You are right, but it's on the same basis of the wave-model related to sound. You won't hear the reflections of your sound towards an object you're going to because your ear (human, I expect
) can hear up to a certain degree, and most of the times you won't hear the reflections when you're going away because of the pitch also (amongst the truth of human nature: your brain does not process every information being given by the senses, only the relevant ones to survival/information, so a sound of danger will be processed after learning that this sound is associated to something that could harm you), but when you're level (or close to level) to the object, the speed distortion of sound 'is' almost non-existant for a moment, thus it's when you have more chances of hearing it. Just test it with your car, you will see what I mean :]
PD: Sorry for the slightly off-topic way this seems to be going, but I think it's related to the first statement on the post, which has in common the willingness of having better in-game immersion.
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Quite indeed.
My point and what I was expecting when I first posted on this thread was to see a guy hired to create content in the shape of new tracks/cars or put some make-up and improve the existing ones, not about someone else to do the coding or new music, since Scawen and Victor are doing amazing stuff as a one-man-army, single-handed on their development lines.
The only real thing that would make people stay on LFS (IMHO) would be more combos as new content (new cars and tracks, basically), as even if there is enough to have fun for months or even years, the more time you spend on them, the more you get bored from them.
Having someone to help Scawen code would be good news as long as he did pick that someone up and was someone with who he would have good communication, but it would be his choice, not ours. Remember that John Carmack made the best break-through engines (almost) single-handedly.
I doubt that Victor needs any help as of now
And, if anything, to donate money is a good thing, and I would donate more than I already did (not much, I apologize) if the dev's team would state that it would go towards them getting more experience into real driving to improve the feel of the simulator.
Edit : It might seem that I'm suggesting Eric is doing close to nothing, after re-reading my post. It is not so, I actually admire his work, since it's already an incredibly complex task to create one single track and to do it with such good results as he's doing is just unthinkable unless there is someone real good doing so.
That said, congratulations to the developers, they're the most dedicated three guys I've ever seen doing such a huge project, and going good with it even so long after they started. Keep your head high and your hopes up, this is called to be success!
I don't like the idea as of now.
However, if gravel pits are to be more effective, just like their real counterparts, it would be useful to have a 'push' button to take you out of it and into the grass (or road if the gravel ends off right on the edge of it).
However, there should be a system so, whenever you have been helped, you could not get into the road if there was incoming traffic (your mistake, so you should only get into the track once it is empty)
However, if gravel pits are to be more effective, just like their real counterparts, it would be useful to have a 'push' button to take you out of it and into the grass (or road if the gravel ends off right on the edge of it).
However, there should be a system so, whenever you have been helped, you could not get into the road if there was incoming traffic (your mistake, so you should only get into the track once it is empty)
That's called the 'Doppler effect', which is the effect that distorts the sound of an incoming or outgoing source of sound depending on the relative position of the one that hears the sound towards the source of it, thus changing the speed at which the sound waves reach you, so it sounds higher or lower depending on whether the object is coming near to you or going away.
Easily checked whenever you see an ambulance coming. Before it reaches where you are, the siren will sound on a higher frequency than the actual sound, and when it goes away, it will sound on lower frequency, so it will sound like you applied some extra bass.
This effect would actually help into immersion a great deal, indeed.
About Juls idea :
As long as it is feasible, it would be awesome to have it put into practice, as it would yield a better sense of speed, speed awareness and thus more immersion. What I would suggest, though, would be to skip dividing screen into what percentage would be morphed, but rather apply one FOV to the windshield and another, higher FOV level to the side screens (and the back one), so the feeling would be the same, but it would not be distorted if you have the option to look at sides when cornering/turning your wheel.
Oh, and sorry for going off topic :]
PD: A quick intro on what 'Doppler effect' actually is can be easily found on Wikipedia, here.
Actually, I don't want a gauge at all, I just want those 'special effects' (smoke, water pouring and such) to actually tell me what part of the engine is broken. That is, when engine damage is fully implemented.
