Quote from Dethred :

And since the langauge pack there hasn't been 500 actual racers online each time I checked. I have this weird feeling that if they used an ENGLISH WEBSITE to purchase the product, knowing the game was primarily in ENGLISH, then maybe they got along fine before the language pack... But I guess we have unplayable single player, and sparse multiplayer, but at least japanese players can read the text when waiting hours for a multiplayer game and have their opponents in SP run out of fuel. Communication just doesn't seem as important as the actual gameplay problems.

Actually I know for a fact that LFS is also sold via a japanese website by Japanese enthusiests, so it is very likely that quite a few of those 500 registered japanese users don't speak english

Quote from Nick_ll :

Boosterfire's room is approximately 2 meters away from mine and I can talk to him in person if I want. (and what he explained in person).

Had you mentioned that in your first reply I would have read your comments differently I guess we can all be a bit clearer at times... anyway I just happened to quote Boostfire as he was the last one to post a message in that vain of thought in this current thread, I wasn't meaning to pick his out specifically and I was mainly wanting to comment on the first paragraph (which was following on from someone else's reply about progress reports) in his reply not so much the last (which was about more frequent patches) I should have been clearer I will be next time

And as for interpreting Scawen wrong, that is possible, but I think it wouldn't be too far off the mark... I base that not just on one quote but all the comments he has made and the comments of others over the last several months. I've personally been on both sides myself, worked for several different companies as an employee, and have run several different businesses where I'm my own boss.

The beauty of working for yourself is that you can arrange work around your life, not life around your work (it has far more flexibility than being an employee) it doesn't mean self employed people don't work as hard (generally they work harder because they reap the direct rewards) it's just they can choose when to work... and what I was meaning is that with regular progress reports, the developers would inadvertently be making their intentions for the coming weeks work public which then creates heightened expectation which would then lead to a loss of flexibility in being able to arrange work around their lives... thereby loosing one of the primary advantages of being self employed

Last edited by B2B@300, Wed, 21 Dec 2005 03:42.

Quote from Nick_ll :

I absolutely don't see where he suggests anything as such. What the devs escaped is the big money standard game production business model where you get a bunch of 40 people working on a game with financing for the time allowed to produce the game (which is why there is a deadline).

What Boost suggests is essentially to make small patches of one feature alone (no matter how small that feature may be) just to calm the unhappy part of the community down. And if you ask me it sort of makes sense cause it would most likely calm down people who want new stuff quicker.

Your free to disagree but I guess we all interpret things differently so discussion is always a good thing

My comments weren’t aimed at Boostfire specifically...

Unfortunately while the suggestion Boostfire and others make is made with good intentions I see it leading to segments of the community expecting and putting pressure on the developers to go in certain directions, it's just the nature of the beast ... which probably does nothing but dampen their enthusiasm for the tuff job that they have already undertaken and it would definitely lead them away from their stated goals of

Quote from Scawen :

The design decisions and direction are led by interest, our ideas and experiments and also influenced a lot by requests and ideas from the community.

and what I was originally alluding to is that if that happens it would be no different than working in a large corporation, because they would then have to do things based on other considerations other than "what they find interesting at the time" wether the "other considerations" is financial or people demanding a fix in a certain time frame for a certain problem

Anyway there's a saying goes something like this "You can't please all of the people all of the time!, at best you'll only please some of the people most of the time..." so I think it would be a huge waste of energy to constently seek out the unhappy segments and try and keep them happy - it's better that they just pursue their goals and dreams for the sim and those that like it and believe in it will remain some will not remain though and that would happen regardless of what they do

Quote from Scawen :

BTW, if anyone asks me for more detailed answers, i won't give any. Nothing's clear until i've coded up several testing mechanisims, tyre test rigs and so on when i get back on the case with the physics.

Code tyre test rigs that sounds very interesting would allow comparisons to real world test data I would guess or at least testing the sim tyres in a controlled environment...

Have a great xmas Scawen, Victor and Eric and see you in the new year! It sounds like a year full of promise

Last edited by B2B@300, Mon, 19 Dec 2005 11:17.

Quote from boosterfire :

Simple opinion.

