PitBuilderMag.com not just the nuts and bolts

Community Spotlight: Tysmyster from thewayiplay.com

PitBuilderMag.com is delighted to feature an interview with Matthijs “Tysmyster” Borgdorff, founder and administrator of thewayiplay.com, as its first pitbuilder Community Spotlight.

thewayiplay.com

PBM: Gday Matthijs, and thanks for being a part of this interview.  To start off with, could you introduce yourself, and give us an overview of how TWIP came about and the original purpose of the site?

Tysmyster: Hello, my name is Matthijs Borgdorff, 27 years of age and residing in The Netherlands, Europe. I have a bachelors degree in social and political philosophy from the University of Amsterdam.

Videogames have always interested me, as they do many people, but in my case my interest was frustrated by parents who were not too keen on computers, let alone videogames! This has led to such a traumatization on my part that I have been compensating for my lack of access to videogames ever since I achieved independence.

G25: gateway drug

I am kidding about the trauma of course but not about the compensation I’m afraid. When I was a lot younger I would sometimes see the arcade racing machines with Sega Rally etc. and would think to myself: I have got to have something like that at home! That dream stuck to me and many years later, when Logitech released its G25 wheel with clutch pedal and H-shifter,  I knew the time had finally come to make it all happen.

So, I had a reasonable pc, a g25, and I bought a projector so I had a nice big screen. Very quickly you decide that clamping your wheel to the coffee table while sitting on the couch and having your pedals slide away all the time, isn’t gonna cut it. So, I made a simple drawing of some sort of dedicated racing table and got some wood to build it. It was very simple but equally effective. While thinking about how to improve my experience even further it occurred to me that many other people must be doing this same thing, and probably a lot better than I am! Then, after seeing a topic on the Test Drive Unlimited Forum in which a poster invited people to show pictures of how they played Test Drive, I realized that it would be a great idea to have a dedicated website, just for that purpose.

Armed with a lot of enthusiasm but lacking any knowledge of what it took to build or maintain a website, I started learning what I had to and fairly shortly after, The Way I Play was born!

thewayiplay.com

The name of the site says it all really. It’s a place to show people the way you play and learn and take inspiration from each other.

PBM: TWIP is now pretty dominated by sim racing, though there’s a lively hardware and cockpits board with some amazing cockpit threads, including the odd flight and mech pit.  Is the focus on racing something you’ve cultivated, or has it just grown that way?

Tysmyster: The focus on sim racing has more or less grown this way unintentionally. I happen to be more of a racer than a flyer personally, though I do fly, so naturally I would encounter more racers than flyers. Originally, the idea was to have people show each other the way they play their games, this can mean a race or flight pit, but it can also just be a nice game/living room with a big TV and dolby surround sound and a game console. We even have people building their own arcade cabinets and showing pictures of that. So, as long as it’s unusual and gaming related, we want to see it.

Even though I have tried and still am trying to keep TWIP diverse and not exlusively focused on cockpits or even racepits, when it turned out to become more of a cockpit/racepit site I have been flexible and accommodating towards that development. If it becomes more diverse that will be great and I encourage everyone to post stuff that is something different from the cockpits that we mostly see, however if it just stays a great (racing) cockpit builders forum and if it keeps growing the way it is, than I’ll be a very happy guy too.

PBM: Is there anything that’s surprised you about the community that’s developed around TWIP?

Tysmyster: One surprising fact to me was how members and simmers were of relatively old age compared to typical gaming communities. Of course this makes some sense since in order to build a cockpit in most cases you need a certain amount of resources and independence to be able to do so. However the fact that not only people around thirty, but also many around forty, fifty and sometimes far beyond turned out to make up the majority of the simmers, was an encouragement to me. This really is a worthwhile hobby which has the potential to entertain sane mature people throughout their whole lives. That is also something I like about TWIP. People are encouraged by each other and see that they are not alone in enjoying their hobby and that you’re not ‘weird’ if you keep a virtual racecar or aeroplane in your house.

PBM: You're right, it is definitely eye-opening when you first realise that you're not as far out on the fringe as you thought!  As with any pursuit that people get passionate about, I'm sure there are hot topics on your boards.  Are there any that are guaranteed to get a lively "debate" going?

Console vs PC: who will win? Place your bets now!

Tysmyster: What’s always guaranteed to raise a debate is the old ‘console vs pc’ topic. Especially when it concerns simulation. Most simmers will agree that right now the simulation software, not to mention all the hardware, that is available for pc’s, is far superior in offering realism than that which is available for consoles. However, with new games like Forza 3 and Gran Turismo 5, and now the upcoming Need for Speed Shift, which also promises realism, it looks like the debate might get some new life blown into it. It is commonly assumed that simulators are too ‘hard’ for most gamers to enjoy and so they almost never make it to consoles which generally only invest in guaranteed successes such as another sequel to Need for Speed. Lately however realism has also begun to become a selling point for some console titles such as Gran Turismo and Forza and now even Need for Speed is picking up on it. I think this is partly due to the enormous success that especially simracing has seen in the past few years on PC. Titles like rfactor, GTR2, Race 07/Evolution and of course iracing have gained an enormous following, not in the last place because of the incredible modding communities out there.

