I don't understand the part in bold. It seems like a contradiction.
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I think some intermediate formula would work. A way for player-made content to be added after a long time, is better than no way at all. E.G. player-made content submitted to some more or less gated QA system, where (e.g.) submissions are filtered up thru increasingly strict evaluation, with Scavier at the top and a larger group of testers at the bottom of the pyramid. It doesn't have to be a pyramid; the point is only that even a very long wait to approve only the highest quality submissions would be better than nothing at all.
But something tells me there's some reason that even that's not an option to Scavier, so far.
if you let people make cars for the game, then official cars won't be awaited like this. if you let people create tracks, we will care less about new westhill.
and as lfs is quite old i think modding community is sided with rf and mostly ac now, as they can create what they want more detailed with more physics calculations and graphics. also probably easier. I doubt we will have any quality content if scawen lets people make cars and tracks.
I don't see why user-made and official content are mutually exclusive.
We don't need much quality content. Even half as much user content as official content would be a very good situation. The main problem (or one of them) with user content is player dilution by the sheer variety of content. But if (e.g.) Scavier restrict things a bit with only new cars that fit within the official car classes, things quickly are more manageable. So user-content isn't inherently hopeless as you and others seem to argue.
I do think there'll be enough who both care and know about quality, for the best user-made content to be really good. For instance I edited an LFS car to as close as possible to a Lamborghini as LFS Tweak allowed, back then, and Flotch fairly quickly made a really good base setup. Now, I'm not saying that ripping off real world car designs so blindly is ideal, but IMHO it does show that
1. There are players around who know quality and care about it enough to produce high quality content
2. LFS is a good enough platform that it's possible to so readily make new and fun cars
3. LFS carset has so many holes in it that we're nowhere near the point of diminishing returns
Another example: Bob Smith's NASCAR mod. Again the underlying platform that is LFS shows how flexible and potent it is.
You might say tried and tested. New physics and crowd(ish)-Q.A.'d new cars to add variety to each car class on their own would IMO really make LFS hard to resist at least trying again. Even if I'm partial to LFS, I think that's a pretty fair assessment.
I dont think its possible to let people both create cars and pick the ones you want. once you've let people create cars then the arrow has already left the bow. you can't just pick the content you want, there will be poorly made funny cars everywhere and nobody will care about what scavier chose, everybody will have any car they want, and lfs will look like a pile of trash cars. if there is a way to block them with master server which i dont think there is, then they will create cracked servers which will make it worse. point is you can't just stop people once you release tools.
and soon people will get bored of less quality many quantity of cars and after that- as there are considerably lower physics calculations in lfs, its harder to make cars handle so much different than each other- so when scawen tries to push lfs with a car or two when modding hype starts to decline, then nobody will be interested as much anymore.
you got that right. "you" as in "devs" in your claim, who is supposed to let good cars in and bad cars out, which is not possible cause its not up to you to decide anymore.
once you let people create cars, it doesnt matter how much you "approve" one car over the other, people will use what they want and it will be a mess. then they will lose interest, then you will try to get people back with couple of cars they'll say na, its not even a new thing anymore.
where did you talk about timing? I must have missed it, or you didnt say that at all? I think the latter is the case.
It's a straw man because you invent this loaded premise of LFS modding tools that completely open up game-killing vulnerabilities, and then pretend that that's the only way LFS could possibly be programmed. That you can't imagine something, is not evidence that it can't be done.
Why isn't LFS server list full of Tweak servers, Right Now?
...And there it is. Good old snide rhetoric. Houdini would be proud. LOL!
yes its full of tweak servers. you just need to know how to see them. and tweaking a car and using a completely different car: 2 different things. latter being much more intriguing.
you imagining something doesn't mean it can be done either. and yes it can't be done as a tool for lfs. better create a new game instead of trying to accomplish such a thing. ac released tools for the community, soon after, they cracked original cars and started editing them and released them as "mods" to the game. soon there will be people who will crack dlc and I'll let you know.
just the same as no matter how hard you try as a dev, your game will be cracked. your idea of "letting people create cars, but not letting people put it in the game" is no different. you can imagine all you want, but its not possible. and if you will go "x game hasn't been cracked" I say not a popular game and thats exactly the only reason.
and about the timing thing, you are talking about the time up until modding tools release, I am talking about what will happen after the tools have been released.