How would that work no one seems to listen to what Scawen says as it is now or at least they twist it to what they want too hear rather than what he is actually saying what your suggesting is a structure not much different to what they initially escaped from

Anyway from where I stand there pretty much isn't a week that goes by where I don't know what he is doing... he almost always leaves some clue to what he is doing in various threads around the forum it's just most are too impaitent and don't seem to comprehend just how long it takes to do some things

I think we should be more like NotAnIllusion said "More racin' less complainin' "

Quote from Blowtus :

I have a vague suspicion in lfs it would come down to the same problem as the rwd's, just reversed, because the driven wheels are pointing into the corner, rather than out of.

And that is exactly what I'm thinking and I'm pretty sure it is exhibited in the GTi with most types of setup's even in S1 it would do that before locked diff's and large rear ARB's were popular although the ARB setting and locked diff probably amplify the tendency...

Last edited by B2B@300, Fri, 16 Dec 2005 02:40.

Quote from Blowtus :

did your old man's mini have a locked dif and large anti roll bar at the rear?

Hm definately not locked diff what nutter would use a locked diff in RL and as for the large antiroll bar I couldn't say (will ask him though) but I'm pretty sure you get the oversteer characteristic on full power corner exit even without those settings...

[edit] Just remembered to talk to my old man about his mini setup It was setup with 10" slicks and many suspenion mods for camber and caster as well as stabalizer bars, so he did infact have a stabilizer bar at the rear. What I forgot to ask him was about the diff setup will ask him next time ... [/edit]

Last edited by B2B@300, Sat, 11 Feb 2006 12:59.

I've since read in these forums (can't remember who said it and too lazy to look up now ) and also from RL sources that FWD cars shouldn't exhibit oversteer characteristics under acceleration out of corners... and thats exactly what you can set the XF GTi up to be like I also remembered more to the story about my old man and racing the mini which makes perfect sense now when he sold it the next several owners were not able to come to terms with the exit from corners and the massive understeer at full power! (raced with slicks on hard "bituman like" dirt surfaces) They would end up just driving the damn thing straight up the bank of the speedway track and I also remember my old man stating (he owns LFS S2 also but doesn't race online ) that the FWD cars don't behave like he thought they should... he's reason was that with the mini his techneque in getting around the speedway fast was a fast entry into the corner, a couple blips of the throttle and at the same time tucking the nose into the corner, expecting and allowing for understeer on exit and flooring it out of the corner, so in effect he was on full power more than he's RWD competitors... He didn't feel these characteristics of FWD cars where exhibited well in LFS (I say this without bias as FWD cars are what I drive most in LFS, I know, I know there girls cars )
So in conclusion I think at the moment the FWD have it too easy on the exit of corners where it should be at a disadvatage to the XR GT... if that was solved the power issues would be irrelevent imho
P.s. corner exit speed affects end of straight speed also so that balance will change back to the GT's favour to I think

Last edited by B2B@300, Fri, 16 Dec 2005 02:08.

This thread should answer you question

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=676

Quote from dontsimon :

Unless they give up all life outside of LFS and become 24hr LFS robots.

[Humour]Ah! That gives me an idea maybe Scawen should not spend anytime on AI programming for drivers and instead develop some AI progammers Imagine LFS distributed to 1000's of PC's with AI programming modules all programming the next release of LFS while we play LFS Hey and if they did this they could also have time to race with us and live normal lives I'm sure their girlfriends will like the idea LOL[/Humour]

Have a nice Chistmas and/or holidays all

Last edited by B2B@300, Thu, 15 Dec 2005 02:41.

Quote from axus :

No, it was started by the lack of thought in the first post. You think that the devs are shallow people who are just here for the money and we are just here for the finished product. Maybe you _should_ really **** off now and stop thinking you are one with a new idea here... this is a periodic thing - every 2 months or so, we get a new thread like this.

Yep I'd have to agree with Axus here, although I'm quite alot more tolerant than Axus (he's young and impetueous ) I'm sure given time he'll mellow like us oldies and I also agree the second post didn't make the situation any better, but like you or your friends said of the developers "if you market a product to the public you'd better be ready for some critisim" well the same can be said of expressing your views publicly... we all (including myself) need to take critisim in a non-personal way as Falkowski83 rightly pointed out (i.e. spit out the bones)

As for the first post I'd even go further and say that you were conveying the wrong message right from when you thought up the tittle of the thread But as I said I for one, as I know most others will overlook that as your not a native english speaker, lets move on... as Falkowski83 said peace hey I've stomped on plenty of toes around here and english is all I speak

Great Shaun it's working from what you have said I'd say that one or more of the important files in the original directory has become corrupted most likely by the installing and uninstalling of the mods...