In any way, though, I never had such issues with engines (playing offline as of now, will go online when I feel confident of not causing massive wrecks
), just when I wanted to blow a couple of tyres to see how the car would react (took a FWD on a straight, max speed, then put rear gear at full throttle... It was hot :] ), but that's about it.And about the special effects, I mean it so, for example, when a radiator is blown, smoke usually comes out of the radiator mounting point (that would stop many wreckers, as one hit at ~40km/h faster than the other car, radiator would go bye bye), or when the turbo is blown, lots of smoke come and you lose all the power, or when you start the car on cold temperatures, some smoke would come out from the exhaust tube, or when the engine is putting a too poor mix, smoke should come out with the corresponding colour (I don't remember if it was white or dark, never had such failures :shrug
, and... Well, I guess you get the message :]I'm in for realism, but as long as it leaves room to newcomers to learn the basics to a certain degree so they are not a nuisance to existing seasoned drivers.
I would rather prefer it to be as following :
On-line races :
Indicators enabled/disabled via server configuration
Off-line races :
Indicators enabled/disabled by user EXCEPT on hot lap mode, where all should be turned off
This way, people would choose the server that fits their skill level the most, and would solve some other trouble as well.
Rather than an indicator of engine damage, I would prefer to see some smoke when the radiator is blown or some analogue effect that would tell me that the thing ain't going fine.
To complete it all, it would be a nice touch if after the race, you would get a report of what has failed or what degree of damage did every/most/most important parts of the car get, to improve people's driving.
On-line races :
Indicators enabled/disabled via server configuration
Off-line races :
Indicators enabled/disabled by user EXCEPT on hot lap mode, where all should be turned off
This way, people would choose the server that fits their skill level the most, and would solve some other trouble as well.
Rather than an indicator of engine damage, I would prefer to see some smoke when the radiator is blown or some analogue effect that would tell me that the thing ain't going fine.
To complete it all, it would be a nice touch if after the race, you would get a report of what has failed or what degree of damage did every/most/most important parts of the car get, to improve people's driving.
Public relations is close to politics in the matter of taking things out of context and twisting meanings and words.
It's true that GT5 it's realistic - graphically
It's true that GT5 is a new benchmark - for the PS3's system capabilities
It's true it's a milestone in sim technology - graphically
Other than that, it's just 'another mix' with gorgeous looks, which sadly is the part that sells games, even over gameplay, specially to fanboys of their systems and casual gamers with big income.
After all the "woes" and "oohs" and "aaahs", there's just usually a rather void product.
And LFS is rather quite the opposite.
I am quite sure that the intention of your thread is good, but the question might be wrong, and I'm going to explain why I think so.
Probably the matter at hand is asking the developers whether they would accept making their team grow, so more content could be made in less time, which is the actual root of the problem as far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong, but the three guys are working on LFS only as of now), and thus contributing to that from the community would be a good and well-founded idea.
Keeping in mind that most of the content of LFS is fictional, they have no license fees to pay and can work under their own policy since there is no distributor with interests on their project, money would be a bottleneck if they wanted to hire experienced professionals from the game making industry, but first they should allow or be willing for that to happen.
In case they wanted to expand the crew so the game could be done/finished/supported better (or faster), I would be willing to pay on a yearly basis, yes.
But first things first.
Probably the matter at hand is asking the developers whether they would accept making their team grow, so more content could be made in less time, which is the actual root of the problem as far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong, but the three guys are working on LFS only as of now), and thus contributing to that from the community would be a good and well-founded idea.
Keeping in mind that most of the content of LFS is fictional, they have no license fees to pay and can work under their own policy since there is no distributor with interests on their project, money would be a bottleneck if they wanted to hire experienced professionals from the game making industry, but first they should allow or be willing for that to happen.
In case they wanted to expand the crew so the game could be done/finished/supported better (or faster), I would be willing to pay on a yearly basis, yes.
But first things first.
It's a good idea as meaning tuning certain parts of the cars, but always offline or on a non-competitive racing environment to keep a ground level to give equal chances to everyone.
For the OT's question, I think what he means is having specific upgrades so cars can drift and/or drag better, like giving bigger wheels to a car to be a good dragger, or something alike about drifting cars.
As much as I would see that as a step towards making the product more complete and catering a wider range of public, I am worried that it would take a lot of precious time from the main product's focus, and I don't think this would happen any time soon, but it still is a good idea for a future 'expansion' of sorts.
