I agree with both your statements, especially the second, edited one (though I agree wholeheartedly too about the badly made, money grubbing titles...). But your second statement seems to suggest that there is a place for street racing, that there is a form of racing that is one of the many blends in the world, that it may be illegal, even immoral, but that neither of those two categories are enough to dismiss it out of hand.
I really don't think many people have actually got what this article is proposing. As far as real-life street racing goes, you either like it or you don't: there's not going to be any middle ground and no room for agreement.
Analogies will therefore be pointless.
However, the original article was suggesting that it should be "discouraged" in all other media. How, is not stated, nor does it even begin explore whether other forms of fantasy that deal with illegal material should be "discouraged" too. I shouldn't even need to resort to analogy to describe how impoverished cinema, literature, gaming, in fact culture in general, will become if we follow to a logical conclusion what is being suggested.
"Get Carter". One of my favourite movies, but basically its all about a gangster who kills people. Quite mercilessly. Its not a mistake, its not due to misjudgement, its cold and deliberate murder. And he's the hero. Should we discourage people from watching this film? If not, then why is there any reason (apart from aesthetic!) to discourage people from watching or even producing films like 2F2F, or games like NFS?
You just have no idea how many people just thought, "I'm going to get me some NOS!!!!"
Ultimately street racing is already illegal and no one cares about a few people re-enacting blokeish revenge fantasies ("Shoot 'em in the head, right on, dude", "Hang 'em, flog 'em, hide my hard on!")
Armed robbery is quite a dangerous activity for everyone involved... People still do it. People still make films about it. People go and watch those films in hordes. Their hearts race and they cheer, and they go home to their mortgages, dull partners (nothing like the stars they idolise), and they lead average, peaceful lives, afflicted only by average, relatively peaceful forms of grief and tragedy.
Stupid article. Street racing is banned in most countries and video games are fiction. Thanks... its not like there isn't enough moral panic in today's world as it is.
Ahh... Not going to play? Go on, make my day, take the bait rather than relying on such an effete and impoverished attempt at scorn.
Yeah, I guess you're right on that - good post altogether actually, especially "the will to do it" part! I don't really miss online racing in LFS at the moment since, compared to what is possible within the program, the racing combinations offered are so frequently lacking in variety. Things are changing (I'm not a pessimist by nature!): the CTRA thing is instrumental in this; Gentlefoot has been pimping the FO8; and the LX autocross challenge was clearly an effort to promote and broaden out a criminally underused area of LFS.
Its annoying to watch people complaining about cruise, drift, whatever servers, when the racing community choose the same combinations over and over again. @Taylor-Mania - appreciate your post too, but I really think its up to the racing community to create and promote an engaging variety of events and pick-up racing.
I also need to say that I appreciate how much time an effectively organised event series can take up (in my days driving Racer, I arranged and 'marshalled' a ten week series of time-attack challenges - I had to create a big hole in my daily schedule to keep it up!), but, ultimately, that kind of buzz isn't created by carping about how popular something else appears to be.
Don't really care for 'cruising' myself, but this comment keeps appearing in the forum... "LFS is a Race Sim" (capitalise or enbolden as you see fit...). Why are you people so docile?
Why do you see it as so important to follow a fundamentalist interpretation of that arrangement of letters?
Why is it so hard to grasp that people will do with the technology what they desire? That if you are not interested, then you just get on with following your own desires?
Why? I just don't understand your useless whining, your dogmatic pontificating, your utter dependence on monochromatic definition.
No race servers? Then start some - and for god's sake don't let it be GTRs on AS Nat... or indeed anything AS club... Fine as these tracks are, they are little more than drag strips with corners at either end.... So very popular. I wonder why?
Enjoyed the trailer for Cloverfield, and its interesting to see the Blair Witch conceit (found video footage) transferred to a metropolitan setting. Interesting too, to see New York being destroyed again and yet another American film dramatising that country's invasion neurosis.
Ultimately though, I'm guessing it'll make great cultural studies papers, but cockroach racing will be a better night out (at least there's some point to betting on the outcome...)
"Fanboys" might be worth looking forward to if the fight between Trekkies and Star Wars fans was the entire content of the movie... would love to see that as a proper bloodbath.
Practice racing with peripheral vision. Staring at a monitor encourages you to depend on foveal vision (the form we use for reading or examining close detail). This is sometimes known as 'hunter's' vision which may sound cool and competitive, but actually encourages tension in the face, neck, shoulders etc and induces fatigue.
A bigger monitor is obviously a huge advantage here....
But don't close out the room you are in. Look away from the monitor every now and then; refocus your eyes on something in the distance (the real distance, not the virtual distance...)
