As I mentioned in another thread recently, I think that CTRA made such a huge difference to the quality of the online racing experience in LFS that many folks lost interest (to some degree) when it closed.
For me, of all the things that could be added to LFS that might make it better as a gaming experience #1 is a new CTRA type system ideally created or officially supported by the devs.
So I figured a poll would be interesting, to see what other folks think about this.
I've split the selection up between folks who used the original CTRA, and those who didn't.

If you don't know what CTRA is, please do some research to get an idea how it worked before voting

cheers

Col

EQ Worry has also tried something bigger but no luck whatsoever, sadly.

Quote from Flame CZE :

EQ Worry has also tried something bigger but no luck whatsoever, sadly.

I was thinking more of something the devs might be involved to some degree - assuming there was enough interest.
I'm not interested particularly in 'teams'. CTRA wasn't about teams getting together either for a big inter-team project either.
I'm just thinking about the fact that there's not much structure to LFS as a game. Just go on-line and try to find a sever.

I don't play online these days, but I understand that its hard to find good racing sometimes.

I reckon if there was an official future update that included a system similar to CTRA, then the official update would bring lots of racers back online, and the structured system with achievements and tiered racing would hold a lot of peoples interest, so activity wouldn't drop as fast.

Better for everyone 'cept cruisers

What are you planning exactly? Something even bigger than CTRA? Gimme more info I really miss CTRA since I was quite new in LFS when it stopped.

Ah CTRA, was that the system where you had to drive a lot to get points to move up from the entry level servers, to Race 2/SS2 which were mostly empty, to SS3 which was totally empty or Race 3 which you needed even more points just to drive an NGT?

CTRA worked for me because it was an informal but disciplined way to race. No requirement to join a team, no commitments to race at a certain time on a certain day. I think something similar could work again but LFS requires it's physics updates and more/improved tracks to bring racers back. I think CTRA could have made more use of it's yellow flag ratios to improve racing quality by refusing access to higher ranks without a good ratio.

Quote from MoMo92i :

What are you planning exactly? Something even bigger than CTRA? Gimme more info I really miss CTRA since I was quite new in LFS when it stopped.

Didn't mean to get your hopes up. I have no plans to develop something like this. I think it would only work if it was official with the devs involved - collapse of the original CTRA proved that.

Quote from boothy :

Ah CTRA, was that the system where you had to drive a lot to get points to move up from the entry level servers, to Race 2/SS2 which were mostly empty, to SS3 which was totally empty or Race 3 which you needed even more points just to drive an NGT?

The best racing I ever had was on the second tier CTRA servers. I remember it being difficult to get on the server sometimes due to popularity.
Third tier was usually empty, partly because CTRA was still young so not enough people had enough points, and partly because a lot of folk felt that the best racing was in the turbos

Quote from nigely :

ctra worked for me because it was an informal but disciplined way to race. No requirement to join a team, no commitments to race at a certain time on a certain day.

+1

Where's the option "I used CTRA, hated it, and raced only on non-CTRA servers"?

Hey there,

CTRA was great, brought a lot of people together and showed how "moddable" lfs really is if you put some* effort in it. Wait. Some effort? Hours and hours of many people's free time per day I mean.

One of the reasons CTRA stopped its great services is the lack of time and money. And to run such great servers and a fully un-automated report system where every complaint is being watched by a real person you need both.

Today cargame is the place to be. He can't (or doesn' want to) make a whole new CTRA with all its features, but he's close enough. Took the good stuff, imroved it and got rid of the extra fat.

greetz

der butz

I really liked CTRA a lot. But I did so only because I had a free license for all tiers due to being a STCC driver. If I hadn't I would've despised it and not played LFS during CTRA's reign of terror.

I don't like any sort of leveling system that withholds content from me. The last time I enjoyed anything of that sort was in RTCW: Enemy Territory and I believe I liked that game despite the leveling system, not because of it.

So in short, I hope CTRA stays dead forever, unless I get a free license.

Vain

we got cargame,its the same thing,i always see it full. imho i dont think anything will save lfs besides the updates that coming early 2009

For me the problem of cargame is that too many (different) cars are racing at the same time. As boothy said CTRA had several server that were multiclass but specialized in max 3 class (LRF-TBO-STD for example) so there were no troubles about an FX2 wrecking an XFG.

Btw for me it was the reason why only two of CTRA server were full, because drivers prefered those cars.

Quote from boothy :

Ah CTRA, was that the system where you had to drive a lot to get points to move up from the entry level servers, to Race 2/SS2 which were mostly empty, to SS3 which was totally empty or Race 3 which you needed even more points just to drive an NGT?

I'm sure I haven't got my rose tinted glasses on remembering back. Even the higher level servers were quite well supported a lot of the time. Even when they weren't it was more fun with a few courteous drivers than a full grid of first corner chancers. If your a quick racer it's quite easy to avoid the mid-group first lap melee but as a slower driver who wanted clean racing it wasn't much fun pre-CTRA. UFR racing with full grids was great fun and anyone messing around soon got warned/banned via the reporting system.

