If we learned Anything from Half-Life its that the ability to change the game the way you want it is key to a long lasting and great game!

I would like to be able to customize the game, if anything, just the cars and performance. Like having a built in LFS tweak or at least the ability to use it on all the cars.

After playing rFactor, it seems this and it, if merged together would be the best racing game of all time. I hated the way rFactor played, but liked the idea of how it was built, with its open architecture.

Some better sound would sure be nice : \ slight body customization options, a few different wheels and the like.

I have not read anyone elses ideas, but I guess this might have been said alot D :

no your the first one to ever suggest this in 4 years! why didnt we think of it earlier

I suppose a performance tweaking system and options for upgraded parts could be available in offline mode, but that will never be as good as the straight-up online racing in LFS.

If LFS had open architecture the amount of server mismatches would be mind-boggling. The large multiplayer community simply would not exist. It is a tossup between amazing, highly immersive online racing, or tweaking.

I'd choose the online racing any day of the week and twice on Sundays over tweaking!

Quote from RacingSimFan :

If LFS had open architecture the amount of server mismatches would be mind-boggling. The large multiplayer community simply would not exist.

It's already hard to find a server with more than 10 people already! illepall

If you want better sound, put some reverb in your sound card's mixer, something open, and TURN UP THE BASS!!! race cars SCREAM like the world is coming to an end.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

It's already hard to find a server with more than 10 people already! illepall

Not if you're on at the right time.

Us North Americans have to face the fact that we are in the minority. Most active LFS racers are in Europe so the busy times of the game are in afternoon-evening Euro time which is morning-mid afternoon our time.

The thing I learned from Half-Life is that modding is not to be underestimated.

But I also learned that modding shouldn't be overestimated either (like rFactor IMO is doing).

Modding, as I've experienced it, is best suited when done as complete solutions. Ie. Counter-Strike mod. Although modding in smaller scale can be fun and interesting, it seems to be too frustrating for the players to not only keep up with whats the latest upgrades etc. but also to find other players with similar interests.

This was the case 6+ years ago and still is.

Ps. I don't consider altering sounds & textures as modding, although it is "MODified". To me, modding is when it affects others - like creating new tracks, new car specifications etc.

I miss official tracks (especially F1 tracks), but If having them would mean I also would have to cope with X number of other tracks, then I prefer LFS as it is now.

Mods are great for a completed product, which LFS isn't, even tho it feels like it.

Addon tracks wouldn't hurt tho, even while LFS is in progress.

Quote from r4ptor :

The thing I learned from Half-Life is that modding is not to be underestimated.

But I also learned that modding shouldn't be overestimated either (like rFactor IMO is doing).

Modding, as I've experienced it, is best suited when done as complete solutions. Ie. Counter-Strike mod. Although modding in smaller scale can be fun and interesting, it seems to be too frustrating for the players to not only keep up with whats the latest upgrades etc. but also to find other players with similar interests.

This was the case 6+ years ago and still is.

Ps. I don't consider altering sounds & textures as modding, although it is "MODified". To me, modding is when it affects others - like creating new tracks, new car specifications etc.

I miss official tracks (especially F1 tracks), but If having them would mean I also would have to cope with X number of other tracks, then I prefer LFS as it is now.

Isn't half-life an Action/Adventure/Quake-style game??

Yeah, created quite a stir back in '98. Amazing game. won many game-of-the-year awards. Some publications (on and off-line) went so far as to name it 'best game of all time'.

Quote from george_tsiros :

Yeah, created quite a stir back in '98. Amazing game. won many game-of-the-year awards. Some publications (on and off-line) went so far as to name it 'best game of all time'.

That's all great but why compare Half-Life and LFS???

Because in Half Life there are also vehicles - with stunning physics!!!!

Vain

Quote from Vain :

Because in Half Life there are also vehicles - with stunning physics!!!!

Vain

Oh... I didn't know that...

I learn a new thing everyday lol

Quote from george_tsiros :

Yeah, created quite a stir back in '98. Amazing game. won many game-of-the-year awards. Some publications (on and off-line) went so far as to name it 'best game of all time'.

