Well here we are nearly 10 years on from Life For Speeds initial release and people are still enjoying close wheel to wheel racing. I myself have just recently discovered a renewed love for this great sim, and I'm happy to report Live For Speed is still very much alive and kicking.
So lets rewind a few years back to when I bought into the LFS dream. My account history shows I made my initial purchase of S1 on the 25th of July 2003 (8 days after it went public), I remember it like I was 33 years old, oh wait, I was. Setting my age to one side for the moment let's look at the Sim racing situation at the time. Richard Burns Rally was still over a year away, nKPro was some 3 years away as was GTR 2. rFactor still had another 2 years to go before it showed itself on the market, but please don't think it was all desolate and barren back then. Grand Prix Legends had been king of the shop shelves for some time by then, and it also boasted a a very healthy and well supported mod-scene. Also not forgetting that it was actually a great sim for both online and off line racing. But If classic 1967 F1 cars weren't your thing then there was always Nascar Racing, which also had a good online scene, as well as commanding a good sim physics engine. We also had Grandprix 3, by the legend himself Geoff Crammond, but I was soon to discover a new programing legend that In my opinion has surpassed his status.
Life For Speed was brought to my attention via a very popular Sim racing forum of the day, and after trying out an early build I was happy to buy into Scawen, Eric and Victors dream upon release. At the time there was a limited amount of cars, and there wasn't as many tracks as there are now. But it was easy to see the basis of a very rewarding sim were set in place. This would only get better with each and every update, thus my LFS wheels were set in motion.
LFS seems to me to have everything you need from a sim, and many "other" sims have come close to the high level that LFS has set, but sadly all fall short in one area or another. This sim allows you to have custom music tracks, you can create your own car skins or download from thousands of ones created by some very talented artists online for free. The sim will also download other peoples car skins when you join an online race, thus allowing you to see there artistic skills or the given skin they like to race with. This type of feature is often overlooked by many other sim companies yet really adds to the whole sim racing experience.
The car set up section is like a dark art allowing you to tune the set up of your car to what best suits your type of driving style, but yet again you can swap set ups with people with ease. The garage set up screens are also some of the most comprehensive I've seen, and unlike a lot of other "sims" you can feel the difference once your out on the track racing. You can even set how the wind blows, which will also effect how the car reacts on track. The tyre dynamics and force feedback are still some of the best I've played, and yes I am involved with "other" sim beta/alpha developments and realise what I'm saying maybe hard for some people to understand, but upon reflection it's how I feel.
One of the most over looked part of LFS is the Live For Speed World website, the use of the site as we now know it was made much better back in April 2004. On the 5th of that month we saw the public release of the data web site that allowed us all to view whom we had raced, our lap times, send other drivers messages and many other features. The wealth of data on this site is amazing, and in my opinion can still hold it's head high today above every other sim on the market. The amount of information that you can actually look through shows a real passion on the part of the developers and I take my hat off to them.
Shortly after the launch of the new "World" site we saw the launch of a new look website, again the new site was clean, easy to navigate and really put LFS on the map in terms of professionalism. By this time the LFS forum was a hive of activity and there were plenty of active members, and lots of friendly bantar being passed around by it's members. I myself started using the forum in July 2003, and think even to this very day it's one of the longest running forums I have been using.
Now I know there has been a lot of questions brought about the promised S3 update and the new tyre physics model, lost cars and new tracks, and I also understand where a lot of people are coming from, but for me I don't see LFS as an alpha or beta sim that follows a weekly or monthly update schedule. For me I see LFS as a living development, yes I know since it's conception it's been 10 years (yes really), but I still have 100% faith in the continuation of this massive project. Each time I read some of the negitive posts about the lack of communications I step back and count all of the other sims I have owned over that time period, I then look at the little icon on my desktop for LFS and smile to myslef.
I have no communications with the developers what so ever, but I do feel that something may happen on Live For Speeds 10th birthday, and If it doesn't well "C'est la vie", I won't be deleting it off my computer, I will just carry on playing it and smiling to myself.
Live For Speed for me just works, here's to the next 10+ years.
Thank you Scawen Roberts, Eric Bailey and Victor van Vlaardingen.
