The online racing simulator
#1 - Gizz
can we expect a growth in the LFS comunity after XMAS?
ok duno if this has been brought up since the news of the new patch, (thread way to big for my little head to read all ) so if so sorry in advance

from what scawen says in his post, the bigwigs at this V1 chamionship outfit asked the devs would like and be able to provide the simulation for the tv program... so it goes with out saying that LFS will be getting some "air time" at long last and hopfully do wonders on the promotional side of the sim, so could this be where LFS really takes off??? can we expect a steady stream of budding new drivers to our ranks?
As far as I can see/hear from the video, no mention is made of LFS being shown on TV, just that the V1 Championship itself will be broadcast in the UK. So really we don't know what kind of exposure, if any at all, LFS is going to get from this collaboration.
not that LFS getting popular is a bad thing, but i'm not so sure that people watching this show are the type of people that are going to be "budding new drivers" in LFS. i mean, if you are really into sim racing you have probably heard of LFS by now anyway, and it seems like many(note: i did not say "all") new people come to LFS expecting it to be NFS with better physics.
#4 - Gizz
i really hope your wrong bazley....

scawen surely you havent let this one pass through ya fingers???? damnit we need exposure!!!!!
Quote from UncleBenny :not that LFS getting popular is a bad thing, but i'm not so sure that people watching this show are the type of people that are going to be "budding new drivers" in LFS. i mean, if you are really into sim racing you have probably heard of LFS by now anyway, and it seems like many(note: i did not say "all") new people come to LFS expecting it to be NFS with better physics.

I've got to agree with you on this one. Most simulation racers are going to know what Live for Speed is. I think you'll see a lot of new faces that haven't had much, if any racing experience. One thing you might see that will help the community is drivers coming from other simulations to LFS. It just blows my mind that hardcore race fans would waste time playing any other simulator besides LFS, nothing comes close to this realism...
I imagine there must be people out there who are interested in a racing game/sim for the PC but simply think everything out there is like NFS and haven't heard of things like LFS. They just think well they're all unrealistic and for kids, and perhaps don't even do any research to find that there is something like LFS out there.
Quote from BigTime :I've got to agree with you on this one. Most simulation racers are going to know what Live for Speed is. I think you'll see a lot of new faces that haven't had much, if any racing experience. One thing you might see that will help the community is drivers coming from other simulations to LFS. It just blows my mind that hardcore race fans would waste time playing any other simulator besides LFS, nothing comes close to this realism...

I'm a total LFS fanboy, but I can still understand how/why people play other sims. As good as LFS is, there's still a lot missing that other games have. Me, personally...I haven't played LFS in probably 6 months or more. I got frustrated with the lack of a realistic clutch and other drivers downshifting like mad without engine damage. Hopefully the new patch will alleviate some of that frustration since the clutch will now work properly.

While I think that LFS has the best dynamics and the best feel of any sim out there, some of it's shortcomings can drive people away after a while. I don't know if the community will really grow all that much after the new patch but, at the very least, some of us who've left for a while might be tempted to return.
like me, i always wanted to have a good racing game that simulated every thing of racing, but i got only f1 games, until i saw lfs on the newspaper
Quote from Michael Denham :I imagine there must be people out there who are interested in a racing game/sim for the PC but simply think everything out there is like NFS and haven't heard of things like LFS. They just think well they're all unrealistic and for kids, and perhaps don't even do any research to find that there is something like LFS out there.

When i tell other players who haven't heard of lfs they think its need for speed.
Quote from Michael Denham :I imagine there must be people out there who are interested in a racing game/sim for the PC but simply think everything out there is like NFS and haven't heard of things like LFS. They just think well they're all unrealistic and for kids, and perhaps don't even do any research to find that there is something like LFS out there.

Thats another great point I didn't think about!

I don't really think the clutch package makes people want to play other games because we do have engine damage and although it does feel a little strange, I still think its better than rFactor and GTR's, of course that an opinion. I personally feel its the lack of real tracks and cars that bring this game down. I guess the reasons are going to be different for everyone but of everything I've played this reigns supreme...

I still find time for ORR2 and Corvett mods for rFactor though.
#11 - Gizz
Quote from faster111 :When i tell other players who haven't heard of lfs they think its need for speed.

do you hurt them after such a remark???
Quote from Michael Denham :I imagine there must be people out there who are interested in a racing game/sim for the PC but simply think everything out there is like NFS and haven't heard of things like LFS. They just think well they're all unrealistic and for kids, and perhaps don't even do any research to find that there is something like LFS out there.

Yeah that's a good point. If they show LFS on TV as a stepping stone to actually racing a car it kind of gives it some credibility which is a good thing. People have seen my LFS setup and kind of laugh at first until they I make them sit down and try it and they realize this isn't just a game where you can hit the gas and go, most people don't know that this kind of software exists.
Quote from BigTime :I personally feel its the lack of real tracks and cars that bring this game down. I guess the reasons are going to be different for everyone but of everything I've played this reigns supreme...

I think that while people would like to have real cars and tracks, the underlying physics of the game are much more important. If it comes down to having a Porsche 911 or having break fade, I'll take brake fade. If forced to choose between a new supercar or adding overheating and blown engines, I would choose the latter. That's not to say that I don't really, really want more car types added to LFS...but I really could care less whether they're real or not. A generic off-road truck, a bare bones musclecar, and a fantasy supercar will be every bit as fun to drive no matter if they've got licensed names and bodywork or not.
I think what LFS offers is very special, but people who are not into sim racing will not see it that way. So will LFS see a boost in users, yes, probably so given the right media. I think the real question is will those users be long term, and I believe the answer to be no. LFS requires patience and time, and those are two things arcade racers aren't generally looking for. So what LFS will end up getting is an in-flux of short term users that will quickly fade back to normal.
Quote from BigTime :TI personally feel its the lack of real tracks and cars that bring this game down.