For the OT's question, I think what he means is having specific upgrades so cars can drift and/or drag better, like giving bigger wheels to a car to be a good dragger, or something alike about drifting cars.
As much as I would see that as a step towards making the product more complete and catering a wider range of public, I am worried that it would take a lot of precious time from the main product's focus, and I don't think this would happen any time soon, but it still is a good idea for a future 'expansion' of sorts.
My keybOard has nO "O" buttOn, mister
Will try, thanks for the info
On the other side, the point of my sentence was to allow people to drive a car that has been built to take advantage of TC and compare it to one built around the idea that TC might not be present, as both are made around that idea (not exclusively, but it TC used to be an important piece of technology on F1 last years to give it enough importance) of 'being made to comply with the rules - yet minimizing the drawbacks of rule changes'.
As a matter of a fact, this season's F1 cars have been faster on the pre-season trainings, and crashes/running out of the track were not as common as many people thought it might be.
Cheers :]
Being a Demo Racer not too far away in time myself, I rather preferred having the demonstration version the way it is now than how it was before that, since, as it has been said a thousand times, now it does represent the game as a whole, without having restricted classes.
Yes, you lose the XRT, but you have a representation of the whole range of cars (FWD, RWD and Open Wheelers/Single Seaters), being limited enough so you can learn how they handle and thus making an educated buy, which is mostly the purpose of any demo of a game.
About changing the time of the day, it's already there. If you were suggesting dinamic timeline for day/night transitions, it would be a good idea for a 'screenshot generator' as Scawen often refers to games that are focused on graphics a little bit too much and would add little into gameplay (except endurance races). Dinamic weather would be a far better addition to the gameplay instead and would make each race unique.
The way gears are being changed is something that might feed the discussion, but on overall I think that manual shifting is much more prone to represent the racing community and the simulator's goal than automatic would do. In any way, though, it would be a nice addition to immersion if a very limited range of cars had it, albeit cutting down the effectiveness of the car at throttle (they may not be as fast as the manual counterparts) and substitute the auto gearing option on the options menu.
My 2 cents :]
I agree that there should be no TC on LFS, except if it was a very limiting version of the same, since there is no "perfect" TC system that can get to the limit as good as a human being can (as being proven this pre-season of F1), so it would make turning/applying throttle while turning slower than it's manual counterpart.
Then again, considering the hypothetical age of the cars on LFS, it would feel silly that they had it, specially, as pointed out by tristan, it's a simulator where you need to show skill (meaning there are no driving aids, so everyone is on the same level for competing purposes) and there's no physical risk on the driver's side.
It would be nice if the devs would get hold of another F1 from the 2008 season, without TC, not only for comparation but also for the fun of learning how to handle over 500HP without assists.
So, if it was a matter of casting a vote, mine would be a 'no', specially minding Woz's post, and keeping in mind that people who finds controlling current cars hard either has no car or is too used to drive with all those electronic and mechanical aids, which actually influences people's point of view.
Nice thread, by the way :]
Then again, considering the hypothetical age of the cars on LFS, it would feel silly that they had it, specially, as pointed out by tristan, it's a simulator where you need to show skill (meaning there are no driving aids, so everyone is on the same level for competing purposes) and there's no physical risk on the driver's side.
It would be nice if the devs would get hold of another F1 from the 2008 season, without TC, not only for comparation but also for the fun of learning how to handle over 500HP without assists.
So, if it was a matter of casting a vote, mine would be a 'no', specially minding Woz's post, and keeping in mind that people who finds controlling current cars hard either has no car or is too used to drive with all those electronic and mechanical aids, which actually influences people's point of view.
Nice thread, by the way :]
Everyone has an opinion, and I guess mine will be just as valid as anyone else's 
I rather think that the AI improved quite a lot if you think of offline racing as a way of training, meaning that :
- If you're slow, they will ram you from the back, so you need to go fast
- If you try to overtake, you will have to create your race line out of the standard one, pretty much as you would end up doing against some seasoned online racer (I guess that the human racer would try to drive defensively, yet keeping a fast race line)
- Consistent times force you to improve, since you know that each and every mistake is going to have a cost, maybe one of them ramming you on your back
- Their tendency of ramming you from behind or the sides will help you develop a sixth sense and teach you how to use the mirrors and look-to-the-side keys
From my point of view, even though they are not perfect, they're quite a good way of learning offline, to make the switch to online racing easier and safer, without becoming a wrecker and having decent times.
