Quote from Intrepid :

I'm sorry, but I've never read so much rubbish in all of my life.

Do you walk into you local shop and berate the shop owners for not decorating or updated their stock? I am willing to bet you've never done that. Why? Because it would be borderline crazy.

Do any forum members realise who stupid they sound telling the developers how to do THEIR jobs for them. If i wanted to know about developing sims who would I rather ask? Scavier - who has created a world leading simulator OR Macfox - some dude on a forum who has never achieved anything close to what Scavier have achieved?

It's exactly like when fans criticise bands for changing their musical direction. As if somehow a band creating music FOR the fans is much more important than creating music that satisfies THEMSELVES.

Am I the only one who sees this because http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG7LjVCj50Y

Not another coffee/shop analogy... Not even going to try and make sense how it could be relevant to the current situation in any twisted sense... Do you own, run or work in a coffee shop perhaps and have a larger issue you'd like to grind us with.

Heaven forbid a customer make a request or a suggestion in the interest of the products success. This is how the real world works. :rolleyes:

Don't generalise. This isn't about technical disciplines that the devs has shown great competence in. This particular aspect of this discussion is more about project management, marketing and customer relations, which isn't unique to LFS and certainly far from an outstanding achievement.

Go ask the devs if you want to know about sim development in particular. I and I'm sure many others would careless.

...oh we got a music band analogy now too.... Sigh

The history was deleted so it's difficult to make sense of what has transpired over the years. Eric has never really participated actively in the forum/community (though clearly he does read occasionally), so it's safe to say it really wasn't the communities making, but a personal decision. The subsequent negativity has probably cemented his decision, based upon the few posts he has made defending his decisions.

It's a sad situation. Rather than being celebrated as a talented graphic artist, which clearly he is, he's become a negative focal point.

Quote from dekojester :

Don't lose the plot - remember what was a big draw for some to this (including me) - it was the great community, the great racing seen, the opportunities to spend your time racing. Enjoy yourselves, you only live once...there's no point in squabbling about whether three men are working or on an island somewhere instead of working on their product. Populate a racing server, make a skin, do a league, banter about your RL car(s).

You make some great points.

The key to resurrecting LFS is fresh content. As with many things in life, people seek new challenges. New content will provide that and stimulate the community so we see more active players, more leagues/comps and all the peripheral activity that follows.

However only the devs can kick start this and holding content updates to ransom, over an indefinite update for physics is counter productive disenfranchising 1000's of players. Trying to simulate the community to return to LFS, without the support of the devs isn't achievable in any practical sense.

Bring forward to content release, players will rejoice, devs will get some income and work on the physics can continue while we have fun.

Quote from Intrepid :

'Withheld'? lol What the hell does that mean?

I guess it hard to appreciate, when you weren't around at the start to participate.

Quote from col :

They did deal with it.

They stopped posting information about what they are working on, except very general info occasionally. Seems like a pretty good way of dealing with it to me ?

If they had kept going like in the early days, they would have a very difficult choice: either Just ignore all the negative feedback, leaving a forum full of criticisms of their game - really bad idea... or take time out of development to answer all the idiots (over and over again) - another really bad idea.

Now, people just criticize them and their development approach. Which is much safer to ignore.

After so many years of their current approach, it is still working for them, so why would they change?

Oh please . You know better Col. When their was regular engagement (from the beginning) with the community, it was positive. Plenty of positive feedback and constructive criticism. Interaction with many dedicated individuals that took time to analyse the games finer details and report back their conclusions/bugs and assist in making improvements. Many addon developers exchanged ideas with Scawen to expose more API's to interface with. Anyone that's been around here long enough know who these people are. I could go on.... All of this has largely disappeared, as LFS stagnated and it's future became unclear. The community has only soured as the devs withdrew from the community.

Overwhelming the negativity in this forum is around development and progress of the game. While there might have been some criticism around parts of the game itself it's only minor. It's the development stagnation that has highlighted the areas of the game that are now dated and subsequently received such criticism. After all it was Scawen who said years ago, "there's nothing to report", when addressing questions about tailing off of progress reports. It was certainly not negative feedback out the game (features/play).

Quote from Intrepid :

People aren't talking about the development, what people are actually doing is moaning about the devs to hide away from their own inadequacies. And no one is talking 'realities'.

There hasn't been any public development in years regarding the tyre model, so there really isn't that much to talk or speculate about. I don't know how clear the developers have to be, but it's fairly obvious changing the tyre model is a mammoth task and can take years, if not decades to get right.... big deal.

Withdrawing from the community and providing essentially empty vague answers on fair questions isn't being frank.

Being frank would be explaining to the community what has transpired, why content is being withheld against an indefinitely milestone.

