Hey, just logged on to check some racing servers, all i find is cruise and drift, where the hell are the actual racing servers?

Race Servers are the Tooth Fairy.....

"Liane: Oh. Eric, poopie, sit down. Mommy has something to tell you. It's just that...well... There is no tooth fairy, Eric. I've been putting all that money under your pillow, and because you had so many teeth fall out, I've actually run out of money and can't go to the grocery store for at least a month.
Cartman: You almost had me for a second there, Mom, heh. "There's no tooth fairy." I suppose you're gonna tell me there's no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or Jesus, either, heh-heh. M-Mom?
Liane: I'm sorry, Eric. All children find out sooner or later.
Cartman: Y-you're serious here. There really is no tooth fairy?
Liane: No, honey. It's just--
Cartman: How could--? How could you lie to me, Mother? Lie right to my face?
Liane: Oh, Eric, it's just part of being a child.
Cartman: How can I trust you? How can I trust anyone ever again, Mother? I guess, uh to make it through this life, I can only trust myself."

Or, read this thread and work out time zones.
https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/89104-Cityliga-livestream-season-22

Cargame and some others have great racing servers running.

Quote from RaZMorocco :

Hey, just logged on to check some racing servers, all i find is cruise and drift, where the hell are the actual racing servers?

At quiet times like when you looked, there are some other racers looking at the list of hosts, just like you. Now if one of you had actually joined a host with a combination you wanted to race, then there would be a racing host that wasn't empty, and then there would be two of you, then three.

Someone has to be the first to join a server!

I think the original question was: where are all the drivers on racing servers.

Since there are LOT racing servers, but all are empty. Of course there is many reasons.

One reasons surely is, that during years people that have S# licenses, have created own leagues and groups and they mainly race on private servers. That is just my personal guess.

I also think there is too big experience gap between long-time racers and new racers. If you drive a track in 1:30, you are not interested to race with newcomers that use 1:40 to complete the same track.

Let's imagine five newcomers join one public race servers and they have good time there. Then one Pro joins the servers and beat everyone else by 5-10 sec per lap. In addition, he rams the nearest slower drivers off track in first corner, because he is in hurry to show his speed. Soon he will be the only driver on the server. That is sad.

I think one problem is, that there is no servers dedicated to _only newcomers_. Currently I am administrating one host, but I have no idea how to dedicate it to beginners only. It would be interesting.

Also what Scawen writes, is true. Somene has to be the first. I do it often: If I see a server for example with three drivers, I join the server, because I know when there will be fourth driver, more people gets interested to join also. I have often joined empty servers, and noticed that I need not make many laps when next one is joining. Of course it requires bit patience for all, to wait that more people joins.

"Be the change you want to see in the world"

In fact all of your answers are true, its just that the racing community is kind of dead or all into the FBM, because there is much more Demo newbies to compete against
I tried hosting a server from my pc but its impossible with the current internet of my country
ALSO, i think there should be some kind of public chat in the server lobby to invite/add/party with people to play together

Quote from RaZMorocco :

ALSO, i think there should be some kind of public chat in the server lobby to invite/add/party with people to play together

There is!

A big button "meeting room" at the top right on List of Hosts.

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maybe you should select RACE! in the server menu

this is what i kind of get most of the time

Quote from lucaf :

One reasons surely is, that during years people that have S# licenses, have created own leagues and groups and they mainly race on private servers. That is just my personal guess.

It is interessting to do races with qualification, pitstops, relevant tirewear and all that. It is also the only way to race cars like MRT or F1 without it turning into chaos. I can understand why people do that, I mostly race on such servers too.

Servers might not be listed or be passworded, but it is still mostly public and easy to access.
Yesterday I was driving at Tuesday Funrace server. That was excact time this thread was posted. It was filling up already an hour before the start. Instead of only looking at serverlist, it is worth to also look at forum or lfs calender. That's all there is to it.

