I only wonder why everyone expect new things? Why can't you just enjoy the things that you have now? Why do you act as if you life depends on new content?

I guess if you just accepted stuff that you've gotten now (such as an amazing feeling for the car because of amazing FFB. pretty darn well tire physics and superb online accuracy when it comes to side by side racing) you would we very glad to go out and drive at any time.

Most of us enjoy driving and racing and we can't get enough of it. Current model of LFS really gives me good enough base to enjoy driving / racing at all times so why would I stop? I would stop only if I had no one to race...

P.S. @5haz: Nice to know that there is someone that enjoys Blackwood very much as many people moan about that too...

N I K I: exactly my thoughts ... unfortunately we are minority with this kind of opinion

@Ivo Georgiev - The circumstances were a bit different. The small developing team had to cope with almost endless stream of new technology. Its hard to develop something AND make it compatible with new hardware every few months (LFS developers dont have to deal with that).

Also, from what I have gathered, creating a fully working OS (even on a solid basis) is a bit more difficult than making a game and some maps every few years (just look at the development of ReactOS).

Personally, I was pretty certain that there wont be ANY new patches coming in near time (Id even assume the nearest 3 months considering the amount of stuff to be done) when I read Scawens post.

Quote from tiagolapa :

awesome
LFS -> normal guy
iRacing -> crazy with mental problem

I like your way of picture-interpreting.

Quote from lizardfolk :

That this is how games die...it's a common death for millions of online based games before and it will be the #1 cause of death for the majority of online based games in the future and LFS is not immune to this.

Fact is, most of these cases as well as millions of others are cases where the developers have decided that they "did enough" or did not need to do more and the game died as a result. (shall I quote more? Space Cowboy Online (AirRivals), Rakion, Scion of Fate.) The devs HAVE to realize that the sim community is not necessarily that different from the MMO or the rest of the online gaming community.

They surely realize more than you think. The ones that learnt thru those lessons are iRacing guys (they developed GPL so they know ) - and they introduced regular fees. I dont like this business model but the fact is that this is the only viable. To maintain steady, flourishing progress devs need stable income which for now comes from new racers. If they come in diminishing rate - the game dies but the servers are still remaining cost.
The way devs can maintain increase of racers is to keep it so much up-to-date younger ppl will come.

So if I had been proposed such situation - I wouldnt pay iRacing rates but I would agree with LFS license at the rate of 1 pound a month - 1 stage a year? comn, if development would go at that speed....

Quote from dumbass0 :

@Ivo Georgiev - The circumstances were a bit different. The small developing team had to cope with almost endless stream of new technology. Its hard to develop something AND make it compatible with new hardware every few months (LFS developers dont have to deal with that).

Also, from what I have gathered, creating a fully working OS (even on a solid basis) is a bit more difficult than making a game and some maps every few years (just look at the development of ReactOS).

Personally, I was pretty certain that there wont be ANY new patches coming in near time (Id even assume the nearest 3 months considering the amount of stuff to be done) when I read Scawens post.

You are right about the hardware thing, and SkyOS died exactly because they couldn't cope with the hardware support.
I was exaggerating on purpose

And still, it's an example of how, if the project is started by a small group of developers, the open development model tends to survive (e.g. the Linux kernel, and the whole free software community), and the closed development model tends to survive less (e.g. SkyOS).

The development of LFS is ok. It is still playable and enjoyable, which guarantees it's "survival" (e.g. GPL), but it could be better, certainly. There are a lot of things that _have_ to be implemented to make LFS a full-feature simulator, like breakable parts, rain, etc.

Quote from Kalev EST :

95% out of the people online are either demo racers, cruisers, drifters or destruction derbyers and even the "serious racers" are nowadays mostly immature annoying kids. But you wouldn't know any of that since you don't play LFS anymore, yet you still blindly defend it as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. LFS development has pretty much stopped (there are promises but nothing delivered for 1,5 years) so in 10 years it will be completely dead, although it probably won't even last half as long (at this rate).

This man speaketh the truth

Quote from zeugnimod :

I like your way of picture-interpreting.

yep, me too

Dead.

Tbh you could argue it's pretty dead now.

Quote from N I K I :

I only wonder why everyone expect new things? Why can't you just enjoy the things that you have now? Why do you act as if you life depends on new content?

I guess if you just accepted stuff that you've gotten now (such as an amazing feeling for the car because of amazing FFB. pretty darn well tire physics and superb online accuracy when it comes to side by side racing) you would we very glad to go out and drive at any time.

Most of us enjoy driving and racing and we can't get enough of it. Current model of LFS really gives me good enough base to enjoy driving / racing at all times so why would I stop? I would stop only if I had no one to race...

P.S. @5haz: Nice to know that there is someone that enjoys Blackwood very much as many people moan about that too...

Because some very basic things that should be in a simulator are missing. I can still full throttle into a wall and be absolutely fine. I still fly into space touching, TOUCHING, a red barrier. People should retire after horrible crashes and can continue on fine.

Sound sucks, no engine damage, no clutch slip. Aero model is STILL incomplete. No night or weather change. No track temperature change. No dynamic wind

This is why I play rFactor as much as i hate rFactor too. The other sims have things that LFS doesnt but it works the other way around too. That's frustrating cause I want to only play LFS and not have to go to rF because i'm pissed at the retarded damage system in LFS and then get pissed in rF because rF has such a crappy collision and physics engine.