All in all, in it's current state, AI forces you to improve in order to both finish a race and doing so in a good position, if you are not seasoned enough to do so already.
I rather think that the AI improved quite a lot if you think of offline racing as a way of training, meaning that :
- If you're slow, they will ram you from the back, so you need to go fast
- If you try to overtake, you will have to create your race line out of the standard one, pretty much as you would end up doing against some seasoned online racer (I guess that the human racer would try to drive defensively, yet keeping a fast race line)
- Consistent times force you to improve, since you know that each and every mistake is going to have a cost, maybe one of them ramming you on your back
- Their tendency of ramming you from behind or the sides will help you develop a sixth sense and teach you how to use the mirrors and look-to-the-side keys
From my point of view, even though they are not perfect, they're quite a good way of learning offline, to make the switch to online racing easier and safer, without becoming a wrecker and having decent times.
All in all, in it's current state, AI forces you to improve in order to both finish a race and doing so in a good position, if you are not seasoned enough to do so already.
No, I actually think everyone on this thread was dead serious
The more teams the merrier, I say.
I can just hope they get enough points to keep on racing next years also, so they are able to bring an interesting car to compete in the scene in... 5 years time?
Anyway, it settles an example that you don't need countless money to start a sport-racing team, so it could probably get some other teams from not-so-profitable brands interested.
Let's just take that with a grain of salt, though, as in the WTCC page it states that they're pending homologation.
I can just hope they get enough points to keep on racing next years also, so they are able to bring an interesting car to compete in the scene in... 5 years time?
Anyway, it settles an example that you don't need countless money to start a sport-racing team, so it could probably get some other teams from not-so-profitable brands interested.
Let's just take that with a grain of salt, though, as in the WTCC page it states that they're pending homologation.
Cool, I finally know where did the physics engine from TDU come from on "Hard" :F
Edit : I missed Stunt Car Racer on the list! That game was awesome on Amiga! :]
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Just for the record :
I had a German girlfriend and the comments being trown at her from non-spaniards usually referred to the theme of this video, and this was sick also.
Needed to say is that on my current job there are some black guys which are my mates, and there's never been any problem or bad face. We just treat each other thinking we have a person in front, and taking the personal values. Race is not a frontier, wall or limit on my personal experience.
Entirely agree with you both.
Some times people forgets that media is all about hype and making small things big so they're read much more than otherwise, thus getting bigger incomes and rising their share-price.
Statements made on international, non-english speaking newspapers is far less biased than those links posted there, and state that it was a small number of people, in the order of ten to fifteen 'beings'.
While it sickens me as a person that there is abuse directed towards people, it's still worse the wave of xenophobia that some people from the UK have started just from that overhyped story, saying that all spaniards are 'this' and 'that', which obviously doesn't help to settle the problem and just makes things worse.
Honestly, are about 65 thousand people (the number of spectators that day) going to be racists for what 10 to 15 people did? For the same mathematical formula, the whole UK is filled with the Hooligans that destroyed many bars on Barcelona few years ago, and that's not the general feeling in Spain.
Then again, those things are bound to happen when you just read your local newspapers, written in the same language of the people's interests.
Don't get me wrong, I hate racism, but going as far as some people has been (not speaking of this forum in an explicit way, but many posters on online news papers) at other kind of abuse (including xenophobia statements) is downright disgraceful too, and they are level with those less-than-twenty guys that abused Hamilton.
Bottom line, which no English newspaper seemed to catch on their news, is that new security politics have been put in place and are apparently working, registering people for offensive stuff, putting nets to avoid people trowing things, and active security where spectators are, so this might not happen again for the good of the sport itself.