IMO there's plenty of realities in this thread. Despite the diehards post 07 denouncing those with concerns about the future and that it was totally ridiculous to propose we wouldn't see a major update before 2010, yet here we are now 3 years past that. That's the reality.

Not a big deal to us. Big deal for the devs, it's their livelihoods on the line.

Quote from Intrepid :

...you got these guys starting to state 'how they would do things better and what I did wrong'. To be quite honest it was nothing more than ignorant bollocks because my intentions were perfectly clear and stated from the start. but still "oh i reckon you should have done" "if you did this and changed this then this woulda been better". One thing it didn't do was motivate me in any way shape or form. NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT COMMERCIAL SUCCESS!

I just feel bad for the developers (hence my postings on this thread) whose work process is perfectly fine having to deal with this same old rubbish day in day out on their own bloody forum. We already have sims that do more traditional business models, it's nice to have some variation. And to have guys who won't release rubbish at ANY cost... you have to respect that. If nothing is released.... so what.... at least they gave it a go.

I understand the point about motivation, but not the relevance the LFS development. LFS had an objective, it didn't eventuate and they withdrew from the community to great detriment. That's considerably different to your story where you met your clearly stated objective.

LFS development a fair topic to discuss and how that might be fixed and what the future of LFS is. If you can't talk realities for fear of "upsetting" the apple cart then there's more to worry about.

As for repsect etc...You primarily earn respect for being frank, honest and trustworthy. LFS devs have lost much of that with the stalled releases IMO and it's greatly overshadows their accomplishments to date.

Quote from sinbad :

I haven't mocked anybody afaik, I literally just question why you're making the statements you're making. You've apparently labelled me as a "diehard-stalwart" and if the Santa comment is not an attempt to belittle then I completely missed the point of that statement. You might as well have thrown in the fanboi comment since that's all I infer.

I've answered your question several times btw.

My bad...Sorry... It was Intrepid I was referring to in his post to mdmx. You are correct on your points.

Sigh... Shame on you Intrepid for mocking a 10 year player that cares enough to comment and show interest in the game. It's the typical jack-arse attitude that has eroded this communities standard for too long.

One has to ask, are you happy with LFS and the progress of development?

Last edited by Macfox, Wed, 22 May 2013 01:36. Reason : Fixed reference sinbad ->Intrepid

There's basically no chance of a major release in the near to medium future. Subscribing to such optimism based on the past history is no more fanciful than believing in Santa TBH.

Even if you take all the announced updates and roll it into a release, it will would pale in comparison the the S2 release.

Perhaps when the next release receives a lukewarm reception and they see only a short bounce in interest, it might force them to adopt a more conventional strategy.

Even to support a modest income for 3 devs, they'd have to be selling 200 copies a week to be sustainable and it doesn't appear to be the case in recent times based on LFSWorld stats.

Quote from Scawen :

...

This is absolutely not that Victor and I are wishing Eric would release new content and he is refusing to do so. That is one of the false imaginings from certain people in the community. We want to sort out the tyres then release the VW and then Rockingham and other things as planned.

As I've said, over and over and over again, Eric is working on new content. You just will not believe it. Eric doesn't post here because he doesn't like the way some people take any words we say, twist them round to mean something completely different then hold them against us. And because any minor slip up in our text can lead to years of seemingly personal attacks.

...

With all due respect to Scawen, it's a bit rich being critical of a community that is now largely skeptical given it's has been told one thing and then another over several years. Describing it as minor is a understatement. There has never been any real answers to the bulk of question surrounding content freeze. Just the same short answers from years ago.

Regardless of Eric's dislike of the forum community, his participation is necessary to restore credibility and trust, even if in a joint statement. If they want the community's trust and belief (other than a few diehard stalwarts) it has to be earnt and words alone aren't going to cut it after 5 years.

Quote from sinbad :

The trouble is that the longer the silence the more any kind of announcement will be leaped on by everyone, and it won't be "Hooray, can't wait!" or positive vibes like that, it will be "Is that it?!" "What about my request for blah blah blah?!!" etc etc.

I think that if they do release anything there should be no announcement till it's out because people typically suck.

That's the approach at the moment and it's really become a bad joke to be honest.

The fear of making any announcements/status updates and destroying interest/credibility 'cos they change, is really bogus. That is what has happened anyway. That's why I don't buy the that line.

Jerry Springer?

The irony is, the lack of evidence, is the (compelling) evidence. The fact even minor interior models and textures haven't materialize in years is unexplainable.

I don't think anyone here claimed their opinion is fact. Eric is probably a really nice guy in RL. It's unfortunate what has transpired. Things got off on the wrong foot and spiraled out of control. Only he can fix this situation. That said...What I do know and he made very clear to me was, he doesn't care what anyone here thinks (based on rather blunt PM I received some time ago.) So I think nothing will change sadly for him and LFS.

