The online racing simulator
@Tristan

Well said.

EDIT (aimed at first post)

EDIT2:
People, don't get me wrong - LFS IS very cheap for what it is and will be, infact I would pay a lot more for it than they're charging any day of the week. And I also think Robbson SHOULD buy S2, but if you look at it purely from a consumer (who is not a regular part of this community, and may not yet fully understand LFS in terms of development and what it's all about) standpoint then it makes sense that he (as you said Tristan: in an IDEAL world) should've been able to run his licensed content on any server that offers it (IE S1 or S2 licensed servers).

Hopefully he'll just buy it to shut us all up
Quote from RobbsonAnd for what you have paid the S1 license in the past? I will tell you: For [B :online driving[/B] and that is the thing what LFS is all about!!

You CAN play online. Go ahead. Start a server right now. I'll wait.....

Did that work? Could you start a server? Of course you could! The software works now exactly as it did when you bought it. The only difference is that now, nobody else is playing what you've got. Sucks to be you.
Quote :And think about this again:
You paid 18 Euro or 12 Pounds or what ever... played LFS online for about 3 years... and I paid the same price (I don't got any special offer for an aged product!) but can only drive 3 months online... Do you get my point?

So, people who buy the game when it first comes out should pay full price, and people who wait should get a discount purely because they waited? So, I buy now for 24 pounds and you buy three months from now for 20 pounds? Yes, that sounds VERY fair to me. illepall

Quote :That's not fair to new / later users... and they will think about moving to other racing games and this should be prevented at all!

Yes. You're quite right. Just look at all the people who've defected from Live for Speed to other sims since S2 came out. I mean, practically nobody plays now that S2 is out. Nobody wanted to pay the 12 pounds to upgrade, so they all went out and bought GTR (for 30 pounds) instead! :rolleyes:
The example with photoshop application is also nonsense!
If a new release of a application in near future is known, new customers to the older version normally get a reduced upgrade price to the later version or the upgrade is for free! That's what I call customer support and most applications companies do offers like this today.

Of course, I would upgrade to S2 for a special offer... this would be the most fair and easiest solution to new users which never or nearly not used LFS in early days like the old community.

@tristancliffe
Please don't compare the price thing of LFS with full price games like GTR!
In GTR you have so much content... and in LFS you have to wait years for some new car physics, 2 more tracks and some damage model... that's it. So don't call it cheap... it's a lot of money for some small content... That's because the developer group is so small and it seems that they don't like contributions (like tracks) from the community. When you buy S2 (full retail games are not too much higher priced) you get only a small game... of course a nice one... but small content and old fashioned graphics, etc. So it should not be compared to other BIG commercial games on the market.

AGAIN: I (want) pay for driving with the community and not for the content!

Robbson.
Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :
If the S2 server changed to a different track, he would just get booted, OR he would be forced to spectate because of his license status, which would be better because it would entice him to buy the extra content! S1 is coded to have those items, because it's all the same program. It's only access that is restriced via the license.

FULL ACK!!

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :
But you're right - it MAY be a lot of work (it might not) and it probably isn't worth it at this point, but from a consumer perspective it's silly I think.

So they could offer me and other later players an upgrade discount. For this little time I have left for playing LFS in future, I don't want pay 18 Euro. A used but full usable GTR game/account is much cheaper now and there I can change my "world name"... And I also like the cool GTR's engine sound.

Robbson.
Quote from Robbson :The example with photoshop application is also nonsense!
If a new release of a application in near future is known, new customers to the older version normally get a reduced upgrade price to the later version or the upgrade is for free! That's what I call customer support and most applications companies do offers like this today.

You DO get a reduced price! You only have to pay 12 pounds, not the full 24! With any other product you'd have to pay the FULL price, not just the difference.

Quote :@tristancliffe
Please don't compare the price thing of LFS with full price games like GTR!
In GTR you have so much content...

Just what content is it that you get with GTR and not LFS? The last time I checked GTR only had GTR cars. No road cars, no roadsters, etc.

Quote :and in LFS you have to wait years for some new car physics, 2 more tracks and some damage model... that's it.

