hence why i said he should make his 1st post clearer....
Magazine for me is paper
e-Magazine is something electronic....
hence why i said he should make his 1st post clearer....
Magazine for me is paper
e-Magazine is something electronic....
I take you're point, but I've yet to find a way to download a paper magazine!
But yeah, you're right, the first post could have been clearer.
Good luck with your venture.
More ass nk and rfactor review type of journalism, or something different?
That's rethorical, coz after that ass fiasco i dunno if i should even believe words. For me the reply will be in the product. We'll see.
Goodluck.
ps: last time an individual mentioned integration and community interaction for his project he sold it after a few months to get a job. Of coz when u buy your own job it doesnt last long and it didnt. The useless and fired, seller of other people's work, the true sim-pimp in the exploiter sense, is back to the place he swore he had nothing to do with.
i love integrity and honesty. I hope thats just a sad event from the past, portrayed by an ethicbender and dat this has nothing to do with those events.
That's rethorical, coz after that ass fiasco i dunno if i should even believe words. For me the reply will be in the product. We'll see.
Goodluck.
ps: last time an individual mentioned integration and community interaction for his project he sold it after a few months to get a job. Of coz when u buy your own job it doesnt last long and it didnt. The useless and fired, seller of other people's work, the true sim-pimp in the exploiter sense, is back to the place he swore he had nothing to do with.
i love integrity and honesty. I hope thats just a sad event from the past, portrayed by an ethicbender and dat this has nothing to do with those events.
hmm, where is the magazine? i thought it should be released yesterday!? anybody heard anything?
With sincere apologies, we suffered a severe setback in our schedule due to the storms in the Southeast US last weekend. There were very severe thunderstorms over the Atlanta area, which I'm sure anyone who lives there can confirm. That caused my DSL modem to fry. Forunately, no damage to my computer before I had a chance to unplug it. The modem was plugged into a powerstrip, the computer into a UPS so maybe that's why the computer was spared. This occured on Saturday. The replacement modem did not arrive until end of day Tuesday. This effectively cost us four days of production time as I had no way to access the files needed to produce the magazine.
As my real life job depends on my computer, the lack of Internet/email caused several delays in that area as well. So now we're playing catch up on all fronts. We thought that we might be able to get the first issue out by tomorrow but that is looking doubtful as well.
Your patience and support during this time is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
As my real life job depends on my computer, the lack of Internet/email caused several delays in that area as well. So now we're playing catch up on all fronts. We thought that we might be able to get the first issue out by tomorrow but that is looking doubtful as well.
Your patience and support during this time is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Hi Bruce,
I'll be interested in checking your new magazine (hopefully tomorrow) and hope it satisfies the LFS side of the sim racing community more than Autosimsport does.
The July edition of ASS has some rather bizarre tirade on page 5. Is that anything to do with you leaving? It certainly didn't really shed any light on the matter, but I hope it made the author feel better
It was certainly written in the great tradition of ASS, where things ramble on and the average reader (me) feels like they've missed something.
Anyway, good luck.
I'll be interested in checking your new magazine (hopefully tomorrow) and hope it satisfies the LFS side of the sim racing community more than Autosimsport does.
The July edition of ASS has some rather bizarre tirade on page 5. Is that anything to do with you leaving? It certainly didn't really shed any light on the matter, but I hope it made the author feel better
It was certainly written in the great tradition of ASS, where things ramble on and the average reader (me) feels like they've missed something.Anyway, good luck.
We plan to launch tomorrow. Magazine is done. It should have some things of interest for everyone. Unfortunately, there is still not the LFS coverage we were hoping for as well.
Our offer still stands and always will. We want to talk about the LFS community. We welcome submissions for articles, ideas for articles, and mostly writers of articles from the community. It can certainly be more then one person so that contributions are often but not necessarily the responsibility of one individual. We're very flexible in that regard. Our goal is to write abou the communities that make up the sim-racing world. And you guys are a huge part of that.
Any takers?
As far as the matter of page 5 on Autosimsport, saying you missed something could be considered an understatement. What's missing could fill a book. However, I won't be writing that book nor do I think anyone else would either. But yes, the truthfull answer to your question is that the comments had everything to do with our leaving.
Autosimsport is still in my opinion a fine publication and one of which I was proud to be a part. I wish them nothing but the best for the future. Comments on page 5 aside, their latest issue appears to be another great one and certainly worth downloading.
Our offer still stands and always will. We want to talk about the LFS community. We welcome submissions for articles, ideas for articles, and mostly writers of articles from the community. It can certainly be more then one person so that contributions are often but not necessarily the responsibility of one individual. We're very flexible in that regard. Our goal is to write abou the communities that make up the sim-racing world. And you guys are a huge part of that.
