I see the point but you all seem to forget one thing.
You dont have to race on a server using some kind of system.
When connecting to LFS and its servers i get say around 450 servers.
No way they all run airio or something similar.

If they use it well their desiscion.
Point is you dont have to go there just because its filled.
You can pick any server you want.
All these setting used by admins is to make our racing more fun.

You can call it NFS style or whatever but I didnt see anybody call it that way when they CTRA was still live.
They had a system which you can`t compare with any current system.
CTRA was CTRA and 1 of a kind.

These new systems have similar things running.
And by offering a point/rank or whatever they call it you progress in rank/level.
If you have 2km or 20000000km is besides the point.
Off course people with more skills will progress more easily and gain more points/rank.
But shouldnt we be looking at the overall skill of driving on that server instead of the points.

I have seen loads of posts were people are moaning about how they miss the close racing.
Now its provided maybe not in a car of your liking but you will get there eventually.
Point is when you do progress like you did in CTRA you get better skilled servers to run at.
And there you have your close racing with quality.

Point taken though you have to start all over again but dont we all ?.
And if you dont want to go there, well there are many other servers out there.

Quote from niels1 :

I see the point but you all seem to forget one thing.
You dont have to race on a server using some kind of system.
When connecting to LFS and its servers i get say around 450 servers.
No way they all run airio or something similar.
...

And if you dont want to go there, well there are many other servers out there.

example:
At this point there are 871 servers online.
without cruise servers: 789
without private: 597
without empty: 121
without demo: 52
running tbo: 4

IHR (28)
CAD (13)
Lublin Racing Team Server (1)
Ready2Roll (1)

These "ranked/points to unlock cars" servers also skew the ingame car filters as in 3J's example above, if you are new to IHR server, even tho you have the TBO filter on in LFS lobby, you are not allowed to drive TBO as an unranked player.

SD.

Quote from Mikjen :

Did you try -OsR- Old Skool Racing brandons48

No skill level needed, Even the experienced drivers can get clipped and crash, leaving me to slowly drive past them all, whilst hitting the smiley key

Already mentioned

Quote from Brandons48 :

I'll try OSR, but i'm not sure what level of experience people expect online

Quote from niels1 :

You can call it NFS style or whatever but I didnt see anybody call it that way when they CTRA was still live.

I distinctly remember bitching about CTRA's points system and complaining about brain-dead gamers who are more interested in collecting persistent 'points' than having fun.

I think this too sometimes, it would be nice to just lose all the Airio and InSim stuff and just use what the devs have given us. Race to win the race, not to go up and rank and lose a restriction or get a new car or whatever. That's what leagues are for. For me, online racing is all about pick-up racing - I see something I fancy, join the host and just race that combo as many times as I want until I get too sweaty to grip the wheel any more.

I agree with Mysho above - the R2R servers are great for this. Yes you can go up ranks but they don't give you anything other than a different 'title' - Mega/Pico Roller etc. There it's all about enjoying each race and that's where I've had the most fun on LFS this year.

Quote from three_jump :

The point / career stuff is ok if only all the different hosts could align and form one shared database for all but atm it's just annoying with all the different ones (LR, IHR, Level, etc).
my 2 cents

sir, I think you are totally wrong
I dont know how about you, but I bought the game to have use of all tracks and cars and I dont like this fad of restricting to use some of them

On the other topic: air restrictions, GT2 classes - I would say: hundreds yays! Why? Nothing wrong in GT2 class for instance and it helps to balance cars into one class.

Anyone interested in pick-up races - have your say in my [post=1344137] Meeting room improvement thread[/post]

Quote from AndRand :

sir, I think you are totally wrong
I dont know how about you, but I bought the game to have use of all tracks and cars and I dont like this fad of restricting to use some of them

Isn't that what 3J was saying?

Quote from AndRand :

On the other topic: air restrictions, GT2 classes - I would say: hundreds yays! Why? Nothing wrong in GT2 class for instance and it helps to balance cars into one class.

