The online racing simulator
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Horseman
S2 licensed
This thread is huge and didn’t read all pages, but there are two points on Intrepid's post below that I couldn’t disagree more…

Quote :If iRacing is popular then sim racing as a 'whole' COULD be in BIG trouble.
(…)
So, while iRacing grows, the other sims may struggle. The main problem is iRacing's growth is dependent on the already existing sim community. That's where 99% of its sales are going to come from.

In my opinion if iRacing is successful, and I have no doubts it will be, Simracing won’t be in trouble at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. iRacing will start by gaining critical mass amongst simracers, but then will appeal to different markets and bring many new persons to our hobby, indirectly benefiting LFS. Of course, that is assuming LFS keeps developing, but as someone who’s around since version 0.1, I have big faith in Scavier. Scawen is a very smart man and I think he knows what needs to be done.

I agree that it’s inevitable that a portion of the most serious simracers jump from their current sims to iRacing, but simultaneously there will be an influx of new blood to the genre. As iRacing grows, showing its qualities and financial muscle, many more will be open to the idea of racing sims. Most of the younger persons don’t know, but in the early 90’s racing sims were big. Nowadays we have no airtime, but for instance F1GP was a hit; I remember magazines having previews, reviews, cover honours, and even TV shows showing it side by side with other top-sellers. There’s no real reason for our genre to be a niche.

Well, except one… profitability. And this is one of the things I’m more excited about. Hopefully iRacing will help change mentalities and make other developers sell their work at a more reasonable price. I said it many times before, and will keep doing so: LFS price is ridiculously low. Simracing stopped being attractive to the bigger developers because a sim can provide many hundreds of hours of entertainment, unlike most games, and that lead us to a swamp where the revenues were small.

It can be argued iRacing prices are high, but 8 euros per month is, what, 2 packs of cigarettes? A few beers? I look to my brother and he buys FIFA and Pro Evo every year, with a quite high price tag, and I sure drive more hours than he plays football. Paying for extra cars and tracks can be considered steep, and personally I’d prefer to pay a higher subscription than buying separate, but when I think it’s a one-time-payment, it’s reasonable. At least I won’t be paying for the same stadiums and players over and over, year after year. And well, I'm so slow I'm not even sure if I'd need to spend my 60 dollars bonus. lol

Quote : A noob to iRacing will soon get frustrated with a large learning curve and un-subscribe, though I doubt many will subscribe in the first place .

The service was designed to be noob friendly. While not simple to understand everything in a few hours, it’s easy to start. I’m actually very happy there’s no demo. We all know how the LFS demo is. Most persons trying it probably don’t have a great feeling about what we do. Demo’ing a service where the focus is on mutual respect and serious competition would be even more absurd. To try it for a few hours would only show the qualities (or lack of) of the sim, not of the service as a whole.

Regarding numbers, dunno what are iRacing expectations except their obsession with providing top quality in every field, but I’m happy the growth is programmed to be gradual. The last thing I want is to see wreckers ruining my experience. For that, only a very careful scrutiny of who is doing what works, and a typical launch would be a disaster. Hope LFS by S3 gets a stricter policy regarding that. Cruisers and drifters are bad enough already even when restricted to their servers, but wreckers deserve a very special place in Hell. I’d help carrying the wood to keep them warm.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Quote from three_jump :Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't see that Simracing games are incredibly low priced (apart from LFS). They all cost around 45 - 50€ when they are new, which is the same as for any other game.

True. But I was referring to the price vs entertainment value. Sorry for not specify that. Compare a typical shooter and LFS. Since 2002 I enjoyed maybe 50 times more hours with LFS than with any shooter I've ever played, for the same price.

Someone already made this comparison, but check how much costs a movie ticket, or a meal, or a pretty much everything else with the cost of simracing software.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Quote from danowat :Huh?

I believe he was meaning: piracy.