Any takers?
As far as the matter of page 5 on Autosimsport, saying you missed something could be considered an understatement. What's missing could fill a book. However, I won't be writing that book nor do I think anyone else would either. But yes, the truthfull answer to your question is that the comments had everything to do with our leaving.
Autosimsport is still in my opinion a fine publication and one of which I was proud to be a part. I wish them nothing but the best for the future. Comments on page 5 aside, their latest issue appears to be another great one and certainly worth downloading.
(thisnameistaken)
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by thisnameistaken
Had a quick look through it just looks like Autosimsport with a new colour scheme, even the layout is the same.
Guessing the articles are similar I might have a look later but I'm still skeptical following the amount of BS about nK that was in ASS.
Guessing the articles are similar I might have a look later but I'm still skeptical following the amount of BS about nK that was in ASS.
I do appreciate the reserve in judgement. That's fair. But they do what they do and we have our own ideas about content. Being new, VM will of course be an evolving process for improvement each month.
As I was the one resonsibile for design and layout in the other magazine, I can certainly see where one would find similarities, although I would like to think it has some different flavor to it. The main goal is to keep it easily visible and readable on screen and to that end I did make some minor changes, albeit subtle. However I would like to think that the design itself is distinctive enough from everything else.
As always, we are always open and appreciative of any and all constructive feedback. Thanks.
As I was the one resonsibile for design and layout in the other magazine, I can certainly see where one would find similarities, although I would like to think it has some different flavor to it. The main goal is to keep it easily visible and readable on screen and to that end I did make some minor changes, albeit subtle. However I would like to think that the design itself is distinctive enough from everything else.
As always, we are always open and appreciative of any and all constructive feedback. Thanks.
I guess I'll be the first to chime in with constructive feedback.
The pros: The magazine looks clean and is easy to read. It feels professional in both layout and content. I really liked that the preview of Driver's Republic highlighted some of the possible negative aspects of this upcoming sim. I've grown tired of sim previews in A.S.S. because they're always candy coated and every sim on the horizon "has lots of potential". Even though I despise NASCAR, I read the "Car of Tomorrow" article and enjoyed it.
Now, the things that I didn't like or think could be done better: The FILSCA results. I realize that your magazine is closely affiliated with FILSCA but I really don't see the benefit of publishing 10 pages (of a 45 page magazine) worth of race results. To me, this is exactly the kind of thing that belongs on a website. It's more timely and much more dynamic information could be given - such as if a driver had moved up or down in the standings, current championship points, etc. It was also disappointing to see LFS go unmentioned yet again. Especially since there have been huge changes in the feel of the game with the recent physics patch.
Overall, I enjoyed the first issue but feel there's a lot of room for improvement. While GTR and rFactor are the big dogs in the sim world right now, I would still like to see more content for us guys who play LFS, Racer, and the other privateer sims. I also must say that I still do not understand the reasoning behind releasing a monthly magazine in electronic format. I didn't understand it when A.S.S. first came out and I still don't understand it now. I would much rather see a new article each week and constantly updated race results than wait for a magazine once a month. The sim community revolves around forums and other than exclusive interviews with developers, much of the information in your mag (and ASS) is old before it's even released. I would suggest you reconsider your medium and go solely with a web based approach. Look how much buzz and how many hits digitaldisplacement.com got with it's "GTR2 Week" series of articles. Those write-ups were timely, informative, interesting, and the author was able to quickly respond and show people what they wanted to see later in the week or even the very next day! Just something to consider.
My $0.02.
The pros: The magazine looks clean and is easy to read. It feels professional in both layout and content. I really liked that the preview of Driver's Republic highlighted some of the possible negative aspects of this upcoming sim. I've grown tired of sim previews in A.S.S. because they're always candy coated and every sim on the horizon "has lots of potential". Even though I despise NASCAR, I read the "Car of Tomorrow" article and enjoyed it.
Now, the things that I didn't like or think could be done better: The FILSCA results. I realize that your magazine is closely affiliated with FILSCA but I really don't see the benefit of publishing 10 pages (of a 45 page magazine) worth of race results. To me, this is exactly the kind of thing that belongs on a website. It's more timely and much more dynamic information could be given - such as if a driver had moved up or down in the standings, current championship points, etc. It was also disappointing to see LFS go unmentioned yet again. Especially since there have been huge changes in the feel of the game with the recent physics patch.
