I only join servers with cars I like - if there aren't any with people on I practice offline and/or get some hotlaps to put on LFSw - but I don't upload them as my hotlap times suck. I need at least one other car on track to make me fast oddly.

What about Ping? I think that's pretty important as LFS can become pretty frustrating when theres a lot of lag. Not much point in joining a server with +500 ping and a lot of cars, yet some ppl do illepall

Fixed classes is something I look for as well, nothing worse than lapping at fern club in an XRG when a BF1 starts zooming around and taking everyone out because they cant control the thing let alone on a tiny track.

So basically, I try to join servers without morons in them I guess

Quote from Enforcer-J :

What about Ping? I think that's pretty important as LFS can become pretty frustrating when theres a lot of lag. Not much point in joining a server with +500 ping and a lot of cars, yet some ppl do illepall

Well, I have to say, living in Europe, from the 310 available servers only 15 had a ping of over 250ms and only one over 500ms. So while in the end ping surely *is* a criterion, I cannot say that I ever actively pay attention to it.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Well, I have to say, living in Europe, from the 310 available servers only 15 had a ping of over 250ms and only one over 500ms. So while in the end ping surely *is* a criterion, I cannot say that I ever actively pay attention to it.

Wow, I have to get me some broadband. Living in the US, there is no server under 250ms for me, LOL.

I never have paid attention to ping. Most servers are around 250ms for me on dialup, and only the bottom 2 (with empty servers set at no) are at a ping I can't connect with. But, since I've started sorting the list by # of connections, I sometimes join in one of those high ping servers accidentally (usually 2 of them are in the 400's, from Australia I think). So, I need to get use to paying attention to ping since I've been sorting only by default ping or filtering out car classes on the right for the last 2 years.

First thing I do is select the class of car. Then normally just look for a populated server on a combo thats mildly interesting. If after all this there's still a choice I'll go for the server I've had the better experience on - normally team servers that are more actively moderated. Not fussed how long the race is really, as long as its under half hour or so.

Ping has to be taken into consideration, but most the servers I connect to are 40-80ms so its rarely a problem.

I do the same as Tristan and few others that posted here, but my buddy list has grown over the years to ~380 people. I've been adding not only my mates and people I met and raced with, but also people I don't know and would like to race with. For example, Odd Combo Club regulars, people who will be racing in same leagues as me so I can see when they practice and join them, people I see around that are good in the not so popular cars like FO8 or LRF or BF1 so I can get some good races if I see them online, or just somebody I'd like to meet for whatever reason, etc. Eventualy I got to know those other people too, and generaly LFSWorld and Live Alert window became much more lively and enjoyable place, and I can see whats going on at a glance. I really don't just browse servers anymore, there's always somebody interesting online.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Well, I have to say, living in Europe, from the 310 available servers only 15 had a ping of over 250ms and only one over 500ms. So while in the end ping surely *is* a criterion, I cannot say that I ever actively pay attention to it.

See, this is the problem us Aussies are faced with. Being so isolated from everyone else it's hard to race with those from overseas who join our servers and hard for us to join over seas servers as well without there being a lag problem. There are some good European servers where it doesn't seem to be much of a problem for me but other's are just chaos and impossible to race especially with bigger fields. I guess the main thing is if you join a laggy server, leave! It's better for all. But I'm going off topic anyways so I'll shuttup now

Thanks to those who voted

Assuming no one voted for opposing options: the only thing I'd want to draw from the results is that the overwhelming majority of those that frequent the forums (92% of those that voted on the option, and 86% of the entire vote), prefer a pick-up server that is car-class restricted. No surprise there, yet there's still a lot of open servers.

The results are by no means cut and dry, and I suppose they could be interpreted in different ways. But it seems that the majority of those who voted on the relevant options prefer to see a pick-up race run for under 10 minutes, or ten laps.

(I personally don't think it's practical for most pick-up races to go beyond this, so it serves as a nice way to justify an opinion )

So, server admins, assuming you want an occupied server... how about a bit of a mix-up? Try restricting it to a particular class, and try something different. Most people are well and truly over the FOX@BLGP and the GTRs@Aston.
I'd also suggest that you keep it under ten laps, or ten minutes, per race,
thanks :wave2:

Too bad for me, I can't be too picky with the servers I join. I have to get up early on the weekends to have a good shot at a server worth joining. All I see now is one FO8 server and one FOX server (both at BL1)

Pretty Much the past few months i have stuck with the Conedodgers GTR servers. The people on there i "know" i have "known" a few of them for a very long time as i used to race with a few on a blackwood GP server a while back. Racing with people you know is much better then getting shafted by n00bs at turn1, at least if it happens with people you regular race with, they say sorry and everything is a little nicer, a large number of them race in the same division as me in the gtr league, so its always good to practise against them.

sometimes i will check for autocross arena tracks just to see if there is a decent auto-x style layout about