LFS's future is a real mystery. It really deviated from the typical indie path of success and very much done the opposite of what everyone expected. The devs disengaged, went underground and let the best parts of the community wither away and become disenfranchised with the game.

Constructive criticism
To me it seems the blinkers are very much on. Stuck in their own view, head down, ignorant to the realities. You'd think they'd stop and consider for a moment the state of the game and how they can change that. Take pause. Establish if all the devs on the same page. Get some feedback (survey) from the community (past and present players) and demonstrate they are serious about the future of this game and want it to be a viable prospect to support their lives/families/aspirations.

Last edited by Macfox, Sat, 18 May 2013 02:11.

Had a quick look and found this post. Can't find the original this post references. Will have another look later.

https://www.lfsforum.net/showt ... php?p=1764249#post1764249

I think this is the one. Long time ago. I vaguely remember another along similar lines.

https://www.lfsforum.net/showt ... ighlight=Eric#post1390254

Last edited by Macfox, Fri, 17 May 2013 08:31.

Quote from sinbad :

It's hard to make any sense of it all. Like tve says, there are clearly lots of things we aren't all aware of, and there is obviously no way that the three of them have been working on lfs full time for the last decade.

Scawen has said that he took a break a while back and hasn't been working full time and also stated he's lost much motivation, since hitting the wall on the tyre issue. Fair enough. It's a huge challenge. It was nice to see the decision to look at other area's of the game, like netcode. It was much welcomed and made a noticeable difference for the bulk of players.

Victors always been active. Consistently doing tweaks and updates. Where their a feature gap or an improvement he's been there and fixed /added it.

Eric's status is pretty much unknown and always has been. It was really never an issue, until content development stalled the the current stuff just got stale. The resulting focus on him unfortunately boiled over ( a couple of times) and words were exchanged (all deleted now) and players banned. It's created a perception of him , that is probably quite wrong, given his limited interaction with the community/players. It would be hard to accept Scawen and Victor working in such a team if Eric it it were true.

That said Scawen as the defecto representative hasn't really spoken on the topic. Only vaguely. I think many will understand his reluctance to speak for Eric, but there does appear to be some issue/problem that is withholding various content releases that are independent of the tyre physics. It's a real mystery and it's a big negative of LFS progressing.

The best way to deal with these wankers is to setup the server so it's not visible on the master-list. Then use a third party mechanism to distribute server address to trusted parties.

It's a hassle, but that's what we used to do years back when you got idiots trying to upset a race.

That's a hard issue to fix if you must see the wheel. It's a trade off. More immersion vs practicality.

Time will tell if this is an real issue, or it's something you can get comfortable with. Personally I don't think it would be an issue ( used an OR yet), but everyone different.

I'd imagine many will have a conventional screen setup on top of the OR , so if it implemented with a split PoV, you can lift the OR and keep driving.

Less servers the better as it will concentrate players. 420 servers for 64 players is a waste of money and resources.

I think it was said sometime ago there was conservatively speaking at least 100K licenses. Presumably that info came from LFS world, but actual licenses isn't published AFAIK. But it seems reasonably right based on total players and the demo/license ratio of 7:1. Right now using the same calculation it would be about 165K licenses.

Translates into (right now)

0.04% active licensed players. (80)
0.02% active demo players. (184)



If anyone actually knows the license count (historically) it would be interesting to compare.

Quote from Byku :

Read some of Scawen's answers to different posts recently, he seems bitter :/.

That's the real tragedy of the situation. Scawen admitted he lost inspiration/motivation sometime ago and that's understandable given the difficulty of the task he's set for himself. Not much word on that since.

If only they would decouple the no content until physics are finished policy, LFS would turn around. What is there to lose at this stage? More players, more positive community/forum, more excitement about this once celebrated game and surely a boost dev inspiration and motivation, not to mention the cash-flow.

Quote from Ingolf :

The facts show the popularity is now in comparison to 2005-06 (regarding online activity) and I did not see anybody saying it was dead back then. On the contrary.

The make up of those numbers are vastly different today, keeping in mind LFS is a racing game.

Put it simply, if you can't see the massive deterioration in the games popularity, then you've got your head in the sand. It would be pointless debating any other points with such a naive position.

I care less for those that use labels/stereotypes or personal insults/attacks in their posts. Doesn't add anything to the credibility of the point (maker) and really shows what this forum has boiled down to. I guess it excusable for some that weren't around from the start to appreciate that and many other aspects the game has lost over the years. But don't let that get in the way of your self cultured views/points.

Last edited by Macfox, Sat, 20 Apr 2013 02:10.

Absolutely, who doesn't want more LFS. If vs When.

Don't like the topic, then find another one. No one is forcing to participate.