That sounds like a different kettle of fish to what's going on in the LFSLazy thread. Maybe pinging the devs an email might be a good starting point to see what they think about that idea, before you sink too much more time into it.
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The classic cheats (speedhacks, ghosting etc.) were so easy to detect in LFS such that it was enough of a deterrent in most cases. I think you're right that the current community is built on trust, and with it being so tightly knit, I think that helps.
There have been cases in the not so distant past where people have been using cheats in high profile events, but once you cheat and are caught, your name is tainted and it takes a long time for you to be accepted or trusted again: either a) you work hard to build your reputation back up, or b) the people who knew you were a cheater move on.
If LFS' player base were to grow again, we might see more people cheating, but I think we're in a comfortable place with this issue at the moment that it isn't really something we see discussed anymore.
The technical limitation for us right now is the time it takes for the replay to spool to an event when you choose a timestamp. This problem is exacerbated in longer races with many cars. Any solution relies on 2+ LFS clients for this feature to work reliably during live broadcasts, and is non-trivial.
Last night's E-Challenge had 14 cars attend out of 40 signups, and it was only the second round (of five). We're grateful to those who turned up and raced, and they gave us a great show, but we are left wondering what happened to the other 2/3rds of the entries... 😔
Intro videos are still a thing, and maybe you could think about making something like that once the new version is imminent, but a music player doesn't really need to be a priority anymore in-game I don't think, for the reasons Martin raised. The only time I use the radio feature anymore is for nostalgia purposes to play 303forever
There are plenty of recent news articles showing that progress is happening, and the reasons for why we don't have access to those updates yet are well documented too. If you, and "the others" can't see past that, then you're painting yourself with the same brush as the reviewers we're talking about.
If people laugh at you because you used to play LFS, it sucks, but that's on them. I don't think it's fair to lay all of the blame at the devs feet.
Uninformed reviews do my head in. I can understand the frustration that this one would cause.
"The community keeps bringing new mods, wheel support, VR..." wat...
Even though this review was only short, that sort of thing doesn't help LFS' image at all, and it's quite a wide-spread problem on YouTube, though most of the time it's less obvious than this video.
People who make review videos generally aren't hardcore players, they're casuals who drop by and give their face-value opinion. The problem is when they go into details that they haven't properly researched or articulated.
I started an LFS review (not just a review, more of a showcase/discussion) video about 4 years ago, but I stalled on progress and never finished it. That was mainly because I didn't think it would be worth the effort if it only bounced around the LFS community. Every time I watch a "review" of LFS that gets it wrong, it makes me want to finish it... Maybe this time I will, even if only a handful of non-LFS players watch it. At least it will be based in fact, from a long time fan.
I contacted GridFinder, and they've added LFS and a list of initial classes to choose from, as well as a section for LFS broadcasters to advertise themselves. I'll send them a more thorough class list soon because I only sent them a couple of the base-car classes:
Thanks for bumping this, Tim. Even though this thread pertains to season two at the beginning of 2022, we yet again see a long list of signups for season 3 (~30), but after 3 rounds only 11 of those showed up for round 4, a third of the original signups.
What is going on?
I feel like we've nailed this season of MRcRX, the on-the-day running of the event is 100% slicker than season 2, the format has been refined, you've built 4 mods for the championship and had one endorsed by Saab, you've got 5 real-life rally drivers involved (most of whom turned up today), the advertising on Discord/Twitter has been much better, the broadcast has been as widely advertised as other series, yet the turnout is still poor.
Rallycross is not unpopular in LFS, so where are the people who signed up going, and why are we not seeing more signups in the first place? I struggle to believe we're back into the dark days, but maybe we are.
It's a crying shame that we're seeing such small grids for events like this.