This thread is made by me as a League Administrator, not an LFS Moderator. I feel it's too much unique to fit in another of the threads, as it's specifically about leagues, and deserves it's own discussion, and isn't so much about the development itself.

It is extremely disappointing that attendance has been so low for the majority of the leagues recently, when there have so many signups - sometimes over two full grids worth! It is unacceptable. It is a farce. It is a smack in the face to league organizers that so few who sign up regularly show up.

Seeing what I've seen lately not just in NDR leagues, but GenR leagues, Cornys's efforts, et cetera, it's a shame that people are so inconsistent in their attendance. These leagues are put on so you have a place to race. We completely understand that you want to spend time with your families and friends during the summer especially, that's perfectly fine. We don't mind if you miss a round or two in a series. But when you only do one or two rounds in a 6+ round series, that makes it near pointless for us to put on these leagues.

If you have been a regular participant in whatever series you're entered into, I thank you, we all appreciate your dedication to the leagues you run in.

I know that LFS is stagnant in terms of fresh content and features, but really, what is the harm in still enjoying what you've got? It's a loop that you don't want to get to the end of - if you stop racing the leagues, they'll go away, and you'll really have nothing to do in LFS, and it will finally die. The lack of public racing hurts the leagues too, because those help people learn race craft without having to worry about league points and standings. Race craft really isn't learned in the heat of the moment in league racing, it's more done in general when practicing and public racing. Why should the league have so many protests for race craft issues? Public racing needs a lift also. But I digress.

Support those that still put in the effort, attend when possible. These races aren't put on for the entertainment of the administration, they're put on so you can race!

It's not about the developers. It's not about the German Car. It's not about that track. It's not about anything other than remembering that Life is racing. Everything else is waiting. You do things in this because it's RACING. It's that feel of camaraderie and competition that fuels your passion for RACING.

Additionally, come back and do league races! It was a 4 or 5 years since my last league before LFSCART. LFS is still fun, and it's whatever you make it.

If you want to be a twat and be "ooh, look at LFS dying", then you're part of the problem as well. The only way that LFS will prosper as we wait for new physics is for participation to rise. It's not like LFS has become not fun overnight. The leagues are still run by a fantastic group of people (mostly, deko sucks ) and there's something for nearly everyone. GT cars, road cars, Open wheelers, endurance, oval.

And I'm the slowest driver in LFS ever. If I can have fun placing last, at least you all know you can't finish last.

I've been active in almost all sides of lfs, from demo to league racing (except cruise and Drift), and I can see many reasons why we got to this point, and most are not related to development!

Demo should have been restricted in some way, a simple 3 months time limited demo account would probably have incited more ppls to buy licenses as most racers only care about their stats....instead we have the biggest chunk of the racers camping on demo servers for years.

In S1/S2 public racing I think that multiclass racing has had a very negative effect on the general servers activities, it is very opportunistic to offer something for everyone as ppls will always join the most busy server, in the end it kills all the servers which are more specialized...there used to be many popular (single class) servers and drivers sprayed themselves over them, then when CTRA started everybody went there, and that trend has been repeating since... I mean nothing bad for the guys who manage those multiclass servers, they have done the best thing they could do to get a popular server and succeeded, so respect for that!...buy many got bored of the racing and managing unpopulated single class servers, they left or looked for something else!

In league racing we have tolerated too many bad behaviour and the drivers who should have shown the good example didn't and many ended up believing it was the right way to get to the top, what we see now is the result of that mentality, they quit as soon as they see no chance to be in top 3 and respect now one on the track. It resulted in a very bad ambiance for all the drivers who participate in leagues, the amount of protests increase considerably and we got many fights and arguments...then many just started to look for other sims and a better racing mentality/ambiance... But like I said, we are all responsible for that, organizers and drivers!...Also we need new drivers to join leagues racing consistently and for that we should organize more amateur/beginner leagues and series, I believe that leagues like NDR's GTAL were very important for the league scene in general (@deko: hint!! ).

On the PR side, the lfs forum has been very negative in recent years, mainly due to the ppls who don't race and spend their time trolling and flaming others, this is keeping the important ppls away (the ones who race and have something positive to share). What we read in topics today is not representative of what the active community thinks, but they don't share it because they are just afraid to be bullied by the forum masters (or losers)... Maybe a stronger moderating system would help, but something more radical could be done too, something like needing a certain amount of kms per month to be allowed to post in most forum sections (of course I realize the need for some sections to remain open for new comers who need help).

Anyway I don't think we should point the finger at anyone, we are all responsible in some way and the way things are now, only a collective effort will allow our community to survive, by that I mean Teams, Drivers, Organizers, moderators and Developers!

