ScaViEr = Scawen (Roberts), Victor (Van Vlaardingen), Eric (Bailey)
Scawen = coder
Victor = support/music/web stuff?
Eric = content (cars, tracks, textures)
I think there was a running joke some years ago that Eric didn't exist. I seem to recall Scawen describing him as shy, perhaps even reclusive. There is a group photo floating around the interwebs from around the time S1 was released, although it may have been around the time S2 was released. Figure at least 5 years ago.
Scawen and Victor are fairly communicative and Victor in particular is well integrated with the community. That puts Eric in bad light, but the fact of the matter is, we don't know what happens behind the scenes. Any assumptions regarding his diligence, or existence for that matter, are quite simply unfair.
I think that Scavier is a role model for indie-games.
Do whatever you want, when you want because you want to.
If you don't feel like going on the forum, or working for that matter, you simply don't have to.
Most excellent.
That said, I prefer Notch's approach.
Scawen has valid reasons for not doing what Notch does, but I think that some draconian posting rules could address them.
I for one don't mind censorship when it is in the form of banning people that talk about late releases, missing features, how LFS is "dying" or similar. Unfortunately, automated forum moderation is a dream
Oh, regarding OP: I'd hope they'd open LFS up quite a bit. Allowing it to connect to any server, decrypting content, releasing docs or source snippets etc.
In reality, probably a farewell news post.
Another samey thread about how you, personally are sick of waiting. Congrats. Do what most of us do, get on with your life, check back every now and then, and stop bitching.
If you can find a sim that is as good for the price, please let us know.
Once some of you guys grow up a little bit and live your life, you'll realize that other things start to take precedent in your life other than your own hobbies, especially once you have a family to support and care for.
Eric's right. Your bitching is not at all constructive.
Why all the whining about a FWD shitbox?
Maybe the sky is falling, but not for lack of updates. It's competition. Competition in the sim racing market has increased since S2's release. GTR2 was not competition for LFS, but iRacing is.
AFAIK LFS is not a religion and Scawen is not a guru. What I mean is that there's nothing holding you here if LFS doesn't suit you for the moment. I would even suggest to give NKP a try while Scavier polish their delayed patch. Btw must have taken a while for a reason, we might have some surprises.
It's a free world, try them all instead of complaining here
Certainly.. I've never had such bad technical issues with any sim. It seems to have no support for my G25, even though I know it has. It makes the wheel shake uncontrollably when the game starts, and I cannot start the car. Yes, I tried the mouse So first it makes my G25 go insane, then the rest of the game doesn't work, and then it crashes. I've tried pretty much everything, the game just doesn't work. I say typical Italian stuff
Any other sim works. LFS, RBR, GTR Evo, rFactor. NKP does not, messed with it for about 2 hours to no avail. It's uninstalled now
This was Eric's first and unique public post. He never wanted to involve himself in LFSF. Therefore this date doesn't say anything, it's not representative of Eric's activity development wise.
Scawen is known to be working hard still on tyre physics. He might not be putting in the big hours he did at the start of this project, but then why should he? It's clearly not ideal to go so long without an update, but Scawen is commited to tyres, and at least when it's updated, he hopefully won't have to go back to it for a long time.
What I find more worrying is why we couldn't of had at least content patches in the meantime. Sure Rockingham, Scirocco and other surprises have to wait, but the existing models and textures could have been polished to a shine by now. So the question is either, why couldn't they be released, or why haven't they been done? We've had nice updates to tracks and interiors before, why can't we again to tide over the community until Scawen has something for us?
Scawen. Mate. If you actually read any of this drivel, which I hope for your sake you don't, do me a favour woulda.
Don't release S3 for a while.
It's just my g25 is buggered and I'm not going to get myself a g27 till at least after christmas as a little present to myself once I've sorted everyone else's presents out. And it would really really nark me if I had to play your glorious updated racing simulator on shoddy, half working equipment.
So please. If you could. Just ease up a bit, chill out for christmas, take a winter sun break. (I'm thinking of Morroco for two weeks in december. Should be nice.) and possibly think about a mid to late jan release. I think the timing would be perfect.
Thankyou for consideration in this matter. Yours truly . . .
The thing is though Bob, is that who knows what effects what. If you've got a more accurate tyre model, then you've got more accurate suspension modelling. More accurate wheel movement within the arches, more effictive aero, etc, etc. All of which will effect model builds, certain track effects et al et al. We already know the wheel into wheel arch defect, as well as Track gremlins like the KYGP kurb. Why release visual updates for a short term fix when you know you've got to do them all over again to accomodate new physics. Why work twice as hard goin over the same ground when once over when the new physics is done is a far more sensible option. Even the likes of the interiors might be effected ( I know, I know . . how. But you just never know, could be something as simple as steering wheel placement. I dunno) If the amount of work is going into LFS is as a take it to be, then I certainly wouldn't be thinking graphics was a priority. Maybe if I had a more commercial enterprise with a team of artists and programmers then sure, keep the community hanging. But from a personal approach, a 'one man gang' effectivly. Then i certainly wouldn't be doing anything untill I managed to fix what I broke trying to fix what needed fixing. Once all the sticking plasters are removed, then you can go about doing the decorating.
Probably Scawen unsubscribed from trye physics thread again. And as he said, he´s not going to post something everyday like "hi, im working on the tyre physics", tomorrow "hi, im still working on the tyre physics. Allthought, him making a post wouldent be bad at all.
There may be several answers to that question, all of which are nothing but speculation going on :
- Technical issues : Perhaps the tire model tweaking require modifications to the code of cars and to the different models linked to geometry of the tires/wheels for example. As such, to prevent making an updated model compatible with both LFS and the tire simulator, you'd need to put twice the same amount of work in tweaking the car, which would be less productive than waiting to release that in a compatible bundle with the new physics.
- Bundling arbitrage : I've read several times that a single-track and 2 cars (the 'Roc and the unknown car) felt not sufficient to justify the £12 for S3. As such, they may have decided to bundle the new content addition with S3 to improve the perceived deal by the prospective customers, while waiting to release upgades to the current track at the same time as S3 goes live to incease the impact of the new version.
- HR discrepancies : Perhaps there has been some disagreement among Scavier, or perhaps each dev have lost its leverage on the development speed of his co-workers, resulting in a counter emulation which has slowed down the content development.
- Business-model adaptation : Maybe Scavier has found a way to expand their business with LFS, and as such are proceeding to adapt their existing processes to the new requirements of these changes. It may include new payment-model, new server structure, new content upgrades, etc.
These are the most reasonable business-based changes I could think of considering Scavier's situation and due to the lack of information we have got about the company so far. None of these is terribly threatening for the company, but it may explain (partly) the reasons of the slow development speed.
(is it true that there is a 3rd Dev?)
