I was thinking lately about S2 development and comunity here. There are a lot of threads that shows us how much talented are members here. Addons thread, Textures, sounds, other mods.

The point is... Why developers can't use knoledge, skills and especially free time of members here and help themself to make a great car simulation.

I think there are a lot of people here that are know how to professionally use: photoshop, 3dsmax or programming tools. I know how hard and how much time is needed to make for example a good textures, Eric, Scawen, Victor, they all may use some ideas, and comunity work here and well.... speed up a development a bit.

It may be a competition for example to make a 2d track design, or best looking concentrate texture.

Fell free to discuss about it. But please don't flame me. Its a good or bad idea? What do u think?

The Devs don't want to work like that. End of story.

I think you are all right...why working alone if you have a whole bunch of people who would help you. Nevertheless we are a community and we all are interessted in a good working sim. !

Basically, the only point at which the devs have even suggested allowing other to work on LFS content, is after LFS full is out.

I prefer it this way anyway, as everyone gets the same high quality content.

I realise you aren't suggesting complete modding, but basically the devs have managed to work really well as they are up untill now, and I see no reason to change it. It might be slow, but thats their way

I totaly agree! Plus it would speed up the game dev process.

Because its their "baby".

Dan,

Well for sure this is their "baby". But 3 member development team its a well non usual. Thats why they are making this game whole those years... And maybe I wrote this thread because I want it so much to be a completed fully funcional with awsome DX10 graphics

It is fully complete and functional as is, even more so than some finished "full" versions that other software houses curn out.

The fact that its a 3 man "indie" dev team is what sets LFS apart from the also-rans.

Dan,

Of course, anybody who wants to do his share to feel what's needed to make LFS a little better already, can freely do so. Like Becky for example (and others too, just don't know names atm) has made some higher res concrete and curb textures, or Kid and Don have made some higher res sky textures. The devs don't have anything against it, but they chose to keep those things unofficial which I personally think is a good approach. This way, nobody can blame them if an addon is crap or causes problems and thus they don't have to dedicate their time to it. And anybody who wants to try out those addons can do so, but at own risk. I think it's good that way

It's not going to happen because the devs have stated they don't want anybody else involved in the development.
To me that's fine, but I wouldn't consider it a bad thing when stuff made by the community would end up in LFS, considering the devs would ultimately have quality control.
I have seen some great stuff made by community members that would look great in LFS. I'm mainly talking about textures and stuff like that. Ofcourse you can put it in yourself, but It would be nice if it would be in the official release so people who are not aware of the stuff would have it as well.
But, like I said, it's not going to happen

Quote from W1LLSD4D :

The Devs don't want to work like that. End of story.

yep. the thread however will run for longer and longer...

Whats the rush? Why get it finished as quickly as possible? We are all "developing" it in a way, so why not just enjoy this?

Quote from Fordman :

Whats the rush? Why get it finished as quickly as possible? We are all "developing" it in a way, so why not just enjoy this?

Fully agree. I won't like the development to come to an end, it'll be quite depressing.

I agree with Linsen and would like to get one step further...
if the Devs would "outsource" elements of the game,
..they would need to take over responsibility for things they didn't create..
..they would need to to "manage" other teams, than just themselves...(timely aspects, quality....etc)
...and since we are paying for what we get (I feel its an excellent package for us though), maybe they just want to make sure, they have their hands on alle elements, to deliver value for money....

don't get me wrong, I know, that there are a lot of talented guys out there, willing to help, but it ain't easy, i guess...

and as also stated... I also enjoy, watching this sim evolving and getting better...it's something you don't see often....

Why do you make the assumption that bringing in a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers (however talented) would speed up the development process ?

IMO it would do exactly the opposite !

The more people are in a team, the larger percentage of each persons time has to be devoted to communicating with, synchronising with and arguing with the rest of the team. As a team grows, the complexity of managing the project tends to grow exponentially. Who would be organizing this mess ? Scawen Eric and Victor thats who - so instead of devoting most of their time to developing their fine product, they would have to do a huge bunch of extra admin and quality control not to mention political and diplomatic work as their minions start to bicker about why X got to do this while Y only gets to do that ?
illepall
What happens when a volunteer misses a deadline, and the whole community starts to wibble and explode ? Would you put your career/future/livelyhood on the line and trust some peeps you don't know and who you're not even paying to do the work?

No thanks

Part of the reason that LFS is SOOOO good is because of the development process that Scavier have used - do you really want to change that?
I don't, I think they are doing a fine job the way things are

My opinion on the "finish S2" topic is I don't want it finished. We get regular updates when there is something to be updated. If it is finished, that just means that we all have to shell out another ~$24 (US) to expand to S3. Not that it is a problem shelling out another $24 for the next stage, and the devs definitly deserve it, but I think there is still alot of stuff Scawen and company would like to do for S2. This goes beyond textures and simple stuff. I think we are in for quite a few more updates yet before S2 moves to the beta stage.

To the point in allowing the community to help out with some of the texturing, tracks, cars, etc (not meaning mods mind you), the problem would be most of the devs time would be taken up with reading emails and posts stating "check out my track texture! Can you use it?" rather than working on their own work. Wow, that was a long sentence. I hope the English grammatical police don't get me with that one, hehehe.

The "unofficial" textures and stuff that folks are doing is great for the community. Perhaps if Eric is stuck on something, he would ask the individuals for it . For example, the sky textures. Other than that, I'm sure the devs don't want to be bothered with every Tom, Dick, and Harry (and Jane as well) sending them stuff to look at to see if it can be added.

Having the community get involved is a genuinely good idea. However, getting involved doesn't necessarily mean getting involved in everything, it could be as simply as handing some of the jobs to the volunteer members without being hampered by the disadvantages of a big dev team.

Quote from wE1l :

Having the community get involved is a genuinely good idea. However, getting involved doesn't necessarily mean getting involved in everything, it could be as simply as handing some of the jobs to the volunteer members without being hampered by the disadvantages of a big dev team.

The extra work in administrating "handing some of the jobs to" other people IS the main disadvantage of a big dev team - that doesn't get better because they are volunteers, it gets worse.

Quote from col :

Why do you make the assumption that bringing in a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers (however talented) would speed up the development process ?

IMO it would do exactly the opposite !

The more people are in a team, the larger percentage of each persons time has to be devoted to communicating with, synchronising with and arguing with the rest of the team. As a team grows, the complexity of managing the project tends to grow exponentially. Who would be organizing this mess ? Scawen Eric and Victor thats who - so instead of devoting most of their time to developing their fine product, they would have to do a huge bunch of extra admin and quality control not to mention political and diplomatic work as their minions start to bicker about why X got to do this while Y only gets to do that ?
illepall
What happens when a volunteer misses a deadline, and the whole community starts to wibble and explode ? Would you put your career/future/livelyhood on the line and trust some peeps you don't know and who you're not even paying to do the work?

No thanks

Part of the reason that LFS is SOOOO good is because of the development process that Scavier have used - do you really want to change that?
I don't, I think they are doing a fine job the way things are

Col, what you said absolutely hits the nail smack bang in the centre of its proverbial head!

Tim

Quote from t1ger :

Col, what you said absolutely hits the nail smack bang in the centre of its proverbial head!

:iagree: