I havn't competed actively in LFS since around 2007, but even though that was a rosy era for LFS league attendance was still potentially problematical for smaller leagues. Get 40 drivers signed up and you'll have 15 starters.
When I ran the STCC which Dustin mentioned above I got between 16 and 20 entrants for most races and it was much lauded as a popular league at the time. I think the most entries I got was 34 for round 3. By mid-season the drivers who either had a stewarding decision against them that they didn't like, or those who felt they couldn't compete competitively had left.
I took part in a couples of leagues which collapsed within a few races because of lack of entries, and this was a time when the LFS player base was healthy.
The problem isn't new.
But perhaps the answer could be, maybe it's time to do things differently?
Some lessons from the OWRL: Perhaps try only taking grid reservations from the day before a race. Email your drivers several times before each event.
Or how I did it when I ran the CTRA, by turning the concept of the league on it's head in a way that was at the time quite a revolutionary concept it got people interested, and I relentlessly talked about it in every relevant forum thread I could find to build awareness. Providing something new and unique got people into it to the point that drivers started promoting it for us - until eventually it had almost 40,000 drivers and became the normal way people played the game for some time.
Lessons from the STCC, stand out from other leagues by being genuinely different. The STCC was audience orientated and did race broadcasting in a unique way, it had a challenging event structure that gave everyone plenty of seat time whilst still delivering a well packaged spectator spectacle. In this way it stood out from all other leagues at the time as something different and worth competing in.
If league organisers keep doing the same things, then they'll keep getting the same results. If you expect a different result when you do the same things then you fulfill the criterea for Einstein's classification of madness.
The head of any league organisation must first and foremost fulfill the primary role of "selling" the concept of their league to their audience, leave the nitty gritty to your support team. Be creative and devise an interesting concept, then convey to your audience the reasons for them to compete, and they will come...
Becky, if you recall though.. a lot of the drivers who didn't attend were those who didn't want to follow the (fairly strict) STCC rules regarding attendance and even race format. You had a specific vision which was geared more towards creating a good broadcast and the ones that ragequit were those that didn't want to follow those specific procedures.
I do tend to charge through like a steamroller on heat don't I ? :P
I believe the problem of drivers not being aligned to the vision and direction of a league to be more responsible for people quitting than their own misfortune of performance. Plenty of midfielders stayed on in the STCC even though they couldn't compete with the likes of Victor Szabo, Hannu Pinola and Chris Redman.
Having a week vision that fails to inspire your drivers to follow it is worse than shedding a few who can't keep up with the mission. You'll shed more drivers by being "just another league" than you will those who are too demotivated to continue.
For all my sins, one things my leagues had was a creative vision that made them stand out. I think both my leagues where very successful, and I believe the reason they where is because of the distinctive visions they each had. So if I am to give advise, surely the best advise I can give is to have a strong creative mission statement?
Well look at people like John and myself.. even to the bitter end we continued to attempt to finish races even being so hopelessly off pace. I remember distinctly most of the Mercury guys trying to get into the league when we had a mid season race to find new people, and them basically all getting told to GTFO because they had shitty attitudes towards the entire thing.
STCC did work for what it was trying to do. I still have no idea why nobody drives LFSCART though. Is it really that hard to drive a FO8?! (It is, especially to be fast.. but it's fun!). Everyone only seems to like the GTR cars anymore.
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(BlueFlame)
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(dawesdust_12)
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I found the FO8 hard as a beginner, but once I had some FOX miles under my belt and played with the setup it was good, but very unforgiving of errors that in other cars could more easily be recovered. I loved the FJR format we came up with for the CTRA though, that took the edge off it.
I dove in head first. The few LFSCART events has been the first serious FO8 driving I've done in LFS. It does require a lot of precision, but it's not impossible. You might be slow at it, but it's not at all impossible to drive.
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(JackDaMaster)
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(Bmxtwins)
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For new drivers it is not easy to find a suiting league or even know that such things exist.
The league forum section should be cleaned up a bit:
Inactive leagues should be moved to archive, so that is easier to see what leagues are currently running.
In lfsmanual there is this page: http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/Active_Leagues
but it is not up to date at all.
Actually if the league forum was properly maintained, there would be no need for such seperate list.
