I was about to post a new thead about the way this forum is heading, excuse me, but there's too much trash topics everywhere, and besides lfs, i also lost interest in the forum too.

The lack of new content is one of the reasons people are stop playing, there is a new car and track, altough the track is only a variant of something everyone has already drived.

The other reason is probably the realism, probably people don't find amusing to drive a few pickup races everyday and having a lot of problems derived from engine, clutch problems, lack of helps, but there's no way to escape from the realism lfs is turning to.

Quote from AndroidXP :

It's not so much the content, but rather the stagnation of improvement in actually "important" areas that makes my interest in LFS slowly fade. I want better tyre simulation, brake heat/fade/wear, realistic setup options, aerodynamics, a proper damage model that finally penalises the current way chicanes are tackled... just, something that eradicates the most blatantly arcade-because-not-yet-implemented (:rolleyes areas of LFS.

What do we get? Multibyte character support. Great. Don't get me wrong, it is a great step to make LFS more accessible to Asian countries, but it just gives me the impression that it's not just improving slowly, but not improving at all in areas that truly matter (for me). Actually, I've already accepted and don't expect that we ever see a S3.

But then that's probably just me growing old of computer games in general

My guess is that this is spot on.

I highly, highly doubt that dwindling interest would be due to lack of tracks.

Quote from Ikaponthus :

I highly, highly doubt that dwindling interest would be due to lack of tracks.

Well it certainly is a factor. Having spoken to many people about why they are getting bored with LFS they all say the same thing...content, specifically lack of tracks.

Quote from RatzMilk :

I'm quite happy to put up with the inferior physics of rfactor, to get access to the greater range of tracks.

Rfactor physics are not inferior. download the realfeel plug in and welcome to a whole new dimension of rfactor. ive been talking to many other lfs players on another forum who have discovered rfactors ture potential just by installing this plug in, who now say they prefer rfactor. dont get locked up in the same world as all the others, rfactor, as well as lfs is a great sim that should not be doubted.

Quote from The Very End :

I can`t understand why people want a real life track. Screw that, any kind of track is good. The current tracks in game are good, and if we would have anything new that is on that level I would be more than enough happy with that. But I guess people belives that they get bigger cocks if they can drive a RL track fast in LFS

To quote something :

DAMN YOU ALL!! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!

or maybe they would like to try out some of the best circuits in the world like spa and brands hatch?! the fantasy tracks in lfs are good, but i think you will find that the game will benefit much better if some RL tracks as well as cars were included.

the formula BMW has basically killed the FOX and the fox is a quicker car, and easy to drive, probably purely because its a real life machine.

Quote from kieran20 :

the formula BMW has basically killed the FOX and the fox is a quicker car, and easy to drive, probably purely because its a new machine.

There, corrected for you.

Another major problem imo is made by the LFS-Community itself and is not down to not enough content.

The variety of leagues, teams, servers, cruising servers, driftign servers is increasing more and more, while the active player base stays more or less the same. That cant work if most of us like racing with others instead of racing/cruising on our own!

Ok everyone wants to have his own prestigous project, server or league. But does it really bring the community forward if we have dozens or hundreds of empty or tiny populated leagues and servers!?

This is directed to all league admins and server owners. Bundling of power on less projects instead of big variety can be sometimes better.

I only really play LFS now because of the MoE and the commitment I've made to my team, I think for me LFS just needs new vehicles because I'm pretty happy with the number of tracks we have at the moment.

Whenever I find myself playing rFactor or any other sim, I always go for the same track (Nürburgring/Nordschleife) and usually have a different car/mod loaded, so for me LFS would need at least two more cars to keep me occupied for another 4 months.

I'd like to see more road going cars, powerful saloons and such, I think we have a good amount of other cars but high performance saloon type cars is what we need


Ciao.

Agreed DWB, i found that with my experience with dSRC, people got worn out or RL commitments take precident, as they should (good job i dont have this thing people call RL)

Im confident in saying that along with my old team [dSRC] and the other leading teams back in 2004-2006 there was some of the finest racing and admining of servers.
What i do notice also as mentioned somewhere in another post (i think) Is the level and quality of administration, has dropped considerably on public racing servers. This itself has impact just as great as the progress you mention DWB.
Now back to the point of "burning out" I see it all the time with the veterans of this game and a few others, some are more resiliant to others, to the fact that the "same old" is all that they are doing.
But this"same old "is damn fine, when it clicks, the full grid, pushing your belief in your own ability and limits of the simulated car/track
CTRA has helped and also been a hinderence, i do have an issue with the toying of mixed vehicle class grids. But i can also understand they need to get it populated to sustain its popularity.
But it hard to keep yourself interested in somthing for a long period of time no matter what it may be, to quote a freind in recent chat.

