I know when people read the word "mod" they think about the rFactor mod situation with thousands of mod out there one worse then the other.

But there are some modding groups (idt for rfactor or GPLEA for GPL) that can really produce excellent work that even tops the work of the professionells. That dont bring out a new version of there content every couple of weeks that dillute and make everything complicated.

What these groups like GPLEA did was kind of a "controlled modding" where quality stands over quantity.

There is alot of talent out there in the LFS community and it is wasted, think about the Nürburgring Nordschleife or Spa in rFactor, done by hugely talented enthusiasts in the community, talent that LFS has aswell, and all these tracks rFactor has LFS could have aswell, maybe in even better quality.

But the danger is allowing thousands of people and giving the tools to them to create tracks in LFS, we would have very quickly 5 different versions of Monte Carlo, 3 versions of Spa etc. LFS would be a mess like rFactor.

But what if there would be only 1 add on Team in the community. Only that one team would get unofficial support and the tools to create tracks for LFS.

That exclusive modding Team would consist of the brightest, most talented hand-picked artists from within the community, who only produce quality content for LFS, mainly tracks. There is enough talent out there to produce any type of track in the world for LFS in brilliant quality, if its done in an organized, protected and quality assuring way.

Not going to happen any time soon. Being brought up many times before, no point going through the argument again.

I strongly agree with you. With all this talk of LFS losing its appeal and beginning to age badly. Now would be the time to say "look, we have a great amount of talent here that's being wasted. Let's utilize it."


However, can I suggest one way to moderate the volume of content.

Everyone gets the tools to create their own content. But they have to submit it for consideration. And only the best quality mods make it onto the multiplayer lists. For the rest of the community to use.

I agree with post #1 and #3, LFS is a great game. But it does lack content understandably. There is ALOT of talent out there that could really bring people back to the game, and probably bring alot of new players too. Even though its not likely it will happen, if this does, just have mods restricted to people with S2. $$$$$

No.

LFS would be ruined by modding IMO. It would make online life like LFS, with so many mods banding around, it's difficult to get all the cars and tracks you need. It's also a hassle on people like me who have tiny hard drives

in before the lock!

Quote from George Kuyumji :

[...]

iRacing seems to manage fine without mods and with even less usable content than LfS... Both developers declared they would not (yet) open their game to mods, and yet I haven't seen you suggesting mods on the iRacing-forums...

Why here then?

I'm going to repeat what I say every time this comes up, only because I don't have a C&P alert for it or a web page to direct people to.

First of all, opening up to modders.
Since the base content isn't finished yet and physics updates could still be added at any time, there's no point making a mod that feels right because that might change with the next patch. You might get extra features added that the mod doesn't take into account which would completely break it - the clutch heat would have been one of them. No setting for clutch strength on your mod would mean back to the drawing board.
Imagine that with more serious changes to things like suspension, aero or damage models. I know that if I'd spent a lot of time making something I'd want it to work and be annoyed if it didn't. It happens a few times over and suddenly you have a decent mod team refusing to make any more because it's not worth the hassle.

Mod content approval.
While I like this idea for the future, it does have some issues. Who do you submit this content to? Scawen? A forum mod? What do they do with it? A random person? You don't just GIVE that sort of content away because every mod team wants the associated kudos for making good stuff and there's nothing to stop someone claiming it as their own.
Voting systems are only good in the short term when there's not much content. I can already tell you that there'd be a zillion different Nurburgrings on there, each with varying levels of accuracy and nobody voting has enough experience on the real track to say whether it's a good match or not. So it'll all come down to how well someone can drive round it, whether it's accurate or not. One person will do a really quick laptime on one and rate it high, another will have trouble with it and vote it low, even if it's the best version of the track ever modelled.

Quote from bbman :

iRacing seems to manage fine without mods and with even less usable content than LfS... Both developers declared they would not (yet) open their game to mods, and yet I haven't seen you suggesting mods on the iRacing-forums...