When installing anything new (i.e. new patch or mod) to LFS it would be good practise to backup the entire directory or at least all except skins and skins-x folders then if it stuffs up you can restore it from the backup and your away again

Quote from Falkowski83 :

Yes. I never said I was the owner of the truth (wich I am not). Nor a fortune teller. I know I may be wrong. And so all of you also may be wrong.

Well, you know that our mother language is portuguese. Personally, I'm fluent in English, as some of my friends that posted here. We are putting the ideas over and over because there are people (not Scawen) who just seem to distort our initial ideas and put things in our mouths that we didn't say. Understanding what we mean seems to be a really difficult thing to some members of this message board, and I believe that I was cristal clear in every post I made.

And this is where it all started... the first several posts come across as quite arrogant and demanding to english speaking people (regardless of their intent) so unfortunately that had set the tone for the rest of the thread And I'll just be brutally honest here, while you come accross as fluent in English, I'm afraid your friends don't, so I think there would have been quite alot of misuderstanding going on especially in the area of tone and intent...

This is indeed a recurring problem between international communications (it's hard enough between native english speaking countries at times let alone countries where english is not the first language )

Having said that people also make assumptions about each other all too easily (it's very easy to apply labels rather than understand people) this goes for all parties in the discusion including myself... you will find that many of us who defend LFS strongly also see it's problems just as clearly as others, but it's just we have a different perspective of those problems than some, that's all

Last edited by B2B@300, Tue, 13 Dec 2005 04:11.

ok Shuan you just have to go through a process of elimination to determine what it is thats causing your problems..
Some steps I'd suggest for your situation are;

1. Install S2 Alpha P in a seperate new folder (not in the same as your current installation) and see if it runs (don't use your desktop shortcut, run it directly) If it doesn't run goto 3.

2. If it runs fine unpgrade the new instillation to Patch Q and see if it still runs fine (if it's working create a new desktop shortcut and your away, your old installation directory must have got compromised)

3. Ok so far if it is still not working we've determined that a clean instilation of LFS doesn't work were it did before on your machine, if thats the case something has changed in your machine since that original time that is causing LFS problems now. The question is what? To find this we need to continue to eliminate possible causes..

4. At this point I'd suggest opening your case and just check for dust build up inside (as we are coming into summer and you've stated that your machine is overclocked) any buildup of dust around heat sinks will significantly reduce the ability of them to keep your PC cool as it acts as insulation... also while the cover is off I'd suggest checking that all fans are operating correctly.

5. Put all your CMOS BIOS settings back to a normal state and test LFS again.

6. Ok if you get to this point its most likely confilcting software or drivers. I actually wouldn't recommend updating to newer drivers yet because your system was working previously with these drivers (updating to new drivers can just complicate things as they can bring new problems)... it is possible that drivers have become corrupt, so reinstalling drivers can correct that. Make sure you restart after reinstalling before you test if there is any change.. Also reapplying SP2 and Directx...

Anyway try these steps and let us know how you get along...

If you've still got a problem we can look into it more, again though the more you can tell us about the more likely someone will be able to help
It's always better to test one thing at a time (yes it's time consuming ) so you don't end up chasing your tail...

Last edited by B2B@300, Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:17.

Quote from Scawen :

Well said

If you guys have made any error, I'd hate to say it but it is you are too familiar with the community an old saying goes "familiarity breads contempt" and it appears to be true today as much as in the past unfortunately...

Quote from Falkowski83 :

Here is where you are completely wrong bud. The developers MUST listen to us. WE are CUSTOMERS. We PAID for a PRODUCT.

If you bother to read the blurb at the point of sale before you purchased you could not be mistaken what you are buying it's stated very clearly illepall do you sign contracts of purchase regularly without reading the disclosures? certainly doesn't sound like a good business man talking

Does sound like a serious problem.. but for folks to help you, you will have to get specific (i.e. computer hardware specs and software such as operating system, antivirus software and any other software you might have running at the time) also try remember what changes you might have made or someone else made around the time it started to occur.. (thats any changes even if you think they are unrelated to LFS) basically the more specific you are the more likely someone will be able to help

Quote from noemfie :

The way I see it ....

