everything.
• SERVICE: S4
• CONDITIONS: nocturnal racing experience.
• CHANCES OF SURVIVAL: could be better? could be worse.

Past Winners

• Season 1, The Beginning: PsEG/Zeg (tie)
• Season 2, Modern Reset: jmacdoug
• Season 3, Audi Service: LaJm
• Season 4, Just Climb: MajikMouse
• Season 5, Weekly Challenge 1: Zeg
• Season 6, A Song of Ice and Fog: WooDooUK
• Season 7, The Welsh Mudslide: CasinoGhost
• Season 8, Be Brave Into Crest, Into Crest, Over Crest: WooDooUK
• Season 9, The Greek Gravel Graveyard: WooDooUK
• Season 10, Q3DM17: WooDooUK
• Season 11, Rapid Fire: jjd

@fleabeard: I chose the weather for each stage, yes. I thought it was a nice progression...

....FROM HELL.

@redtentacle: Yeah, the minor adjustments in steering are a tiny bit touchy with a 360 controller, but it's still very playable, even with all assists off. Hard to say if I'm lacking competitiveness not using a wheel, since I've yet to run a stage with a working co-driver and driving blind's very rough in this game, but I can't imagine it's a tremendous hindrance.

EDIT: I should also point out there's a Giant Bomb league for this game, as a result of Codemasters porting my joke Grid Autosport league over. I set up a short season for it, because why the heck not. Just search for Giant Bomb on the RaceNet stuff.

Not that anyone should be surprised, but this is still rolling on a weekly basis, keeping its streak of over five years alive. We're running custom events on random car classes now, rather than the automated road trips, so that might make car choices less painful.

Also, we're having tremendously dumb conversations on topics such as the following:

• Mailmen aren't cops
• Haunted Ouija boards
• Extreme Jumanji by Stanton Barrett
• Anime in NASCAR
• Elitist Casino Dice Haters
• Hatsune Miku as the Formula EJ

We're here every Thursday. You're always welcome.

I just unpinned the old topics from the Dirt 3 forums, but there hasn't been a regular Dirt 3 race night for over three years. I know the PC gaming hub crew will throw together lobbies at times, but I'm not aware of any recurring Dirt 3 night.

Given this topic has had a staff response, and to prevent it from gravitating any further towards negative remarks about the Q&A, I think it's best this discussion is locked. Everything that needs to be said has been said.

@jjnen: Nothing's changed in regards to the difficulty in tracking at least 750 inactive players each week, and Race Night's basically the same every week since there are no decent ruleset options in the multiplayer, so there hasn't been a reason to update these threads as of yet. I can remove members, but if you're not ready at that exact moment to jump in, those emptied spots can be filled up rather quickly (as quick as 5-10 minutes in some cases). That's why Twitter works really well for coordinating the act of getting new people into the club.

That all said, we are just about half a year out from Horizon 2's release. I could look into a mass purge for the sake of the club, but that would take a few weeks at this point to determine who's inactive by XP. I'll mull that over tomorrow.

Disney Infinity's soundtrack is way more badass than I expected.

Great job, Johnny V and Lang. I'm no longer anticipating Dogg Turismo 7.

Thanks for everything, Patrick! I've enjoyed being able to talk to you at the various PAX events and meetups about stuff, even if I rarely have much to say. Looking forward to whatever you're doing next, and hopefully you won't be a stranger. You put out too much awesome content and feature on too many panels with great people at PAXes to have that happen.

I've been booting inactives on direct request, but that's the only reasonable way to go about it thus far. Since the club is open, booting inactives, once I figure out how to determine who's the most inactive from the hundreds of people that haven't earned any XP in weeks, would create spots that would be filled up relatively quickly by people who may or may not be GB members. We're pretty high up in the club rankings, so it's tempting for randoms to want to jump into the club.

I'd like to be able to shut off open invites and manually invite the remainders, but unless it's been patched in, there's no easy way to send invites as a club leader that involves merely typing in a gamertag. The best way to join a club is for the player to search it out and join on their own, which comes with all the problems I've already mentioned.

For that reason, the best ways to get into the real club are to contact me on Twitter (PsEG) and be ready to join immediately when I respond saying I've booted someone, or simply watch the roster every time you launch the game to see if a spot's opened up from a random quitting. On a side note, my current definition of inactive is people who sucked at the first two showcases and are under level 30, especially if I caught them adding no XP to the club 2-3 weeks after the game came out. If any of that sounds like it might be you and you're in the club...consider stepping up.

Especially the train showcase. Watch my ghost or Sushi's ghost. There's a relatively easy route to get a great time there.