Seriously - this is one of the best racing games out there, but how many users are put off giving it a serious try as version 0.6 sounds like some early beta?

I remember trying LFS out the first time years ago when it was version 0.4 or something and I was actually not really giving it a fair chance as the GUI really looks a bit like a half finished open source project ported from Unix to PC (sorry that is my only complaint of this game!). I started it up and could not get the controls set up right and uninstalled it before realizing the gem that was inside...

Then a year ago I downloaded it again after someone praising it on some forum and realized that the in game graphics are actually really nice and are not that far off the big budget games, and the physics are naturally second to none etc...

As it is now this game it rock stable and has been on the market for ages. It should be version 6.0 or something by now! For newcomers that would feel a lot better - at least according to me (being a programmer knowing that a version 0.6 is usually just a tech demo ).

If the Google Chrome team would do their version increments like LFS they would be on version 0.3.21B or something - but they are at version 12 now Sure - they are a bit silly and Firefox are following their footsteps - but really, it's at least time for version 1.0 now? Or for the sake of it - call it version 6.0!

Version numbering is completely unimportant and big projects like Google Chrome increment "major" version number almost every week only for marketing purposes. It makes your project look like it's advancing warp-speed fast if you increment version numbers like a madman.

LFS uses a conservative A.B|C|D system like 0.3H, 0.5Z28, 0.6B etc. The first 0 indicates that the game still lacks some features devs want it to have. Seriously, there's no reason why to care about version number as long as it's increasing

Usually a number < 1 means that the program isn't finished, which is very much the case here. Just increasing the version number with every patch is stupid and seems more like a "which developer has the biggest epenis" competition...

Who said version 1.0 was the final version? Not everything has to be like google chrome for example. It was released in 2008 and its in version 15 (correct if im wrong). Now that is a bit pathetic in my opinion.

I think its just fine having 0.6 here. Anyway, who cares what version it is. Its a playable and working game after after all. The version updates (small numbers, still updates) are just improvements to the existing version. There's no beta going on what so ever.

I hope this answers the question and i hope my understanding is correct of this LFS version thingy.

Edit: Would u rather like every version to add a 1.0 to the game version? Damn, this would look a little weird.

Yea. Usually badly made products have high version numbers.. Lets see... Street Legal Racing Redline had around 10-15 patches? It just shows how careless the programmers are. No intention to make the number bigger. We are the testers, hence LFS is for the community As it always have been. It's a pretty much "closed" community, mostly the same people stay here.

Yea finally! I searched for that video, since like the last 2 years. Thanks Amynue

Quote from hazaky :

Who said version 1.0 was the final version? Not everything has to be like google chrome for example. It was released in 2008 and its in version 15 (correct if im wrong). Now that is a bit pathetic in my opinion.

I think its just fine having 0.6 here. Anyway, who cares what version it is. Its a playable and working game after after all. The version updates (small numbers, still updates) are just improvements to the existing version. There's no beta going on what so ever.

I hope this answers the question and i hope my understanding is correct of this LFS version thingy.

Edit: Would u rather like every version to add a 1.0 to the game version? Damn, this would look a little weird.

No, I agree that it's way too late for version 1.0 Like I said above - call it version 6.0. For a game that has been around for almost 10 years version 0.6 feels like something that has died? But I guess that's me after working with programming for decades... Pop in at sourceforge and find a project started in 2002 that is on version 0.6. Then check the activity level of that project. Just a guess - rather low?

And is this really still a beta? Does not feel like it to me - and like I said, I agree that Google Chromes numbering is silly - but it is for marketing purposes. Does not those rules apply a bit here?

Sure - it's not a big thing but I really got caught up on it while donwloading version 0.6B... Maybe that's only me

Technically LFS 1.0 should be the proper release of S3. When that actually happens is anyone's guess, as Scavier themselves probably aren't sure what exactly is going to be in that release.

What is certain, howver, is that not all features that Scavier wants to include are in the game as of now.

I like how Chrome approaches versions, they don't have big flagship releases, like FireFox 4 and IE 9, they're just constantly iterating. The version numbers don't matter and I barely even notice them going up anymore. The goal of Google is to get to the point where you don't even notice the browser being updated. The whole big release thing dates from back when it was an effort to publish a new version, but now Google can push out an update every week. Frankly I see this as an improvement.

Also the whole LFS S2 alpha A, B, C thing is just confusing, especially since they ran out letters and went to 0.6 for no real reason. Just do major.minor.revision alpha/beta/stable like every one else.

I think you inadvertently made the best point about how there's no right or wrong version numbering. I can think of 10 reasons why Google's versioning of Chrome is bad and you could probably come up with 15 counterarguments. Bottomline: read the changelogs or release notes, ignore the "absolute value" of version number, it doesn't tell you anything...