So lets rewind a few years back to when I bought into the LFS dream. My account history shows I made my initial purchase of S1 on the 25th of July 2003 (8 days after it went public), I remember it like I was 33 years old, oh wait, I was. Setting my age to one side for the moment let's look at the Sim racing situation at the time. Richard Burns Rally was still over a year away, nKPro was some 3 years away as was GTR 2. rFactor still had another 2 years to go before it showed itself on the market, but please don't think it was all desolate and barren back then. Grand Prix Legends had been king of the shop shelves for some time by then, and it also boasted a a very healthy and well supported mod-scene. Also not forgetting that it was actually a great sim for both online and off line racing. But If classic 1967 F1 cars weren't your thing then there was always Nascar Racing, which also had a good online scene, as well as commanding a good sim physics engine. We also had Grandprix 3, by the legend himself Geoff Crammond, but I was soon to discover a new programing legend that In my opinion has surpassed his status.
Life For Speed was brought to my attention via a very popular Sim racing forum of the day, and after trying out an early build I was happy to buy into Scawen, Eric and Victors dream upon release. At the time there was a limited amount of cars, and there wasn't as many tracks as there are now. But it was easy to see the basis of a very rewarding sim were set in place. This would only get better with each and every update, thus my LFS wheels were set in motion.
LFS seems to me to have everything you need from a sim, and many "other" sims have come close to the high level that LFS has set, but sadly all fall short in one area or another. This sim allows you to have custom music tracks, you can create your own car skins or download from thousands of ones created by some very talented artists online for free. The sim will also download other peoples car skins when you join an online race, thus allowing you to see there artistic skills or the given skin they like to race with. This type of feature is often overlooked by many other sim companies yet really adds to the whole sim racing experience.
The car set up section is like a dark art allowing you to tune the set up of your car to what best suits your type of driving style, but yet again you can swap set ups with people with ease. The garage set up screens are also some of the most comprehensive I've seen, and unlike a lot of other "sims" you can feel the difference once your out on the track racing. You can even set how the wind blows, which will also effect how the car reacts on track. The tyre dynamics and force feedback are still some of the best I've played, and yes I am involved with "other" sim beta/alpha developments and realise what I'm saying maybe hard for some people to understand, but upon reflection it's how I feel.
One of the most over looked part of LFS is the Live For Speed World website, the use of the site as we now know it was made much better back in April 2004. On the 5th of that month we saw the public release of the data web site that allowed us all to view whom we had raced, our lap times, send other drivers messages and many other features. The wealth of data on this site is amazing, and in my opinion can still hold it's head high today above every other sim on the market. The amount of information that you can actually look through shows a real passion on the part of the developers and I take my hat off to them.
Shortly after the launch of the new "World" site we saw the launch of a new look website, again the new site was clean, easy to navigate and really put LFS on the map in terms of professionalism. By this time the LFS forum was a hive of activity and there were plenty of active members, and lots of friendly bantar being passed around by it's members. I myself started using the forum in July 2003, and think even to this very day it's one of the longest running forums I have been using.
Now I know there has been a lot of questions brought about the promised S3 update and the new tyre physics model, lost cars and new tracks, and I also understand where a lot of people are coming from, but for me I don't see LFS as an alpha or beta sim that follows a weekly or monthly update schedule. For me I see LFS as a living development, yes I know since it's conception it's been 10 years (yes really), but I still have 100% faith in the continuation of this massive project. Each time I read some of the negitive posts about the lack of communications I step back and count all of the other sims I have owned over that time period, I then look at the little icon on my desktop for LFS and smile to myslef.
I have no communications with the developers what so ever, but I do feel that something may happen on Live For Speeds 10th birthday, and If it doesn't well "C'est la vie", I won't be deleting it off my computer, I will just carry on playing it and smiling to myself.
Live For Speed for me just works, here's to the next 10+ years.
Thank you Scawen Roberts, Eric Bailey and Victor van Vlaardingen.
I'll buy a new a/c adapter for my wheel and I'll make some laps... Maybe the love will come back
. It circulates most of the tracks using track voting every 5 races (10-15min races, one track can be voted once per day), and allows most of the cars (including lx) using multiclass racing.