And when is the last time you saw a patch for any Simbin game? When is the last time you saw one of their devs come on the forum and directly answer a question from one of their customers?

Quote :So don't call it cheap... it's a lot of money for some small content...

12 pounds is NOT a lot of money. Especially not for someone who obviously can afford a computer, a network connection, etc. You've gotta pay to play. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Quote :That's because the developer group is so small and it seems that they don't like contributions (like tracks) from the community. When you buy S2 (full retail games are not too much higher priced) you get only a small game... of course a nice one... but small content and old fashioned graphics, etc. So it should not be compared to other BIG commercial games on the market.

again, you talk about small content. Compare S2 (priced at 24 pounds) to any other racing game on the market. rFactor is more expensive and has FEWER tracks and cars. netKar PRO is more expensive and has only three cars and four tracks. So, where are these superior games you keep talking about?

Quote :AGAIN: I (want) pay for driving with the community and not for the content!

Then pay the measley 12 pounds for S2 and quit your bitching already!
Quote from Robbson :FULL ACK!!

What?

Quote :So they could offer me and other later players an upgrade discount. For this little time I have left for playing LFS in future, I don't want pay 18 Euro. A used but full usable GTR game/account is much cheaper now and there I can change my "world name"... And I also like the cool GTR's engine sound.
Robbson.

Discounting your upgrade is not fair to all the others who paid the 12 pounds.

Indeed, I DO agree that you should be able to access S1 Content on S2 Servers. However, you can't and we're not going to make it happen. 12 pounds isn't very much, seriously like everyone is already telling you. If you like things better about GTR etc, then get it and play it. Otherwise cough up the wallet and get playing on S2 Servers.

Speaking about these other games shows me that you might not understand LFS yet....

Cue-Ball already covered all the other points very well, so I'll leave it at that.
Robbson please don't take offense to my post but your talking b*llsh*t illepall GTR is a perfect example of all the other racing games on the market. They whack out a v1.0 that doesn't work properly and don't bother to fix it but offer you a v2.0, both costing £30 = £60 in total.

LFS is constantly developing and you should count yourself lucky that you can even try the new physics as LFS is the only game which I know that gives its user so much for their money. Are Simbin going to let you use your GTR license to try GTR2, nope!

Don't even go there with the content either, LFS has something like 21 cars and god knows how many tracks. I'm sure its over 30combos at least! All the cars and tracks are different so you have different characteristics of cars to try out. Ranging from a little mini type car to a full blown F1 car. Personally I can't think of another game offering that sort of range of cars.

My personal opionion on this is you're just trying to find sympathy. All I can say count yourself lucky that the devs left the option for you to use the latest software with your old content, not many (if any) game devs or software devs do that.

Keiran
Quote from Cue-Ball :Just what content is it that you get with GTR and not LFS? The last time I checked GTR only had GTR cars. No road cars, no roadsters, etc.

No physics, No online, No fun...
No support, No interaction, No updates...
Quote from Robbson :

AGAIN: I (want) pay for driving with the community and not for the content!

Robbson.

Then unfortunately you have missunderstood what the licence system is all about and that is no one elses fault but your own

If you don't want the content you can still drive online for FREE (granted it is restricted but there is still some fun to be had in the demo) It's a shame you paid for S1 just before S2 came out but unfortunately thats life.... Remeber also that we are not at version 1.0 yet so its not a complete product and so i don't think any other arguments giving examples of discounts for *favouritegame*v1 when *favouritegame*v2 is released are valid.... this is still one game and one game only

My advice would be go and play the demo for a while if your not happy with the 18€, find some clean racers there (there are some believe it or not!! ) and hopefully you'll have some fun and realise that an extra 18€ is really not that big a deal... Good Luck!
Quote from Cue-Ball :You DO get a reduced price! You only have to pay 12 pounds, not the full 24! With any other product you'd have to pay the FULL price, not just the difference.

I don't get any discount... because 12+12 pounds is the same like 24 pounds... and from the first 12 pounds I don't get so much like you got in your LFS history. Time goes by... things getting older... but LFS still costs the same.

