I miss the "CTRA" servers/website concept.
Now that had some follower's..
Had some dam good race's there(apart from the occasional crasher)......... it was a great value & had a reasonable database for the whole simcommunity in "this sim" to rank up(so to speak) as "simracers".
Id even go as far to say i would pay money to see CTRA come back again! who knows...
I love your optimism. Everyone wants to see LFS rise again, but it's very doubtful.
What everyone fails to see (excusable for those that haven't been along for the whole ride), LFS was successful because it was different. It started off way ahead of the curve, generating excitement and attracting the masses. Devs engaged the community , making regular improvements/updates and the community grew over time. This carried on for several years (2001-2005). The devs then took a break, but never returned to the same vigour of engaged/development the community become accustom too and here we are now.
The devs have have made it quite clear that they aren't going to change their ways and become even more recluse to an extent that has pretty much decided LFS fate IMO.
Sure there will be a bump in popularity with the next release (if we ever see it), but restoring the community to it's former glory will take more than just a release of S2 final or S3, especially with all the scepticism of LFS development future.
It's doubtful those who have invested time/money into developing leagues/communities and see them suffer a slow death, will make a repeat investment, without their faith being restored.
What attracted me to LFS was not that it was 'different' (that was a bonus), but it was the first racing game I played that felt like a real car to drive. And that was during the very imperfect S1 days. I have yet to play anything that feels so realistic, with the possible exception of netKar Pro in some, but not all, circumstances.
LFS doesn't need lots of cars and tracks to be successful. It doesn't need the best graphics. It doesn't need the most accurate tracks in the world. Those things are for bigger, more expensive sims and games, with bigger teams of people. LFS has never tried to compete with that, because it's a 3-man team set up because they wanted to get away from big teams, corporate deadlines and all the stuff that goes with big-time game development. That's why they don't want to hire more staff, or use community help, because ultimately Scawen would have to manage people, which he doesn't want to do.
LFS is all about the physics. They are its raison d'être. Get them right - and huge teams are unlikely to help with this, as traditionally tyre physics have been a one-man show even in massive software companies - and people will come and play. They might not show it off to their friends, who generally like to be impressed with graphics and sounds and features. They might not play it for 'fun', as realistic is rarely 'fun' on a computer. But they will buy it, play it, and probably take it seriously.
Sadly, the drifting and cruising part of the community tend to cast a poor light over the whole scene, even though some drifters and cruisers are wonderful, intelligent and capable people - the masses of those groups are not. They are chavvy, stupid, and have as much skill as a mole on a unicycle. They don't take it seriously, and they don't care as much about physics as about smoke, drift angles (no matter how unrealistic), and stickers on back-to-front.
Can you blame Scawen for becoming a recluse here? People moan about progress reports and progress itself. When he does create a patch or write a report, people initially thank him, and within a day they are moaning again about promises that were never made. You might say the problems are self made, but I don't think they are. Scawen works how he works, at a pace that suits his life and his goals. Standard business models don't apply. The customer is not always right. He has no obligations to provide one more character of code to anyone. The trouble is that the community moan and moan and moan and complain and swear and become really rather rude (excessively, given that this is just a computer game and doesn't actually matter in the slightest). If people spoke to me about my passion like that, then I'd not want to talk to them either. Why give the morons and bullys that 'know best' the time of day. It won't shut them up.
Of course, the moaners don't think of themselves as moaners. They see themselves as soothsayers - bringers of truth to the community about how shit Scawen is as a person and how poor LFS is in terms of polygon counts compared to Monsters Inc. They probably won't even realise I'm referring to them here. They want want want, and are unable to understand or accept the very premise that LFS is built on - Scawen's will to work how he wants to work rather than how other people want him to work.
Until people get that they will moan. Many people here do get that, and either sit back smugly in the knowledge that they can wait or try to defend LFS (and get called fanboys in the process - one of the least intelligent arguments in the world). At the moment the moaners outnumber the supporters.
I'm not surprised Scawen keeps his distance.
Interesting how rFactor2 has only just started modelling tyre temps position, contact patches etc. They make a new game, and it's 6 years out of date before they finish it. Ha ha ha!
@tristancliffe: Simple fact is, in LFS there hasn't been any update for way too long. I like the game, I play it, and I still enjoy it.
But, fact remains - there hasn't been any update for very long, and people who started playing before me, and/or play much more than me find it lacking. Driving same tracks&cars for so long does become boring.
While it is their project, and they decide what to do, we still have right to voice our opinions.
For me, I got way much more than what I paid for.
But, I'm also willing to pay more to get even more - alas, there ain't more to pay for. It's not like expect someone to develop more cars/tracks/improve physics/whatever just because me or anyone else asks for it.
But, as said... it's really way long without any real updates, and simple fact is that due to this community is slowly dying in numbers.
Yes, many will return once new content comes, but some wont. Is it good or bad thing? Judge yourself.
But, you mention rFactor2. What they are doing is great actually... and while you say 'they just started modelling tyre temps positions, etc...' - it's false, from link posted above you can see they have completely changed tyre physics, and are working also on other stuff, so hopefully soon they may roll rFactor2 out.
I really do hope it's good game. We need good sims.
So, instead of laughing at rFactor2, you may aswell rather encourage it.
Or maybe you just want to play S2 here.... forever...
Yes, and regarding rFactor2: ISI say their 2 man track team has produced 11 new tracks from scratch in 2 years. And these will have bumps and changing surface conditions.
There's an excuse for taking time with the tyre model (no-one really knows how to do it) but I can't see one for nothing else happening.
Just wanted to show you what I saw when I read your post. Many may not agree with me, but this is how I see it in my head (going to show you my 1st thoughts of when I read everything, so yeah, it's going to be a bit rude):
Just wanted to share what I feel like when I'm reading such posts. Even though I am normally trying to write serious replies, I must admit - I am having a really fun time reading most of the moaning posts (because, everyone knows that some of them are so ridiculous, that they even cross the border of ridiculously-funny). So, why not share what's happening in my crazy head anyway? - And yes, some of them may not make as much sense to you as they do to me, but whatever.
Yes, I know this post wasn't all hardcore moaning, but I don't really see a big difference, if you're going to moan anyway.
And yes, I know that there's a big child inside my head.
I can understand that it's not easy, that's why I do not comment much about it, that it's not good to devs to see people saying all time what's going on with updates... but really, it's not normal... How can take so long? months, and months, and months... some progress report every 3 months... and really nothing new... sadly there's many people that leaves LFS, for having the same content, bugs etc, from years ago... I only play ocasionally like many people because it's the same from time ago, it's the best tyres physics simulator that I have ever seen, but for how much time? I understand devs, but I understand too the racers that want an update with changes... you can't "promise" updates, and not update it in months... that's basically, the mistake... I hope it will be done soon, otherwise, LFS will be a nice Sim, but there will be other better and updated that would take all LFS racers...
+1 one Track for LFS from there and we will driving LFS again.
Why is it so hard to import Tracks to lfs ? There are many other Mods for LFS u can edit the Interior nearby everything of the Car und can also made InSim Tools. Is there no mehtod to connect some external Tracks into LFS maybe only for single player..
Why do we need new cars and tracks when the AMG server for example runs the exact same track and carcombo every day/night everandever and that server is one of the more popular racing servers on LFS...?
Look around in your neighborhood, how many real life tracks do you know?
Adding a car/track is only temporarily, after a few months the moaning starts again.