Quote from S.E.T.H :

logical fallacy. again

Unfortunately I can no longer take you seriously because I have noticed that you have sprinkled punctuation through your forum name and that tells me everything I need to know about you.

Probably Klutch himself, he'll have enough medicines running through his veins to stay alive at least 3 days after his death.

Quote from S.E.T.H :

@Becky_Rose, your signature gives me enough information about you.

It really doesn't, but it might give you an insight in to my sense of humour. Do you think I should replace it with a curriculum vitae?

Props for an original rant, in all the years I have been around LFS I don't think anyone has even mentioned force mode let alone claimed that it gave them a speed advantage.

LFS provides functionality to restrict view to cockpit only, it is up to server hosts whether they use it or not.

Case closed.


Really? A speed advantage? I "used the force" by accident a few times when I was new to the game and found it really distracting. I guess I am not Jedi enough.

Shoppers do click ads, and despite what everyone says more shoppers click them than being #1 in Google.

You can argue or disagree all you like, but I have measurable figures which says SEO and organic conversions is not nearly as profitable as PPC and CRO.

Or in non jargon speak, yer gonna keep seeing ads.

Quote from Torben :

I can see your point, on the other hand, an advert during an F1 Weekend at the track is also not clickable (well yeah, it's not online) and still the companies do pay for the ads. The measurement has to be done from the timing (weekend) the ad is placed onwards. An ad in game (preferably a broadcasted race as the audience is bigger) can also be measured by the timing of the race (or if not broadcasted, by the timing of the period of time the ad is payed for).
For example, company A pays for in-game ads in week 20 of the year 2013. So, to measure if the ad was any successful company A has to evaluate sales / new visitors on the website etc. from week 20 on and with some Business Intelligence it is possible to separate the impact from the other factors that play into sales / new visitors..
Hopefully I could make my point clear through the language barrier...

I have to disagree. Billboard advertising is "brand" advertising. It has no direct effect and is usually done as part of an overall brand awareness campaign. This only works for companies that have so much coverage that they are part of our everyday lives / consciousness. That sector of the advertising industry is suffering from massive decline, it's one of the factors hurting the terrestrial television broadcasters and print magazine industries which have seen people like me nibble away at their market share in recent years.

Also in regards testing the only true measure of a tested campaign is side-by-side testing when other factors can be ruled out. This form of testing, called "split testing" is the only viable mechanism for testing because it rules out other market factors.

For instance the busiest day of the week for most online vendors is a Monday, weekends are generally quite poor by comparison. The first week of the month is the strongest, the third the slowest and so on and so on...

Tests which are compared over time always generate invalid results, so all reliable testing in the internet sector is done side by side.

To my knowledge there are still only a handful of companies to invest in in game advertising, I believe Intel did it with a Counter Strike game some years back, or something of the sort, but the point is it was Intel - and not Miscellaneous Retailer Number 3158125243. Intel is a name that is already etched into the consciousness of the planet.

Track side advertisements are too minor, but I might consider a more stronger branding of one of my lines within LFS such as if I could get Brembo prominently featured throughout the game, possibly even working it in to the game mechanics to help reinforce the message that Brembo Max discs stop faster in the wet than OE discs then there might be some merit in getting involved in a game of this nature - but mostly I would prefer to stick to advertising I can directly measure - and as a player I hate the thought of the mechanics being polluted in this way.

So the best solution is just to namedrop my client in a conversation like this on a forum with a few hundred thousand members and do that just every now and then to get the message across to the same audience for absolutely free.

BTW If you need a discount to get better brakes on your car and save the lives of those you love and not kill innocent children by failing to stop in time then just fire me a PM.

As a major online advertiser myself (6 figure spend per month) I simply would not be interested in placing adds in to LFS myself, even though I represent many automotive companies.

Online advertising revolves around the concept of "return on investment". An in game advert wouldn't be clickable, and therefor it's effectiveness can't be measured unless LFS openend popups, and if LFS did that the term "over my dead body" springs to mind.

I had a superb bowl of curry last night, does that count?

It was 4 for £10...

*deep bow*

The problem with overtaking isnt technology but the ratio of aerodynamic to mechanical grip. Limit downforce and all you do is shift the aero development to drag.

Technology is the result of investment, and investment is the result of poor results + financial capacity.

The only two ways to limit technology are to limit human genius by specifying the technology available, or to limit capital investment so that the technology is not developed.