Quote from Cue-Ball :
Just what content is it that you get with GTR and not LFS? The last time I checked GTR only had GTR cars. No road cars, no roadsters, etc.

You can get all these cars by user community packs in GTR. But I don't need all this silly stuff... Give me a car like everyone has and drive it to it's physical limits against others... that's racing in LFS.

Quote from Cue-Ball :
And when is the last time you saw a patch for any Simbin game? When is the last time you saw one of their devs come on the forum and directly answer a question from one of their customers?

That's easy to answer: Their games are complete and they don't have stages like in LFS. So you have a whole bunch of tracks in GTR and 50 cars, a lot of tools, great physics, damage system, tire wearing, etc... There is no need for additional patches when all is working fine...

Quote from Cue-Ball :
12 pounds is NOT a lot of money. Especially not for someone who obviously can afford a computer, a network connection, etc. You've gotta pay to play. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Of course it's a lot when I only want to play with other users the old S1 content... because I don't have the time to train my driving skills for complete new tracks and cars... paying 12 pounds for switching to online play with more than 2 people IS indeed too much.

That's difficult to explain to someone who only live in the LFS-world and spend so much time with the game...

Quote from Cue-Ball :
again, you talk about small content. Compare S2 (priced at 24 pounds) to any other racing game on the market.
rFactor is more expensive and has FEWER tracks and cars. netKar PRO is more expensive and has only three cars and four tracks. So, where are these superior games you keep talking about?

When a new PC game is released, you pay something about 39-44 Euro in Germany... The S2 license (for a new customer) costs 36 Euro... so you see that's very similar. And don't forget, you get a full printed manual and other items in a box rather than a voucher key only... Of course, you can also order these things on the German LFS page but then you pay more then 55 Euro...
So: GTR2 would be a great game with similar price range... but far more advanced content than LFS will ever have.

Robbson.
Quote from Robbson :And this issue is continuing... if S3 will be released in about 2 years (or later), new buyers probably have to pay 18+18+18 Euro... Great policy! They can get commercial retail games for the same price which have far more content and are dedicated to realistic racing simulations, too (like GTR, rFactor, etc.).

OK, I just cutted out the other trolling, that you also started in german forum, and make it simple:

Just for the record of speculation: With S3 you get an Online Racing Sim with prolly 30+ clients on a server, LFSTV, about 1600 car/track combinations from low powered UF1 to formula1, from bike to trucks. With tracks from rallye to rallyecross, from autocross to Formula1 tracks, ovals etc. An uptodate DX9 engine with best texture work you can get.

And you want to tell me, that 54 Euros will be too much? How much did you pay for a single series racing sim called GTR, which didnt ran smoothly? New price 55 euros... or an even less equipped game like rfactor? Did those game work well? Ah, right, you gonna buy GTR2 for another 50 euros this year, for 3 new cars, a "brand new" gfx and physics engine and a season 2 years ago. Wow, LFS is expensive....

Ah, did I start about the planned online features of racemore? Costs of iracing? Ah, sry...

To put it straight: 36,- Euros for the quality you get atm is probably the best price/quality ratio out on the sim-market.
@Ball Bearing Turbo

FULL ACK= Full acknowledge! Online forums are new to you, isn't it?
Quote from Robbson :
And think about this again:
.. and I paid the same price (I don't got any special offer for an aged product!) but can only drive 3 months online... Do you get my point? That's not fair to new / later users... and they will think about moving to other racing games and this should be prevented at all!

Robbson.

the release date of S2 alpha was:
sat, Jun. 25th, 2005 20:00

and your Join Date shows Apr 2004

So you could play S1 full for almost 14 month. That's a long time in games business if you ask me.

I bought one day the game ONI which was really nice. I only played it through all levels once (think I needed about a week) and now I wanted to play it again but it doesn't run on my 64bit machine and the developers didn't make any patches. To bad I think I paid 40 Euros for it and now its worthless. But hey that's life.

I also bought a 19" CRT monitor for almost 600 Euros. If I want to sell it now I think I will get around 110 Euros on Ebay because of TFT's. That's called progress.


Someone wrote here something really good:

"Just because nobody else plays S1 anymore doesn't mean the software suddenly doesn't work. It only means that people have moved on to something newer and more feature-filled."