Overall, I enjoyed the first issue but feel there's a lot of room for improvement. While GTR and rFactor are the big dogs in the sim world right now, I would still like to see more content for us guys who play LFS, Racer, and the other privateer sims. I also must say that I still do not understand the reasoning behind releasing a monthly magazine in electronic format. I didn't understand it when A.S.S. first came out and I still don't understand it now. I would much rather see a new article each week and constantly updated race results than wait for a magazine once a month. The sim community revolves around forums and other than exclusive interviews with developers, much of the information in your mag (and ASS) is old before it's even released. I would suggest you reconsider your medium and go solely with a web based approach. Look how much buzz and how many hits digitaldisplacement.com got with it's "GTR2 Week" series of articles. Those write-ups were timely, informative, interesting, and the author was able to quickly respond and show people what they wanted to see later in the week or even the very next day! Just something to consider.
My $0.02.
LOL, not even one tenth of the players.
Really? It would be nice to see stats for that.
That's a bit of a stretch of the truth.
But, even so, I think everyone knows what I mean. rFactor and GTR are the poster boys for sim racing. They're the high profile games that get the most marketing and they're generally the ones that have booths at computer game expos and the ones that turn up at real racing events.I find that very hard to believe and guess that's a random fact you made up. The rFactor/GTR communities are pretty big although I think GPL is still the biggest, LFS being one of the smaller ones.
i think this shows it quite nicely...and lfs section @ rsc is pretty much dead for the last year (since lfs has its own forum)
my thoughts on it...
over it is a well put together mag and has some good articles and some good writers.
that said, there are two areas that i feel need addressing.
1) this was, IMO, a fairly large issue...the spanish and german articles. not that they were in spanish or german, but that they were just thrown in there without anysort of indication that a language switch was being made. just bam! different language. maybe that's what that round graphic was supposed to signify, but it wasn't obvious. should be a header of some sort ideally. also, it should be identified in the TOC/Index, so that the readers taht it appeals towards know exactly where to find it.
2) this is more of an aesthetic gripe, but the "cover" needs work. it just doesn't make sense. its the wheel of a car, upside down, with light shining through it...ok?
it could be part of a really great scene showing a spectacular wreck and or amazing graphics/rendering, but the reader will never know. it needs to be placed so that more of the scene is viewable.
the cover layout is also very blocky. magazine covers are rarely blocky, instead opting for overlaying elements, with these elements calling attention to content inside. i've attached a very quick and dirty mockup to illustrate my point.
ok, that's it. i'm done
great work, and look forward to seeing future issues.
over it is a well put together mag and has some good articles and some good writers.
that said, there are two areas that i feel need addressing.
1) this was, IMO, a fairly large issue...the spanish and german articles. not that they were in spanish or german, but that they were just thrown in there without anysort of indication that a language switch was being made. just bam! different language. maybe that's what that round graphic was supposed to signify, but it wasn't obvious. should be a header of some sort ideally. also, it should be identified in the TOC/Index, so that the readers taht it appeals towards know exactly where to find it.
2) this is more of an aesthetic gripe, but the "cover" needs work. it just doesn't make sense. its the wheel of a car, upside down, with light shining through it...ok?
it could be part of a really great scene showing a spectacular wreck and or amazing graphics/rendering, but the reader will never know. it needs to be placed so that more of the scene is viewable.
the cover layout is also very blocky. magazine covers are rarely blocky, instead opting for overlaying elements, with these elements calling attention to content inside. i've attached a very quick and dirty mockup to illustrate my point.
ok, that's it. i'm done
great work, and look forward to seeing future issues.
3 things:
1. LFS has been around since 2001 and the forums at RSC are still posted in.
2. GTR/GTL are sold as mainstream games and a lot of the people who buy them never get into the community, at least they don't find RSC, there are plenty of sites/forums which cover arcade games which have GTR sections.
3. From my understanding rFactor is similar to GTR in the sense that it doesn't have one community.
http://www.rfactor.net/index.php?page=community
I'm not sure how many play each of the sims in question, but LFS users seem to be the most loyal and organised community. It may well have something to do with it not being open to mods. The LFS forum at RSC is (by the standards set before the official forum opened) pretty much dead. The posts total are not increasing particulalry quickly anyway - a post I made over a month ago is still only 2/3rds down the first page!
Forums are not an accurate indication of the number of racers of a particular sim, but do indicate to some degree how active the racers are. I own practically every racing sim ever produced, but I'd put my hand up and be counted as an LFS racer way before GTR, rF, GTL, or nKp. Many of the others get fired up now and again (GTR got sidelined as the devs decided not to patch to the latest x64 compatible starforce drivers. I'll have to be seriously impressed by GTR2 to be willing to give them my money again - I'm no programmer, but really, how long would it have taken simbin/blimey to fix that, especially considering GTL works on x64?). The commercial games can be counted as 'sales', but how many are like mine, sitting on my shelf collecting dust. Forum activity at least indicates the customers are still actively interested in the games and that they are a big part of their sim racing life.