As far as flightsims are concerned, I think it will be a long time before we see flight simulator on a console. Hehe, maybe on an xbox.

Fanatec.com cockpit. I think it moved a little.

Aside from this, we are always excited when we see new types of hardware that can be used for simrigs, or people modding existing hardware into ingenious new things. The hunt for realism is what keeps us busy, so when something new arrives and promises to be a ‘next step’ in some way, we are usually interested. The G25 versus the Fanatec wheels is an interesting one and now of course the release of the G27, the G25’s successor.

It’s clear from this answer too, that we are mostly focused on racing right now, but like I said, we are eager to expand!

PBM: Which qualities of the TWIP site do you feel are unique?

Overview thread. Good idea!

Tysmyster: I’m glad you asked that because I do feel TWIP has some unique qualities which justify its existence in my eyes. First of all TWIP is completely dedicated to actually showing things. Pictures, videos and build-stories. It is meant as a place where people can permanently put their gaming rigs online where it remains easily accessable for them and everyone else. Because the site is dedicated to this we can organize things in such a way that everything remains uncluttered and therefore fun and inviting to see and browse through. We’ve had plenty of comments on the site of people who had spent hours just browsing and reading build stories, watching pictures, getting new ideas and really enjoying themselves while doing it. In our TWIP section, each member is allowed only one topic in which he can show as much as he wants to. In this way you can be sure that in that section, each topic you click will contain a new unique gamerig. Also we have thumbnails for topics and an overview topic which makes it even easier to browse the rigs and get more information on the ones that interest you.

Secondly, we have been building a database of topics on all the relevant hardware that is available for the things we do. Any member can make these topics or comment in them so a lot of useful and easily accessable information and personal experience is starting to gather there. This feature is not so unique except maybe for the category that it targets, namely gaming hardware however, I do feel it’s a very valuable addition to the site.

Finally we have something nifty that was an idea of one of our moderators. In every post below the poster’s name you will see a so called ‘rig button’, assuming this person has a rig on display on the site. When you click on this rig button you will be taken straight to the thread about this person’s rig. This way you can always easily find out how the person plays that you’re talking to in the forums. You can also find this rig button in member’s profiles by the way.

I am always thinking about and open to suggestions about ways to make the site better, more fun to visit, more easy to use or more attractive visually. So I do expect many more improvements and new features will be added to TWIP over time.

Of course we must not forget our community itself, the members. Without them TWIP would be nothing. I am really very pleased with how friendly and helpful our members are and what a nice atmosphere we have created together in our little piece of cyberspace. Thank you everyone!

PBM: Are there any builder threads on TWIP that you think would be particularly interesting to PitBuilderMag readers?  Anything that’s really blown you away?

Tysmyster: Definitely! As the site grew, more and more impressive stuff started appearing. There’s setups that impress due to the exquisite hardware that is used, but there are also those who impress equally due to the enormous amount of creativity or craftsmanship they exhibit. As far as specific examples go, one of our members, GPI Steve, has a great topic to read through. It is by now at least 10 pages long and covers the complete evolution of his gaming rig with lots of pictures and explanation. He was a person that literally started from scratch after joining TWIP but got the bug so bad that he just kept evolving and evolving his setup and ended up with something quite impressive. He’s still at it with adding stuff to his newly built flight pit (even though he started with a racepit) so we keep following him as he continues on his journey. It’s really cool to see. There are many others which are quite impressive but since it is very easy to find them yourself on TWIP using the thumbnails and overview topic, I’ll just leave it to the readers themselves to pick out the beauties.

PBM: Could you describe your own setup?

Tysmyster: I am a member of a simracing community called Simjunkies and that is also a term that I think is very accurate to describe me. Aside from being a simjunkie, I am also a fan of gaming in general. Not that I like all or even most videogames, in fact I hate most videogames, but I really appreciate a good one and will not hesitate to get a specific game console just for that one game that I really want to play. My interest doesn’t really limit itself to a specific genre either aside from my obvious focus on simracing. I have a PS3, a Wii, a PS2, a NES, a PSP, two very able gaming pc’s, two racing cockpits side by side, one more elaborate than the other.  I have two G25 wheels, one for each cockpit. Both G25’s are customized and both cockpits have a TrackIR. One cockpit uses a Full HD 1080p projector that projects onto a wall which is treated with special projection paint. (Drool - Ed) Well you did ask!

