Hello. First of all some statistics :

Max licensed racers for the last month ( average ) 500

Licensed hosts for the last month ( average ) 400

Max demo racers for the last month ( average ) 800

Demo hosts for the last month ( average ) 200

Current number of servers 500 ( Can join 450 )

Current number of public servers 370 ( Can join 330 )

Current number of public servers ( no empty ) 105 ( Can join 91 )

Current online racers 1300

Current servers with Blackwood 190 (38%)

Distance driven total 1,770,800,000 Km

Distance driven on Blackwood 465,000,000 Km (26,5% of total)

As you can see there are more demo users than licensed. What you think about it ? I write, because there are many full demo servers, some hosters focussed on demo, but I know only 1 s2 servers hoster that have full servers - cargame.nl, other servers are just empty ( I mean racing servers ) but there are few good cruise and drift servers with enough players.

I think LFS need more licensed servers to become more and more popular. I think one of methods is any kind of limiting demo license ( few days or hours of playing ). Share your opinion please.

Yeah, so the demo racers can make a new accounts and race more...

And so they can buy a license and drive in cruise servers...

That's how it would be...

There is no point in this until S3 has a release date.

If devs would limit demo racers, then demoers will be just creating millions of account to avoid time trial... Which would lead to more and more crashers on demo because people will not have enough time to make a carrer. Better approach will be to limit content.

Quote :

Yeah, so the demo racers can make a new accounts and race more...

If devs would limit demo racers, then demoers will be just creating millions of account to avoid time trial... Which would lead to more and more crashers on demo because people will not have enough time to make a carrer.

Ok it's no variant.

Total number of accounts on LFS.NET 1,113,080

I think there are about 50000-100000 real accouts, other are duplicate ornot used at all. Correct me if I not right.

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And so they can buy a license and drive in cruise servers...

I think it's not a problem, devs allowed cruising and drift so kind of driving not main ( of cource I think that LFS is simulator so it would be better to makefocus on racing, not on drift or cruise ).

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There is no point in this until S3 has a release date.

S3 will not change something in this point. Yes, many players will be back to racing, maybe there will be 2000-3000 racers online in the same moment, much bigger number possible if devs make advertising of course. But not all will buy S3 in few days, some will left in s2 ( inactive or just disappointed with S2 or something else ), but demo will left demo.

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Better approach will be to limit content.

Maybe it will be better choice. Left 1 car and 1 track or something like that. Also it will be great, if licensed content will be not able to download. You download LFS with 1 car and 1 track than go to Unlocking, enter your password and account and LFS automaticly start downloading full version with all content.

if you limit demo content, you decrease demo player about 70 % and nothing change at end of all .
its simple, LFS is not much popular as a multiplayer game, servers will stay empty with number of player lowering ( ex: oval server..... ).

People who don't want to buy a licence will not buy a licence no matter how constricting the demo will be. Large demo community is actually a good thing because newcomers have a lot of opportunities to try the game out.

Quote from Frunze118 :

I write, because there are many full demo servers, some hosters focussed on demo, but I know only 1 s2 servers hoster that have full servers - cargame.nl, other servers are just empty ( I mean racing servers ) but there are few good cruise and drift servers with enough players.

I agree with your quoted text. It occurred to me the other day that cargame was jam-packed 47/47 and there was not a single other S2 host occupied. So there is room for some more well run S2 hosts I think. People who wanted to join cargame couldn't and would try to find another of its kind. The [AA] hosts are popular as well, but all demo hosts. But it goes to show that well organised hosts attract people and keep them coming back.

Quote from Victor :

I agree with your quoted text. It occurred to me the other day that cargame was jam-packed 47/47 and there was not a single other S2 host occupied. So there is room for some more well run S2 hosts I think. People who wanted to join cargame couldn't and would try to find another of its kind. The [AA] hosts are popular as well, but all demo hosts. But it goes to show that well organised hosts attract people and keep them coming back.

which means that there are two teams well organized and the other does not work because they are bad?
it is very nice for all other teams, thank you

I think the real problem does not come from the teams but rather LFS.
Supposedly this is the best simulator in the world, if it was really the best why it is not popular. because 1000 people in the world makes 1 grain of sand in a beach ..
Victor then instead of saying that there are only two team who are well organized, you may be opening your eyes and see that there are plenty of other team that works well.

