The online racing simulator
Is LFS Dying?
(289 posts, closed, started )
Quote from menantoll :Edited for accuracy

Lets hope so.

I'll add one thing about GPL, we heard virtually nothing from the Targa Florio project for year after year after year, but good things really did come to those who waited.

GPL is far from dead, in the last couple of years the framerate limit has been doubled, the restriction on grid sizes broken, a new 1969 mod with every car spec raced that season is soon to be released, there is also a CAN-AM mod, a 1967 Sports cars mod, and a 1937 mod in the works amongst many other things. The only thing holding GPL back is it being stuck with DX7 level shading.

Some of these mods have been in development for years, but so far the results have been worth the wait, just be patient.
Quote from bosbrandje :I don´t see any confirmation of that in the license agreement.. in short, no guarantee..

Don't fret about licence agreements. An update IS coming...
Quote from djfatrod :I thought I would post my experience with LFS since I have not had it that long. This might be a good insight for everyone.

I bought S2 about 12 months ago. I had a G25 and was looking for games that had realistic clutch implementation. After much searching and forum reading I got pointed towards Live For Speed and downloaded the demo. After only a few laps around Blackwood I was amazed at how realistic it felt compared to games like GTR2.

I bought it more or lease straight away and have found it one of the most rewarding and entertaining SIMs I have ever played. I have a pretty good setup with a room dedicated to it, 27" LCD and a pair of 8" Studio Monitors for sound.

I have made a habit of getting friends and family to take the 'Blackwood Challenge' - 10 laps around Blackwood in the FBM and we record their best time on the wall. Much like the Top Gear Hotlap. This has been a hilarious and addictive experience for all involved. Some of my mates' wives and girlfriends are surprisingly fast!

As for my own online racing experience, admittedly there are not as many active drivers as I would like. Perhaps it is just because I am in the Australian Time Zone but I find it almost impossible to find an open wheel server apart from FBM/Blackwood GP. As a big Formula 1 fan I am amazed that there are no F1 servers, full to the brim. Maybe its because the cars are just too hard to drive. Fox Junkies seemed popular when I joined but I rarely see any cars in there now.

I believe the league racing experience is different but I am yet to sign up with any. They seem like quite closed communities so it is a little intimidating to just walk in.

That said though I am still really impressed with the game and have fun racing online fairly regularly. I see people complaining about the lack of new content but I really don't see what that has to do with anything. The game is about realistic racing with real people so it doesn't matter what cars you drive or what tracks you drive on. How does a new track or car affect your ability yo have a good, close race with someone of equal ability? Do you think F1 drivers complain about the lack of new tracks?

There is a very broad range of cars as well. They already have most types covered eg, fwd 4s, awd 4s, rwd 6s, rwd 8s, open wheelers etc. What is the sirocco supposed to add apart from eye candy?

If LFS has a weakness I would say it is a lack of marketing effort. This is an incredible simulator, with a realistic F1 car no less, and I only found out about it after a long time searching and reading on forums. For me as a professional marketer and sales person I think Scawen could do a lot more in this regard.

I believe there is a video of Nick Heifeld training with it on YouTube isn't there? Why isn't that plastered all over the site? And the tyre and suspension physics are said to be the best there is. Why aren't they promoting the strengths of this great product rather than letting people find out for themselves...

Anyway those are just my thoughts. The game certainly isn't dead because people like me are still buying it. 3 or 4 of my mates are going to buy it now after going through the hotlap experience. I think the developers just need someone dedicated to promoting the game.

I agree with you, i also invited some of my firends on IRC to play with me demo when i was demo driver too They were amazed. I played LFS since S1 0.3A (i was 12yo ) but i still played it until now, when i bought myself S1 licence and im happy enough with it now, enough to enjoy it for a long time until buying S2.

If some people will be active, they can spread adverstiment all over the world, as we are from all over the world How many of LFS users have their own websites/blogs/facebook? If they spread at least one sentence about LFS can you imagine how much new people will come to see how is it about LFS in fact?

But developers could leave us at least message about what is incoming or not.
I bought S1 some months ago, and I'm buying S2 soon when I get used to the S1 tracks, cars and my new wheel. A friend of mine will buy S2 soon too.

I don't think I'm the only one new to this game. So, well, it seems to be far from dead.
Maybe it dies or not but one thing is certain the devs have lost (if they ever had any) their communication habilities.
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(brandons48) DELETED by brandons48
Progress Report:

There is nothing to report. Kthnxbai
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(brandons48) DELETED by brandons48
i watched today Rambo First blood part 1, and i change last line

Players.Its over LFS ITS OVER!
LFS.Nothing is over NOTHING!
Live For Speed is not dying, it's dead.
Quote from 5haz :GPL is far from dead

Sure, it's just so easy to get a new license: just type in your CC number ...oh wait! Can't do that! I'll contact official support then
Quote from JPeace :Yes, and thats why there is nobody online.


Fool.

In our league in www.liveforspeed.es are about 100-150 drivers that race every monday at 22.00pm, in that league it is far to die. But, for people like me, I bougth S2 in 2007 and race in that league about 3 years, and I race on all tracks and combinations, and race all cars so many times. Don't all the combinations between cars/tracks, but the raceline it is the same. I stoped to race some months ago. I like LFS but people like me need new tracks.

I'm working on new tracks for NK-Pro and RBR, for the reason that I can't do for LFS, so I think LFS need to open the possibility to add new tracks, at least not for public use, but for private/league use
Quote from 5haz :IHR is just as shit.

Some of you ought to listen to yourselves, I know this is the internet but you sound like seven year olds begging mummy for a new toy. Can't you find something else to occupy your time while you wait like a responsible adult would? I would suggest actually using LFS as a start.

