I want to talk about how people communicate and behave whilst partaking in public racing.

For newcomers to LFS the experience can be somewhat daunting to racing online against our seasoned drivers, and to be thrown in the middle of a bunch of ban-happy bitching racers is unfair and easily gives any server a bad name.
Allowing messages publicly is asking for spam and congregation of arguments and nonsense discussion, once one n00b starts acting up others follow suit ruining racing for others.

I accept people need to communicate on servers and the chatter of a few nice folk is nice to drive in, but, by default everything is public chatter which should not be seen by the newcomer.

Nipping it in the bud would be to remove public messaging as prime means of communication in LFS servers,
this would stop 'pairing' of idiots by removing the catalyst for trouble which is the public messaging system which is acquainting them.

The public channel should only be open for server announcements of race stats etc and communication should only be heard amongst friends,
but this would only be possible by having a friends system inside LFS, a just think it's a good idea that would stop a lot of the messing that goes on, mainly crashing spam

Press "-".

-1

So how can you tell someone new to the game anything at all? Stupid idea IMO

Quote from jasonmatthews :

-1

So how can you tell someone new to the game anything at all? Stupid idea IMO

Quote from CSU1 :

but this would only be possible by having a friends system inside LFS

...

There is no way I would still be playing LFS without the ability to chat with people on the server.

I've never done this because I think it is really lame, but in this case it seems to fit.....

-1

-1

When ATC had their servers running we had very active admins, and we needed to communicate to the people in the server easily. Not just to give warnings, but we would help out new people with advice and setups, a friends system would just deter the sense of community you get when playing LFS by adding another layer of options and settings people need to learn just to chat. There is already an option for people who don't want to read the chat messages, and they are the minority based on what I see in public servers.

This is worse than some cruise suggestions.

-1

If I'm not allowed to communicate with anyone on the server I might as well play offline.

It's an online game where a big part of the fun is the direct interaction with a person sitting behind a computer who knows where.

So no.. bad idea.

I can see an argument for a "/silentrunning=yes" host option. Until a race ends (first car finishes), no chat is allowed except for those logged in as admins, or even just RCMs. An enforced "-" if you will.

I've never had an issue with talking in servers.. in point of fact I'm probably one of the worst offenders for talking to people who are trying to race, while I'm spectating. I can definitely see the appeal of having a host option to enforce silent running, especially for league events etc, though.

So.. a partial +1, I guess.. with added "parameters"

For leagues it probally would be good, but for random servers...naaah not sure on that.. well but since it would be a host thingy it's basically up to the people who joins it, if they want to join it or not.

Well what the hell, +1, canot really find good points for or against.

Quote from SamH :

I've never had an issue with talking in servers.. in point of fact I'm probably one of the worst offenders for talking to people who are trying to race, while I'm spectating.

you never saw the endless streams of F-key spams...

"//* *\\* *//* *\\* *//* *\\* *//* *\\ YELLOW FLAG //* *\\* *//* *\\* *//* *\\* *//* *\\* *//"
"OMG BLUO FLAG FKIN MOOB OV MI WEY U PNEUB"

etc

There are so many whiners and spammers around. It makes you angry when all the time somebody is shouting all kinds of stupid things in the chat.

I kinda like some aspects of your story

if they are being retarded, vote kick them.
ditto for spamming.

If it's just a new racer, as long as they aren't wrecking a planned race because they have no car control, perhaps suggest to them that a practice server or single player may be a good idea until they are up to a reasonable standard. I have no issues racing online with newer drivers, as long as they are willing to learn/listen/follow the basic rules. I also have no issues with helping new racers as long as they aren't being retarded and asking the same questions over and over again (it's hard sometimes when there's a language barrier.....or they're just not listening)