To return to the problem of popularity, if the devs also was not too lazy, maybe LFS would be more popular .

Seriously? LFS needs more licensed (racing) hosts? Thats how the current situation is being analyzed?

Three years back there where three different licensed S2 racing hosts active (and FULL every night, CG S2 only reaches status full during a short period of the day nowadays);

IHR/CG, Fox Junkies, AMG GTR.

There was racing in the night, hosts never empty. But more and more people abandoned their license out of boredom, complete teams and communities went to Iracing or another racing scene and demo people are less motivated to buy a license.

Why? Not because there are not enough licensed hosts. Teams are simply less motivated to move to a licensed environment and thats because there is no flow/buzz anymore for over four years now about LFS. Nobody knows the future. Who is going to invest time in a dying future?

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There are not enough communities within the community motivated to pump life in a now pretty outdated simulator.

Besides, LFS racing scene still suffers a lot from laggy people. One or two laggers can ruin a whole race. I now am IP blocking complete countries like Brasil, Argentina, Australia, Chile etcetc from time to time on the S2 server.. Not because I like it, I dislike it. Nice people.. But.. It's not working for serious European racing. They get a connection failed which isn't exactly ideal but I don't know how to do it in another way. I've said it before, going to repeat myself now; hosted some COD2 servers years ago.. It had server forwarding, you could as server owner transfer somebody who connected to a different server, automatically, based on certain conditions. It was great! People are not so smart (sorry), you need to help some a little.

I understand how difficult it is to work on changes with such a small dev team but LFS needs more changes/patches/updates which have nothing to do with physics or a Volkswagen. In fact, forget about it for at least a year. Already had four, a fifth year doesn't matter anymore.

One more thing. Demo racing. 3 laps? Some servers 4 laps on Blackwood? Thats called racing? Driving from traffic light to traffic light thats how I look at it. I started with a demo server. Full server every day, 7 laps with pitstop. Stats are heavily flawed anyway, many Saudi's drifting.

And finally, you want real stats?
http://stats.airio.eu/PPL.aspx

Daily it's 50/50 demo&licensed active. Monthly its 3 versus 1.


.

Victor, what you think about creating official LFS servers ?

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Seriously? LFS needs more licensed (racing) hosts? Thats how the current situation is being analyzed?

What you mean ? As I wrote earlier there are about 400 licensed hosts and about 200 demo, so there are enough servers. I meant that there is not enough players on these s2 hosts.
The [AA] hosts are popular as well, but all demo hosts.
In demo AA and MRc are the most popular servers, but not all their servers are demo. Hosters made S2 servers too but they are empty, so that is the reason why they focussed on demo I think.

Yep, official racing servers, maybe with ranking.

more content .... i am trying not to be the troll but, *sign*.....

Quote from Victor :

I agree with your quoted text. It occurred to me the other day that cargame was jam-packed 47/47 and there was not a single other S2 host occupied. So there is room for some more well run S2 hosts I think. People who wanted to join cargame couldn't and would try to find another of its kind. The [AA] hosts are popular as well, but all demo hosts. But it goes to show that well organised hosts attract people and keep them coming back.

you can't blame the hosters for you not releasing content, we (league admins/hosters) do our best to keep our servers and leagues interesting but people arent seeing lfs as the future and thats not something league admins and server hosts can change

There is no problem in this case

/lock

Quote from Mustangman759 :

you can't blame the hosters for you not releasing content, we (league admins/hosters) do our best to keep our servers and leagues interesting but people arent seeing lfs as the future and thats not something league admins and server hosts can change

it will become a lot worse in 2013 and 2014, LFS had not really much of a competition in simulation genre, but future releases of RaceRoom, GTR 3, Asseto Corsa, maybe even pCars would attract a lot of fellow LFSers. Not speaking about current progress of iR and Rfactor 2.

Please guys don't flame Victor, no wonder why he almost never post in such a threads. Devs are working very hard to bring us S3 as soon as possible, so please respect that.