The GPL community for an example has a pretty glacial development pace, and thats with community modding (still going strong after 11 years though!). But there is none of this crying and begging and the stupid question posts are met with either silence or sensible replies, the result is there is none of the shitstorms we get in this community.

The LFS community is an embarrasment, I can imagine there are people who visit or lurk this forum, and I wouldn't be suprised if they're pointing and laughing.

Racing at IHR is much cleaner, that is a fact. You sound as if you haven't raced very much on any of those servers. If this is the case, then you can't compare and have no right to comment about it.
IHR is the cause of LFS dying.
Quote from NightShift :Sure, it's just so easy to get a new license: just type in your CC number ...oh wait! Can't do that! I'll contact official support then

A license? Nahhh, Sold Out Games re release the game every so often for about £7 (original copies are pretty valuable though).

As for official support, you don't need it when you have a whole community who probrably know more about GPL than Papyrus did.

Quote from mtrein :Racing at IHR is much cleaner, that is a fact. You sound as if you haven't raced very much on any of those servers. If this is the case, then you can't compare and have no right to comment about it.

I gave up long ago, big servers just don't work because there are simply too many idiots in the world.

Seeing is believing, I shall be back to see one day soon, I hope I am not dissapointed.
LFS isn't dying, it's stagnating.
I smell a big rewrite of code happening. Scawen certainly isn`t sitting around the house rubbing his knob with spare £20 notes from all the licenses.

Must be something rather large going on to be taking so long. Not just the physics, tyres, crock-of-shit-ingham, and the car that shall not be mentioned.

Dying? Meh, everything is after it`s started, in one way or another.

Just leave, go do other things, like a lot of people have. Check in now and again, resist urge to whine when you do, and turn back up with opinions when something appears.
Just wait and see! S3 will arrive out of the blue. If I was Scawn and co. I sure would wait until I could charge more money before releasing anything else.

We paid for S2 and S2 is what we've got, why should the developers give us free updates?

Oh and on topic, LFS is not dead, infact it is quite an achievement for a game this age to have the following it does in my humble opinion.
Quote from AlienT. :
We paid for S2 and S2 is what we've got, why should the developers give us free updates?

That's why I already charged my lfs-account with 12+1 (extra pound for sooner release) ;-)

PS: I think we'll get night or/maybe rain too
Something New in 'these' type of threads...
How about this for a reason for losing interest;

I played LFS back when it's system demands were so high that I could only run 1 car on track (very early demo days). Online was a joke, people who'd been around longer than me were using their cars to do online Ballet, (looked like a hack to me hehe) I already had a wheel, was into racing 'games' and GPL offline. LFS was different, can't remember how I found out about it anymore.
With LFS, the 'weight' of the car directly translated to the feel of the wheel. I could see it's potential and was hooked.
...Anyway.. several upgrades later I had S1 and grew to love it all the more. It remained my number 1, it's development was inclusive, you really got the impression that the DEVs were into and 'in' the community.

My problem Started AS A RESULT OF MORE CONTENT BEING INTRODUCED (lol)
S2 was announced as 'alpha' and as such, buggy and soon to change.

there were exploits that needed fixing and they were fixed but I was holding out for a STABLE version so that learning to race again would be worth it and not patched out. I HATED the IDEA that there were bugs in it (dunno if that makes sense to any of you oldies that might still be around) so I had S2 and waited, didn't race much, just waited, when I 'popped back' to see the lie of the land, boy was I slow, S2 was still alpha (read unstable - in my eyes anyway) and lo and behold I became a frustrated forummer hehe

I think I probably participated in the first of these type of bashing threads way back then (sorry)

anyway, I've just heard (in this thread actually) that S2 is NO LONGER alpha!!

Did I miss a meeting?
LFS S2 Alpha was never unstable. In terms of stability, it was as good as any other released game.
to be fair, tristan (hi there m80 btw ), that was NOT my point, I think S2 was rushed out to please 'us' (moaners, enthusiasts, whatever) and carried that 'alpha' tag WAY too long.
Me losing interest, in retrospect, was MY fault

there are track combos and cars that I've NEVER raced, imagine that
Something New in 'these' type of threads...
Bloody Google Browser
Quote from mtrein :Racing at IHR is much cleaner, that is a fact. You sound as if you haven't raced very much on any of those servers. If this is the case, then you can't compare and have no right to comment about it.

After a few years running numerous LFS servers, from the days of the wrecker barricade through to the CTRA, one thing I learned was that when you have a publicly accessible server designed for pick up racing then the server is in no way responsible for the cleanliness of racing.

The userbase is.

The server has nothing to do with it.

And the problem with the userbase is that it is full of people who think they are racing drivers.

The problem with racing drivers is they think it was always the other guys fault, and when they can't get away with that any more then they blame the server. You can see it during the course of an evening on the server, watch a few hot heads failing to avoid accidents they could have and see what they say to everyone... First they blame the other drivers, then they blame the server. It's the same every time.

When all the server actually did was open it's doors to the community.

The only way a server can have cleaner racing than others is by restricting who can access it. If you judge a tiered server system on it's entry level server then you are an idiot - the first tier is there to keep the idiots busy whilst the real racers race.
All the people that can race and still are active play iRacing now, where they update stuff when needed. I just looked on home page of lfs.net.. that old vw car was talked about in aug 08, then postponed in dec 08.. LOL

When the devs start caring again, so will I, and many more racers, but till then, ill stick to a non dx8, updated and licensed game..
Quote from Sarge9191 :All the people that can race and still are active play iRacing now,

All of them, really?
Quote from pik_d :All of them, really?

poster is american, so he only knows and supports iracing. move along
This thread is closed

Is LFS Dying?
(289 posts, closed, started )
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