F1 realised this when they tried to impose the budget cap, and I think they proved that it doesnt work. That all you do is raise the cost by forcing teams to hire genius accountants.

If you are not specifying the technology that may be used the solution is not to limit aerodynamics, instead, you must increase the available mechanical grip. This in turn raises cornering speeds which results in the need for smaller engines which in turn improves the mechanical grip to aerodynamic grip ratio.

In short, fatter tyres and smaller engines and problem solved.

Quote from col :

That's a great idea. It seems to me that it is also exactly the sort of thing the devs could and should be working on.
Aside from creating a better racing environment, it would also help in pulling the community together, having these server specific web pages as part of the LFS site would be cool. Linking data from the racing system to the main website and the forum... could have user review of servers - like amazon

Thanks, shame I never finished it!

The other element that I neglected to cover above with that the badges available each week would change. The idea being that it would drive more variety in to online racing.

Everyone wants variety - but they gravitate toward particular servers whey they know they can get instant gratification - but in the Blue2 concept one week there might be badges for UF1, and another week it would be LX6. The idea would be to offer enough badges to appeal to everyone and thus generate some movement on to all those unused combos - whilst keeping enough generic badges such as "Sprint Race Wins" to populate the pro servers irrespective of the population shifts, ie: for these badges to encourage and shape rather than to divide and rule the active LFS user base.

Quote from JO53PHS :

I seem to remember you referring to 'Blue 2' that you were developing a couple of years ago. Was that a personal project or something related to CTRA / UKCT?

I've been reading your post curious as to what happened to it in the end

Blue 2 was an idea I had to take what was good about the CTRA and strip out what didnt work - namely the reporting...

The idea was that you could connect every server in LFS to it (at the server owners discretion) and gain features comparable to the CTRA servers and it would operate a CTRA like web page and statistical system - you could compete in numerous championships from STD racing through to clean driver cups, endurance cups and so on to earn badges.

Then each week server owners could apply to be a "Pro" server for a week - one for tin tops, one for open wheelers - and these would be restricted to drivers who achieved the pre-requisite number of badges the previous week. The pro racers would have some cool rewards and because of their restricted nature would likely have the cleanest racing. In return for this "free" traffic to their servers the pro server operators would be required to maintain minimum standards of admining or have to "take a break" from the pro program, and because the pro servers changed each week no one operator would be swamped with a backlog - they apply for a period of one week when they have a team willing to stand by and help out for that week.

I ran out of motivation for the project because I started dating and my partner just didnt share my passion for nerdyness. Needless to say that didn't last long! Also Ario appeared on the scene which invalidated the need to find a way to make many of the CTRA-like features available to the masses.

Quote from col :

Interesting idea. What about the first few corners, particularly where the track is wide?

The first sector would require different rules (as indeed it has in F1) but in all likelihood is even easier. If two cars contact, whoever was behind 3 seconds prior to the contact is at fault. Obviously if you get hit you are then "immune" to blame for a short while. That would likely achieve the desired 95% accuracy ratio and likely greater. It would certainly encourage the desired effect (to not brake so late you are fully on the brakes and unable to react to the car infront).

Quote :

And it may work out that a few people due to racing style (not unfair, just slightly unusual) set off a lot more false positives due to blind spots in the algorithm...

This would be my biggest concern too and would have to be identified by running a prototype with lots of live data with lots of car and circuit combos and then studying the replays of the drivers who are the most anomalous in the data.

EDIT: But I think the lesson from the CTRA data is that the difference between the good and the bad drivers in the data was quite noticeable.

Last edited by Becky Rose, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 21:18.

Quote from NigelY :

Thanks for that post Becky. Might have to re-read some of those final paragraphs again to get my head around them . I wish someone with the requisite skills would give it a go (that's not quite a hint). Are the numbers racing on LFS great enough to make it worthwhile? Would it be sensible to get something prepped ready for the influx of racers (hopefully) when the updated physics come out?

I do not consider the current number of racers in LFS as an issue because projects of the nature that I would write do not require large user bases - they create them.

As a geek coder I have nothing left to achieve with LFS, I already wrote more LFS mods than some race games have in total so for me to become interested now I have to consider it in the wider context of my life: I am 3 months in to starting a new business at the moment and I am still maintaining my career, so to take on this extra burden on my free time I would need to balance that against the reward - and that means making a workable business model.

To make a CTRA like system profitable is difficult because the core of the system would have to be free, LFS players would not stomach paying a fee. I could monetise an STCC like project, and build that on top of the CTRA just like I did before - but already that's two major projects and represents significant investment.