And that's it.
Why should the devs put in extra effort for more support to someone who doesn't support the devs?
No, but silly abbreviations when you just type properly are
Quote from Vykos69 :OK, I just cutted out the other trolling, that you also started in german forum, and make it simple:

Yes, because in the German forum I nearly found some stubborn persons only, who don't like to discuss an issue but want to blame other users with lower accolade. Here I've found some serious people with interesting arguments and I see you also can do it...

Quote from Vykos69 :
Just for the record of speculation: With S3 you get an Online Racing Sim with prolly 30+ clients on a server, LFSTV, about 1600 car/track combinations from low powered UF1 to formula1, from bike to trucks. With tracks from rallye to rallyecross, from autocross to Formula1 tracks, ovals etc. An uptodate DX9 engine with best texture work you can get.

Cool, this sounds like the product description of "Need For Speed - Underground". There you have only 6 city tracks... and they splitted it to longer and shorter versions and also let you drive it the other direction so you have 36 "tracks" at all... But your idea with the cars&tracks combination is even more brilliant: 1600 cars/tracks combinations...
Do you work in the marketing sector? Your "trick the customer" methods sound like this.

Quote from Vykos69 :
And you want to tell me, that 54 Euros will be too much? How much did you pay for a single series racing sim called GTR, which didnt ran smoothly? New price 55 euros... or an even less equipped game like rfactor? Did those game work well? Ah, right, you gonna buy GTR2 for another 50 euros this year, for 3 new cars, a "brand new" gfx and physics engine and a season 2 years ago. Wow, LFS is expensive....

Their games are nearly perfect and getting better and better... but I know a lot of people in the LFS community so I don't really want to switch and I don't want to train again a new game... not again 4000 laps...
Ok, in LFS you have to be patient because you are the paying life long beta tester... The sofware companies'es dream at all.

Quote from Vykos69 :
To put it straight: 36,- Euros for the quality you get atm is probably the best price/quality ratio out on the sim-market.

I never said that LFS is a poor quality game... I played it a lot (offline) and be (somewhat) addicted to it. But I didn't start all the comparisons to other games like GTR.

And there are a lot of funny people here which dream in their own world.... "Never seen patches for GTR" and something like this. That's paranoid. There are many patches up to version 1.5 out yet... sometimes with more tracks and cars... 24h le mans races... that's also great content... But LFS fanboys like to ignore that other companies offer something great, too.

Robbson.
All of this over 12 pounds?

Robbson, I've earned more than that sitting here reading forums in the time you've taken to write these silly posts.

WTF is anyone feeding this troll for? I got my money's worth from my S1 license in the first night I owned it. I didn't buy it as early as many others did. I could have bought it a single day before S2 was released and not felt even slightly bad about ponying up another 12 pounds.

It costs me more to go to a movie with my girlfriend than it costs to buy a S1 license. If I buy dinner as well, I've then covered the cost of the S1, S2, and S3 licenses.

Get a job pal.

I remember when I used to need to plan ahead to spend 15 dollars on the next chapter in an Apogee game. That was nearly fifteen years ago, and I wasn't quite old enough to mow lawns...
Robbson: "FULL ACK"? I've been lurking about in online forums since '01 and that's the first time I've seen anyone say (shout) that...may not be as common as you think

As for your problem, I can sort of understand it but you can't expect special treatment. Going by your join date you had ample time to play S1 and ample time to figure out that S2 would be a new package with new features that would cost the same as S1 (and not more, as one may expect from a new improved product). AFAIK this is the first time this has come up as a problem for anyone.
If you, as you said, only want to play S1 content then I'm afraid you're not going to see many full servers. A fact of life I'm afraid.
Why is 1600 combinations such a dream? Can you guess how many we have now (it's simple maths, and I'm not expecting a perfect answer).