Quote :

"
I kinda realised how I'm feeling towards LFS and the feeling gets stronger all of the time.
You know the feeling when you've played some game trough and beated up the final boss? Like you've beaten the game and there's nothing intresting to back for it anymore

"

What happens when this is how you feel ? Blame the devs ? Blame the forums ? Blame the game ? Take a break ?

I dont know the perfect awnser for everyone, but to move on and forwards sometimes you have to forgive,forget and most importantly
accept things for how they are. Im not saying you should lie down and die, or believe everything you read or see. But to focus on the positive rather then the negative, take the good from that bad. Hard i know, but nothing is really easy, when nothing works.

Quote from Ikaponthus :

My guess is that this is spot on.

I highly, highly doubt that dwindling interest would be due to lack of tracks.

It's definitely one of the main reasons for me, along with FPS all but non-existent now in patch Y due to things just being fscked now. There's quite a variety of cars available, but to be blunt, apart from BL1, the rest of the tracks in LFS are shit.. with endless, recycled "variations" of existing tracks. As I've said before, it's nothing but lazy development.

I agree with Android too. I'll never see S3, not in my life-time.. I'll be lucky to see S2 in a final state.

All this crap with [racist language removed] languages being added, what happened to the _real_ development that's needed? Tbh, it almost seems like Scawen has become as bored with LFS as many of the (old skool) players whereas he seems to be picking and choosing the simplest / smallest tasks to get on with so there's no long-term commitment required for a particular task (been there, done that too, but I wasn't charging for my work).

Cockpits put back because Eric can't manage to model a Formula BMW car within 2 years.. AI put back because some other bullshit was apparently "needed" to be added for patch Y... it's just one excuse after another now, IMO.

A shame.. LFS could have really been something, right now, it holds about as much excitement as visiting the dentist for a root canal and I don't see this changing anytime within the next 3 years at least



Regards,

Ian

More content would help.

Out and out rFactor style mod anarchy doesn't work. I don't want to be wading through a quagmire of steaming shite just to have a race.

What would help is where, if a member in good standing of the community could make a good fictional car model + textures + a good idea of the physics (and the same sort of stuff for a good fictional track, or a street circuit based on real roads but isn't an actual street circuit) it would get put in.

It would also add what the community wants. LMPs? If someone wants it, they'll make something for it. FFord? If enough people want it, someone will want it.

The only thing that IMO should be not done is publicising stuff before it gets put in, it will just cause bitching if a popular piece of turd is told to shove off.

More content, but the devs would have control. Whilst real life stuff couldn't be done that way, it would cause - about - a two cars every three months or something? I wouldn't really call it modding, more community content integration.

Quote from duke_toaster :

[ snip ]

More content, but the devs would have control. Whilst real life stuff couldn't be done that way, it would cause - about - a two cars every three months or something? I wouldn't really call it modding, more community content integration.

Not if they work at the same speed as Eric. 2 cars would require at least 4 years development time



Regards,

Ian

What's been killing me is the fact that the only servers that have more than 18 people for most of the day are Conedodgers, cruise servers, or drift servers. Its sad that the servers that are remotely interesting barely ever get more than 15 people in them. The stupid same combos are always being raced. Usually only one hour a day.

It's sad to see the way LFS is going. Good ol' racing is going down the drain and insim games are beginning to run away with the racing population. I wish i coulda been around for when it was all good racing.

Quote from Ian.H :

Not if they work at the same speed as Eric. 2 cars would require at least 4 years development time

Regards,

Ian

But we don't know what Eric's doing. He could be stockpiling content for S3. He could be working on something major. You never know, he might be moonlighting as a particular Mr Gordon Brown.

And if someone really to 2 years to make a car, and there were 18 teams and they started at intervals, there would be 2 cars every three months :P

If the content was really there, ready and available, why (afaik cockpits would not interfere with physics? even then we just got a major patch) not include it? Also, LFS is still officially in alpha, releasing content to use would be beneficial to testing.

Ian.H... still as much of a whinger as ever.

The recent patches have brought major physics improvements... seems kind of silly to say that Scawen seems bored with LFS because in the aftermath of a major patch he decided to clean up LFS's language selection.

I see a lot of reasoning to find the cause of "the problem" here, but I'm just not convinced there is one. According to the cold hard data, online numbers are as high as they have ever been. There is no drop off in player numbers other than the standard post-patch drop. There's 1500 players online most nights. That's a huge number! Way above what it was just a couple of years ago.

