Quote from JohnPenn :

The Solstice is a great drive,Doesn't have the HP to mask errors which is part of the reason why I like it, an honest drive that lets the driver shine.

BTW yesterday I was doing some offline testing with it, and it came back to me that the thing I like the most about the Solstice is its throttle steer-ability.

Corners are all about being able to induce just so much oversteer at the correct time to exit the turn beautifully. Give a bit more throttle and you're drifting her ass along, a bit less and you risk understeer. I love that!

Quote from TAYLOR-MANIA :

but it's totally unfounded to declare LFS dead when so many people are still using it, is it not ?

Then you could say GP Legends is not dead as well, because a lot of people play it today.

To that, I'll reply the GPL community is not dead, but there's no denying the sim itself is just going through a looong afterlife.

Of course, LFS is still not dead in the GPL sense, but every day that passes without the much needed updates, makes it evident that LFS is growing outdated and that the other sims are leaving it behind.

New players are increasingly less interested in the accuracy of the simulation and more in the gaming aspects of the experience. But LFS' stated objective is to be accurate and lifelike as possible. This divergence is interpreted by some as 'LFS dying'

There's only one man who can turn the tide, but the more it takes to deliver the goods, the harder will be to do the feat.

Quote from Ingolf :

"Poker is dead, I've played it so many times I'm really bored of it" = Poker is dead!

Your comparison would only be correct if someone said that simracing is dead.

Quote from Ingolf :

about 8-10 drivers that were doing the low class (spontaneous) races / day.

The lower classes are limited in the number of cars that can be fielded. Off the top of my mind, this limit is 12 for the SOlstice and 16 for the SRF.

So if there are 60 players registered to the same race, they are split in what would be 4-5 pools in LFS.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

Though I wish it was the GXP/Turbocharged version.

Yup it would be nice having the additional 80 odd HPs. However they're not going to give the Solstice much space to stretch her muscles, just 2 tracks in rotation. It's like they're saying 'move over'.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I'm wondering if iRacing is nervous about modelling forced induction;

Maybe it's just another of those problems they prefer to face later rather than sooner.

Quote from Gnomie :

The power steering really kills the FFB fidelity of the Solstice in my opinion.

No arguing about that, it's really sedated. I wonder why they don't just dump the power steering IRL as well?

And in this specific case I wouldn't mind if they were to throw a bit of realism out of the window and just remove it from the virtual version.

Summer is doing you good pik, you are so much more optimistic

As far as I'm concerned he was <plonk>-ed when his post count was still a two-digit figure. I'm surprised when I see people still reply to him.

Quote from JPeace :

My honest opinion is that the release will be in the near future.

"In the near future we are all dead"

Quote from Dajmin :

(can't justify the price of a G25/27)

The G25 was only 150 € before it was phased out of inventories. While a DFGT can be had for almost half the price, that was still a bargain IMO.

If you're lucky you might still find one lying around in some offline shop.

Quote from Timo1992 :

for germans the Virtual Racing e.V. would be an alternative

http://forum.virtualracing.org/

When I saw the nearly empty Scirocco Cup child board, it reminded me of the naive days when we all thought Scirocco would have had its own server on CTRA.

Quote from R34GTR :

Will probably just whore the Solstice for a few days,

Incidentally, I wonder why there's so much hate against the Solstice. Ok the front looks too much like a Micra (the Opel GT is sexier), but it's a great learning/momentum car and fun to drive on twisty tracks. It sure lacks oomph but makes up with a nice enough growl so you know she's not just mucking around on those straights.

Anybody feels the same?

1.1 Final Update 2 is out!

Changelog:

- Fixed crash on AMD CPUs not supporting SSE2 set
- Overall performance improvement due to better handling of collision detection
- Fixed one case of wrong direction of tyre force vectors, generated at combined levels of slip
- Fixed bump stops slowing down movement during suspension extension (should be noticeable on curbs)
- Added support for loading cameras from 3d parties tracks (via KTO file)
- Added support to export/import cameras in KOFLite editor (save camera file as camera.nkc2 in the track folder)

This is the first update to be deployed through the new autoupdate system. When you first fire up nKP you should be asked whether you want to update. Click on update and then begin update.

The process is quick and painless. If the update is successful your nKS version should read 1.1.0.3111.

If you have troubles with the autoupdate system please report your issues on the official forum: http://www.drivingitalia.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=49923

edit: reworded the fixes in italics using more detailed info from Kunos. The rest is taken word for word from Kunos' post.

PS: today is a national holyday. I have the feeling Kunos tends to work on nKP during the breaks from his other 'pro' projects...

Last edited by NightShift, Wed, 2 Jun 2010 11:39.

Quote from hotmail :

it more likely looks like the stuff whats said on irc

Agreed and I'll only believe there was something about to be released, after it gets released

Yeah now let me do my broken record gig and say they might have problem keeping existing customers in.

That said I'm thinking about taking advantage of that offer and buy some content for the D class.

Quote from tinvek :

to be honest most things with subscriptions are auto renew these days

It's a matter of context, it would be weird if my net subscription didn't auto renew itself. But iRacing isn't as basic a thing as another subscription.

I'm sure some people are glad that iRacing has autorenewal, it's just another default setting would be more appropriate for the nature of that service.

Quote from JeffR :

Most racing games, both arcade and sim-oriented, become challenging once you start running competitive (versus other online players) lap times

That's certain, the big difference for me is the skills you usually learn in one racing game are more often than not, totally meaningless in other titles (except for very basic things)

In sims, people who come from RL driving have a lot to learn early on, e.g. evaluating distance, speed, corners and to make for the lack of any seat of pants. Racing games are usually designed so that these things are simply not there or not as critical.