I certainly hope it's not pirated. Just because it doesn't have a demo or is subscription based doesn't mean it should be pirated. Nor because it has a higher price tag. In any case, I doubt it'll be. A service can't be pirated, in the same sense we can't "pirate" our way to ge a spot on a real F1 race.

Anyway, Simracing has an incredibly low price currently, and that's one of the reasons why it became a niche market, with dev studios not having a profit with these products. If it wasn't for the simracing passion of one visionary guy with rich pockets we'd probably wouldn't have this project. And until proven otherwise, choice is a good thing.

In the worst case scenario it'll fail, but at least the average guy (hopefully) will be with his mind more open to pay a decent price for a sim - and no, LFS current price is not decent, it's ridiculous.

If it does work, as I strongly believe it will, it will benefit the whole genre. I never understood the anger towards iRacing, as I don't understand how can so many "experts" give so definitive opinions about something without trying, or even knowing minimally.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Quote from ajp71 :Agree totally, there's little point in trying to get a real track accurate enough to be more than a fun representation, simply buying high quality aerial photography/GPS data for race circuits, which will be commercially available seeing as there are a lot of customers for it. Would be far better and pretty much as accurate as that silly scanner thingy by the time its been optimised for sim use and you wouldn't have to go all over the world.

Wow, really?
To compare aerial photography and GPS with laser scanning the way iRacing does it is just ridiculous. Their service may flop for many reasons (I doubt it fails - quite the opposite), but lack of accuracy isn't one of them. Who needs accurate models, right?

As LFS supporter I can argue that at least LFS tracks are fantasy, so in that sense they are 100% accurate, but to say that when modelling a real track aerial photography plus GPS are good enough, when at best the end result has a margin of error of meters...
Horseman
S2 licensed
Quote from PLAYLIFE :give a real argument. stop taking shots at opinions.

I wonder if you read the previous posts?

Anyway, the argument is: finally someone will start charging a fair amount for an activity most of us (simracers) got used to have as nearly free, and indirectly and in the long run, all simracing products will benefit from this correction in cost.

Or if you prefer to get back to topic, I'm personally very happy that iRacing's lauch is approaching, the price seems adequate if their service meets my expectations, and I have little or no doubt it will be a success, benefiting everyone including LFS.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Quote from AndroidXP :Please understand that having only three (four, including Geraldine) developers is a choice the devs made, not because they're suffering from a limited budget. They simply don't want more people involved, as it would require lots of extra management effort and make everything more complicated. Also, they develop LFS in a speed they feel comfortable with - one of the reasons Scawen and Eric left the Lionhead Studios to begin with, IIRC.

Of course, how could the devs want their product to develop at a faster pace in graphics, physics, or any other area, with other very skilled programmers working for them? ...

One thing is to be independent, another is have the means to grow at their own pace, but having the possibility to do so if desired. It's a choice, yes, but given the limited budget they know they have, because ppl are so used to have things for almost free.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Quote from wsinda :And if you think the price is reasonable, compare it with using LFS since S1 was out (August 2003). It's cost you $60 or so, but iRacing would have cost you around $700.

That's precisely the point. LFS is too cheap. LFS users would have a better product if the devs had the possibility to charge a higher price for so many hundreds or thousands of hours of fun each user had in the last 5 years. In my case 64 months - for... 60$. How can this niche market evolve with ridiculous prices like this one?

Instead of a small 3 people team they would have the chance to hire more persons if considered adequate, and equally important, would be in a better financial position, which is more than fair for developing such great product.
Horseman
S2 licensed
What a sad and simultaneously funny thread. It makes me feel ashamed of being a simracer, and yet can’t help to laugh when reading some or most of the comments here, because they’re really ridiculous.

For the first time in many years a company will ask a decent price for an activity that has been the poor branch of gaming, and what’s the reaction of some?
“Oh, 9 euros per month for something that takes 10, 20 or more hours of my life every month is incredibly expensive! Rip-off!”