My 2 cents...

Its a bit curious what is happening with everything in LFS. Look at the 16H Thread. Anyone is complaining about the GT2 Car Balancing and about the open config. Layout. So everyone knew that they wont have a chance to win when they dont choose the strongest Car. even if they choose it, its hard to master.

As you said, its all about to practise in your choosen Race Car. But there comes another problem. In every single League you got this god damn Ailien speeder. I mean, sure they must be even better and did a lot of practise overall but I you know you dont have even a chance to win.
- So its more a selfmade problem here within demotivation ourself with this thoughts.

I cant speak here for everyone but what happend to me from time to time. If I trained very well for a track and did some fast Laptimes (IMO), less than 1 second behind the WR. Then it comes to qualify yourself for Race, your quite happy to set a time near to your PB and then you cant believe what is happening all other drivers are colse to the WR or are even faster then you and they saying "oh it was a bad round" ....

You prepare your self so damn good for the Race but its not even near good to beat the podium.. They appear for 5 or less Rounds and drive thousand times better then you.

Okay they are good at this Combination of Track and Car... NO! They are fast as hell in ALL CARS ON ALL TRACKS with and without all restrictions. So its very disappointing to see that all your preparing was wasting your lifetime.


There is also the fact that lfs isnt publishing new things. We need more alternation to this old Combos. If you dont have any motivations to do the same combos over and over and over again you quit

Be2k, I feel your pain. each LFSCART event so far that I've entered I've put in 100+ laps in practice. Then the race comes and I'm just nowhere near fast enough compared to everyone else. That's how it's been for me forever in LFS though. I practice and practice and practice and it's for naught .

It's difficult and frustrating. I know that I'll never win a race and my 4th place that I got in STCC will be the best finish I've ever made in LFS. Unless LFSCART manages to have 6 retirees in an 8 car race

We need to have a league where if you're within 103% of the WR.. you get ballast and restriction

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

We need to have a league where if you're within 103% of the WR.. you get ballast and restriction

Totaly agree with this!!!

I'm still so utterly slow

Quote from Be2K :

In every single League you got this god damn Ailien speeder. I mean, sure they must be even better and did a lot of practise overall but I you know you dont have even a chance to win.
- So its more a selfmade problem here within demotivation ourself with this thoughts.

You Sir, took the words out of my mouth.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

We need to have a league where if you're within 103% of the WR.. you get ballast and restriction

103% is still not enough, because I'm usualy getting close to 1.5-2 seconds to WR and that means I'd have to put on some restriction, right? I can't say I am one of the slowest drivers outhere because I'm not. I still have my combos on which I do top laps, but the problem is that where I manage to do so, all the alien drivers are even better than usual and that's where demotivation pops up.

Point is I would be really interested in a league where all the drivers do pretty much the same lap times and most definitely I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

Totally agree Deko. League racing shouldn't be dependent on content. A football field hasn't changed in over 100 years, but the sport is very much alive. Similarly, a pack of playing cards is the same as it ever was, but poker continues to grow in popularity.

When I raced, I used to treat LFS as a sport, something that I could do to satisfy a competitive urge. When I retired, I did so because I had proven to myself what I wanted to and had nothing left to fight for. Nothing to do with content.

League admins do an awful of work to make races happen. I can imagine it is thoroughly disheartening to see a massive signup list turn into half a dozen entries by race three. League racers only have to do one thing to repay the effort the organisers make:

Sign up -> Turn up!

Quote from Be2K :

In every single League you got this god damn Ailien speeder. I mean, sure they must be even better and did a lot of practise overall but I you know you dont have even a chance to win.
- So its more a selfmade problem here within demotivation ourself with this thoughts.

I cant speak here for everyone but what happend to me from time to time. If I trained very well for a track and did some fast Laptimes (IMO), less than 1 second behind the WR. Then it comes to qualify yourself for Race, your quite happy to set a time near to your PB and then you cant believe what is happening all other drivers are colse to the WR or are even faster then you and they saying "oh it was a bad round" ....

You prepare your self so damn good for the Race but its not even near good to beat the podium.. They appear for 5 or less Rounds and drive thousand times better then you. ....

Thats exactly what happened to me in the STD championship 2012. It was advertised as a "entry level" league, and me being racecrafty but not fast thought I might have fun... they had a two server quali, one server race system, and I never made it into the top 32, even tho I made my best laps and closest to WR times ever, even sat down with a setup guru friend and carved myself new setups beforehand.

I know its down to me being too slow for competition, but all the leagues left have such a high level of competition, I more or less surrendered to it. And by looks of it many people did the same

Weird posting(s)...

Summarization;

- Massive sign ups for events
- Leagues start
- People bail out, stop, no dedication after one or two races.