To do that I would need to feel confident in LFS as a platform because my work would be so dependent upon it and for that to happen I would need to sit down with Scawen and Victor and help sort out some of their marketing issues (marketing is what I do nowadays), because when I look at LFS what I see is public relations madness and it is a situation that is easily reversible.

Over the years I have gotten to know Victor a little, but Scawen I only know through observation and forum discussion. What I have observed is what I have previously (and afffectionately) described as the business equivelent of a communist, and that leaves me too unsure of the LFS platform to consider it a reliable investment.

I have had issued with the same thing and regard it as a bug. I spoke to Victor about it last time I saw him and he said he'd raise it with Scawen.

That's as much as I know.

Quote from NigelY :

One last thing, Becky did say there was a correlation between yellow flag ratio and clean racers.

There is a definite relationship but there are a number of factors to consider.

When we introduced the statistic to the CTRA a lot of drivers became very scared of it, and that we may use the statistic to make judicial decisions - and that the statistic itself would be fundamentally flawed. Actually we just thought it was cool - we knew there would be concerns of that nature so we where very clear in establishing the precedent for not using the yellow flag ratio in our judicial reviews.

However what we discovered was that once the system had collected a bit of data there was an absolute correlation between a drivers yellow flag ratio and the drivers who caused issues.

At that time we used LFS' default yellow flag detection - and LFS is often a bit keen to get the yellow flag out. I did consider writing my own code, even a simple 3 second delay on counting it as an actual yellow might have been enough. Also there was a bug on Blackwood Reverse which triggered a yellow flag each lap (on discovery we actually disabled yellow flag tracking on that circuit).

So on the raw stats as LFS generated them about a 5% ratio was considered an excellent yellow flag ratio - which would be an alarming number in real racing! Most people getting reported had 25% or more. Which even by LFS standards is quite attrocious when you think about it, especially as we only tracked a maximum of 1 yellow flag per sector.

If memory serves the majority of drivers fell in the 8-12% range, including myself. I even at one point stopped racing because I was so recognised on the servers that I couldnt focus on racing and concentrate and ended up parked up and chatting to people, and this blew my yellow flag ratio!

I think what most people fear from an automated decision is that it may, on ocassion, generate an incorrect result. But what is often overlooked is that one event has no real bearing. An automated system which is only 95% accurate is actually more than sufficient if action is taken not against a single incident - but against a pattern of incidents.

And in my view achieving 95% accuracy is achievable with a fairly simple rule: In the event of a collision the car which was behind 3 seconds before the contact is at fault in all circumstances when the car in front maintained a normal line.

The collision is worthy of recording when one or more cars involved in the collision complete the section of track (an area much smaller than a split sector - say, 1 corner either side of the incident corner) slower than their usual delta time plus a percentage threshold that would have to be determined with some testing.

If the car infront did not maintain line then determine the relative overlap of the cars at the point the vehicles changed direction to determine fault.

This rule will not provide a 100% accurate measurement of fault, however it should provide a "reasonably" accurate one, which whilst utterly incapable of taking action against a single incident would be sufficient to determine a pattern of behavior over time.

Provided a system is capable of reasonable accuracy, even in the absense of absolute accuracy, and that the data generated as a result is used in such a way as to respond to patterns of behavior and not absolutely applied to a single incident, then an automated system can work and a CTRA like system could return.

The rule I give above is a theory and is untested, but I believe it should work - albeit perhaps with some tweaking with live data and a prototype.

And before anyone asks, no I do not have a prototype ready! My personal situation is that as much as I would love to bring back a CTRA like project I do not think I could do it from a hobbyist position anymore.

Last edited by Becky Rose, Thu 2 Feb 2012, 19:49.

Hi guys

I dont have much time right now but I have read a lot of this thread and I want to thank so many of you for your fond memories of the CTRA.

There are a lot of points I would be happy to shed more light on and talk about further when I have a bit more time available than I do right now, but there is stuff I can clear up right now.

The real reason the CTRA closed has had a couple of theories in this thread, and when I look back on events both of them are sort of correct.

The truth of it, when I look back now, is that the argument was the first turning point in the downfall of the CTRA - and what I didn't know then and do know now is that it wasn't really a disagreement, in truth we both wanted the same thing but put it into different words. The reality is we were not arguing over a disagreement, or even the semantics of an agreement, we argued because we where exhausted and burnt out.

