You make some great points and sure this my personal PoV. Others have their experience and take on it too.
The issues about free updates moved on long ago. Players will pay for content. Players want to put money behind the game to support it. They want full servers again.
What it boils down to is honest frank communication and it's reasonable to expect that. This whole dangling the carrot fiasco only breeding scepticism. We might not have the right to demand updates or plans, but when representation are made to the community/players, dodging fair questions, being vague or loose with the facts is counter productive.
Patience is gullibility without honesty and trust. That's the real problem LFS faces now and into the future.
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Almost a decade (Mountaindewzilla)
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by Mountaindewzilla : Too much.
For me personally, would be to create the module for creation of the own tracks which previously have passed a moderation of developers, for their inclusion in the general list of tracks enough. (thus it will be possible to eliminate not qualitative tracks, and only worthy models will be present at the official list of models of tracks for LFS S1-2-3)
Which comments have not been frank and honest? It's known why the delay happened, because Scawen explained it. It's known why content isn't released, because Scawen explained it. It's known why there aren't progress reports, because Scawen explained it. While disagreeing with the LFS philosophy is perfectly alright and valid, labeling it as not 'frank' or 'honest' because of a disagreement in viewpoint is downright self-centred.
Stop worrying about updates, stop expecting updates. Go do something else, and one day in the distant future you might (or might not) find an LFS newsletter in your mailbox. Simples.
Maybe you'll believe what I say, maybe not. Though what other motives and hidden agendas I might have, I can't imagine.
Quite separately from that, on the content side, we will not announce any new tracks or cars. If we mentioned something we were working on, then changed plans later and did not release it, we would be punished for decades to come.
I think most people can see understanding a tyre is something that can take a long time to sort out, F1 teams struggle with that. The thing which doesnt make sense is the lack of content because that makes you guys money, which in turn means you can spend more on LFS development. I'm not an expert but surely you're the one doing the physics, which leaves the rest of the team to do that side of things? I don't know if you've answered it before, because its not like I read every page of questions
This isn't "begging" for content or wanting to know when we're going to get some content or whatever. I can see why you dont want to commit to that, but knowing why the only proper content we have had is open configs in recent history doesn't make much sense for anyone? Is there some obvious reason I can't see?
If this post will be offtopic than feel free to delete it. IMO the VW will not come out maybe never. Maybe it was made only for the GC 2008 where TUrtle Entertaining and the VW have used the LFS to showcase the Scirocco, and nothing after that. The youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsYGl5fK93Q) could be just a good marketing strategy. Dunno that the LFS dev's when were contacted by the TE or VW to make the Scirocco, but i can imagine easly that not 4 years before Game Convention 2008 So the modell was done in a several months. To recreate a part of it (because the tyre physics isn't the 100% of the car ) Ahh and then a new track was anounced, and maybe in 2013 will be anounced an another track/car to make players to understood how hard is to make all that things together....I'm quite curious, what was on the deal in 2008 between lfs and TE and VW about the using of Scirocco in LFS.
Best regards, sorry for my bad english, and have a nice day all of you!
decades? If development and communication continues the way it does atm you have 2 years left max until the last server admin says goodbye to you and moves on. I know, this has been said years ago too, but back then we didn't have RF2, Project CARS and nowadays the very promising looking Asetto Corsa.
I know pointless rant, won't be read here anyway -_-
Thank you for taking the time to read this thread, though it must pain you to see the negativity. Admittedly I had not seen that post, but I do endeavor to catch up on your posts every few months or so.
I'm not suggesting yourself, Eric or Victor have agendas and deliberately taken this path, but there comes a time where one should reconsider what has conspired and do what needs to be done to reinvigorate LFS.
Really? As apposed to the current situation?
Plenty would argue the time has past for announcements, it's time to seriously consider releasing some new content after 4 years. I hate to be negative, but unless there is other unannounced content with S3 or following shortly, increased interest/activity will (IMO) not be sustained and that will be disappointing to see your significant efforts less appreciated, than they definitely deserve.
You guys have the hard facts in front of you and no doubt aware of the obvious decline in activity (racing). From our side looking at just the server list is disturbing.
I know this appeal may not mean much, but please for the sake of LFS future, change course, give the community the content it's screaming for 4+ years. You'll be praised, not punished for giving LFS a much need injection of life.
That's the million dollar question my friend. 2-3 years ago players were screaming for content then and it didn't occur to the team to develop other content to release in the mid term as a contingency. Especially in light of the setbacks and difficulties in the physics. 4 years ago, S2 content was already getting a bit stale, most likely prompting the VW/ROC announcement. Yet here we are now, still asking this very question?
The issue that is most baffling is there has been mixed/conflicting representations over the years to why this is the case. From , we're sticking to the plan, it's Eric's decision, to dependence on the physics updates. Who knows what the story is. All we know is the games reputation and following is looking terminal, with no real fix in sight.
"That end can't be perfection but just a reasonable approximation for our purposes. So the driving feels great, heat and wear are close enough and setup changes do all the right things. That's what I want to get to, and it will open the door to the future of LFS."
I must admit I hadn't seen Scawen's post from September. This has finally answered my long term question that the new physics have to come to a point where they are better than what we have now but not perfected either. I imagine you could continue working on tyre physics for a lifetime and still never get them perfect in every situation.
I just hope Scawen is close to that point where we can have a nice improvement in tyre physics and use it as a great platform for all future lfs content. I'm sure what he has done already is fantastic and I'm hoping it is released sooner rather than later and we all get to experience it. (There's nothing stopping him continue to develop the physics further in the future after more content is added if he wanted.)
It would be a shame for the physics to take another 4 or 5 years and yet the rest of lfs be a 10 year old game. I know physics are the most important thing but surely all the other bits in the game need a polish to get the most out of the new physics when they are released.
As a long time user and fan I have never slated the devs decisions but have always thought the physics need to have a realistic time frame of about....this long. It would be a shame for it to slowly turn into a 10-20 year development path which a lot of us would never get to try.
In my working career I have always been taught that 'a little often' is better than 'a lot once'.
Scawen, I posted this research paper in iRacing forums and while interesting the "drag race sim guru" (forgot his name) said it doesn't really help with tyre modelling.
I'm sure not by itself it won't but I guess it explains the basic physics behind friction and that is what happens when rubber meets with the road. Of course the changing characteristics of rubber makes the problem quite a bit more challenging. I'm hoping this might give you some new ideas, but hopefully not another 4 year development treck into unknown
"In this paper it is shown that surface thermodynamics alone provide a solution for a friction force. This force is derivable from the following fundamentals alone a) definition of sliding, b) definition of real contact, c) laws of thermodynamics. When combined with simple contact mechanics, this first-principle model predicts the observed friction laws and the material dependence of friction in agreement with nanoscale measurements."