=> basically almost everything gets the blame of that except LFS lack of content progress.

Yeah. Logical.

If he did blame it on the development in the first post, it would have been deleted most likely. Everyone knows it has a big part in the problem. Those aliens had more than 4 years to practice the same tracks and cars, such a long frozen development is not even the case in real life sports.

Quote from cargame.nl :

...
=> basically almost everything gets the blame of that except LFS lack of content progress.

Yeah. Logical....

Nope

Quote from ACCAkut :

I know its down to me being too slow for competition, but all the leagues left have such a high level of competition, I more or less surrendered to it. And by looks of it many people did the same

Correct !

This is not only limited to summer. Last GT1C season was in middle of the winter. There was the same trend there and then. I've had the most miserable start to any season ever. I had chosen the wrong car at first. Changed the car. Failed first race with the new car. How hard can it be I wondered. And basically then I stud up on my feet and started enjoying the car and myself. Never giving up until the last second of championship to take the title as I saw many drop out after their first mistake. I've even seen some of my competitors give up the race because they didn't qualify on pole position or outquali me. Suddenly they started not liking the combo. Yeah I see that.

This is not the story that I'm bragging with. Well, maybe I am a little bit. Still, it's something to motivate you to stick with what you've got. How many times we have seen things like that happen in the sport. How many times there were greatest of comebacks in last 10 minutes of football match. Remember Vettel's 2010 season comeback from what looked like sure championship for Alonso. Remember 2007 Kimi's comeback. And those are the most enjoyable ones as well.

The slower guys. Shouldn't you be embracing that some of those aliens failed and dropped out in shame? You had finally spot open for yourself when their weaknesses cough up with them. What you do? You let your disappointment from before go thru and hold you back. Giving up after the first sign of hardship shows weakness in character and I'm sick of people thinking they can just run away from problems. There's always the next time. There's always the new chance if you only have a little hope, little faith, little courage.

One really needs to enjoy simple driving of the car if he's going to go throughout the entire season. If you're only enjoying competition, and only enjoying beating others, then your road is not going to be very long.

Main reason why i dont race much league racing is this signing in stuff.
Example kyoto500. First you have to sign in at lfsforum, then sign in at NDR forum, then pick a car number, then make a skin for a car... Way too much nonsense.
The way that FM does is simple just join the TS and server, then do the race. Simple.

Quote from Jatimc :

Main reason why i dont race much league racing is this signing in stuff.
Example kyoto500. First you have to sign in at lfsforum, then sign in at NDR forum, then pick a car number, then make a skin for a car... Way too much nonsense.
The way that FM does is simple just join the TS and server, then do the race. Simple.

TS is also problem

Putting blame on people is pointless. You cant blame people for not showing up after signing up. People are allowed to sign up and only drive 1 race, thats the reason the confirmation thread is there. You cant blame the league admins, theyre doing their best. Blaming the devs is pointless because it wont change anything and its done enough already as it is anyway. League racing is hurt by the general state of LFS, but people are motivated to try and keep it going so might aswell make constructive ideas or criticism rather than only blaming that

Im doubtful of a league like GTAL working right now. All it ever was, was something to encourage new drivers to join. The drivers who signed up and totally embraced it and have become a big part of the community now were perfectly capable of racing other leagues anyway. And well, GTAL always isolated the people who werent eligable, and its questionable whether there are enough new people who would be interested in a league like that. The people calling for it in the past have been people who wouldnt be able to race it.

A couple of ideas I had were like having an amateur guest team in the established series(GTWS, GT1C?) where people can apply, and you give the space to them, in the team league races that would give people who arent in teams and want a chance to race the ability to race. But it would have to be managed properly, because obviously it would be taking away a spot from another genuine team which might be more worthy. Also simple stuff like posting a base setup in the thread gives people the opportunity to test the car with a decent setup without having to get involved in the community. We are a small community, but in the servers we are like a big group of friends and that can be intimidating for new people coming in. Also the media stuff not being around in the GenR events is a shame, lately the racing there has been really good and its as good an advert as you can give for LFS. I remember before I started 1 of the things which got me interested was watching the streams with Mikko, and thinking "hey I want to be involved in that". Even if its not possible to do a stream, theres still other media things which can be done which COULD help. I think you would have had a really easy job to make the race between me, James and Krasi at WE1R be exciting and seeing races like that can get people to look at the forum at the idea of being involved

If the lack of being able to win is the issue, then leagues where you have 2 or 3 races in an evening, with reversed grids would surely help give everyone their moment in the sun as it were.

Just my ideas.

Quote from cargame.nl :

=> basically almost everything gets the blame of that except LFS lack of content progress.