I've only ever raced 'GT2'-labeled cars on CTRA servers and I found them to be boring as shit - nowhere near enough power for the huge amount of grip they had. No fun.

Quote from J@tko :

Isn't that what 3J was saying?

Just went thru whole thread
Should I point out who do I agree with and with who I do not?

I just think its kind of bullshit, with so many servers online there is bound to be a server with the right combo´s and no system... after all its not hard to setup...

I never really understood this "there is no good servers/combos anymore" or "i remember the good old times with less crashers" and so on... there is NOTHING stopping you from just opening up the ports on your router and hosting a server that you like for you and your friends... or why not public?

It makes no sense what so ever to cry about the servers offered when it clearly isnt so bad that it havent made you bother with starting you own server...

although i understand the plight, i really dont see why there is a 30-something post thread about how certain servers are set up.

these servers which have been dubbed "abnormal" are paid for, therefore if someone chooses to set it up a certain way, so be it.

many server providers (includng myself) try to offer what is popular with the majority for the moment.

if you look not too far back you will see there was an influx of FOX-only servers, Fox leagues, Fox this, Fox that......

how many months was FM Fox junkies at the top of the populated server list? more than i can really remember.

i'm sure not everyone liked to drive the Fox, but did anyway because thats where their friends were, where the competition was.....

a few weeks ago it was the CAD DD server., last year it was a few weeks straight of tbo's on RSR server. or more recently LR|Race Center.


if IHR shut down right now, the 40+ people there would find somewhere else to go, ranking system or not, and it would be packed for days, weeks months.
some people are trying to do something to make up for the lack of content and/or upgrades that we cannot control.

maybe instead of complaining about what we do have to choose from, offer suggestions as to what you want.
i personally have 5 active servers right now, you want a certain combo? say so.
you can have any combo you want. but those who pay for servers can only guess what you want if you don't say so. they see what is popular and go for it.
i put a poll up here. make a choice, you get what you want.

suggestions usually have far better results than complaints.....


(sorry for the rant...it's the medication...)

Quote from z-ro 8 :

maybe instead of complaining about what we do have to choose from, offer suggestions as to what you want.

I suggested a solution couple posts above that is on Improvements Suggestions. Strangely this thread was winding but my thread on this topic had no naswers.

If you think it is bad idea because it is mine - ok, no problem, you can be morons.

Quote from Minimaxman :

I agree with Mysho above - the R2R servers are great for this. Yes you can go up ranks but they don't give you anything other than a different 'title' - Mega/Pico Roller etc. There it's all about enjoying each race and that's where I've had the most fun on LFS this year.

Well we're only 3 days in mate.

Quote from AndRand :

I suggested a solution couple posts above that is on Improvements Suggestions. Strangely this thread was winding but my thread on this topic had no naswers.

If you think it is bad idea because it is mine - ok, no problem, you can be morons.

although that is a good idea, it's kind of off topic as to the basis of this thread....

These discussions seem trivial at times. I am one of the "I miss racing the TBO class unrestricted, just get on and go."

But it has effectively moved me away from LFS (not that it matters anyway) over the years to other sims where getting a good panel to panel, bumper to bumper battle is as easy as starting up the game/sim. I have not got the time to screw around for 6 hours a week to progress through a virtual ranking system when I have been with LFS longer than a large percentage of the active community at this time.

I payed to race, but the racing isn't paying. I sure as hell payed my dues to the LFS community years ago, but, I suppose it comes down to it for me and everyone else like me, "too bad, so sad, sucks to be us." :worried:

I'm getting exited about limited setups, new content, and a fresh new look and feel to LFS when it comes about. Maybie then I will get back to it but for now, "online" sim racing is taking a back seat to other ventures I have found in the sim world (motorcycle sims).

So, I suppose best of luck to the people that are in the same boat as me, we will get our time to shine again, I am sure. I would happily welcome being run clean off of turn 1 by a noob at this point, so long as I am in a TBO car.