If LFS was developed using a normal business model we would not have heard anything about LFS until about 6 months or so before its final release (in this case 2008-2009) .The game would have been released and people who liked it would have bought it . Using the current model we pay to be part of a process and play a game while its still being developed , we have this cool opportunity to shape LFS into what the Sim community need and wants . Lets compare LFS to other sims when S3 Final is released in the coming years

nah thats where your wrong m8 if it followed a traditional business model it would be more like the TOCA Race Driver serries which are upto about the 3rd release i believe at A$89.90 a pop for each "new" game when it's first released and support thats non existent for the same old same old illepall

Quote from rAcEr2418 :

So for me, I would love updates and news more often, but right now, I can wait - and am having the time of my life!!

Good on ya m8 and welcome to LFS I'm sure you'll still love it in another six months... the only time I feel down about LFS is when I read some of the sugestions (read complaining) that are made all other times it's just great fun and everytime I get a good close scrap I forget about all else there is nothing like racing other humans after you've experienced that who would ever want to race computer opponents again

Quote from Vendetta :

Well, BBO you better hope scawen is still making LFS when hes 54

Well m8 I'll be 58 then and don't think my interest in all things motor sport will have wained much (my old mans still a petrol head at 68 ) so if Scawen and Co are still keen I'll be infact I should be retired by then and have more time now what could I do with more time

Quote from Speed Soro :

I have my own bussines here. For sometimes I decided to work alone, and that was not a good idea.

Let the others do 90% and take care of the 10% remnant. That is the way to do things before the world ends...

Well I'd say quite a few of us have had or have our own businesses here, and there is many ways to approach a business depending what your goals are... which I thought Scawen explained very well, so you have your view he has his, and I guess history will show if Scawens goals are achieved.

Manytimes it is as businesses tries to expand that the original vision and zeal are lost, when you hire many people that don't necessarily share the same vision as the original founders...(not to mention the extra overheads and pressures of expansion) you are right in saying to aggressively attack the market place requires a different approach, but Scawen has already stated that is not one of his goals, his goals are to produce a quality racing game/sim and enjoy the process at the same time... and I for one think it is a good goal... will that ever make LFS the top selling Sim? I serriously dought it... but that want stop me from supporting and enjoying this great game/sim for as long as they care to continue with its development...

P.s. you are allowed to have and play other sims/games also so why must you insist this be the ultimate racing sim? enjoy it and any others that might come along also...

Last edited by B2B@300, Mon, 12 Dec 2005 10:54.

The way the Developers are choosing to work is the very reason I have been hooked on this sim and will remain hooked on it for "as long as it takes"

Many aspects of a racing sim are very complex to simulate (i.e. engineer's of many types; in universities, tyre companies and vehical manufacturing plants spend many millions of dollars trying to develop good simulated tyre models with Supercomputers! and still come up short of perfect and they aren't even attempting to do it in real time...) Scawen is doing a very good job with tyres considering he's only got the average users PC to work with, which is maybe like a 2Ghz processor many developers of games would be extremly tempted to take shortcuts (which under cirtain circumstances may feel like real to life physics but are in actual fact just quick fix shortcuts) but the LFS team chooses to do it right which will take much time and thats only one aspect...

Currently I would guess segmants of the physics would have to be approximated and this is the area that needs "plenty of experimantation and testing" to get that approximation to fit real life data as best as possible with the limited computer power available to them

The reality is as we go along computers will get more powerful (another 10 years and the average user will have PC's as powerful as today's supercomputers at least ) so at that time they will be able to simulate aspects of physics they just aren't able to at the current time because of lack of CPU grunt so indeed it could be a job for life if they want it

Can't wait for the version of LFS that will be available in 20 years time it probaly have the friction of the tyre being calculated in real time at the molecular level where the tyre is interacting with the individual stones and voids in the raod surface (hey you look how far we've come since the mid 80's anythings possible)

[Disclaimer] This is just my view of things, I'm not an expert but love being a Jack of all trades [/Disclaimer]