With all due respect I'm going to take Scawen's word over yours.
You can read my mind! Haha!
How do you not see that that's what I described. If there's a few things that suck about LFS, one of them is this sort of teenage level pseudo conversation. Having the last word completely trumps actually getting to the bottom of things.
If you can't see how what we have can be used to get to what I described, then I dunno. I'm not gonna connect the dots for you.
S.E.T.H. I don't know if you're being willfully obtuse but you're essentially just dancing around everything Breizh is saying....you haven't offered one piece of substance to reply to. Why waste your time?
On the topic of self-made car mods, I'm certain VOBs fit in there. It's so easy to download and then mod an isolated installation of LFS with VOB mods. It's also illegal because most VOB mods use actual car bodies without license. The only thing you're missing from installing the mods is multiplayer; that would be the only advantage provided to having an official way to create cars for LFS.
EDIT: Summary of S.E.T.H.'s posts: "I don't like the idea of creating cars because it doesn't make me excited for the dev released cars. THAT MEANS NOBODY SHOULD EVER ENJOY OR ENTERTAIN THE IDEA OF FAN MADE CARS!!!!! YOU ARE SO STUPID FOR WANTING CUSTOM CARS"
We could hash out a lot of the basic playtesting using "crappy" tweak approximations... Then Scavier pick out whatever car formulas they think best fit into the carset.
The bodywork is mostly independent of the stuff available to Tweak apps, right? IIRC the rims are also part of the physics. But AIUI the difference in physics that a different car model makes, is in the later part of design. IE fine tuning.
Right now, and this is an assumption, the LFS car classes have plenty of rooms for more varied new cars. I'm pretty sure of it because I did it myself. Added a few cars to the LRF class and they were even enough that lap times were competitive over a few tracks (IIRC we'd tested them on SO4, Blackwood, and Fern Bay black). Changed the XFG into an AWD turbo kit car like in amateur rally, the XRG into a big Muscle/Corvette-ish (IIRC because an exact Corvette replica was too fast), and the XRT into an F430 replica. The intent was to produce cars that were
1) Fun
2) As different as possible from what LFS already had
And as a proof of concept, it worked IMHO.
So maybe it ultimately (when Scavier and/or all players evaluate it) wouldn't work well enough , but I made it work that well on my own. If I can do that, and the idea isn't wrong (I've seen no reason to think so) 10-50 players could definitely do it well enough. And of course those specific cars were just examples. It is just a proof of concept.
yes I see thats what you described. and I say this "intriguing" effect will be short lived.
do you think those people use lfs just because they are so interested in modified lfs cars, or they just found the perfect platform, the most easy to use? the latter is the answer. not that tweaking made them so much interested with the game. dont release anything and they'll be here for years and not ask for anything. and most of those servers are demo fyi. which means for them its again not the cars but the platform itself.
once this effect is gone then what? now if scawen releases this scirocco, even though it won't be so much different as he said, it will make us see new faces. once he gets modding tools out, he won't have the same chance anymore. lets wait and see what kind of hype westhill will bring and think about what kind of hype would it bring if we were already able to create tracks as we wanted. rarity of content is what makes it valuable.
What I did back then was entirely legal, using Tweak. That's part of why it seems so feasibly to crowd source a rough first batch of new car candidates. The impact on cars performance from their VOB-dependent physics is AFAICT marginal. The only major obstacle I recall was not being able to change the suspension types. E.G. the XFG's crappy rear end.
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That's the point. That regardless if he's said something or even decided anything WRT to it, his word will trump yours.