BTW I haven't driven the Radical but usually downforce cars with plenty of grip tend to feel more agreeable than non-downforce cars, e.g. the slower single seaters in LFS are easier to get along with than a humble XRG, in nKP the F1600 vs the F2000.

I suppose the same applies to a Radical vs Solstice comparison.

Quote from Greboth :

I agree however I would add that for me at least, coming from a real car to lfs that lfs felt the most natural.

What do you mean with 'real car' and what sets are you using?

Quote from JeffR :

the hook is that once a player has spent all tha money on cars and tracks, they feel obligated to continue to be iRenters.

There's certainly a lock-in effect, also because when you've spent hundreds of dollars on content, the subscription doesn't look that expensive anymore.

But I still think what keeps most of the 'good customers' in is new content. For iRacing the 'good customers' are those who don't think too much about spending on new content. That's the people who keeps iRacing's bank account in the black, and the ones they are rightfully interested in.

Quote from JeffR :

As far as competition goes, there are some players that no longer consider realism that important in a racing game,

That's no news, what's easy to learn will have more success of what is hard anything else being equal: thus racing games attract the general public more than hardcore sims

OTOH those who have spent enough time getting used to hardcore sims can usually jump from one to another without problems.

Quote from JeffR :

associate auto-renewals with the sleaziest of companies

If autorenewals were turned off by default, it would improve my perception of them, make them look less like greedy leeches, I'll give you that. OTOH I can't stop thinking european and as such I believe customers need pay enough attention when they throw their money around, to be able and avoid these little traps.

Quote from majod :

I have many friends, who rather play some simbin, just because of this, graphics and sounds...and physics are OK, so...

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck to them. Don't expect it to fly, though

Part of the simracing crowd is about fooling themselves into thinking they're looking at a duck (=driving around in a realistic sim), while not having even the faintest clue of what a duck is supposed to do (=realistic handling).

Sadly, LFS is no different, there's plenty of people who will swear it's more realistic than anything else just because they've learnt to race it. The irony is -how you said- most of the time it doesn't even look or sounds like the real thing.

Quote from Mp3 Astra :

That's just my prediction. What do you guys think?

I suppose things like multiclass racing and private/hosted sessions are attempts to limit the scope of this problem.

The gist of the problem is the number of active drivers is the sum of the influx of new drivers and the outflux of old drivers. To keep it growing they need to boost the first (e.g. promo codes for new customers) and cut the latter (e.g. content/system updates and other innovations)

Price plays an important role. Though it may be easy to get new customers with promo codes, it's not as easy to have them stay. The price lever is not so easy to tweak: if cuts are too harsh or quick, older customers will be disappointed, unless a way is found to give back to them.

So my guess is we will be seeing more technical workarounds (but I don't think there's an endless number of them) and, most likely, marketing voodoo majik (e.g. the credit partecipation program) to handle price cuts in a controlled manner.

Quote from Dajmin :

There are millions of threads about changing conditions, both weather and time of day.

And 99.9% of them are wishful thinking.

The devs of competing sims are not talking about implementing wet and/or changing weather in the foreseeable future. In the best scenario it's a planned feature: "maybe", "someday".

The only exception to this rule is rFactor 2 which we don't have a release date for yet, and however it will have to prove itself as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from Dajmin :

The thing is, all it'd take to draw people back in is a graphical overhaul.

I'm with obsolum on this one.

And, in my eyes, if a graphical overhaul was not just the corollary to proper updates (tyre model, better tracks, FFB, limited/locked sets etc), it would only bring more of the 'wrong' type of players.

Quote from JeffR :

NR2003, which was 2 races per hour.

I can only talk about the rookie classes, where the average race takes about 25-30 mins from practice start to the chequered flag.

There would be very little time to cool off between races, so little that when I hopped from the Solstice directly to the SRF race (exactly 30 mins between them when the planets line up), if the site was a bit slower than usual, I would miss the subscription window.

1 race every 45 minutes would be better, but ATM it bugs me more that some classes (like the SRF) only have races every TWO hours.

Quote from zeugnimod :

Tell me if they add chase view. I might actually try it then.

You should join us on netKar, it has T-Bar view and gamepad support. Serious!

Back on topic, I do wonder why they're going around to scan people's cars..? After all, Eric based its work on CAD models provided by Volkswagen IIRC. And what happened to manufacturer's support?

This makes it look like they got nothing from Mazda, except the green light for inclusion. Maybe it's going to be basic content?

I'm loving how some people are pulling forecasts out of their back ends and making proclaims as they were golden standard

Just two contributions seem to have turned back the clock and the thread is polarized again in pro VS against LFS (aka uber optimists against uber pessimisters)

Truly we're all pro LFS (admittedly in different ways), optimism or pessimism won't change one thing, and unless you happen to be a beta tester, you'll be waiting the same as all the others

Quote from Gnomie :

The Mazda MX-5 has been laser scanned by iRacing!

Wow they are seriously compromising, look at this:

Quote :

Laura’s MX-5 was recently used as the model MX-5 Cup at Lime Rock for the online game iRacing at iRacing.com. (...) All you need is a PC, a gaming wheel or game pad and an Internet connection.

How long before they add keyboard stabilised support?

Quote from adamlfs :

the Mazda, seems like a completely different animal from the FOX here in LFS.

Hmmm the FOX is modeled after the much less powerful FRenault 2.0, OTOH the Mazda has a better power/weight figure than a F3

These days I don't know how many nKP players are actually checking LFSforum on a regular basis... I guess your best bet is to ask the question on a forum dedicated specifically to nKP, like e.g. drivingitalia or GPC (there are many others, anyway)