Well my old man used too race speedway here in Australia in the 70's and he raced in a Mini Cooper S obviously worked against competitors racing in six cylinder fuel injected Holden Torana (light car powerfull motor RWD) and many types of RWD V8's with large fats and on most tracks exept the ovels with long straights he used to wip there asses so it is possible for FWD cars to be fast even in real life he just was able to use the power he had available to the max where his competitors couldn't it did take certain skill to drive in that manner though, this became obvious when he sold the car, because the next several owner's couldn't repeat the feat

But having said that I think we probably have the luxury of infinite setup peramaters in alot of areas we just wouldn't in real life for similar categories.. I don't think it's buggy physics as much as it's a confidence difference between FWD and RWD as Majik said.. I find in FWD cars in LFS you can overdrive without much consequence where the RWD if you overdirve them it punishes you more... I actually believe the physics are pretty close to spot on except where the tyres are in a state of skidding... I personally believe that this is due to it being very dificult to simulate the hystereis nature of rubber and friction at a molecular level as it slides accross the road surface and interacts with it (i.e. it would need a supercomputer ) and therefore has to be approximated somehow... but I'm no physics expert so could be totally wrong in that assumtion but thats another thread anyway

[Edit] One thing I do notice on graphed data curves representing the coeficient of friction that real data shows high frequencey oscilations at the curve extremities where all computer simulated curves I've seen so far are rather smooth approximations of these curves[/Edit]

Last edited by B2B@300, Sun, 11 Dec 2005 16:41.

Quote from Doorman :

:doh: Now they know where you live and the polis will come knocking on your door!

It was a typo he meant to say private

Bawbag is it getting hotter than it used too? (i.e. fan may have stopped working in case ) Do you have hardware monitoring which tells you the temp, failing that take the lid off and touch the cpu, gpu and any other heat sinks and see if you burn yourself and visually check all fans are working...

Last edited by B2B@300, Fri, 9 Dec 2005 02:15.

Bummer to hear ur still having drama's well my guess is from what you've said its not LFS but something else with your hardware/software..
Have you changed anything else about 2 weeks ago? (i.e. driver for anything printer, modem, video, game controller, etc or have you installed any new hardware or software)

I had LFS (and whole PC) crashing everytime I went online, but at intermittent intervals, this was after I had done a major PC upgrade though.. and I spent about 2 or 3 weeks going around in circles trying to find the problem (thinking it was memory or motherboard related) only too finaly work out it was an incompatible modem driver causing the problem in my old modem once I updated the driver it was all fine again..

Last edited by B2B@300, Fri, 9 Dec 2005 02:12.

RichardTrowler thx for taking the time to review LFS and giving it some exposure on your website.. Look forward to future reviews when S2 final is released as I respect your opinions even if mine differ somewhat as they say any exposure is good publicity even if its not what we want exactly...

Axus take a chill pill your not only telling Richard how to do his job but now your also instructing Scawen what is good for him and LFS life doesn't always go the way we want it too you'll learn this no dought as you go along

I'm sure Scawen has gone to bed many a night thinking what is best for LFS and has a strategy in mind for getting to his goals... and if that coincides with what we want as individuals great otherwise tuff shit happens

[Edit] P.s. I think it takes guts to write such an article and then show up here and defend it kudos for that..
And Axus I'm not trying to offend you here either I respect and like you as a person and fellow racer but think your perspective along with some others is getting abit out of wack, but thats just an opinion feel free to take it or leave it [/Edit]

Last edited by B2B@300, Tue, 6 Dec 2005 13:32.

Quote from STROBE :

So basically what would interest me most is a kind of "half way house": a server that runs longer races, but on a (automated?) schedule so they're much more regular than a weekly/fortnightly league event. For example, a server that:

- starts the cycle at the top of the hour with 10 mins free practice / messing about
- at ten past the hour, 20 mins qualifying.
- at half past, the race starts, which would last for 20-25 mins.

With no mid-race join and all the other n00b-unfriendly measures switched on, the racing would be cleaner but still accessible to all. Each week, it could change to a different car class / track combo, run that for a week, then change again, etc. And by sticking to an hourly schedule, once you know what that schedule is then you don't have to worry about missing the start of the next race if you go and make a drink/snack as is often the case on a public server running sprint races.

I like the idea and it has been brought up before.. but IIRC it would need some insim programmer to make a program to do it and there isn't one available at the moment as far as I know but If someone was to make such a programme I would sponser a server to run like that