until S4 comes out....

S4 was originally planned, but it now seems like S3 will probably be the last release - although if the devs make somethign like the "Rally Pack" and charge £24 for it i'll quite happily pay!

From the LFS main site news page, dated Nov 29th 2002. Oh how the best laid plans...

Quote :

Our new plan for Release 1 is to release it in 4 downloadable stages, we will charge a price for these - each one at 25% of the total price of Release 1.

The first 25% release will come out a few weeks after Demo Test 0.2 after sorting out any bugs or problems that come up. So - we estimate early February 2003. It will contain the 3 cars from the Demo Test and 3 more road-style cars including one or two four wheel drives. Two extra tracks will be included - a city track and a country track with a few configs in each. More music will be included as well. At that stage neither the full damage system nor all the planned improvements to graphics and sound will have been done - the idea is that while Eric is continuing to add or finish more tracks and cars for subsequent releases, I will be continuing to develop the program all the time as well on the way to Release 1.

The next three 25% releases will contain in the region of 4 cars and 3 tracks each and will come out at intervals of 2 or 3 months. The 4 stages are downloadable and a CD will become available when the full Release 1 is completed (i.e. the 4th stage is finished).

Quote from Jakg :

S4 was originally planned, but it now seems like S3 will probably be the last release

Why do you think that ???

Quote from Scawen :

So your S2 purchase is 100% saving against the S3 price, if and when there is an S3 in the distant future.

does this mean that there is a chance that S3 may not even be made?

I think what Scawen was getting at, like my previous comment, is that S3 might not come in the same form as S1 and S2 have, rather than the devs retiring once S2 if finished.

Quote from Rish :

does this mean that there is a chance that S3 may not even be made?

Well based on current rates of progress, I'm not that sure that continuing the current development strategy is going to work all the way up to S3. If you think that S1 took a couple of years, S2 has taken 4 years so far, then S3 might take 6 or even 8 years, depending on whether you subscribe to a linear or exponential view of things .

Mind you Geoff Crammond got away with releasing a barely changed Grand Prix game full of 10 year old assembly code once every 4 years, so maybe it'll be okay. And Scawen seemed to have kicked Geoffs ass in many departments, so I have confidence (although... GP3 did have undertrays that worked properly, wet weather and 4 way dampers, so he hasnt been surpassed in all regards).

Quote from Bladerunner :

TBH, I would have thought that anybody with more than 10 posts on this forum would KNOW the history of S3....

History of S3?

It isn't even out yet, lol.

Quote from mobiholik :

Why do you think that ???

I don't pretend I have all the answers as a lot has not been officially been confirmed by the devs. But an S4 was originally planned but it was brought down to 3 stages.
Originally I believe every stage was intended to be completed in 3 months, meaning the entire LFS series would have been completed in a year. As we all know that took a bit (just a bit ) longer. Reasons for this (I think) would be a too optimistic view by the devs AND simply because the devs have raised their standards.
As Bob pointed out there may not even be an S3 the way it was planned, but several smaller releases. Scawen hinted at that before but nobody (maybe not even Scawen himself) knows how it's going to turn out.
But I think we can be sure that there isn't going to be an S4. Unless Leo will continue his dad's work when he's retired

Quote from Bose321 :

And that's 12 euro or so?

no, type "12 british pounds in eur" into google search (without the quotes) and get this result

12 British pounds = 17.54686 Euros

Quote from phelan :

no, type "12 british pounds in eur" into google search (without the quotes) and get this result

12 British pounds = 17.54686 Euros

lol...i got
17.546844329984737282

Yes, it's called a fluctuating exchange rate. Not that funny really.

Quote from Jakg :

S4 was originally planned, but it now seems like S3 will probably be the last release - although if the devs make somethign like the "Rally Pack" and charge £24 for it i'll quite happily pay!

+1