-Ben

Quote from z-ro 8 :

although that is a good idea, it's kind of off topic as to the basis of this thread....

No "normal" servers were described as all with ranking systems or restricted cars.

I took the first as general - problems with public pick-up servers.

You suggested that peeps should communicate what combos they want.

IMO my suggestion gives answer for all three issues.
Plus with grouping ppl with similar PBs has a kind af ranking system. tadah!

Quote from AndRand :

No "normal" servers were described as all with ranking systems or restricted cars.

I took the first as general - problems with public pick-up servers.

You suggested that peeps should communicate what combos they want.

IMO my suggestion gives answer for all three issues.
Plus with grouping ppl with similar PBs has a kind af ranking system. tadah!

ah, i misunderstood you somewhat....
maybe we need a "hey i have a server and need suggestions as to what combo to put on it" thread.....(hey wait i just did that )

Has to be asked...

Do you folks have brains at all that function? As was already said, there are over 500 servers listed on the master server. What combo do you want, I can look for you.

Want a really odd-ball combo? Ok then, there is a filter "Allow guests to select tracks". Now we have 200 servers in my list. What combo do you want?

Wait, LX4 @ KY2R was specifically mentioned above. Let's filter "allow guests to select tracks" and we will also filter "LX4". Wow! Look at that! There's 82 servers with the LX4 enabled and you are allowed to select whatever track you want! Amazing!

Again, you will be driving all by your lonesome. Why? Because you want this but others don't. Others want to be on the restricted servers, therefore that is where everyone is.

It's the collection of racer's fault, not any fault of the server not being there!

Amazing how people can't think it through for themselves....

I have mixed feelings.

People don't just use restricted servers cos they want longer e-willies.
They also use 'em (speaking for myself at least) in the hope that they won't be full of inexperienced drivers or crashers.
It's handy to be able to type "!rt" or "!rk" after an incident to see if the person who tangled with you makes a habit of leaving the road, or indeed scoring decent points.

On the other hand, I also don't have unlimited time to amass points, and when there are several different servers with unshared points tallies, well life is just too short. I am really enjoying racing on IHR but am like many people still way short of the points required for a GTR, and this'll still be the case a month or two from now I'm sure.

(Aside: it is truly amazing the way the LFS population seem to move en-masse from one server to another, eh?)

I think turning off the points requirements might work in some cases, but not on a multi-class server. It's bad enough already on IHR when novice TBO drivers wreck races for STD drivers, and they can only use the TBO cars if their points AND safety ratings are adequate...

So EQ Worry - am really looking forward to you coming up with a tweak to have a shared points system

[Just checked LFSW for fun. 328 licensed drivers right now, and almost 100 of them are on the top 5 non-cruise servers, with 39 of them on IHR... Pretty high fraction of all racers in one place.]

Ive read many comments from this thread and want to say my experiences too. I bought S2 about a month ago. I raced at AirAttack's, [DRUNK]-team's and Redline Racing's demo servers. They almost always had over 5-7 players, Which is half of the maximum amount of players for the demo servers. Then, i heard about Masters of endurance, GTAL, and started to watch them on multibc&remote.
Ssoo.. i also bought S2 to get drive the same cars as they do. The first day i raced online, i was amazed about the number of the servers. Even better, only few of them had more than 4 drivers. Then i realized, i just wasted my money to crap like this.

Well, i met some guy from the [DRUNK] team again in the S2 server and started to hangout with drunk guys in their own server. It's the second fastest team from Finland. Ok you dont care, but just telling my experiences. They are very nice people, probably the most kindest drivers in lfs ive ever met. They also have few servers, where im racing everyday. Server's arent full of rankings or anything, its just racing and having fun, still very fast driving from the drunk guys. I have seen peoples from the most experienced teams driving there too, so what i suggest you do, you really search for servers like this. Maybe there isn't so many, but the searching should be worth it. I think it was, for me. Now when ive raced with drunk guys ive learned so much from them, they are like a family. I think everyone can experience this, if they really look for the right kind of servers.

