That is the oldest thread in general content (notice the ID of 33.. that indicates that it's fairly old ).. 2005 was the year that was created in.
I'm sure that you would have signed up for an LFS account BEFORE you actually paid for LFS. However early this was. But this forum didn't exist in 2003.
This conversation has been had before but Fordie and the 2003 people are now too old to remember it.
Edit: And out of curiosity I had a look at LFSWorld to see when the last time was I had a race in LFS, and discovered I've now spent more time not racing than I did racing.
Well, LFSW says your Join Date is "Jan 20th 2003". Now, you've always been able to register for an LFS account before paying for a licence. Is it possible that the site launched (or added an account system pre-empting S1), you signed up. Time passes and you then pre-paid for S1.
The join date refers to when you created your account on lfs.net; the forum join date is not displayed. You could not create account until Jan 2003, hence everyone who was active for the six months prior to this typically has a Jan 03 join date.
Fordie, they shot themselves in the foot here. The devs take their product too much to heart, and didn't like to read negative things that were posted in reaction to their progress statements, or patch release dates (and their slipping). So they said less and less, which made debate on what was said that much more intense, that the vicious circle reached silence. Little and often would have been much better, and with broad shoulders. You have to understand that their will be users that will rant and rave; the only solution is to basically ignore them, and only listen to the well written criticisms.
Things may have changed in the past couple of years but last I heard, this was their only work (Vic excluded).
That said, it has now reached the point where I would be very surprised if this was still the case. Scawen repeatedly says there will only be news when there is something of newsworthy to say, and refuses to mention anything that may get scrapped (again, due to prior user backlash). It has been so long since we saw evidence of meaningful progress, that they cannot be spending near the same hours working as they once did (assuming that progress would eventually be reported).
Scawen has proved himself a good programmer but community management has not been his forte on this project, and he has stated he intentionally does not run LFS as a business, which I think worked ok to begin with but, as we have evidenced, is not a model that is working in the long term, sadly.
If actions speak louder than words...? I guess there would have to be action.
Just my opinion...but if they take their product 'too much to heart' then you think they would be attempting to keep some of the buzz going...instead the faucet is almost shut off from our prospective.
Complete silence and zero transparency isn't a way to separate people from their money, and that's really the bottom line here. Hard to recommend a this to others in it's current development state because it's stagnant. When I do, people judge LFS by its cover, and it's cover has become dated. Yes, graphics aren't everything...but when you compare it to other offerings that have become available, LFS sucks. The only thing LFS has going for it right now, again this is my opinion, is its physics.
I could go into the simple things that were talked about ages ago but never implemented, but that's a dead horse.
Anyone who's been around since RSC remembers the 'energy' that once was this place...that's long gone.
There's quite a few who eagerly await the next big update...me being one of them...but it's becoming more difficult to be excited. Just feels like I'm getting my hopes up at this point.
Backlash shouldn't scare developers off, it should drive them...only people who get upset about stuff are those who are passionate about something. To have that kind of user base that wants LFS to be THE BEST is pretty awesome...and instead of coddling the community that pays/payed their bills it seems like they just shit on it by playing the 'silent game'...
They way the devs have started to handle PR is silly and confusing. They would probably benefit from someone handling their PR for them since Scawen isn't that great at it...it's a pretty big turn off.
Whenever I've been critical about LFS' progress or its shortcomings, it's not because I hate the devs or want to mock them, it's because I still want it to be THE best sim out there and want the devs to be aware of the biggest issues and flaws and do something about them. I mean we haven't been sticking around with the same piece of software for over 10 years now because we dislike it.
That said, it has become pretty hard to recommend LFS to newcomers now in its current state, before it was the obvious and only option.
Well, if Scawen isn't into PR it leaves him with more time to coding. I do agree (naturally) that I would like to see more news-feeds on progression. I have always looked at LFS from the dev point of view and never really demanded anything, because what we have is a great sim indeed.
So if you are not satisfied with LFS today, where do you turn to get that LFS-satisfaction that you had? pCARS, iRacing, rFactor2, AC? I must admit I do not run LFS as much as I used to, but hey it is still a great piece of art. I do hook up with some friends to do the classic turns from time to time and it never fails to deliver (still outclass pCars etc).
I hope we hear some news soon so we can all get exited and gather again around the best sim that was - and continue to be. We should really bombard Scawen with positive feedback, because that's the only thing he deserves.