Yeah. Logical.

Well, I think it is refreshing to have a chat about those things without mentioning development (blaming everything on the devs isn't any better btw), personally I'd like to keep going without thinking about S3 or extra content, ppls who keep talking about it are contributing in demotivating everyone and it has no positive effect on the devs either... so what's the point?

Quote from Framaris :

Well, I think it is refreshing to have a chat about those things without mentioning development (blaming everything on the devs isn't any better btw), personally I'd like to keep going without thinking about S3 or extra content, ppls who keep talking about it are contributing in demotivating everyone and it has no positive effect on the devs either... so what's the point?

Plus, if it was because of lack of development, why would there be so many signups in the first place? The problem is probably somewhere else.

If I may offer my opinion as a team manager of a team that is frequently in most of the top leagues throughout the season. I have been in many teams as most of you know, and I have always seen the same trend. Up to and including exam periods (April-July) is when team members tend to start to go inactive. I see it with my own drivers, most have completed exams and have informed me they have little time for LFS or computer games as they are releasing after exams, we all know the feeling. In my opinion, it has nothing to do with LFS, its physics, lack of development or whatever. In actual fact, I and many of my team mates have no issue with no new content, if anything the new content that was added (open configs) was not successful at all. In my opinion it is natural for activity to dip during summer months.

I myself am finding it very difficult to find motivation and time to practice for events and race in events since my exams are finished because I am invited to go out every day, or am given the opportunity to go out and therefore find it very difficult, like my team mates, to participate in these leagues.

In the Autumn, Winter and Spring seasons when endurance leagues are traditionally run I always see the team at its most active when people have something to focus on. It would be unwise to run an endurance league over the summer.

I've seen people mentioning this "alien pace" which can deter some competitors away from leagues, or even some people saying slow progress from Devs is causing a lack of interest. I think that's wrong, in the GenR Grand Touring Masters series it is as popular as it is because it has the top LFS drivers driving in it (Isaac, Krasi) which attracts people like me who want to prove myself against them. One opinion I have about progress slowing down in LFS, I don't think it's really that much of an issue, people come and go in any game. The difference here is that it is so easy to fall in love with LFS so its therefore easy to get frustrated with it. Those who "stop" but don't leave and hang around the forums complaining about Developers, or hackers, or cheats, or progress, or the weather, it doesn't help and it leaves the new comers to LFS with mixed opinions.

I believe there is still great interest in LFS, it may need to be marketed a little more, and don't get me wrong I know it's on the calendar and on LFS News etc but how do people who drive on cargame constantly or on FOX Junkies all day know about these leagues? Even I found out about these by word of mouth when I initially started and that was BACK THEN in the "GOLDEN AGE". Word of mouth has died, so how are we to expect new drivers into series?

My 2 cents anyway.

The major problem is there is a lack of new people replacing the older generation who have grown up and gone off and done other things. That IS down to a lack of content development, as there is nothing to attract new people and the older generations have lost interest. 5 years ago the competition was less and LFS looked attractive, you can't say that now.

You can't blame people for not coming, the people who used to drive everything have either moved on or don't have the time any more.

Quote from vipex123 :

I believe there is still great interest in LFS, it may need to be marketed a little more, and don't get me wrong I know it's on the calendar and on LFS News etc but how do people who drive on cargame constantly or on FOX Junkies all day know about these leagues? Even I found out about these by word of mouth when I initially started and that was BACK THEN in the "GOLDEN AGE". Word of mouth has died, so how are we to expect new drivers into series?

DING. Build it and the people will come doesn't work in 2013, because if you built a 1960's tower block, it won't be as attractive to live in today.

FWIW, I think the Dev's realize this, and if/when early 2009 comes, LFS will be back with a bang in the sim racing world. Until then, Leagues and servers will just have to put up with what they have.

What if you do more one time big events over the year, and put all those in a championship. (with big events I mean like the 500 etc) because there the turn up is way higher then the normal championship races.

I'm a moderator + admin for Absolute-beginners.nl.
We have several servers and leagues and always have a good crowd running in our leagues.
Incidents can be reported to the Board Of Trusties (a small group of admins and some people that have been racing with us for a long time and are therefor trusted members of AB.nl), who will investigate each reported incidents and hand out penalties if that's the common agreement.
Of course some issues have happened over the years, but all in all AB.nl races are always in a great spirit and with plenty of people racing.

How about AB refer their higher tier drivers to the bigger leagues then?

Make a wiki for your respective leagues. It just looks nice and makes competition reports, and points more visible and mirrors real life in some respects.

Nothing makes a win more special than a yellow box with a 1 in it on a wiki page! Let me assure you!