I kind of agree with that, but at the same time no real tracks/cars is one of the things I really like about LFS. Every other game tries to be realistic with tracks and cars but fails miserably at the physics. LFS has got the physics to make the game great, and having original(yet still realistic) cars and tracks gives LFS a different feeling than racing on the same real world tracks as every other game, like LFS is its own little world. The thing is, most other people don't see it that way and that's why in reality, no real tracks/cars probably hurts LFS in the end.
Of course there's going to be growth, something new happens = people gets interested, including "sleeping" license owners who haven't played it in a long time, so they'll come back to check has anything changed.
Quote :no real tracks/cars

Once the new BMW is in the sim there'll be 4 real cars, on my count.

Tracks is of course a different story, although I'm sure parts of the LFS tracks are based on or inspired by real world, existing tracks. If we only had one real track in the sim, maybe people's ideas about LFS would shift a bit, because then we'd have both real cars and tracks!
#18 - Gizz
Quote from yuppy :I think what LFS offers is very special, but people who are not into sim racing will not see it that way. So will LFS see a boost in users, yes, probably so given the right media. I think the real question is will those users be long term, and I believe the answer to be no. LFS requires patience and time, and those are two things arcade racers aren't generally looking for. So what LFS will end up getting is an in-flux of short term users that will quickly fade back to normal.

well thats fine by me, if we get 1 sim racer out of every 50 who try LFS long term thats grate, let the NFS nuts glue there gas peddles down and think there better than MS, i hope they leave lol, but to be honest i dont think those types would be watching this type of program anyway, there more likely to be watching "pimp my ride"..

as regards cars and tracks and LFS, ive been in heated discusions about this many times, i dont care for RL cars/tracks... not saying i wouldnt drive em, but ive been playing sims for some years now (mostly flight sims) and everytime the game recreates a RL car/track/plane, the comunity goes nuts that this is not realistic and thats not right, they all come up with there own stats from some where and pull the sim and the devs over the coals because of it....

i like what the devs have done, and if it does change expect time between patches to triple and the quality of patches to drop, why???

becasue the devs will be concentrating to much on making sure the BMW sauber can get round silverstone in a realistic time, instead of making the game bigger and better in the phisics department, and they will still get slated over it, so imo they got it right at is it.. we have nothing to compare westhill to so it cannot be wrong can it let them get the damage model perfected, tires , aero weather and the million and one other IMPORTANT THINGS done first then we will worry about our mclarean f1's and saubaru's...

yes i agree it turns some guys off not having rl tracks and cars, well if they carnt see through that then TATAR is all i can say and happy NFS'ing
Well, I dunno but I'd like to hope so.
Quote from Gizz :do you hurt them after such a remark???

Well i just show them a trailer.
Quote from Danielw597 :Well, I dunno but I'd like to hope so.

Agree with you. I do hope we`ll reach that 2 000 users online one day I`ll bet that before summer next year, there will be over 30 000 members on this forum. I belive that new materials like this will increas the LFS popularity pretty much.
Agree with u there Gizz. It would be nice to see some RL tracks and cars, but obviously a lot of ppl will get way to worked up about them not being 1000000% perfect.

As for advertising and the V1 Championship, Scawen said that the people who signed up for the show will be tested on LFS BEFORE they ever enter a car, so in this way I think it will help LFS quite a bit.

Just like that Forza T.V. show on Speed, they showed the racers playing Forza 2 a lot in between RL races. I am guessing this is what they will also do in the V1 show.

Either way, this will help LFS to some extent, just need to wait and see.
Quote from Cue-Ball :

While I think that LFS has the best dynamics and the best feel of any sim out there, some of it's shortcomings can drive people away after a while. I don't know if the community will really grow all that much after the new patch but, at the very least, some of us who've left for a while might be tempted to return.

I kinda agree. I've been playing rFactor quite steadily and I know that the ISI engine has flaws but with the advent of the Real Feel plugin for rFactor, the FFB is probably some of the best I've ever felt. AFter that plugin was released the first thing it reminded me of was LFS after I tried it. RealFeel has revolutionized rFactor. Until that came out, I felt that rFactor sucked monkey balls, trust me. Now I'm getting back into LFS and in comparison LFS's FFB feels quite dull. Main gripe is that you cant feel camber and elevation changes but that may be the tracks fault?? Who knows. I'm no longer comparing rFactor's canned FFB effects with LFS's FFB since they are now on a more level playing field and I simply prefer what I feel at times with rFactor and the Real Feel plugin. Not trying to start a flame war but I think what you feel through the wheel is the most important part of the sim and that those feelings should represent what the physics engine is doing and that's exactly what this realfeel plugin does that the canned ISI engine was lacking before. So LFS and rFactor kinda share some of the same qualities in the FFB dept now except I feel a lot more coming from the realfeel plugin than LFS.
To get back to topic:

Sure there'll be growth. As far as I remember there has always been growth, and especially so when a new patch comes out.
assuming most people are like me then the community is bound to grow as a result of christmas



usually about 4 inches round the waist
1

can we expect a growth in the LFS comunity after XMAS?
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