Here's the deal. I love this sim, it's just plain great. I play as much as possible, time permitting. I'm currently a student in college, and depending on my class schedule, I can race on regular nights.

I am looking for a team to join, but I'm fine with the whole idea of not racing (unless I'm needed to fill a spot). I don't want to jump in, and just expect to start racing. It's also been a while since I played this sim on a regular basis, so I guess I'm just trying to find a group of people to hang around with and practice.

Public servers are ok, but the people are too random, I figure if I can just meet a team to hang out with, or hell, even a good server that people go to that's fine too, but a racing game isn't much fun when you have no one to race with.

Anyways, feel free to leave a response if your team would like to take me in, kinda like a pet. I can be a novelty of sorts, can even skin the UF1000 to look like a clown car :P

EDIT: It's late and I forgot details about myself...

Age: 25
Input Type: FFB Wheel/Pedals
Voice Chat: TeamSpeak or Ventrillo (headset, I know how much speakers can suck)
Average FPS in Race: 60
Type of Net Connection: Cable

I think there are two ways of looking at it. If you join a team you have a group of people close to you to help you, to learn from, to steal setups from, and race together. It's great fun, and you make real friends. However, the 'downside' of team life is that you are generally expected to race a bit more than you sometimes have time to do - pressures to take part in leagues and events when you don't really have time. Also, you need to think how you can contribute to a team. Just joining one for your benfit won't make the team any better, and can just result in the said team looking less good. Finally the team 'image' is considered quite important to most teams, and when you're in one it frowned upon to shout at newbies and others when they make mistakes, so if you are an emotional person whilst racing you might need to think about toning it down a bit.

Not joining a team means you can race whenever and wherever is convenient. Any server or type of car is open to you, and you don't have to race at specific times (say team practice sessions or internal leagues). You can nearly always get setups from faster people in every server, and you don't have to behave for the team benefit.

I didn't join a team for about 18 months after getting LFS, and when I did it was fairly reluctantly. Overall I am glad I didn't - I learnt a lot more being my own person, and in many ways enjoyed LFS more with the freedom not being in a team gave me. It also meant that I had become reasonably quick (not an alien by ANY means!), and so it was teams with quickish people that I was interested in and were interested in me. I'd rather do that than join a more mediocre team.

Lastly, there are a LOT of teams at the moment, which I find rather bizarre. Some of them seem to exist simply so that a team exists and have little or no ambition to take over the world (as it were). Joining a team such as that is unlikely to help you much, but it would give you a group of friends to play with and more options to use Ventrillo/Teamspeak.

The best way of joining a team is to add them to to your buddy list on LFSW, race with them whenever you can, chat to them, get to know them, let them get to know you, and try and be a part of their community (by joining their forum or whatever they use). Once everyone is comfortable with you, you'll either get an invite, or you can ask to join. Don't be offended if a few teams utrn you down as some are quite specific in the type/speed/nationality/car type that you use.

Good luck in finding a team, and don't forget that whatever option you take, LFS is a computer game and thus the priority is to have fun!

An alternative to a team, which might fill your requirements for racing with a bunch of people you know, would be to join the CRC. It's more an informal "club" than a team, anyone can join.

There's a whole range of abilities there so you'll find people who are about your pace, and they all try to race fair so you don't have to worry about the attitudes you sometimes get in public servers. They're obsessively preoccupied with the FWD cars though for some reason, especially the XFR, so if you want to drive proper cars you'll probably have to do that elsewhere.

wow kev!! im shocked! :P

slopi, if your just looking for some folks to race and screw around with feel free to join us for our weekly races on sundays. its a diffrent car/track combo every week, and we dont take anything to serious! you can find info in our forum using the link in my sig. hope to see ya on track!

u can find me and a couple others on almost everynight!

Quote from th84 :

wow kev!! im shocked! :P

Yeah I was almost grown-up about it there wasn't I? Fair's fair though, it's useful for finding a group of similar-minded people to race with, I just don't get on with the management that's all.

I'm not looking to join a team if the're worried their image will be tainted by someone who doesn't race enough for their taste.

That said, what I do want is simply a group of people to hang out with, and judging by the responses here, I may have found a couple. If this is a club, more than a team, that's fine. I don't care what you call it, I just wanna hang out with some good people. I know there's lots of people that play this for reasons other than 'appearing god-like' on a leader board, main reason beyond that is FUN.