PS: Yes, there still are small groups of racist people in Spain, but you just can not control or change what people thinks. Then again, most examples of 'racism' made on many posts on this thread are just twisted versions of what really happened. Remember that racism is, as JB described, the thinking that someone is less worthy because he is of a specific race, but that not all criticism against someone of a different race is racism, even if some people wants to see it that way for their particular purposes. Last, but not least, it can't be either labeled xenophobic attitude since Jenson Button and David Coulthard were not abused. On a personal note, I, as a spaniard, think that Sir Coulthard is a guy to be proud of, as he's a true gentleman, regardless of his current level of driving.
I'm in mainly because, not being a real-world-driver myself yet, I find each new patch more challenging to drive correctly, and thus having the need to learn a lot of things just to drive "ok", so you must learn to improve, which is something I like :]
Plenty of reasons, even though the path that did lead me to LFS was rather tough and full of "unexpected events" if you like.
My little story goes as follows, if you're willing to read:
-> Used to have a good old Microsoft Sidewinder Wheel with which I used to play NFS:Porsche, thinking that it was great and far more realistic than many other games I could have access to at the time.
After a couple of unpredictable events, I was left without wheel and my attention went to FPS instead (having 56k modem kind of "forced" me this way), but I discovered LFS at that time, was at about 0.1 version and free.
-> Years later, while trying to pass my driving license, and willing to go back again into racing, I thought it would be a great idea to buy some wheel and a game that would simulate how a car actually handles, not a "game with cars", so I bought a G25 and started the research for racing "sims", which lead me to make some crazy buys, since I wanted to test the games myself (you can not always trust in subjective reviews, people tend to justify their inversion into the product), so thing ended up with me trying Racer, netKart Pro, and other online games, buying NFS:C, RACE, rTractor and finally, after battling against my bank for a couple of weeks, I managed to get my LFS license.
Being completely honest, I am in no position to tell you why I like it over the others as accurately as most people in this forum who are there for much longer, but I can tell you that it is the only program "with cars" that I execute on my computer since I did get it.
Main reasons for me right now are: Physics, constant development - you are not left out with a bugged product like many retail games do, fun and enjoyment of driving the cars, the cars themselves, the tracks (which suit the driving requirements of the cars, for a more balanced whole) and the community, always willing to help as long as you also make positive contribution.
It just is unique.
My little story goes as follows, if you're willing to read:
-> Used to have a good old Microsoft Sidewinder Wheel with which I used to play NFS:Porsche, thinking that it was great and far more realistic than many other games I could have access to at the time.
After a couple of unpredictable events, I was left without wheel and my attention went to FPS instead (having 56k modem kind of "forced" me this way), but I discovered LFS at that time, was at about 0.1 version and free.
-> Years later, while trying to pass my driving license, and willing to go back again into racing, I thought it would be a great idea to buy some wheel and a game that would simulate how a car actually handles, not a "game with cars", so I bought a G25 and started the research for racing "sims", which lead me to make some crazy buys, since I wanted to test the games myself (you can not always trust in subjective reviews, people tend to justify their inversion into the product), so thing ended up with me trying Racer, netKart Pro, and other online games, buying NFS:C, RACE, rTractor and finally, after battling against my bank for a couple of weeks, I managed to get my LFS license.
Being completely honest, I am in no position to tell you why I like it over the others as accurately as most people in this forum who are there for much longer, but I can tell you that it is the only program "with cars" that I execute on my computer since I did get it.
Main reasons for me right now are: Physics, constant development - you are not left out with a bugged product like many retail games do, fun and enjoyment of driving the cars, the cars themselves, the tracks (which suit the driving requirements of the cars, for a more balanced whole) and the community, always willing to help as long as you also make positive contribution.
It just is unique.
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Check post #20 :]
[offtopic]
Hi there, that's going to be my first post altough I have been playing LFS for quite some time as demo racer (I'm about to buy S2 though), starting with first versions and seeing it evolve intermitently since my interest on driving sims has come and gone quite some times (including the time when I didn't have a wheel at all) so it's been a long time since I last tried the game, downloading it again around one month ago, when I also tested some other driving "sims".[/offtopic]
Relative to the graphical part of the game and the topic of this post, I might remember that first versions of LFS were quite "basic" in graphics side and that it has improved a huge lot considering the rather small team behind the project, up to the time frame we're now, where it looks both 'solid' and 'right'.