Er... The noise order was issued in 2005. Does anyone have a link to recent news, since there isn't a threat mentioned at all on the circuit's own website and I could only find references to the 2005 order, through a quick google search...
Hmmm... Can't find anything... I suspect viral panic-mongering....
oooohh! That's the one that pushes my button! Lane discipline in the UK is atrocious. And add this one: the apparent inability of most of the driving poplulation to understand that bus lanes CAN be used during the stated hours...
Read the blue sign!
I get dirty looks everyday from sheep queuing behind each other, as I cruise to the front in a completely vacant bus lane.
HGV limiters are a bit of a menace, to be honest. Automatically limiting the speed means that the driver is going to be paying less attention: s/he'll drive up to the top end and rest on the limiter, rather than driving at whatever speed is appropriate...
Actually, though technically correct, you would fail your driving test for being slower than the limit in a lot of cases.
The reason being that if you are pootling along at 45mph whilst everyone else is happily driving at a legal 60mph, you are creating an unnecessary hazard on the road.
Basically, if you are not capable of driving at the speed a road safely allows, then perhaps you shouldn't be on that road in the first place.
(On a personal note, I have to say that limits should always be treated as advisory... )
Maybe, maybe not, that's arguable - I know that I listen to much more new music than I used to and not relying on established review outlets (cultural gatekeepers) to filter and decide for me, has meant that I've spent money on stuff that would never have even passed my way beforehand.
But I think that'll take us OT - primarily, my point was this: given that LFS trades on its image as being an independent and conscientious team, with an enthusiasts eye on the product rather than an accountant's, feel free to suggest a better way to maintain momentum and interest in the project.
It just seems to me that the demo works very well for the team at the moment, and I don't see how restricting it would produce any greater benefits.
The devs obviously agree that its fair too, otherwise they wouldn't "give away" the fruit of their labour. Duh!
I'm sure the whole deal will change when and if they want it to, but I think they've got the balance just right for the moment. LFS has something of a cult status due to the demo - that kind of cultural capital is useful in many ways, especially in maintaining an active brand image over the period of LFS' uniquely long and drawn out development process.
Its taken the music industry a long time to appreciate the fact that free downloads aren't a loss. Quite the opposite, they generate excitement, and consequently demand, for a product. Stamping your feet and sqawking about how its so unfair that people are getting something for free, (ie. unnecessarily restricting the nature of currrent demand) is the best way of wrecking the 'indie' status already aquired by the development team.
Haven't been online for a few months now, but I always liked to drop in to the demo servers every now and again. The lawlessness and unpredictability was a bit of a tonic, and evading crashers became a game within the game.
The LFS demo seems just right to me, and the seperate nature of the demo servers and the S2 servers makes stepping up to S2 a kind of "coming of age" ritual.
As for the demo being too complete, I think its only fair of the developers to offer as much, since they are selling an 'incomplete' product anyway.
As I understand it, they were running on Dunlop Direzza tyres, advertised as a "summer" tyre for road-going sports cars. Whether you reckon the SR8 is a road car is another matter, but hey, it has lights and indicators (and it would be fun to have one in LFS...)
Yeah, of course, but this is something that applies to all 'simulators', fake or not. If anyone were to attempt the kind of lap times achieved in GPL or LFS (if it attempted to model real cars or tracks... ), then 99.9% of drivers would find more than a few seconds shaved off their times as the reality of a 150mph approach to a blind crest, or a sharp right bordered by oh-so-solid armco, hit home (hopefully not literally).
Not to say that a fair few of those drivers couldn't overcome that fear with experience, also not to say that there aren't a number of other factors involved (representational nature of the simulation model, lack of gravitational feel on the body of the driver, 24/7 practice access to the car or track involved, list goes on...), but this isn't really a sim vs arcade issue.
All about the fear factor... Even Laguna's turn one kink demands a lot more attention than in the game...
btw, would be nice to see some telemetry of that zonda on the ring. The thing about the onboard is how level it seems through the corners, how calm it appears even at full throttle.
Why do you even care? There's so much adolescent crap on this forum, it just seems insane to be barracking someone who's actually interested in racing, racing news, and discussion.
How about Asian Dub Foundation ? One of the few bands that can do the punk rock/dance fusion thing convincingly, whilst also being completely committed, in life and performance, to the lyrical content too. See them live... Damn, they're good.
Noticed Miles Davies on the list: why not plough that furrow a little deeper: 'Tone Dialing' by Ornette Coleman, or maybe some Pharoah Saunders or Sun Ra?
Selfish choice, or rather, my current fave: Boris, Sunn O)))