I have one friend in real life with this sim, and he doesn't play nearly enough to be considered reliable, in terms of company. That and if he could make it around the track without crashing, that could be even more fun...

So anyways, not trying to make it more complicated than it is, but maybe the definition of 'team' isn't what I'm looking for, but maybe something along the lines of a 'motoring club'

Thanks all who responded, hope to see you in game

slopi, add me to your buddy list on lfsw and ill be on just about every night!
we dont care about stats or wins or appearing "god like"
we just like to have fun and have stupid conversations!

look for me, its always nice to race with a fellow gringo!!

I should be on tonight. I got registered on your forums, and plan on asking for the TS password if that's ok. Anyways, I'll look you up a little later on, until then, it's errands for me...

sounds good man! i usually get on around 8-8:30 pm.(us eastern)
TS? oh teamspeak, me personally, i dont use it, i find it kind of........weird!
we have several servers, so im sure to be on one of those! cya later!

Quote from McAzerty :

i hate long texts...

...but you like spam?

Quote from McAzerty :

i hate long texts...

You again? :spam:

Hi,

The CRC is not, or was not obsessed with the XFR, it just happened at the time that we were running an XFR Championship and thats the car that when asked most members voted for, the CRC is an Organistation for Clean Friendly Drivers...

There is a new team, I dont know much about them at the moment, but they are called R4R, they are accepting members and soon to launch a website..

www.cleanracersclub.org
www.r4r.org.uk

Good Luck in finding a team.

Quote from mkinnov8 :

The CRC is not, or was not obsessed with the XFR, it just happened at the time that we were running an XFR Championship and thats the car that when asked most members voted for,

I see. Sorry if I misrepresented you; it must've been because I'd never seen a CRC server running anything other than the XFR or UF1 in the... three months? four? that I was visiting them. Last time I saw a CRC server in my server list it was XFR at AS Club, but that must've just been a coincidence.

Anyway I was being nice, cut your losses.

Shhhhh Stoney!

I will find and beat you into a pulp if you say anything else!

after visiting the site a couple days ago for the first time in quite a while, all i can really say is.....

No team for me! Never! It is a shure destructor of a good relationship with the fine racers in that team. I love the LFS community but when friendships become too close I become more explosive

The CRC (connected whith the ATC of Franky) is just what Slopi was thinking of. He will have a hell of a time

Don't talk too much about the stupid conversations th84. On those occasions I should

LoL

Quote from th84 :

LoL

Unbounded happy talk sounds nice but is sometimes not much 'lol' the day after. Therefore my warning. Sometimes I am very bad at 'happy talk' .

Had a look at the happy hour for noobs . Brr .... looks like a team. Much to official for a noob like me.

again i have to say LOL! the [noobs] are anything but official!!!!

you are welcome to happy talk anytime with us, most of us dont remember what we talked about the next day!! :P

Quote from HeerBommel :

The CRC (connected whith the ATC of Franky) is just what Slopi was thinking of. He will have a hell of a time

Long time no see Heer. (there will be another 60 lapper coming up soon .) I think he is looking for the CRC.. But just so you know Heer.. We are trying to make sure the ATC and CRC are as seperate as possible.

Anyway. Good luck in your search Slopi. Personally. I love teams.. but i may have just been lucky.

u got PM...

Quote from franky500 :

Personally. I love teams.. but i may have just been lucky.

Since this is a discussion about teams, I think this is the right place for some extra information.

No, it has little to do with luck. I even founded a team myself to show how it should be done. This was a nice succes as long as I was pulling the whole thing. But I didn't want to be the boss or the owner, so I sneeked out of the back door to make new mistakes

For some people teams are very good. You must be one of them Franky . For me teams are very bad. Now I know this, I am able to enjoy LFS even more. This magnificant game has enough breathing space for all weirdo's

maby not luck.. maby its because i refuse to belong to teams that work on a rank structure..... I have always founded or joined teams that take everybodies opinions and nobody is the boss.. At the very most.. an Organisor.

Quote from franky500 :

.. maby its because i refuse to belong to teams that work on a rank structure.....

I must be mentally a bit slow and make wrong choices ................... When I discover the rank structure I plant a bomb, or something like that .

No fun for anyone. So I stop with the teambuilding.