I didn’t get all this stuff at once of course. Saved it up and upgraded and expanded over time. Details about all of my stuff can of course be seen in my TWIP topic. There’s pictures, videos and information about the hardware I use.

PBM: The sim community seemed to go a long time with only token interest from hardware and software vendors.  Now it seems we’re seeing a lot more high-fidelity sims on the market, with good support for cockpit integration, and a load of new controller devices.  What do you think the future holds for high-fidelity simming?

Tysmyster: Well the way simming is seemingly gaining popularity can only mean good things for what’s to come in the future. Right now we see pc sims offering extremely sophisticated physics but still lacking a bit in the graphics department. In turn we see console sims/games offering more and more impressive graphics but lacking in the physics department. Of course to a degree it is either or since both physics and graphics require computing power. If popularity of simming keeps growing however, the larger markets could make it possible to combine the two so we will end up with great looking graphics and highly sophisticated realistic physics. Personally I am quite interested in the new Forza 3 that is coming out for Xbox360 since they claim that it will do just that. Of course Gran Turismo 5 also comes to mind but in my opinion they will have to come up with better physics than GTPrologue has in order to accomplish this goal. Based on my experience with GTPrologue, which I own, I can say that it doesn’t even come close to even pc sims of several years ago.

As computing power keeps increasing I think we will see more and more real looking simulations. There is still plenty of extra detail and fidelity to add in simulations. This goes for racing but definitely goes for flying. Just look at the enormous system requirements of for instance FSX which, even at the highest settings, doesn’t look all that impressive let alone real. The way I see it we’re not there yet by a long shot. I can’t wait to see simming in ten or twenty five years from now, and I’m planning on being there to experience it.

Aside from computing power, new ways of displaying things and controlling them and experiencing them are constantly being developed. I am for instance very excited about the dome shaped projection screens that are out there now.

PBM: Anything on the horizon that you’re particularly looking forward to on the sim scene?

JDome - a full hemisphere of gaming win

Tysmyster: The J-dome is something that I am looking forward to with anticipation. It is a dome like projection screen but it uses simple materials and is therefore highly affordable. To literally be immersed in the game is something I’m very interested in.

On a personal note, I’m looking forward to moving and getting a house with some proper room for my hobby. Then I will be able to start my new cockpit which is gonna be completely crazy! Keep an eye on TWIP to find out what it’s gonna be. I did put some plans up in our ‘I wish’ section.

PBM: Good luck with the new place!  I went through the same thing earlier this year, and it's really nice having a dedicated bit of space for the cockpit(s) and a workshop, or "man cave" as my wife calls it

Tysmyster: (laughs) Thank you. Yes, the term 'mancave' is a popular one on TWIP as well.

PBM: What would be your advice for someone getting into sim racing, or any simming or cockpit building for that matter?

Tysmyster: Well my advice of course would be: visit TWIP! No, but seriously, we do have a ‘getting started section’ which is a good place to start and talks about what kind of hardware and software you need to get underway. Also you can just view all the cockpits and get plenty of ideas for your own project, not to mention everyone is eager to see your progress and help out with advice and ideas.

More generally, my advice would be not to be too overwhelmed and simply look at what you need personally, draw up a little plan and go for it! Don’t aim for perfection on the first try because you will always be developing and adding stuff later anyway in most cases.

Also don’t be overwhelmed by how hard or complicated simming is and how much better others are at it. When you come from videogames it is a transition to go to simming. For instance Gran Turismo, which I played so much on the PS1 and PS2 before I got into simracing, you play to win a championship and earn credits or unlock cars most of the time. You might do a warmup lap but then you jump straight to race, you do five races on five different tracks in a row in a total of about an hour and a half maybe. In simracing you can easily spend an hour and a half just doing laps on a track on your own, or with others, just practicing. Setting up your car, really getting to know the flow of a track, find that perfect line through each corner and having fun doing it because of all the nuance. It requires a different attitude.

PBM: Thanks for your time!  Any final words you want to say to PitBuilderMag readers?

Tysmyster: Well I think it’s great that there are so many simmers out there and that our numbers are growing as well. TWIP is still a young community so I think we’ve only scratched the surface of what is out there. I hope to see many of you post your setups on our site so we will have even more fun stuff to look at! Everyone is of course invited to come browse the collection we already have. Right now there are already well over 150 cockpits on display so there’s bound to be some stuff there that interests you.

Thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to talk about TWIP in this interview. I am looking forward to this and future publications of PitBuilder Magazine.

Make sure to check out TheWayIPlay.com and say hi to Tysmyster on their forums!

About Ed

Dad to two tremendous kids, cockpit builder, amateur electronics hobbyist, moviemaker and pilot. Founder and editor of pitbuildermag.com.