And we are not beta testers in the usual sense - we have just been allowed to play the sim whilst it's being developed, a small but important difference. And I have to agree that ISI games are getting better. In a couple of years they'll be nearly as good at GT4 But you shouldn't really drag other driving games (or sims) into this discussion as it will go downhill very very quickly - best stick to LFS:

You bought it.
You played it.
It was updated.
You couldn't be bothered to update with it
Now you can't play online because everyone else uses a different version.
You think LFS should give you a discount even though they didn't decieve you.
You moan on Forum(s)
You play GTR instead because it's 'better'.
The End.
Quote from BBO@BSR : the release date of S2 alpha was:
sat, Jun. 25th, 2005 20:00

and your Join Date shows Apr 2004

So you could play S1 full for almost 14 month. That's a long time in games business if you ask me.

Because all your other "arguments" are troll-like I'm going to answer only to this issue. My joining time in the LFS community has nothing to do with my S1 license which I bought in spring or summer 2005. You have recognized that there are also demo players in this forum, do you?

And no, I didn't play the demo from 2004 to 2005 so much because there is still a real life where I have to do some upgrades, too.

Robbson.
Well, reading that it seems you chose not to play for all that time even though you had the opportunity. So in effect there is noone to blame but yourself for the situation you now find yourself in
Quote from Robbson :Yes, because in the German forum I nearly found some stubborn persons only, who don't like to discuss an issue but want to blame other users with lower accolade. Here I've found some serious people with interesting arguments and I see you also can do it...

OK, maybe you start thinking who's stubborn...
Quote :
Cool, this sounds like the product description of "Need For Speed - Underground". There you have only 6 city tracks... and they splitted it to longer and shorter versions and also let you drive it the other direction so you have 36 "tracks" at all... But your idea with the cars&tracks combination is even more brilliant: 1600 cars/tracks combinations...
Do you work in the marketing sector? Your "trick the customer" methods sound like this.

OK, maybe I should put it an other way: How much different racing does LFS offer you and which other games would you have to buy, to get the same? GTR for GTR cars, PlayStation2 + F1 game for BMW Sauber, CRC for Rallyecross. And those are only the close to sim-games. Ther is actually no sim out there that simulates streetcars.
Quote :Their games are nearly perfect and getting better and better...

nearly perfect? And hope dies last...
Quote :
I never said that LFS is a poor quality game... I played it a lot (offline) and be (somewhat) addicted to it. But I didn't start all the comparisons to other games like GTR.

And there are a lot of funny people here which dream in their own world.... "Never seen patches for GTR" and something like this. That's paranoid. There are many patches up to version 1.5 out yet... sometimes with more tracks and cars... 24h le mans races... that's also great content... But LFS fanboys like to ignore that other companies offer something great, too.

No, wrong. More people than you might think see, buy and play the other games. Even like _some_ of the content. Most complete is LFS and stays LFS. Besides that: saying the 24hrs of Spa for GTR are great content is one of the best jokes ever. Hey, I stopped in Masters of Endurance 24hours of Aston several times for a couple of minutes to change the scenery. And besides that: I dont like companies that promise me something (driver-swaps LIKE IN THE REAL FIA GT were promised for GTR from the beginning.) and dont fulfill their promises.

The point you make about the licensing is simple wrong: You get a great game for 36,- Euros, with a lot of content. More racing than any other sim can give you atm for that price. If you whine about S1 content, move on. NFS Undergroundplayers moved on to UG2 then to MW etc. etc.

"The King is dead, long live the King!"
Quote from skiingman :All of this over 12 pounds?
Robbson, I've earned more than that sitting here reading forums in the time you've taken to write these silly posts.

I hope you don't forget to think while you work. In Germany I it's late evening now and I spend my spare time to write something in this forum. So you can see, there's not so much money you can earn at this time except rents or something like that.

But discussion about money is senseless... and "want a job" is still another thing than "get a job", Mr. Workaholic.

Robbson.
Quote from Robbson :I hope you don't forget to think while you work. In Germany I it's late evening now and I spend my spare time to write something in this forum. So you can see, there's not so much money you can earn at this time except rents or something like that.

But discussion about money is senseless... and "want a job" is still another thing than "get a job", Mr. Workaholic.

Robbson.

At the 24/7 gasstation around the corner they always look for workers. 3hours and you have your 18,- Euros for your upgrade...

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG