drop the limit. keep everything else the same.

..

If you have a limited time with demo it sort of looks shabby. Like the devs go "Right that's it. No more until we get that folding paper money" Just remember there is a reason to get s1/s2/s3 because of more content. If people want to. Its there and they know there's more stuff.

Just remember a time limit makes it a TRIAL. Sure a s1 TRIAL would be good. Just sp only with s1 for half hour ish. Good idea. But limiting a DEMO to a time limit. NO.

On a note: Think how much the community would probably decline. Go do some research and find out how many users who play REGULARLY (Once a week - Every day a week) are demo.

i agree with limite time for demo user, but like cargame.nl say "Fiddling with demo settings at this moment has zero to no effect, it can even backfire. you can think of demo limitations after the licensed environment has been improved."

Yisc[NL] are really right also, people can pay for servers and cant pay for lfs in so many years?this guys buy steering wheels etc..weird no? many excuses to be honest...

Lyen i understand your fear. in my view point i dont need Think to much how much the community would probably decline,because LFS decline like he is(with free content, unlimited time) demo just help to decline.

people create friendship with demo players (like me) and do not want to see friends (demo users)outside the game, because S1 / S2 / S3 is really empty(except cruise servers).demo need to end, but this is not a right moment.

if devs turn off demo just 1 month, we can see how many people play and what is LFS after pay license.

I don't understand why licensed users want limitation demo. WHY? You want kill layer of community just for fun? Why it's PROBLEM for you. Where is problem began?

For what??

Limiting Demo even more will just end up with huge LFS player-base loss and I think devs can't afford that.

Making the sim feel more like a 'p2w' game... uh why? =.=

Quote from Oveglfhzl :

Making the sim feel more like a 'p2w' game... uh why? =.=

It wouldn't be a pay to win game even with the limits sinanju has suggested. LFS isn't a free to play game and the demo is pretty unrestricted compared to a lot of other games so the demo makes that illusion that it is a free to play game with extra content packs that you can buy.

In my eyes the limits that have been suggested are pretty harsh but with some toning down they could work.

This just screams of "elitism".

Maybe the likes of Dygear etc should start charging licensed players too to use prism.. would be a bad thing to offer something for free to people?

I know a _lot_ has changed in the community since I fell upon LFS.. but "back in the day", people used to help others for the pure fun of it.. there wasn't this "elitist" attitude.

Demo is just that, a demonstration of the capabilities. This model, obviously works for the devs, if it didn't, they would have changed it already.

Much like piracy.. someone using a crack for a piece of software _doesn't_ mean that's a lost customer / revenue.. as many of the people using the crack wouldn't buy the software anyway. Like the demo.. limiting it _doesn't_ mean that all of a sudden, the devs will have an influx of new revenue.. quite then opposite more than likely.

Micro$oft started by giving its stuff away.. it then established it's name and products in the industry and look where it is now (we'll leave the personal feelings of M$ out of the equation for now as they're irrelevant).. but by releasing a demo like they have if nothing else, gets their name out there.



Cheers..

Ian

To sum up post above - limiting demo will deffinitelly reduce demo community,but will increase licenced community so little,that it won't be worth it and will even backfire in longer term.
I would leave demo as it is now (maybe for some little extra revenue implement some sort of google ads or something - nothing,what could impact racing in any way though) - I bet there are a lot of demo users,who wish a licence,but can't get it for some reason,there aren't that that many sworn demo users,who will stick to demo in any case,just because it's free.

PS. Pay2win in LFS? Nothing to do with demo/licences,no idea where you get that idea...

eehhhhhhhhhhhhhh... ?


EDIT: It really depends how you look at the goal and mean of demo, so the discussion of this would not go anywhere forward, but then again, not even this post either.

If demo is a subscription its a subscription service not a demo.

If the demo has a timer its a trial

None of these idea's make it a demo.

What could happen is a s1 TRIAL to show demo users what they are missing. Maybe restrict it to I.P.

..

In my honest opinion this is the s1/s2/s3 community being elitist. As I said in my previous statement "What happens if you don't play enough to warrant buying a s2 license?"

In the world of cracked. They still miss out on features like MULTIPLAYER which if you don't get what the point of this part is MULTIPLAYER is where lfs EXCELS. Leagues to race in. Servers and insim to play around with.
In cracked you can only use LAN (Which is usually very unstable)

Remember though. Demo users are potential upgraders too. Limiting their experience could bring the illusion of the devs being "Money hungry" or in gamer terms "EA"

It should not be limited. I hardly play the game. I just enjoy making skins and rendering them.

So I want to throw a question at any licensed users; What would you do if they limited insim? Saying that if you have s1/s2 you could only use it for a limited time before it was cut off. Then you must upgrade (Where £12 for an oval is a bit steep even if it has one billion layouts) or you have to pay for it by day/hour? That'd cause such an uproar and probably binding in the marsh and riots. The same as what MIGHT happen if this idea gets passed.

..

Quote from cargame.nl :

Sadly.. They.. -and then especially this guy above; repeat83- completely copied the behavior of the master server, lfsworld and supports a complete hacked/cracked multiplayer environment. They don't give a shit about LFS and the problem is that it are -thousands- now. And I am sadly not exaggerating. You put it completely upside down. The licensed people are the supporters of LFS, without them no LFS. It seems that it's heading in this direction after all. The theft is way too big. But who cares.. They have fun hhmm.. From our support. Digital terrorists.

not all but most people on this has S2 license but you propably think they have s2 and they use crack? yes becouse lot of friends are there thats is the reason why

blackwood fbm is one of the current combo's which is mostly used and many are happy with being able to drive that all the time and have no incentive to buy a licence which I agree does not help with progress ect of lfs
I know many that would rather buy a license if it meant after a period of time them losing stats due to a time limit being in place
I know it might not be fair on all as it must be remembered that some users are younger children or in other circumstances that mean they cannot pay

Sigh. Elitism.

Quote from k_badam :

I personally think that the only thing that should be limited for demo users is online capabilities. They should be limited to 12 hours of track time (only counts when you are on the track) and when that runs out they can choose between paying for more time or buying a license. To stop them from creating another account they shouldn't have to put in any bank details (if i was creating a free account i would find that dubious and would click away) and instead LFS should keep your IP so that no new licenses could be made from that IP.

Agree with that

tracking something like that using the IP is not really an option i think

Why should you take away a piece of free content and put it behind a paywall? I rarely go to demo servers to experience that different flavour. More raw, less rule-abiding, more fierce. I would like to keep that that way.

Also, if the demo content would not be so excellent and free forever, I would probably never even buy S1 licence, not even talking about S3. LFS demo was the game of my childhood And I am very thankful for that.

Quote from Yisc[NL] :

Getting a new IP is easier then drinking a cup of coffee, so that won't help.
It would be better to get and store some hardware ID and compare that when someone connects.

And then there is family people playing same game in Steam I can play my sons games and he can play my games since he disscovered the power of my pc

Before S1 was released, all we had was a demo. In fact, in the early days I think we had just one car. There were no skidmarks, the windows were not transparent and many features which we enjoy today were not yet implemented. By the time S1 was released I would have already played over a thousand hours. Even back then the barely-evolved demo was good for racing, goofing around with friends, drifting, whatever.
I couldn't afford to buy S1 when it came out. A friend bought it for me. When the S2 license was released I got it right away. When the S3 license was released I got it right away. So you can call me a fanboi or you can call me passionate about this sim, and I'm ok with either.

Back when I discovered LFS there were several car games in development or on the market. The reason why LFS captured my heart was because the developers had released a free version for us to try. It was really easy to get people on board and we built a strong community way before S1 was even available. Demos for other car games were limited either in features or by a time limit, or some other restriction which prevented the player from being able to truly decide if their money would be well-spent on a particular game. LFS did it differently, and as features were implemented the demo got updated too. This way of doing things has been very successful. Just like in the very beginning, any newcomer can try this fully-featured game and actually experience an online community as well.

There may always be those who can't pay, those who won't pay, and those who can pay. They are all fans of Live For Speed, and they perhaps wouldn't be if the demo were not as it is. It's a bloody good demo and it leaves you wanting more, but if you can't have more you don't lose respect for what the game has to offer. You know what it has to offer and you can enjoy it fully.

If you feel that the 'demo community' should be buying licences, then maybe try to encourage them to do so by promoting the advantages of upgrading. Those who take advantage of the free product (for whatever reason) are not doing anything wrong. The demo is there to present the gameplay and physics as they actually are, it's free, it's fun and it has enough content to try out a FWD car, a RWD car, and an open-wheeler. A free mini-game which is a great advertisement for Live For Speed.

Quote from Gunn :

If you feel that the 'demo community' should be buying licences, then maybe try to encourage them to do so by promoting the advantages of upgrading.

I totally agree with this, but at the same time, I think that LFS needs more ways to pay for a license rather than VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Skrill.
Personally I think that they should search more ways so people who doesn't have PayPal or a Credit Card can buy the license. I do know there are pages where you pay via X so they add X money to your PayPal account without using a credit card. But maybe as for example "3rd-party" websites, that you can pay with local currency and with local methods (common being like a "Tax" "ticket" like when you pay the bills), so in that way more people can access to the licenses more easily to:

1º- Those that can't access to a Credit Card and/or that their parents won't allow them using the credit card to "waste money on a game";
2º- Their currency compared to £ currency are rather high, mostly on third world countries (South America, some Asian countries [Indonesia or Philippines or countries around them for example]);
3º- [Off-topic]: Those who have access to a Credit Card and/or PayPal, but still they think its worth to crack the game rather than supporting developers, which sadly even with the best anti-pirate system you implement, theres always a flaw that they discover to make the whole game "for free".
[I totally reject cracks on LFS, before anyone comes accusing me coz Im Demo].

Demo is fine the way it is right now, LFS has its fame thanks to the unlimited Demo [apart from the variable content/tracks/cars/features], which Im sure most people here have been there before buying any license, and yes, the Demo's cancer community really makes you buy a license to get away from them ASAP . It is kinda hard to find good people on demo tbh.

Quote from Ibtasim6781 :

Demo's cancer community really makes you buy a license to get away from them ASAP . It is kinda hard to find good people on demo tbh.

I brought handful of my friends to a LFS demo server at lan party we had... they caused havoc lasting for about two hours.