Why here then?

I think that's because LFS has been around for a while and has gone without any new content(other than the FBM) for a long time. iRacing is still somewhat fresh, if it sat for a couple years with no new cars or tracks you'd see plenty of complaining over there too I bet. And it does seem like iRacing is coming out with new stuff on a somewhat regular basis.

Nope, with modding eligible, making Hacks would be much easier.

pointless repeated ad nauseum question is pointless.

+1 to get thread closed/deleted

It makes no sense opening LFS to modding until it is declared finished just in case of any incompatibilities with future patches. I wouldn't want my hard work being incompatible in six months time...

Then there is the question "will it be good for LFS (and not just individual people)?" or would it kill LFS with mass amounts of crappy mods that overshadow the few good ones?
If modding was an option then we would definitely need better server "-flags" and filters so that we can disable mods from the server list and order the servers based on the name of the mod.
Also the ability to download and auto-install the mod content direct from the server (as this saves time sourcing the mod else where - I'm lazy like that).

I'm not too bothered either way as long as I can filter out the modded servers if modding is allowed.

Modding suggestions got a lot of opposition in the past so it will be interesting to see what the common stance is now that LFS is apparently "dying"... due to peoples impatience with patches I must add.

Quote from PaulH :

It makes no sense opening LFS to modding until it is declared finished just in case of any incompatibilities with future patches. I wouldn't want my hard work being incompatible in six months time...

Thats the exact thing. How hard is that to understand?

I don't want to see modding but I'd love to see some brand new locations (tracks) but would hate to think that Eric would need to feel flustered as a result to the extent his first public post has to be a diss to the community

Mods specially approved by Scavier?

Quote from EliteAti :

Mods specially approved by Scavier?

I don't think Scavier need any new people / mods to LFS at the moment.

Quote from senn :

pointless repeated ad nauseum question is pointless.

+1 to get thread closed/deleted

++

i could swear i saw a thread with this exact title last week.

Quote from MR_B :

I strongly agree with you. With all this talk of LFS losing its appeal and beginning to age badly. Now would be the time to say "look, we have a great amount of talent here that's being wasted. Let's utilize it."

However, can I suggest one way to moderate the volume of content.

Everyone gets the tools to create their own content. But they have to submit it for consideration. And only the best quality mods make it onto the multiplayer lists. For the rest of the community to use.

Short answer : I support the third part in principle, although using generic tools (EG 3dsmax) making mainly fictional stuff. However, this is unlikely to happen and would require some careful consideration. By making it in, it would be included in the main LFS file.

George's Idea has one major issue that would need answering : how would they get the licences?

Its literally impossible to find a decent race server these days, so it wouldnt be too bad.

I don't really understand how people can get bored with the content. Maybe I'm too old and slow, but I still haven't mastered any combo fully and I've been at this for 1.5 years now. Give me a car/track and 4 racers more or less my speed and I don't care where I race or how often I've done it.

So frankly, I think people just have short attention spans. I prefer to be good at 1 combo rather than crap at 15.

How many combos are you within .5 secs of the WR?

I think LFS is for dedicated racers. If you are 2 secs away from the WR and already looking for new tracks and cars maybe you're just not serious enough about it...

aceracer

P.S.: Yes I know this doesn't apply to everyone, and yes there are very very fast drivers out there who also get bored with LFS, but I would estimate that 90% is due to goldfishlike attention span with NFS tendencies

agree.. we need really new tracks
i drive in GT Evolution on Nurburgring aaand its great so if this track and other tracks are in lfs is gonna be O.O ... great

George has been around forever and seen his share of these threads, so I don't think he's suggesting the typical mods these threads are usually about. He has a point with mod groups like GPLEA, which produce content that is consistent with and of the same quality as the original content. Such a thing COULD be a positive addition to the LFS community (provided it's only tracks), but I don't think the devs will ever go for it, based on their past reactions.