If we were to measure which was the most populated online racing sim, it must be LFS. This is based on the number of racers online and populated servers whenever I connect to any of the sims (US east coast). Again the lack of mods in LFS helps keep the racers from fragmenting, but even so, the total number of online racers in LFS is always much, much higher.
Offline players are harder to judge, and I imagine the number of offline GTR and GTL players actually outweight those using it online. They are far more complete games offline than LFS and rF, in addition to the fact the netcode is no where near as good as LFS, or even rF. The number of online racers in nKpro is probably not a great way to measure it's popularity either, not because it's great offline, but just that it's absolutely awful online.
^^ You've overlooked N2003 which still seems to have a ridiculously large number of people who like to turn left a lot in a countless number of leagues.
Hi Bruce,
Although I haven't read the entire issue yet, I thought I'd give you my initial feedback. The similarity to the layout and style of ASS is as obvious as the reasons, but that's no bad thing.
Although it doesn't mean much to LFS racers yet, the large presence of FILSCA isn't necessarily a bad thing. As someone else mentioned, giving pages of results might be better suited to a website, where the stats and results can be more dynamically presented, but if they are to remain maybe they need to be kept at the back and take up less pages. Having said that, articles on future FILSCA events, explaining what it is, how a sim community can benefit, etc. would be great, especially as LFS (and maybe other sims) and FILSCA have never really embraced each other. It might be nice to break up the articles with info and side stories (e.g If you have an article on a new FILSCA championship, or on the driver of the month, have a text box with some interesting info, an explanation on what FILSCA is, or how a racer might get involved, who the key people in the article are, etc.).
One of my biggest complaints with ASS (along with the lack of LFS coverage or the dubiously great reviews) is that the articles were written and laid out like long essays with only sub headings and screenshots to break it up. For a reader who didn't know the subject or people intimately, they could often be difficult to read.
Another small suggestion I have to the layout of the articles would be a small summary box at the start of articles (again, similar to mainstream gaming magazines) which give some useful info such as: game or mod review/preview, if it's a mod which sim is it for, relevant website, release dates, cost, etc. As stated above, too many times in ASS it wasn't clear what an article was about (even the article titles often seemed to need the reader to be 'in the know') and due to the lack of concise editing or clearly presented info, it often didn't become clear even by the end of the first page!
Another ASS quirk to try to avoid is the cryptic references to RSC (or other forum) fights and sim racing politics without at least giving some basic info to the reader who isn't aware of the topic, didn't read the particular threads in question, or know the community members being discussed. Maybe that is one particular writer at ASS, but it often felt a little unprofessional. The topics may be totally valid for reporting, but need to be balanced and be understandable to the more casual reader.
Anyway, overall I want to thank you and the VM team for putting in the effort to cater for the sim racing community.
lfs was biggest (activity) in rsc BY FAR. lfs is biggest in online players at any moment.
in its 3 years in existance lfs represents 350.000 to 400.000 posts (frozen rsc + lfsf) .
gpl has 495.000 in more than double the lifetime of the sim.
rfactor and nk are residual.
huh? u could have sent it to devs, that would have saved them having to code it and release the first version to public august/september, that is late 2002.
I initially started to discuss those brought up and being discussed in this thread as the sim racing big boys (GTR and rF). I brought in a few recent sims I also have knowledge of as they may be current or future contenders.
I own NR2003, but have never really used it much. Back in the days of Nascar2, when I lived in a geeky student house with a LAN, we used to have fun with N2. After that, GPL took over, and was the sim I always came back to once the shine of the latest release had worn off. That was before LFS took over.
NR2003 never really grabbed me (partly because I'm not a huge Nascar fan and partly because I didn't feel it had moved on much since the early versions). From what I understand it was big as a standalone sim and a popular mod platform, but it is surely now in decline, especially as it's quite difficult to get a copy now. Anyone want to buy my copy?
I didn't want anyone to think these fantastic comments are going unnoticed. We plan to respond to all of it. it's just right now we're up to our ears in other stuff, me with real work that should subside a bit by early next week. We'd like our responses to be equal to the quality of the feedback. If only all forums were this constructive... Again, thanks guys.
By the way, couldn't resist the immediate response to this item @ glyphon. That's a fantastic cover design! Anytime you want to do a cover, you're hired!
By the way, couldn't resist the immediate response to this item @ glyphon. That's a fantastic cover design! Anytime you want to do a cover, you're hired!
New Magazine Announced!
(57 posts, started )
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