Same thing happened with Half-Life 2 aswell.

Quote from spsamsp :

That's all great but why compare Half-Life and LFS???

The references to the FPS world are always rasied when modding is talked about because its an environment that modding worked well in. The quake series of game engines spawned more mods than most games. Even Half-Lige used a highly modified Quake 1 engine. Also the FPS world has has a chance to sort out the mod mine field and has the community size to support it.

The sim world does not appear to be the same, as rFactor is shows. Too many mods and not enough players and not enough quality and too many updates have given rFactor its own version of the Windows DLL hell. All developers that have worked with windows will understand this reference but for the rest I mean NO real version control and patch after patch on mods that make it impossible to connect online because you never know the version to download.

don't forget that one big advantage lfs has over rfactor is the very fact there are no (major) mods, i was reading the other day about how its getting more and more difficult to ensure that your copy of rfactor is fully compatable with the server you want to join, that you have right tracks downloaded, etc.

also when you open up the code for mods you have the problem of quality.

theres a post on the rfactor thread in general which states that the mods for that are now becoming better quality than the early stuff.

it would be the same for lfs, everyone would want to make their track and we would be swamped with loads of cr*p. you can see it with car skins now,there are very clean, well detailed skins, clean simple skins and then you have the messy detailed skins and the one colour skins. i know some of the one colour skins are for a reason, ive got an allover colour i use for all cars as a type of signature, but alot of people do not have patience / ability to make good skins, tracks are going to be far more time / tallent consuming and i for one dont want to take my nice shiny bf1 round a track that looks like it was meant for revs on the bbc micro

edit

actually my colour tends to look rather "nice" which is embarassing but i fell in love with it when i saw the reflections and depth it showed with the reflection mod

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=6753

suspect it might be an idea to upload a differing skin using same name so other users dont see the same colour

With LFS still in alpha stage having mods like this isn't practicle. LFS devs have said many times that when the final release of LFS come out with S3 Final people in the LFS community will be able to create mods, make their own tracks ect. But because this is a work in progress it's not possible right now, someone could make a mod and when the next update comes down it wouldn't work

Well, Half-Life 2 has a buggy (with a gun), a fan boat, and possibly a couple more i forget.

With less-than-stellar physics I might add... Although, the buggy is quite fun.

well, not exactly. http://hlrally.net/ is a rally MOD for half-life

cheers

The problem is not to implement (code) it, this just takes time and money to code the game support for custom content and the tools to make that content (skins, textures, cars, tracks, etc.). The problem lies in how much open is the support, at least in the minds of many users that fear the community will suffer with modding. I tend to agree with them.

Car models could be the major source of problems. My solution is somewhat simple (on the conceptual level). Servers should determine the level of modding allowed, on server setup, the administrator could simply choose from the following list:

• selected original models: this is the actual situation, each server chooses which cars it allows.

• selected models on the local server: the administrators choose a few cars allready present in the local hard-disk, this could well be the most used option.
  
• only approved cars: cars that get the "seal of approval" from the Devs get uploaded to a central repository

• user uploaded models (not so important)
  - not allowed
  - any mode: anarchy rules But this could be used for "show your model" servers.- filter by dimensions: with, height, lenght (to prevent races between scholls buses and go karts)
  - filter by power
  - filter by weight
  - filter by power/weight ratio
  - must be on online profile

These options should be visible before connection to a server and it would be nice to filter the server list with some of this options.

Tracks models are less of a problem, this is present in a lot of games and works very well. Here, the administrator chooses what track to use or a list of tracks to rotate. There's also the option to allow clients to download the track directly from the server.

The tools are not so important, as long as the game support is implemented, the tools will appear with time.

Look around ther servers, there are already many people modiying tracks, dont know how they do it but they are, thats what im here to try and figure out =)

I suppose you mean all kinds of objects on the track? Shift+U and you can put stuff if you have the rights.

Quote from tenwierdufos :

Look around ther servers, there are already many people modiying tracks, dont know how they do it but they are, thats what im here to try and figure out =)

autocross mode?