I could careless about the Scirocco. In fact, I would gladly trade THE ENTIRE ROCKINGHAM track (and I would absolutely love another oval...so that shows how much I desperately want improved systems and gameplay in LFS over content) and the Scirocco if we can just push LFS a little more on the gameplay side. Give me better sound, give me a complete aero model, and forgodsake fix the buggy collisions. Then I will be happy, then I could careless if LFS will gain new content.

Are these basic things just too much to ask? Yes, it's only 3 people, but it seems that they aren't even working on the (imo) more important things that make LFS...well...LFS. Toss out the Scirocco and Rockingham if it means giving us a solid sim that does all the basic well. I have yet to find a completely sim where everything is as it should be (even iRacing)

Quote from brandons48 :

So, if the game was kept going, and A few of us where still around... what do you think LFS would be like 10 years from now?

Sorry if something similar is already around .

it'll be dead.... or close

Quote from theirishnoob :

it'll be dead.... or close

Name a game available in 2009 that won't be dead or close to dead in 2020 then? If it's only nearly dead, then that's still 17 years of life which would probably be a record of some sort...

NFS

The NFS available in 2009 will be dead though. It is the series that won't be. iRacing will be dead in 2020 probably. As will rFactor (or rFactor 2). As will Gran Turismo 5... I don't see why not being around in 2020 is worse for LFS than it is for any other 2003 game.

There will be no lfs series? Damn

I assume this is an indirect comment on the slow pace of development with a 3 person team. I recall back in late 2005 or early 2006 making what seemed like a pessimistic prediction that S3 would be released in 2009, in a post at RSC, and later in 2007 here at LFS forum:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=586307#post586307

One of the issues I mentioned back then is if a flaw was discovered in some core part of the physics model, it would take a very long time to rewrite that part of the code with just 3 people, and this is essentially what has happened now with the tire physics. My guesstimate is this will end up being about a 10 month hit on LFS's progress.

In the meantime, S2 has ended up with more content than what was expected back in 2005, at least in terms of cars, so what we have now is more like S2.7 than S2.0. I'm not sure what the original planned differences between S2 and S3 were supposed to be.

Regarding the "10 years", a more appropriate time period would be 10 years after the July 2003 release date of LFS S1, and I'm sure that the final version of LFS will be released before July 2013. The main issue is that it will seem outdated compared to other racing games that will be released by 2013, in terms of physics as well as graphics. I still think there will be a fan base that likes the "feel" of LFS.

LFS has always been unique. There haven't been many cross-overs from the Papy/ISI community (most of these moved on to rFactor and the GTR series, a small number are iRenters now). Instead LFS has developed its own unique base of players, which has evolved somewhat over the years, but still draws a relatively large number of online players compared to other games.

To put this into perspective, how many 10 year old games are still being played? For the NFS series that would be High Stakes, with less than 50 'active' players in the community (iplounge, hsscoring). Grand Prix Legends is 11 years old, with a surprising amount of effort put into mods and visual updates for a game that was never that popular, although most of that work is completed now (JR Pearson is still doing a solo project working on the Isle of Mann track for GPL). I'm not sure how big that community is. EA F1 series players and modding community moved onto rFactor, so it's essentially gone. NR2003 activity is way down since the server was shut down years ago, and it was released about the same time as LFS started.

On a related note, how will the current players interests change over the next 3 to 10 years, and how will this affect the fan base of the current or future racing games?

Quote from Michalxo :

Probably time to update this one :-)
http://nismo.1g.fi/kuvat/LFS+motivation/lfshistory.png
Merry Christmas guys!

In 10 year.. probably no change at all... Though, I am optimist!

http://i018.radikal.ru/0912/04/112cba3c4d3b.jpg

Quote from JeffR :

I still think there will be a fan base that likes the "feel" of LFS.

Oh definitely. They'll all sit on the forum saying how great LFS is and how nothing else even comes close to it, while not having actually played LFS for years

Good post, by the way, some very good points.

But what if you you do play it occasionally (along with other sims), and genuinely think that LFS's physics are the closest to the racing car(s) you drive in real life (albeit with some flaws - i.e. at larger slip angles/percentages; losing/regaining grip, wheelspin starts etc)?

Quote from tristancliffe :

But what if you you do play it occasionally (along with other sims), and genuinely think that LFS's physics are the closest to the racing car(s) you drive in real life (albeit with some flaws - i.e. at larger slip angles/percentages; losing/regaining grip, wheelspin starts etc)?

Then that's good Did you feel that was directed at you? It wasn't directed at anyone in specific.

I felt it was directed at a subset of people, of which I am one, but not me specifically.

I will stop playing LFS semi-regularly (these racing cars don't build themselves you know) when something better comes along. And I mean it. I nearly became a full-time (see previous brackets) nKP player, until Kunos went AWOL again...

So how do you feel nKp's physics compare to those of LFS then? I know nKp is generally regarded as the sim for openwheelers. Obviously since I've never driven one in real life I can't really pass judgement but I do feel nKp comes a lot closer to what I would think an openwheeler would feel like than LFS does.

Quote from Matrixi :

I think most of us were quite aware that Scirocco wouldn't make it out in 2009 after reading about the new tire physics in august, but people were also expecting some other significant patches this year while waiting for it.

I had hoped the new tyre physics were going to be released this Xmas. Especially because in the august briefing we were told that the patch was currenlty being tested by the testteam... I concluded that was as good as ready for a release, only a few bugs to fix. But now, after another 4 months, nothing happend. I'm not a kid and don't like to be threated like one. At least tell us why it hasn't been released yet.

And the new laserscanned track, I would like to see....

What he said above me...So true.