Just for the record, can someone mention a cheaper hobby? A simple night watching a 2 hours movie is more expensive.

Of course, it’s true that not all can pay such price as unfortunately everything in life, but if a person has a minimally decent PC AND broadband, 9 euros is not exaggerated IF the service iRacing will offer takes care of the simracer’s needs. And no, the typical product doesn’t, not even LFS in its current form, it simply gives user a more or less sterile environment where to race.

If this service will or not be something worthy of the price no one can say for sure at this point, we just need to wait and see. But let’s face it, the developers behind the project give pretty much 100% guarantee that the quality will be outstanding.

Can’t understand the hate towards iRacing and its business plan, really. I certainly hope they are very successful. It’s great for all current products, including LFS.
Horseman
S2 licensed
... the time when T1 crashes were almost a blessing, allowing to rest a few minutes from the frantic races.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Thanks for the replies, guys (and girl).

The X-System is indeed what impressed me the most, but that’s because I can’t help to imagine how useful and cool this kind of stuff would be if I had it 2 or 3 or 4 years ago. hehe
It really is very very cool. This is my geek/organizer portion speaking.

As spectator/racer, I think everything else is equally good. It’s really how the whole thing works that is remarkable. Usually there’s a weak spot in every project, but at least apparently, here all seems balanced.

About the development being somewhat halted, don’t worry. From experience I know a pause can be extremely useful, allowing us time to breathe and gain the necessary distance to truly evaluate our work, and either improve it, or advance to bigger and better stuff. The best thing that ever happened to me was stop the daily routine of worrying with a certain race, incident, protest, or event and dedicate my time to think and design competitions and everything else related for 6 or 7 months non-stop.

BTW, best wishes for the new job and relationship, Becky.


@ sparky: Great to see you still around. Ah, how I wish we could go back a few years, and I could enjoy again the simple pleasures of making the LFSWC, or leading BR, or... Those were the days!



Edited: Man, just found out this forum still has my helmet!! :horseman:
My past work has paid off!
Last edited by Horseman, .
Horseman
S2 licensed
Quote from al heeley :Isn't it about time we got a grand LFS world championship sorted?

Hmm, again?





Excellent work
Horseman
S2 licensed
It’s been a VERY long time since my last post on this forum, but after having tried tonight one of the CTRA servers I feel it’s a must.

Would like to give my most sincere congratulations for what you are doing. After being very active during the first LFS years, my organizing activities were focused in bigger things and even my racing activity has nearly disappeared with this sim, only driving it once in a while as relaxation, but must say CTRA today restored a bit more my faith about LFS’s future once again.

It’s truly impressive to see the quality of the work, and how everything seems nearly perfect. It’s a work of passion and it shows. Unfortunately most people simply don’t care, but I sure know how much effort and time is necessary to reach this level of usability and execution. Many things I hoped for years are beautifully done, and there are even some I didn’t dare to hope!

Can’t wait to see the development of this concept (not sure if there’s a timetable somewhere with future plans?). I think the work done here shows the true potential of this little (not so small as some would believe) independent title, and what can be done. Again, big congrats to the people behind this project!
Last edited by Horseman, .
Horseman
S2 licensed
Great work from the big three Devs.
Congrats.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Indeed. Very well done.
Top work, mate
Horseman
S2 licensed
Quote from Tweaker :99mb isn't all that bad though, im actually surprised at how small it is for 24 hours

It's "only" 12 hours, but indeed very small. Dunno exact size of replays in all sims, but LFS should have one of the smallest.
Horseman
S2 licensed
dE Racing drivers in the Kyoto 12h:
sinbad
P1lot
al1asx
Neokiller

Good luck and great fun to everyone.
Horseman
S2 licensed
A bit late, but still in time to give congrats to Vyk and the gang.

Kid is right, but truth is only some make that extra step to push simracing forward.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Again, great tool. :up:
Very useful.
Horseman
S2 licensed
Reporting to duty.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG