Right, whinge threads are in fashion so I thought I'd get one of my own.

LFS's reputation is being seriously harmed by the terrible state of its popular servers. There are simply too many avoidable crashes and too much first lap carnage. Add to this Admins that are too frightened to do their job and ban anyone other than occasionally using an innocent driver as a scapegoat.

And if you dare complain there are two things they will say to you...

1) Oh you're such a pro, not everyone can be a pro people make mistakes blah blah.

I don't expect anyone to be brilliant and never cause an accident ever, but anyone should know that braking too late and smashing into the cars infront is not good enough, and neither is driving into the side of another car because you didn't look first, or entering the track without looking, having ridiculous lag or simply not being in sufficient control of your car, losing it at every corner and swerving wildly on straights. And worst of all, ignoring the massive blue flag writing at the top of the screen.

Speed has nothing to do with this, its about being clean. Infact the people who get crashed into the most are the not so fast drivers in the midfield who are at least clean, while the fantastic drivers on the first few rows get away cleanly.

These are the basic standards that admins should require from everyone who races on their server, you don't have to be a pro to keep to these standards. If you're just starting out and you're not at the level where you can do these things you shouldn't be online in the first place!

If I can keep to these standards, then anyone can.

2) If you don't like it here, go somewhere else then.

While this argument applies to people who whinge about LFS in general because there are many other sims which suit different needs, every single popular LFS server is bad like this, and I don't have the money to run my own (If I could, I would), so effectively there is nowhere else to go.

So Joe bloggs goes to race on a server in LFS online, he just wants some good racing and hes not incredibly fast but can at least control his car and checks his mirrors, after being rammed on the first lap three races in a row he starts getting annoyed at the terrbile driving and complains, perhaps mentioning a few names to the admins, who tell him to shut up and that people deserve a second chance blah blah blah. After getting crashed out another few times the idiotic driving and the attitudes of the admins make him pretty furious and he loses it big time and decides to take the law into his own hands and does something to regret later, causing him to get banned. Cue anger, frustration and humiliation for all.

Wherever you go you will see flaring tempers and abuse being thrown about because drivers know that they can't rely on the admins to help them out, admins just can't afford be soft with people who will never learn.

So we end up with a community where some of the cleanest racers are banned while those who cause the accidents race after race go without punishment. Or recieve nothing much more than a gentle warning.

I think the decline in the LFS community can be partly blamed on this problem, because there is only so much shit that people can take from other racers and admins before they get sick of wasting their time, and their breath. League races are just too much comittment for the average clean driver who just wants to have fun and finish a race every so often.

Admins just need to be less frightened to use the ban button quickly before tempers start to flare and have a think and imagine what its like for the people racing on the server when wherever they go its impossible to avoid a first lap pile up. Think how frustating it is.

[/rant]

I agree with everything just said.

yup i'd agree with what has been said above. On the late braking into other cars, sometimes it's lag, but then, if you know it's a bit laggy (it's usually pretty obvious) then allow for it, brake earlier.

Quote from senn :

On the late braking into other cars, sometimes it's lag, but then, if you know it's a bit laggy (it's usually pretty obvious) then allow for it, brake earlier.

Exactly! It dosen't take the brain of Einstein to work stuff like that out by yourself.

such is what happens when people consider it a game and not a sim.

Quote from z-ro 8 :

such is what happens when people consider it a game and not a sim.

Bang on! My thoughts exactly!

no one who causes these crashes won't read this message

I fully agree and thats why I have given up on public racing :/

whilst for the most part i agree. i have to put 1 point across for server admins:

Quote :

Admins just need to be less frightened to use the ban button quickly before tempers start to flare

Easier said than done. The quickest way to become known as a bad admin by the general racing community is to ban quickly. Because when you do ban quickly you only end up having to ban his friend who won't shut up about it and then they both end up on a popular forum bashing your name, your server name and your team name.

Quote from franky500 :

whilst for the most part i agree. i have to put 1 point across for server admins:



Easier said than done. The quickest way to become known as a bad admin by the general racing community is to ban quickly. Because when you do ban quickly you only end up having to ban his friend who won't shut up about it and then they both end up on a popular forum bashing your name, your server name and your team name.

True that

...just send them off to [CAD]




Then I will "look after them"

*evilgrin*

Muuuuahahahhaha*chough*ahahahahaha!!!

Indeed,Franky is right.

The fact that you should be very easy on the ban button isn't really what I'd do,if I would've been an admin. Just banning quickly leads to mistakes(for example,banning the wrong person),not watching the replay,arguing...*infinity*

When I started racing in IHR,I had no idea why the admins/mods/limads were so strict on bans. Racing there for few months has brought me to logic in it. Which is - give longer bans.

And why? The less the nubish drivers there are,the cleaner the race is.

Just my two cents,kthxbai.

Quote from franky500 :

Easier said than done. The quickest way to become known as a bad admin by the general racing community is to ban quickly. Because when you do ban quickly you only end up having to ban his friend who won't shut up about it and then they both end up on a popular forum bashing your name, your server name and your team name.

Yeah, I don't mean instantly (unless they do some completely obviously deliberately stupid), but sometimes when the same bad driver has been racing on the server for 5 or 6 races and the admin don't seem to want to do much about it other than tell all the people complaining to shut up.

Quote from CSU1 :

...just send them off to [CAD]

Then I will "look after them"

*evilgrin*

Muuuuahahahhaha*chough*ahahahahaha!!!

It makes me laugh when people go to CAD not seeming to realise its a banger server and get really angry. Despite the server name quite clearly reading 'destruction derby'.

There is a balance somewhere in middle of leaving it too long, and doing it too early.

But finding this balance is no overnight job. It requires patience and in my opinion. "lack" of insim interfeerence.

Me, I Personally feel that the biggest killer of decent racing has been insim applications.

Decent pick up racing died once people became too relient on systems similar to the old CTRA systems.

I agree with everything you said. The only clean racing left in LFS is either league racing, or a private server with people that you know can drive clean and close. This will always be an issue in any racing sim created that DOES NOT have a CENTRAL governing system with a set of acceptable racing standards for all to abide by. Unfortunately the only sim (that I know of) that has this sort of system is Iracing. The closest LFS ever came to it was CTRA, which was one hell of a valiant effort that at the very worst could be considered a very, very successful failure.

Now, I know immediately what all of you are going to say....."Its too expensive, and I don't like having to use my real name.".

Well, you have to look at the reality of the situation, folks. The type of air-tight management that is required to run a system such as Iracing requires a HUGE amount of man-power if you're doing it right. If you're doing it right, there are so many drivers who take interest that the demand becomes higher and higher, requiring more management and subsequently more man-power. People's good graces only go so far and you can only require so much of people before they want to be compensated for their time (and rightfully so. Ring any bells?). Add all that to the fact that none of these developers are pouring their lives into these sims just for the fun of it, and you are looking at some very tight financial quarters.

So before you make the "Its too expensive" or "I dont like using my real name" argument, take a look at the alternatives. If there is an alternative that is "cheaper" than iracing, as closely and well managed as iracing, but provides the same grid sizes, the same server availability, and the same level of customization as LFS/iracing, then go drive there and please PM me with a download link.

I understand people's frustrations as I am in the same boat, I hate the lack of a central system in LFS, but at the same time I simply cannot afford to PAY for that system should they have it in place. So, this takes me back to my original point. If you want good clean sim racing you have 3 options.
1)Any sim on the market, given you run in leagues and/or private servers with your friends.
2)Sell your car and buy an iracing account
3)Sell your car and your house, and go do the real deal at your local race track.

One thing is for certain. We can never and will never "fix" the problem of terrible driving in LFS. It is always going to be with us, especially when there are so many clean drivers who can afford leaving LFS for iracing. The best we can do is to keep our eyes open for the great drivers that are still around, write down their usernames/times when they are online the most, and once we have a nice healthy list, start inviting these drivers to private servers/events. I know that this is time consuming, but its GOT to be better than beating the same damned dead horse that we have been beating for years.......

Yeah, well what about people that insult admins personally? I know a few good drivers in the times when OsR was up and running. Each complaint was dealt with instantly, because we did not have as many users, and still, some people(even some of the "good drivers") kept saying that we are doing a very bad job in administrating(and no, i will not be mentioning any (user/nick)names). It gets frustrating for admins too. I got my own things to do and missing 1 or 2 accidents does not necessarily mean that the server is not well managed. True - we had only 1 trained and really serious person(Rep), but every thing was dealt instantly, when we did have the chance. When there are no admins there has always been the reports section in the forums, but no one ever used that anyway.

Also in the times when I was actively working on the insim app. I was again blamed for not doing good in administration, and really - Rep was responsible for track problems, while I was responsible for the progress of the insim app. And I do dare to claim that this person knew that, because he had been racing many times in the server before, and because of the fact he is clean in most of the time we have saved him a lot of arguing and stuff when he has done wrong things.

That's why admins and users get tired of each other so fast. A user goes in a server - gets banned, because of an admin who is already fed up of dealing with his server. Then the user, fed up from bad administration goes into a server, and when he sees the slightest mistake in the admins, he starts blaming them. Then we have another fed up user and another fed up admin. I am not really fed up already, because I had set this as a rule - Not to take action against people who say their opinion(no matter good or bad) about the server or about the management(and it worked out pretty well on my mental status, when I knew that this is what I want and what would give the users freedom and of course I secretly hoped to give the server a little better name). But some people saw that nothing happens when they say something, and abused their right of free speech. And you know, I'm cool now, but if OsR was still up, I'd probably be sick of every new user, before they even join the race.

That's the completed chain of LFS admins and users. It's not in the admins or the users. It's in the stinky bags, that join the servers and cause this, and they have to be removed before the smell spreads, but sadly removing bag after bag makes your hands smelly, and washing them too often gets annoying, after which you most likely become a stinky bag too(If you get what I'm saying here).

Quote from 5haz :

It makes me laugh when people go to CAD not seeming to realise its a banger server and get really angry. Despite the server name quite clearly reading 'destruction derby'.

- n00bs , or fresh meat

Agree, its so boring to start 4 races and 4 times get rammed on the first corner or on the straight = half a hour time lose without fun only get you mad.

Its the main reason why I faded away from LFS. Sometimes you can get some incredible racing, usually however, you just get rammed into....

But lets talk realisticly here. What can you do? Nothing really.

Every game has this issue. Every game has these idiots who would rather spoil everyone's elses game for the fun of their own...

Sad, but...

Can you sum it up in two sentences?

Well it worked when was for example ctra active, because on one hand it was public racing, but if you advanced and deserved noob qualis to better server you got everytime very nice public racing.

It's just a question of system and I'd say also people, with something new in LFS nice people will hopefully come back and some decent, admined servers with them, too.

This is an important topic, however, as mentioned somewhere above, the people who need to read important forum threads usually don't. I hope some of the people that need to read this do.

This is my oppinion:

I don't agree that the admins are to blame for crapy pickup races, the drivers who ruin them are; however admins are the only proper defense against incapable drivers. Vote-ban can be sufficient at times but is usually not. This is where the decision between "big government" or "complete freedom" come into play. I think a middle gound can be reached.

I am all for freedom on the servers, however freedom requires responsibility. That is where insim comes in, as government (aka. insim and "SR"). So I would be willing to compromise IFF one request be met. I'll submit my solution after I make my request for server owners.

Request:

Standardize and merge toghether all the insim databases so that SR, rank, license, etc. are applicable to all servers that run insim class systems. This would require a public database. If this means starting over one more time I would gladly.

This solution is only posible with a public unified insim database. Of course this only applies to servers that run insim class systems.

Solution:

(1)Driving course requirement: If there is a way to know if someone has completed the LFS Training, make a requirement to be able to pass PRO/QUICK Ai for the car that a person wants to drive online. If there is no way of knowing via. packets, require a file from the lessons to be uploaded to the Unified Insim Database. If the car in question has not been passed on PRO/QUICK then the person can not drive that car online.

Do away with the "build your license" approach. It is too time consuming.

With this everone on the server is/can be expected to be able to drive cleanly. therefore there are no excuses for someone when they cause an unreasonable insident.

(2)Safety Score(SR): Just like another sim, and most class servers, safety rating is a good way of promoting clean racing. However, at the time it is not strict enough. SR seems to work well on another sim, so why throw away a good solution.

If you think this has potential, add solutions to this list instead of just complaining and agreeing with the OP. I agree with the OP, but it is useless if no solution is made.

Your solution is good, however those of us with not alot of LFSEI because of noobs wouldnt be able to participate.

@Bmxtwins

It is good that you think my solution has some good. It means my post wasn't completely pointless.

What is LFS"EI"?

The point of the class system is to not let the noobs participate in the upper class racing until they are nolonger noobs. So it seems to get the job done.

Quote from legoflamb :

Solution:

(1)Driving course requirement: If there is a way to know if someone has completed the LFS Training, make a requirement to be able to pass PRO/QUICK Ai for the car that a person wants to drive online. If there is no way of knowing via. packets, require a file from the lessons to be uploaded to the Unified Insim Database. If the car in question has not been passed on PRO/QUICK then the person can not drive that car online.

Do away with the "build your license" approach. It is too time consuming.

With this everone on the server is/can be expected to be able to drive cleanly. therefore there are no excuses for someone when they cause an unreasonable insident.

No.

See, I am willing to say and bet 60%, of those crashers are more than capable of actually driving normally and fairly, they just choose not to for the fun of their own.

What this means, is that they will easily pass the lessons, and then come online to do the same crap over and over.