That is something that community/moderation can solve, without help from LFS developers.
I also made a suggestion how more players could learn about league racing, but with threads in the style of "lol how about police light for fxo???" made daily it kinda got lost.
My only suggestion is to not require a pain in the ass sign up/ skin editing. It takes alot of time, and is completely unessesary, especially if you don't have s stream!
Well personally I wouldn't bother being in a series that didn't have regs on the usage of skins. Who wants to see someone driving around with a different torrid skin every other race.
So you want to tell me, that good 10-15 minutes are too much time? I can't agree here, because putting a numberplate and few other details don't require any skills in editing.
What I did with ESL was, they had to upload 1 skin for the series, again, I think the same as above, why have different skins each week, your car skin is not like your underwear for example, but we designed a Windscreen Banner that ALL had to use.
On replays and watching the race, it looked really smart.
We all seem to be pushing in the same direction here and wanting the same thing???
Fordman! LFSCART still exists. Entry is low however there's a race this evening that people can still join. It's KY1R, but the last 2 rounds of the season are at Fern Bay and KY2. Which should be fun.
They are absolutely great community. They have had by far the biggest grid sizes in any of LFS leagues. Through the entire 2012 season 3-4 grids each race. Driver activity was never an issue with them and probably will never even be.
Administration, or rather the head admin has decided to take a year off from all the obligations of running such a competitive league to concentrate on his real life obligations as I guess they cought up with him. Nevertheless, he has promised a 2014 seasons in his words to happen and I hope for all greatness of OLFSL it happens.
I actually would like to do the STCC again (not the CTRA). But for it to happen LFS needs a graphics update, more short circuits, a few minor game engine tweaks and a change in my life that gave me more free time.
I did this for my top level leagues in hopes that it could replace the data lost with the SPDO Database. Nothing really ever will though I'm afraid. That was a huge drive for many drivers.
All in all, I think many people on here are rather closed minded. They want this type of car or that type of track or this rule or that. Instead, look at a league with an open mind and embrase each league's rule and try to work with them and use them to your advantage. I changed my organization's name to Worldwide Racing from Realistic NASCAR to emphesise the fact that our racing product is often very different from what our old name might make many of you think. I see a lot of people who will say "oh, this is that car," or "oh, we're going to that track," or "oh, that rule is stupid," and then seem to just instantly lose interest in the series or event. Oval racing on LFS isn't just crashing. Fern Bay isn't always a flip and crash filled affair. Shorter tracks are able to hold events with fast cars (within reason). Why not give something different a try?
The Rallycross Shootout Series averaged in 3 rounds 3 drivers . Rallycross Leagues are rarely seen on LFS, but even something that hardly ever happens and gives different drivers a chance is ignored. The RNCS saw small grids starting with R2, but there were 4 different winners in 6 rounds. That defys the somebody runs away with it and makes be feel bad theory of low league race attendance.
I'm trying to put on an FZ5 forced cockpit view race on Monday, it's been announced for almost a week, and not 1 comment or registration has been filed.
If there was less competition between the separate leagues do we as a community beleive that league racing would become more interesting once again?
In a league there really isn't a limit. One of the best nights I had on LFS was running GTR cars on Fern Bay Club, and get this ... on a PUBLIC server. It was truly awesome for about 2 hours after which I was too exhausted to carry on racing! Oh sure, on another night it could be bedlam but the fact is it happened and overall was pretty clean.
One of the advantages of the short tracks is there are less corners to master, which means more drivers are closer to the pace which makes for closer racing. For leagues there are big advantages to racing on short tracks, and few if any advantages to racing on long tracks other than stereotype - and this is why I believe LFS needs more of them.
Just asking, where do you see the competition between different league organizers?
Speaking as International that found his way into the German community, I'd say that it is a big plus these leagues are organised on mondays or wednesdays rather than saturdays or sundays. Most of them simply have other things to do at weekends.
(It is, especially to be fast.. but it's fun!). Everyone only seems to like the GTR cars anymore.
. Rallycross Leagues are rarely seen on LFS, but even something that hardly ever happens and gives different drivers a chance is ignored. The RNCS saw small grids starting with R2, but there were 4 different winners in 6 rounds. That defys the somebody runs away with it and makes be feel bad theory of low league race attendance.