Instead of a DirectX upgrade, I might point out that right now it might be more useful to get higher-poly models or more detailed race enviroments for the purpose of getting better graphics without tampering the feel of current graphics. Sure, those GT5 shots might look impressive, but they also look like 'plastic' and over-exposed, not looking that solid neither realistic, even considering most of the detail is on the cars and not on the track.
I understand that it is going to be needed in the long run to upgrade the graphics API to something more powerful and with better effects, but nowadays we're being taken over by 'effects' to 'real feel', meaning most games use shaders in such an exagerate way you might think cars and guns are made of moisturized pieces of mirror.
How LFS looks is correct as for nowadays standards, but it has a feature that is unique on this game as of nowadays standards : the correct use of colours, their brightness and saturation make you feel it's more real because they're well-picked and well-placed. Just like it happened back in 'Rally Championships' days, although the game was arcade-ish, the visuals looked realistic, not because of the number of polys or the Dx version used, but because the artistic work was coherent with what was to represent, which is the most overlooked part of many games but also one of the factor that determines immersion.
My opinion and conclusion is just a basic point of view that takes long to explain : Even though a DirectX update should be able to boost visual effects and post-processing, it should not a priority or a need at the current stage of the project, as it is still in Alpha stage and the basics of the game (physics, gameplay, controls and the interaction between those three put together) might be the main focus as of now. I agree that in like half a year or one year there should be a facelift that might include the upgrade to a new Dx standard, but as of today, being also on a transition point (to dual/quad cores, to Dx10, to OpenGL3.0, to the always-forgotten x64 architecture, etc.), it would be a couple of steps back to just stay back there.
So those are my two cents :]
PS : Sorry for my oh-so-big-huge-unreadable post, I like to make my arguments clear ^^
Hi there, that's going to be my first post altough I have been playing LFS for quite some time as demo racer (I'm about to buy S2 though), starting with first versions and seeing it evolve intermitently since my interest on driving sims has come and gone quite some times (including the time when I didn't have a wheel at all) so it's been a long time since I last tried the game, downloading it again around one month ago, when I also tested some other driving "sims".[/offtopic]
Relative to the graphical part of the game and the topic of this post, I might remember that first versions of LFS were quite "basic" in graphics side and that it has improved a huge lot considering the rather small team behind the project, up to the time frame we're now, where it looks both 'solid' and 'right'.
Instead of a DirectX upgrade, I might point out that right now it might be more useful to get higher-poly models or more detailed race enviroments for the purpose of getting better graphics without tampering the feel of current graphics. Sure, those GT5 shots might look impressive, but they also look like 'plastic' and over-exposed, not looking that solid neither realistic, even considering most of the detail is on the cars and not on the track.
I understand that it is going to be needed in the long run to upgrade the graphics API to something more powerful and with better effects, but nowadays we're being taken over by 'effects' to 'real feel', meaning most games use shaders in such an exagerate way you might think cars and guns are made of moisturized pieces of mirror.
How LFS looks is correct as for nowadays standards, but it has a feature that is unique on this game as of nowadays standards : the correct use of colours, their brightness and saturation make you feel it's more real because they're well-picked and well-placed. Just like it happened back in 'Rally Championships' days, although the game was arcade-ish, the visuals looked realistic, not because of the number of polys or the Dx version used, but because the artistic work was coherent with what was to represent, which is the most overlooked part of many games but also one of the factor that determines immersion.
My opinion and conclusion is just a basic point of view that takes long to explain : Even though a DirectX update should be able to boost visual effects and post-processing, it should not a priority or a need at the current stage of the project, as it is still in Alpha stage and the basics of the game (physics, gameplay, controls and the interaction between those three put together) might be the main focus as of now. I agree that in like half a year or one year there should be a facelift that might include the upgrade to a new Dx standard, but as of today, being also on a transition point (to dual/quad cores, to Dx10, to OpenGL3.0, to the always-forgotten x64 architecture, etc.), it would be a couple of steps back to just stay back there.
So those are my two cents :]
PS : Sorry for my oh-so-big-huge-unreadable post, I like to make my arguments clear ^^
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