Quote from DarkTimes :

I like how Chrome approaches versions, they don't have big flagship releases, like FireFox 4 and IE 9, they're just constantly iterating. The version numbers don't matter and I barely even notice them going up anymore. The goal of Google is to get to the point where you don't even notice the browser being updated. The whole big release thing dates from back when it was an effort to publish a new version, but now Google can push out an update every week. Frankly I see this as an improvement.

Also the whole LFS S2 alpha A, B, C thing is just confusing, especially since they ran out letters and went to 0.6 for no real reason. Just do major.minor.revision alpha/beta/stable like every one else.

That there is kinda the point of this thread. Version numbers go up incrementally, at whatever rate the developers want it to. Version 1, 2, 3, etc., doesn't mean anything that Version 0.1, 0.1A, 0.1B, etc., doesn't.

Quote from DarkTimes :

S2 alpha A, B, C thing is just confusing, especially since they ran out letters and went to 0.6 for no real reason. Just do major.minor.revision alpha/beta/stable like every one else.

They did not run out of letters. Its 0.6B already if u havnt noticed.

Convention says that < 1 version numbers are in alpha and not feature complete. That could be said of LFS, and we did have the alpha tag until recently, but who says LFS has to be conventional?

Quote from MadCatX :

Version numbering is completely unimportant and big projects like Google Chrome increment "major" version number almost every week only for marketing purposes. It makes your project look like it's advancing warp-speed fast if you increment version numbers like a madman.

LFS uses a conservative A.B|C|D system like 0.3H, 0.5Z28, 0.6B etc. The first 0 indicates that the game still lacks some features devs want it to have. Seriously, there's no reason why to care about version number as long as it's increasing

Quote from Secondaries :

That there is kinda the point of this thread. Version numbers go up incrementally, at whatever rate the developers want it to. Version 1, 2, 3, etc., doesn't mean anything that Version 0.1, 0.1A, 0.1B, etc., doesn't.

At the end of the day, who gives a F*** as long as each iteration gets better. I'd suggest masturbating with stolen cheese as a good therapy.

Quote from mazex :

Unix to PC

Didn't realize that Unix was a complete architecture, always thought it was an operating system.

And even if you meant, port a game from Unix to Windoze, you've got to be kidding.
The only few games we have for *nix systems native, there is usualy a win32 compilation of the game, so no port necesary.


About version numbering, you gave chrome as example, and here is my example:
Wine.
They have been developing it for over 10 years now(actualy will soon be 20 years since project start) and they just recently came over the "oh so magic 1.0" and I believe the current stable release is at 1.2.2 or something like that. So you could say that wine was on similar version numbers than LFS for like 12-15 years at least, and it was far from unusable. My first version was, I believe somewhere around 0.6, 0.7 or something similar, still officialy in beta stage, but it worked perfectly even then(with the apps that were in the winedb).

My point is, why bother with the version number? It doesn't change the game in any way.

Quote from Squelch :

Convention says that < 1 version numbers are in alpha and not feature complete. That could be said of LFS, and we did have the alpha tag until recently, but who says LFS has to be conventional?

Actually 0.x can mean alpha or beta, but even 1.x or even 1222.x can have beta and also alpha releases.
Alpha release is usualy just for internal testing, usualy not available to public, so even in this "directive" LFS is unconventional, don't you think?
Also software versioning usualy have 4 numbers, like so:
major.minor[.build[.revision]]
Where build can be either, alpha, beta, RC, release(0,1,2,3).
That is the conventional way of versioning, where LFS is different again.

But once again, what's the point?
When I'm catching my arse on the race track around the corners, I really don't care if it say LFS 0.6B or LFS 60.0XYZ. A number wont change my experience.

Quote from mazex :

Seriously...how many users are put off giving it a serious try as version 0.6 sounds like some early beta? ...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...
It should be version 6.0 or something by now! For newcomers that would feel a lot better
...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...bla...
it's at least time for version 1.0 now? Or for the sake of it - call it version 6.0!

Does it really matter???

Quote from ripley :

does it really matter???

+1

As long as development continues, I don't really care about the version numbering system they use.

An interesting definition of what a 1.0 release should be was that given by the developers of Instantbird, a chat client: 1.0 should represent the release where your initial goals were fulfilled in a satisfactory manner.

As an aside, Wiki has some enlightening takes on the various versioning systems over the years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning

The upshot is, no it doesn't really matter, and the developers can choose whatever method suites them.

Somehow I had guessed this was the way this was going to end up. Just forget it...

Well, what was it you wanted to achive? Someone who is put of by the 0.6 is just stupid, tbh. Besides, the only people who care about a version number are the ones who are already, to a certain extend, particullary interested in software and probably aware of the complexity of this product.

LFS wouldn't "sell" any better if it would be called 6.0, since it simply isn't finished yet and that is hardly to cover up by just a number.

They already took a step forward, regading stability, and got rid of the alpha tag.