dear scavier,
people are waiting desperately for some years now to get any new car to drive with the wonderful (current!) physics of lfs.
you managed to make at least two cars that you showed to the community but then refused to publicly release them for reasons that are at least "a bit strange", because they will not take away the fun untill better physics are ready.
for months and months now the top treads in the forum ask for those cars and yet you choose to ignore that. why is that so?
what would it hurt to release the vws and the lx8 (with slick tires) to the community to have some fun, while waiting on "the next big thing"?
to the most of us it hurts way more being constantly ignored by a once wide open dev team that wanted to make the best racing simulator possible, together with the people in the longest alpha/beta stage of any modern game. did you realize how the community came to live for a short while, when you announced a new test patch, even if just a small fraction of users have any benefit from oculus development right now?
we all accept your way of working and your work life balance is important, so you can stay healthy and happy to do some more great simulation work in the future, but please do give us something to bridge the gap to he next big release.
being independant is a great thing (do not let faccebuuk buy lfs!!!), but being stubborn and constantly ignoring the most urgent wishes of the community is just not good! maybe you end up with a great product, but with no people to play it in the end...
why do i still keep writing this? maybe because i care a lot for lfs and its bigger vision to become a virtual driving platform for all kinds of vehicles and i am afraid that the devs do not realize the level of frustration their strange behaviour in the last years have caused?
even an independant producer is dependant on his customers - a game is depending on it players, so there has to be some respect in both ways.
if the vws and the lx8 are so bad compared to the cars that are already in lfs, why not just give them to us "for a limited time"? to bridge the gap to the new physics and s3 content release, just include them to the test patches and communicate that fact openly and proactive, so later noone can complain if those two cars vanish again.
if the s3 release rocks with new physics, new tracks, new cars (?) and the long awaited interiors for some cars, then nobody will be sad if those two cars are left out of the game again.
just think about it, will you? and if you decide to not do it and not be nice to the community who has supported you all the years then maybe it is time to leave you alone, even if this would be really sad. and i will continue playing with lfs as it is right now, because there still is nothing better out there (besides richard burns rally untill the famous lfs rally pack will surface).
do you really care if we stay or if we quit playing lfs? if your goals to make the best racing simulator are true, then you should care about every single one of us... we are in this together...
and coming from a marketing point of view: it is way harder to convince a customer that has been frustrated and turned his back on you, then to get new customers that get impressed by the features of the product. so please don´t do the same mistake as for instance the mobile carriers do by stupildy just treating "new" customers with all kinds of offerings, but not treating long time customers with the same respect and gratitude.
peace, mo