What this seems to come down to is a lot of old timers getting bored with LFS, but honestly what did you expect? After driving more or less the same sim for year and years it's bound to get old. I feel the exact same way. Clocking in hours doing the same thing every week for years is going to become routine. You need better races to get the same "high" you did in the early days. Standard human behaviour.

More frequent updates and more tracks might help keep it fresh for a while, but it's not content that makes people come back for more. It's the races. Pushing yourself racing against others. Once that gets stale, maybe it's time to take a break and do something else for a while? LFS will still be around when you get the motivation back.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Ian.H... still as much of a whinger as ever.

The recent patches have brought major physics improvements... seems kind of silly to say that Scawen seems bored with LFS because in the aftermath of a major patch he decided to clean up LFS's language selection.

No point in having soopadoopa physics updates if the physics engine is so badly optimised that my FPS is down nearly to single figures with shitty hacks to try and hide the fact.

A major patch, with half of the things missing.. making it more of a minor patch. Obviously Scawen has no intention of fixing things in a decent order, just picks and chooses as he sees fit (else the damage model for example would have been resolved (or at least reworked) 18 months+ ago).. same for the AI.. 2 fscking years for that and it's _still_ incomplete.. but hey, [racist language removed] chars are much more important to game play :rolleyes:

Eric just needs sacking for his joke (time-wise) contributions.


Wein.. I kind of agree with you, except, I already took 2 years out away from LFS to get into rF modding (subsequently stopped using that PoS too).. almost sweet FA had changed in those 2 years in LFS. Not really encouraging to have a positive outlook on LFS' future

LFS is _seriously_ lacking interesting tracks (note: I didn't say real, couldn't care less if there's real or fictional tracks available, fictional please, if I have a choice over the matter). Sure, it's also _partly_ the people.. but even with the team I started 4 years ago and the great bunch of lads and lasses that they are.. LFS still bores me shitless, even if the entire team was on the server at the same time.

LFS has now become way too stagnant and it'll need something really special IMO to revive it.. and no, adding 20' of new tarmac to Westhill and calling it 'Westhill International Long' simply won't cut it. A polished turd is still a turd.



Regards,

Ian

Ian. If you don't like LFS. Leave. Why do you still come on the forums and servers, if, as you say, your FPS is down to single-digit figures? And why are you constantly bitching about everything. Come on, have a cup of tea...it'll cheer you up.

Simple as.

You try doing what Scavier are doing, and see if you can achieve what they've done?

Somehow, I doubt it.

/me thinks this thread needs locking and some members need a talking to.

DK

Quote from wien :

According to the cold hard data, online numbers are as high as they have ever been. There is no drop off in player numbers other than the standard post-patch drop.

But its obvious that more and more of the newcomers are cruising and drifting.

The number of online racers (what this thread is all about) is definitely lower.

i do agree with ian but tbh , lfs has enough things to update let alone make new addtions before even thinking about new cars track etc.


Hence why ill just wait till a new version comes out.

+1 to that Ben

I agree with the Moose, but why not try to convert the drifters/draggers/cruisers to racers, or classify them as racers? That's one way of looking at the problem, surely?

DK

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

+1 to that Ben

I agree with the Moose, but why not try to convert the drifters/draggers/cruisers to racers, or classify them as racers? That's one way of looking at the problem, surely?

DK

... not fixing

Gotta agree about some things with Ian, except i don't agree that AI should have been finished long time ago, it should NEVER be worked at AT ALL.. Really, if people really play this kind of games with the AI than this is not the right "game" for them.. And after all that time spent working on them, they are still dumm as they were before, they still have no idea that you are beside them and that's the major thing if you want to have a working AI..

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

Ian. If you don't like LFS. Leave. Why do you still come on the forums and servers, if, as you say, your FPS is down to single-digit figures? And why are you constantly bitching about everything. Come on, have a cup of tea...it'll cheer you up.

Simple as.

Because I'd still like to enjoy LFS. It has got its merits, but the incrementation of those merits is slowing down further and further with each patch. Some things were good in the new patch (clutch is a welcomed addition.. I just need 3 pedals now) but now cars drop out of the physics engine and turn themselves off to try and recoup some resources. No car I've ever driven does this.. so a big step backwards IMO for realism.

Quote :

You try doing what Scavier are doing, and see if you can achieve what they've done?

Somehow, I doubt it.

I've never said I could, infact, quite the contrary.. but then again, I'm not claiming I can, am I? Whereas selling your product means you do.

I'm sure a lot of it isn't easy and I do respect Scawen for what he's achieved.. but I don't have to like every aspect of LFS or the development of it.. and now you're telling me I can't voice an opinion



Regards,

Ian