I absolutely loved CTRA. It didn't take long to go thru STD class and TBO was place to be. TBO usually gives the best pick up racing in LFS and it's really sad to see no proper server for this purpose. But in the old days you could go to CTRA whenever you liked and have dozen of awesome TBO races. I liked it so much that I had titan license, only thru low pointed TBO races. I'd love to see that back.

GTR servers were mostly empty and they might very likely have the same destiny if CTRA ever comes back, but I don't mind, there's always cargame for that. Although, half of the time you could have decent GTR races on CTRA as well, in proper GT1 cars.

Quote from N I K I :

I absolutely loved CTRA. It didn't take long to go thru STD class and TBO was place to be. TBO usually gives the best pick up racing in LFS and it's really sad to see no proper server for this purpose. But in the old days you could go to CTRA whenever you liked and have dozen of awesome TBO races. I liked it so much that I had titan license, only thru low pointed TBO races. I'd love to see that back.

GTR servers were mostly empty and they might very likely have the same destiny if CTRA ever comes back, but I don't mind, there's always cargame for that. Although, half of the time you could have decent GTR races on CTRA as well, in proper GT1 cars.

Cargame.nl used to be good for TBO races as well, but TBO is hardly ever used there now either (not good to have faster cars blowing by you all the time either )

How can you even compare cargame to CTRA? It was a place to be with 32-car STD races in high wind or hardcore TBO action, FBM even. Personally I think that the collapse of it marked the beginning of a huge LFS crisis, we haven't had anything uniting the community like this ever since.

I remember those golden ages with CTRA racing online in LFS. That was such an awesome experience to race. "Cargame" simply can't simulate it, that licence, website, server complex was fantastic. I think there will be dozen of people who would jump in to the at least close enough experience like CTRA give us. +++

Quote from tristancliffe :

Where's the option "I used CTRA, hated it, and raced only on non-CTRA servers"?

sorry Tristan, you're right, I should have had a more negative option.
Is it possible to add another in there ?

Well, to put it somehow simple into the words:

CTRA back then was a real racing for me, I loved it, community was better, people had what they wanted to have, LFS felt more like a proper simulation with door-to-door FAIR racing.

Cargame today feels more like an arcade side of LFS. Really, it's like noob fest where everyone can beat you without any skill and this is what I don't call a good way.

Also CTRA was so popular because of regular updates from devs and that being on top of CTRA actually meant something, unlike being on top of Cargame list of times.

It's more interesting to research why this CTRA system closed then compare differences.. Which you can't because it was in different times. There was less choice in online multiplayer racing. Far less...

Much easier to ban/kick people if the pool is bigger to begin with, you following me?

But any idea why CTRA shutdown?

I know it.

Well, if you love these kinds of system or not, don't forget that UKCT/Cargame and others put a lot of effort into this.
I got silver licenses at best back in the days, I'm just too slow and watch my mirrors too often to be a competitive driver, but still I enjoyed racing there most of the time.

As long as there's only a few of those ranked system servers it's absolutely fine by me. I don't have to race there, I still can join pickup races or join some short/one time events in every car I like.
Just don't go all iRacing please! If there were many ranking systems it'll be like Diablo II, dreadful for the casual player with all the ladder resets every 6 months!

greetz

der butz

EDIT: @cargame: I know you a little bit from 2010's karting meet, you seem a calm guy with great skill, I don't think anyone could possibly want to annoy you personally, I just think the guys are biased towards the downsides of systems like yours or ukct's

Quote from cargame.nl :

It's more interesting to research why this CTRA system closed then compare differences.. Which you can't because it was in different times. There was less choice in online multiplayer racing. Far less...

Much easier to ban/kick people if the pool is bigger to begin with, you following me?

But any idea why CTRA shutdown?

I know it.

IIRC the folks individuals who created and ran CTRA fell out in a big way, and that soured the whole endeavor. Unfortunately, 'office politics' are always going to be a problem for something like CTRA. Too much work for 1 person, you need a Team. If you have a team, you need to have a leader, because folks don't always agree. Finally, if someone has a different opinion, and you tell them to 'suck it up' because you are in charge, then you better be paying them to take that shit from you .

So in the end, it isn't going to last without funding from somewhere.
Which is why I feel it can't work without support of some kind from the devs.
Maybe they develop the system and the community moderates it? That would get around the problem of breakups due to policy disagreements...
Alternatively (but much less likely) a third party develops and runs the system and is funded by the Devs.
Or Devs provide hosting, integration into LFS official website and 'official' status, giving a 3rd party a better chance of making enough money through Advertising etc. to fund the project ?
I'm no business expert, but there must be a way for something like this to work?

Get people to collaborate to make single or two class servers (please no more than that).

That also means however that you will have about 8-10 servers to populate, which will never happen. It would be better to have a specific servers. Each day they would rotate.

So essentially:
Road Car Server
Monday: UF1
Tuesday: STD
Wednesday: TBO
Thursday: LRF
Friday: LX4/LX6
Saturday: STD (Endu Day)
Sunday: TBO (Endu Day)


Similar thing for Single seater, GTR, and Bump-n-Jump. So in the end it would be about 4 servers. No need for silly ranking, or leveling, just pure racing.

Well there are teams running STD and TBO server. Sometimes those server have quite a lot of success like spdo GTi public or & R4R TBO Server (genR).