Which could just as well be a distinction without a difference: the modded cars are no less cars than official cars are cars. Quality cars will out-compete crappy cars. It is not comparable to expecting that LFS could not survive tools enabling or helping free roaming and/or drifting because that would trigger a landslide player migration to those modes and completely starve conventional racing. It's not anything so black and white, with a fair share of all server types getting players, with the higher quality servers regardless their type being most popular.
That's not an inherent consequence as you imply it is, and aren't they demo because that's all Tweak can edit - the unencrypted cars?
Taking an unproven assumption for granted, and more evidence that for you having the last word trumps everything else, so really I think this discussion is done. Man, I forgot how so many in motorsports "communities" are such ...
IMO that's the real problem during these long stretches without updates.
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Anyway... A invite-only and/or NDA (by Scavier) pool of car builders using tweak like programs could cover the "proliferation" issue. It could additionally have some kind of server-side baking of user-submitted "tweak" parameters. But that really reduces the breadth and depth of user-made permutations. Ultimately that's one of the major missing parts of LFS - way too little volume and variety in the carset.
I don't think they have any effect on performance, but they define the collision detection.
AFAIK there are two tweaking programs:
LFS-Tweak can change basic values for all cars (power, torque characteristics, number of cylinders and gears, weight, ...). With Demo cars there are some enhanced options like wheel dimensions, track width, wheel base, turbocharger on/off and boost pressure, rev limit ...). There's also a built-in slick mod, temp lock, increased steering angle and smoke enhancer.
The other program would be NTO (NewTweakOrder), which lets you change almost every aspect you could ask for, no matter which car. You can even setup a launch control and rev bumper, there's also the option for supercharging. The downside is a buggy weight editor and limited choice of wheel/tyre combinations.
There are generally (many) more Demo servers than for licenced content. I'm not a drifter but I think most drift servers allow tweaks. I have cruise servers hidden but drift servers are where the majority of licenced folks hang around from what I can see.
all of your points in this thread are based on taking "unproven" "assumptions" for granted. as if there is a proven assumption. if there is a proven thing, then its not an assumption anymore. too much usage of unnecessary words.
so, you do realize that you have been making assumptions too, right? you have been making assumptions about how would public made cars make this game a blast, or how community would be still here even though there are many titles around which offers great modding capability and actually are built for modding in the first place. assumptions about how would scawen be able to release some tools while still preventing people from using the cars they built, with less effort than he would put on building several new cars etc. that one is totally pointless cause what you are "imagining" is i am sure if ever possible, going to need much work. and I gave you an example how even whole AC crew could not manage to do that as people cracked their cars.
so I have been making assumptions about how that would bore people in short time. I had no problems with yours because thats what you think would happen, and this is what i think will happen.
btw what's your problem with this "last word" thing i dont get it. If i have something to say i will say it, not for the sake of having the last word. no worries.
one serious question, do you enjoy creating a sentence using 25 words while you can say the exact same thing in just 5 words? do you think that makes you seem clever, or you just enjoy adding any word that comes to your mind? where did you get that style from, matrix the architect?
Then all the newly hired programmers would have to learn and get used to Scawen's code style and workflow, and I think it would become a bit messy when people with different "habits" started co-operating with him.
And more importantly, I don't think that's what Scawen wants anyway.
aahhh yes agreed i remember about tony hawk underground 1 and 2 for example about style, idea, dimension, workflow, etc. theres huge different. different person, different standard of quality.
Okay, so Scawen dosen't want programmers, but I suppose that he can accept for things that he dosen't master (I mean, at the same level than the others), like a graphical engine programmer.
And why not graphists and 3D artists to improve current models while Eric works on some new ones.
I for one will certainly come back to check out westhill and whatever else they got in store for us. He's right you know, nobody if forcing you to wait around here and be miserable about it.
Some oldschoolers will never come back but thats just how it works, some leave new ones arrive... That doesn't mean that the community is ruined, it'll just be different people and in 5 years they will be the oldschoolers complaining that everything was better and more active when they joined on the westhill release.