I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with this point of view. This is the Interwebz you're talking about - a place full of half-wits, people who know nothing but comment on everything, trolls and good old morons. I experience this every time I read any discussion board. For one interesting or insightful comment there are fifty that are total garbage. I really don't wonder that the devs no longer want to explain themselves to the community. Just take a look back on the kind of threads we've had regarding LFS development since 2009. I don't know how about you, but all the comments from people who've never been involved in software development (or any development for that matter) calling the devs idiots made me sick.
There certainly were better ways how to handle the unexpected hold-up in the development pace, but we as a community could've been a lot more understanding as well instead of screaming "Me wantz my Scirocco!".
The thing that bugs me is that LFS has so much potential... yet it goes to waste. Image if Eric would release 1 car every 6 months(!), we still would have 7 new cars since the Scrirocco announcement. Just something to think about.
Even if the tyre physics update gets released tomorrow, it's not going to be enough with the amount of competition on the "scene" right now. I know that Scawen did not think that the tyre physics development would take that long... but after a couple of years, wouldn't it be better if it just got postponed and more pressing things would get done? I think the community wouldn't hate on that. Who knows
Another long term die hard here that was around during RSC days. It is saddening see how progress has dropped off from the S1 to S2 transition.
Early on in RSC you could post ideas and get dev feedback, there was constant visible progress and things were in a constant state of flux.
It was an exciting time. Constant updates and the community was strong and supportive of each other. I even remember Fordman taking time to watch me drive and give me pointers early on that helped me loads
Around the time of S2 I even got close to sinking a whole pile of cash into buying 4 * 301 sims and setting up a race center based on LFS. Communication with the devs was easy and had some good feedback about possibility of how LFS accounts and guest accounts could be operated in that setting etc.
Now I have not played in years but monitor this forum in a hope that some news might crop up that would spark my interest in LFS again. LFS is something that sucked as much of my time as Quake3, many many hours of driving.
No other race sim managed to grab me in the same way. I hope LFS is not dead but it feels like it. Even an update of yes we are working on LFS and it is not dead would be great news
Just thought I'd drop back into this thread. I've been watching it a lot over the past week and am happy to see it hasn't turned into an argument.
I really hope the Dev's have seen it too.
Scawen has released a new version of the dedicated server, so there is still related progress. Not the most exciting news of course, but getting rid of hackers and crackers online is for the benefit of all who don't.
There's nothing here than hasn't been said before. The devs are not fools, they are well aware of the situation that they have created and either it was intended, or they accept it. If this were not the case, with the amount of time that has passed, something would have changed by now.
LFS will not experience a resurgence without lots of new content becoming available. I only hope that the years without new content they have built up lots of surprises for us. Beginning to trickle content in now is too late, that only works if it is continuous. New tyre physics won't cause the stir they did last time, because they're simply that less 'wrong' to begin with, so any jump in fidelity has to be smaller. I'm not saying they won't be welcomed, but we are past the point that they will transform vehicle handling, merely polish it more.
Nice to see you still about Woz Grab that wheel and come and join some old S1 fun on my 0.3H7 Server sometime
I think it is now me that needs pointers HA HA HA, but thanks for the comment. Like you said, it was a strong community and little things like that was appreciated. Now all you get is "what do you know" and "who do you think you are" when you try and help....then get smashed off the road.....anyway, diversing here, back on topic.
As they say in football "Scawen Give us a wave, Scawen, Scawen Give us a Wave ....worth a try
I would join your server but as I am have been on the other side of the world for so long the timezone and ping are an issue. The killer down here is there is not much action on the servers hence my waiting for S3 to spark interest again and fill up local servers
Ping from him to you isn't just based on your connection, it's based on the time it takes the signal to get from his PC to your server...that's a function of the length of the path, the speed at which the impulses can travel on the medium, and other things. People from the land down under generally always have high pings because of it's distance and quality of connections to the rest of the world.
Sad to recognize it, but LFS is dead for a long time.
Imo the best decision is open the game for modders. Yes, dev's will lose some earnings, but it will make game ALIVE.
Find a crappy mod, uninstall it and move on to the next one. There are people who are just as talented as the Devs out there. Many of them frequent these forums, but I do understand your side of it. Nobody likes crappy content, but nobody likes stalled development either.
There is always a good and bad side to most problems that arise in life.
).. 2005 was the year that was created in.