I think I would have the same s3 to be as fast I can not wait to hurry thanks in advance

Quote from DANIEL-CRO :

Please guys don't flame Victor, no wonder why he almost never post in such a threads. Devs are working very hard to bring us S3 as soon as possible, so please respect that.

If that's directed to me I don't blame anyone, I am just throwing out facts for some constructive feedback.

Quote from DANIEL-CRO :

Please guys don't flame Victor, no wonder why he almost never post in such a threads. Devs are working very hard to bring us S3 as soon as possible, so please respect that.

I agree with Daniel on this one. If you really want to help, give some constructive input (being criticism or not), like cargame did (I was surprised actually ).

MrSam, no need to take it personally. In the worse case, Victor posted his opinion. He didn't even pretend that he was God and is 100% right all the time. You are free to disagree, you can change that with valid arguments, no need to go overboard and insult people. How would you feel if every time you post something, 1000+ people would come, take every word and twist it in 1000 ways ?
Don't take my remark in the bad way either, i'm just saying that in order to help there is a different way.
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Now back on topic, in my opinion I think that LFS misses the LIVE dynamic, of a currently still under development game. I am not talking only about releasing stuff, but also of what's seen outside of the 3 dev's circle.
From the outside, as a new comer and if you are not being involved in any league/competition/organization the is not much to attract you in the way of a "new" purchase. It's like when you buy a good product but at the end of life.. You usually make a very good deal and you get for what you have payed, BUT not many people make this step.

I think the idea of server-forwarding it's very good. Usually when you go online with no fixed schedule, you search some good and quick racing. That could assure the flow of connecting clients, as it would somehow guarantee that you won't be "lonely".

I also share Mysho's point; I think that this and next year will bring a lot of real competition.. I am saying this based on my own feeling (and as I see I am not the only one). I am a big fun of LFS, for me it really is the best in terms of simulation, and I also do believe in it's development, BUT if Assetto Corsa will be as good as I "feel" it will be.. I will be very tempted to "go to the other side".. it's the way it goes.
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Bon, to finish on a good side, we are not there yet, and if there is something to be done, hopefully we'll stumble on the good ideas.

Quote from Frunze118 :

What you mean ? As I wrote earlier there are about 400 licensed hosts and about 200 demo, so there are enough servers. I meant that there is not enough players on these s2 hosts.

Thats not what you wrote and was being quoted on about.

Quote from Frunze118 :

Hosters made S2 servers too but they are empty, so that is the reason why they focussed on demo I think.

It's also much easier to run demo servers. Only 15 usable slots, 12 cars in race. Less testosterone, only one track which people need to focus on and generally not very high expectations of race quality. You ban someone and nobody gives a... There always is another racer which joins or the one which gets banned can go to another server much more easily. No big arguments..

Licensed racers are more demanding and its harder to control. You need to have a motivated team which also thinks LFS still has future.

We are lovers of this simulator and we realize that it is dying slowly.
also feel upset that Victor say the 2 teams that works are more attractive because it is better organized.
I think this is a mistake from Victor to advertise for some teams.

Many people make a lot and spend a lot of time and spent a lot of money for the LFS to stay alive and say that there are two good teams, there's plenty to be upset for other teams.

Criticize teams ok but the Devs can be criticized also

Quote from luchian :

From the outside, as a new comer and if you are not being involved in any league/competition/organization the is not much to attract you in the way of a "new" purchase. It's like when you buy a good product but at the end of life.. You usually make a very good deal and you get for what you have payed, BUT not many people make this step....

a lot of the Demoracers knew that there isnt so many on going competition right now. Its like the game Brink last Year, i got it for only 10€ but there werent any peoples left to play with.. so i've burned (only) 10€ for nothing.

Dont you think that the Userbase of LFS is dying as well ?

LFS is actually dead

Quote from MrSam :

We are lovers of this simulator and we realize that it is dying slowly.
also feel upset that Victor say the 2 teams that works are more attractive because it is better organized.
I think this is a mistake from Victor to advertise for some teams.

Many people make a lot and spend a lot of time and spent a lot of money for the LFS to stay alive and say that there are two good teams, there's plenty to be upset for other teams.

Criticize teams ok but the Devs can be criticized also

I think what he meant by "well organised" was the servers which have a lot of users and which are popular as. example AA and cargame servers.