What amazes me is the amount of public servers still running today, when you see the amount of complains in this forum (mostly unfounded) and the amount of work needed to run those servers, I am really surprised there are still guys around willing to organize things…

LFS is the most ungrateful community I ever saw and I am a hard core gamers for almost 20 years, so go on like this and the next thing you will complain about will be ‘’why is there almost no servers left in LFS?’’

Feedback is always the problem, ppls seems to think that they should report only the bad things and I know negative feedback is necessary to improve things (when constructive), but constructive positive feedback is also greatly appreciated and will also allow us to improve/maintain things. Think about those guys who can’t race because they have to admin the careless drivers all the times, their only reward is to see happy racers!

Too many ppls spend more time complaining than racing and when you see them driving you ask yourself ‘’WTH was that about on the forum???’’

I always wonder what ppls think when they discover the great sim lfs is and then read this forum??

My advice to admins is don’t do only what worked in the past or what works on other servers, be creative and bold enough to try new things... The ambiance on the server is the key to its success...

The trackers we use (Airio or Lapper) are great tools build to feel a need requested by server admins, in no way they are the culprit here!

Personally I am still here because I love racing, LFS still has one of the best online experience and it feels like a big family, and luckily there are still some ppls like me around…
Are you one of us?

And one important thing to close this, don’t go to servers you don’t like, every popular server starts with one racer liking it, don’t spend time trying to change popular servers to your liking, we are all different and we all like different type of racing…if you don’t like LFS plz just leave and let us have fun with our favorite sim….if you stay, spend your energy in a positive and constructive way!

Quote from Framaris :

What amazes me is the amount of public servers still running today, when you see the amount of complains in this forum (mostly unfounded) and the amount of work needed to run those servers, I am really surprised there are still guys around willing to organize things…

LFS is the most ungrateful community I ever saw and I am a hard core gamers for almost 20 years, so go on like this and the next thing you will complain about will be ‘’why is there almost no servers left in LFS?’’

Feedback is always the problem, ppls seems to think that they should report only the bad things and I know negative feedback is necessary to improve things (when constructive), but constructive positive feedback is also greatly appreciated and will also allow us to improve/maintain things. Think about those guys who can’t race because they have to admin the careless drivers all the times, their only reward is to see happy racers!

Too many ppls spend more time complaining than racing and when you see them driving you ask yourself ‘’WTH was that about on the forum???’’

I always wonder what ppls think when they discover the great sim lfs is and then read this forum??

My advice to admins is don’t do only what worked in the past or what works on other servers, be creative and bold enough to try new things... The ambiance on the server is the key to its success...

The trackers we use (Airio or Lapper) are great tools build to fit a need requested by server admins, in no way they are the culprit here!

Personally I am still here because I love racing, LFS still has one of the best online experience and it feels like a big family, and luckily there are still some ppls like me around…
Are you one of us?

And one important thing to close this, don’t go to servers you don’t like, every popular server starts with one racer liking it, don’t spend time trying to change popular servers to your liking, we are all different and we all like different type of racing…if you don’t like LFS plz just leave and let us have fun with our favorite sim….if you stay, spend your energy in a positive and constructive way!

Actually this should be an experiment we should try. Round up all the server owners of the popular public servers... and all the magagement for most active and popular racing leagues, and just make a deal that we do not do ANYTHING for 6 months and see what happens to the LFS community. Then when all things opens up again the ungrateful should have different opinions.

hahaha that's an idea , though I would not give up on my hobby for a couples of ungrateful guys!

But we could make them all private and give the pass to the lfs lovers exclusively! lol

Quote from Framaris :

hahaha that's an idea , though I would not give up on my hobby for a couples of ungrateful guys!

But we could make them all private!

Thats true, but it would be very entertaining to follow the escalading chaos on the forums and see what people have to say because of it.