The CTRA carried on after I left until eventually Sam's burnout left a back log in the reporting system and the whole structure collapsed in on itself under its own weight. But Sam wasn't the only one burnt out, I was too - and neither of us knew how to handle that at the time.

Sam and I have since apologised to each other and parted on friendly terms, although I have not spoken to him in a long time. But I think I speak for us both and all of the rest of the people who made the CTRA possible, that it is something we are all immensely proud of.

Another point I've time to just quickly clear up that seems to have been forgotten, the web site truly was fantastic but it was not the only thing that made the CTRA unique at the time. We take for granted now tools like Ario which give us track rotation and all sorts of fancy commands, features and server scripts during online play - but before the CTRA these things did not exist.

At the time that the CTRA arrived it was a great innovator, it brought a fresh face to LFS and sim racing with technical innovations both in the realm of what features servers have - but also in the client thanks to its sister project the STCC.

Fewer people here seem to remember the STCC but it is actually the project which started it all, before the STCC the TBO class was dead - and likely it is the STCC that was the reason that TBO racing became so popular on the CTRA servers.

For those that don't remember it the STCC was a broadcast series with a very different style to typical sim racing broadcasts, it was done in a TV style and formatted for entertainment value. It reached a regular audience of over 120,000 viewers for it's monthly show and brought a lot of people in to LFS at the time.

As well as this there were other spin off projects such as LFS having hi-res skin downloads which happened because of my work on the STCC, I asked Scawen permission to release a tool I had made myself to download the hi res skins and Scawen baulked at the cost of bandwidth - prodded into action he released the hi res skin feature of LFS.

This and many other things such as the pit radio mod, backfires, and even an EAX environmental surround sound mod all came about because of this active innovation in LFS.

Others servers operating at the time did not have any of the fancy bells and whistles that you now take for granted in LFS, and this whole package of technical innovation from the CTRA project occurred at a time that seemed to coincide with healthy license sales for LFS and frequent patch updates.

I do wonder how closely those things are related...

And one last point. A few drivers at the time, and to this day, criticise the CTRA for putting content behind a "leveling" system.

I won't lie, the system was deliberately and mathematically influenced by MMO concepts - but the fact is before the CTRA you had a choice of 2 busy online race servers plus an oval server. After the CTRA you had a choice of 5 busy online race servers plus an oval server, and a further 2 busy licence restricted servers and another semi-populated server.

Those who argue that the CTRA removed content from LFS really are not seeing the picture clearly. LFS public pick up racing grew in popularity because of the CTRA + STCC project and provided racers with more choice. That is a statistical fact.

In closing, thank you all for the fond memories - and I may read up some more on this thread and post again if my life gives me more than 30 minutes to myself

I guess there is only one way to finish this post, with my closing words on most STCC broadcasts, "It's turrah from me, Becky Rose."

Its nice to get an update. I had just assumed Scawen had rejoined society, cut his hair and got a job.

Quote from jtw62074 :

I meant beta testing as in 'before there's a release or demo you need beta testing.' Would people pay for that?

Even EA don't charge for beta testing, and they're tight bastards. And they pay their alfa testers.

If you are taking money then you do not have testers, you have customers.

The price of this game has always astounded me from a gaming perspective. It simply isn't being sold as a game. It's being sold as a simulator, like F1 teams have advanced simulators, and it's being sold to the equivalent of F1 teams/drivers in RC racing.

But every now and then it gets posted here, I believe I may have spoken to the author here before although am unsure as it was a fair time back. Of course, attempting to find new customers on a gaming forum will always draw this reaction.

Gamers don't pay this kind of money for a game.

But from a business perspective there is absolute sense in charging high prices for niche products. That's why there are products for almost every niche imaginable. If that niche rings true for you then you'll buy, if it doesn't then you won't.

As a gamer, there is a temptation to argue over the price because there is a desire to try it. What I would do, as the author, is to realise there is a new market available to me and develop a version of my product which is catered to that new market.

It's not rocket science.

An alternative version catered to gamers with a free demo and priced for gamers (about £15 for an indie game last I checked out the indie coding forums).

Of course that product should not interfere with your existing sales, so it's content and offer needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Quote from rockclan :

I give this one 6 out of 5 on stars rating.

Happy newyear Becky...

Edit:
BTW.. I met this lovely warm female around 50´s or maybe 55´s, she´s Dutch and Called Ms. Peijnenburg...

She helps so many people, and now is in the same institute as me, dunno if she´s from your side, but, PM me.. :P

Wait what? Are you trying to fix me up with an elderly Dutch sociopath?

I already dated a Dutch sociopath I am not sure I need another one, let alone one who's only moisture comes from a tube of KY.

Quote from Mango Juice :

That is the worst coding I have ever seen in my life.

RIP LFS

Confirmed.

Quote from Intrepid :

bah humbug

Oh come on that rant was at least worth 3 stars.

Quote from mrodgers :

Every time we get caught up so that we can get things funded, something happens like this.

I think that was the default condition in my life ever since I started work, mrogers. There have been other conditions, there was the 4 days without food, and there was also the time I got a little windfall just before a Christmas so I buggered off to Amsterdam, but most of my working life has been spent going from one disaster to the next, finishing each month with slightly less money in my pocket than the month before.

It struck me that I know more about business and more about the business my employers are in of almost every single boss I have ever had, so for the last year I have been working to set a company up, two months ago I opened. I made a profit of £1000 in the first month (which I have been joking was the easiest £310 I ever made) and a profit of about £2500 this month (still got to finalise the figures in a few days time).

Life has never been better, and all it took was the confidence to do it. The belief I could do it, backed by the knowledge that if it did not work I would quickly do something else instead - to see if that worked instead.

If it all went wrong I wasnt covered: I'd have made a loss and had a terrible Christmas.

I've been lucky - so far - and things have started well. I am starting to think about a much needed new computer, maybe that holiday to New York I've always wanted, and saving up for a house.

Then I drive home yesterday from my folks and the car sounds like I let S14 Drift work on it. It's a Ford, it's 7 years old, and suddenly I am reminded that this is the age Fords start getting expensive - and I realise that I already spent all my new found fortune on Christmas, and now I am getting a car repair bill - and as its a 7 year old Ford and I am not a very good mechanic myself I probably should start thinking about replacing it - and suddenly it feels like I have this huge expense waiting for me and all my new found affluence is going to go on this great big bill to get a new car.

And then I pause for a second and realise: This is a huge change: Last year I would be waiting for the car to fail before doing the minimum and trying to eak every last penny of life out of my car before replacing it - I would have had that Mondeo until I was 65.

What changed? Because now I hear the first sign of some exhaust corrosion and I am thinking, "well the car is going to get expensive soon I maybe should start saving to replace it".

The pattern is the same, I get a bit of money and I spend it on some unexpected bill...

...But the level of affluence is completely different...

...And it makes me think, the difference between the wealthy and the masses, is greed. The wealthy horde the money - people like us, we spend it the moment we get it - and it has absolutely nothing to do with how much money we have. All that changes is what we spend it on.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

oh my present is better than yours you really poor person etc etc etc

Well this Christmas I have bought myself the new Star Wars game, some clothes and a ****ing helicopter.

*strokes her wodge*

I am way more middle class than the lot of you, **** yeah.

Quote from Mustangman759 :

problem is I didnt give anything except what I gave to my family :P plus were discussing the generosity of others

No, no you're not. You havn't at all and every one else is justing listing stuff they've been given. This thread is like some kind of weird gratification of the expression of personal wealth and greed measured in the fortune of the generosity of others. It's just surreal, and it happens every year.

I know you are excited about your new toys an' all, but I dont understand the need to list your presents to other people on a forum. It's like you are all saying "Be envious of MEEEEEE people, because I have a relative who can afford to spend £150 on ME. Yes, it is ME who has the hugest epenis cock of bloodwealth of you all. Fear me, for I am Super Capitalist Man. The personification of greed itself, the one, the only, mighty internet forum enviousor of the heathen peasant masses, the jock with the biggest pocket wedge of them all, I am Christmas Gift Recipient of the Year 2011. Hell yeah people, bow down and worship my awesome new capitalistic greed possessions denoting my near middle classness.".

Every year I see a thread like this and I aways wonder, why is there no thread about "What did you give for Christmas"?

The best present I gave this year was two RC helicopters for the boys, they were so awesome that myself, my brother and my dad have already ordered our own.

I may even convert my underground cinema into an airport to fly it around in.

If you guys didn't have so many cakes at Christmas it wouldn't be a problem, but for some reason at this time of year Norwegians try and do more damage to their teath than centuries of island inbreeding has done to the British toothline.

What is it, 7 cakes for Christmas? How many Christmas meals do you have?