Inbetween those dates can still try luck at public servers (as others said, join and others join) or even do Blackwood Rallye at demo servers to kill time.

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The variety of LFS content is developing very slowly, like adding 1-2 tracks on 4 years and the cars are so limited, i know its hard etc, but still the game needs more content, plus the game didn't get any kind of advertisement, i think on the racing community all around the internet rare are the ones who knows about LFS

I have also noticed that many of the modern sim community members have never heard of LFS. And some don't think it is even possible to try it because it is not on Steam, and the thought of using an installer just makes them say "WTF" and that seems very strange to me.

We can't afford advertising so as ever before we will have to rely on word of mouth (or word of text). There was a quiet time in development (probably inevitable after many years of hard work) but we are really working hard again now to produce more content and update the code. So I believe in time it will pick up again and we are making our best efforts to make that happen. But no matter what we do, it will only spread if the community tells people about it.

Quote from Scawen :

I have also noticed that many of the modern sim community members have never heard of LFS. And some don't think it is even possible to try it because it is not on Steam, and the thought of using an installer just makes them say "WTF" and that seems very strange to me.

We can't afford advertising so as ever before we will have to rely on word of mouth (or word of text). There was a quiet time in development (probably inevitable after many years of hard work) but we are really working hard again now to produce more content and update the code. So I believe in time it will pick up again and we are making our best efforts to make that happen. But no matter what we do, it will only spread if the community tells people about it.

+1

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Quote from Scawen :

I have also noticed that many of the modern sim community members have never heard of LFS. And some don't think it is even possible to try it because it is not on Steam, and the thought of using an installer just makes them say "WTF" and that seems very strange to me.

We can't afford advertising so as ever before we will have to rely on word of mouth (or word of text). There was a quiet time in development (probably inevitable after many years of hard work) but we are really working hard again now to produce more content and update the code. So I believe in time it will pick up again and we are making our best efforts to make that happen. But no matter what we do, it will only spread if the community tells people about it.

I don't want to be rude but when I read that it looked like you went to an island for like a decade, away from what is going on with the game industry.
Steam (and Origin) has been around for few years already and more and more people are using specially Steam to play their games, it has it's own social network itself where you can see which games your friends are playing, what more advertisement do you want?
How do you think games like Rocket League, Dota and even CS:GO got so popular?

Hell, almost all racing sims already joined Steam.. except LFS.

It could well be the next big step for LFS before a proper S3 release

Quote from RaZMorocco :

Hey, just logged on to check some racing servers, all i find is cruise and drift, where the hell are the actual racing servers?

You can still find some events like Fox Friday at the Fragmaster server.
https://www.lfs.net/forum/418-Fragmaster%27s-Fox-Friday

Or cargame.nl ofc for random car class racing.

Quote from Scawen :

I have also noticed that many of the modern sim community members have never heard of LFS. And some don't think it is even possible to try it because it is not on Steam, and the thought of using an installer just makes them say "WTF" and that seems very strange to me.

We can't afford advertising so as ever before we will have to rely on word of mouth (or word of text). There was a quiet time in development (probably inevitable after many years of hard work) but we are really working hard again now to produce more content and update the code. So I believe in time it will pick up again and we are making our best efforts to make that happen. But no matter what we do, it will only spread if the community tells people about it.

What about offering the ability to crowd fund the game onto Steam? ie: Greenlight

Join [TFL] Anything Goes. We always hold races. Almost all day, everyday. When you join you're about 95% guaranteed to find that there is a race layout on with a couple of people racing. On the off chance that we aren't racing, it either isn't for long or its a fun game mode/map going on.

Quote from Bmxtwins :

What about offering the ability to crowd fund the game onto Steam? ie: Greenlight

Steam Greenlight is not a crowd funding platform (you don't "raise money" with Greenlight). It's simply a "Do you like this game?" voting site, to allow an indie developer the ability to circumvent some of Steam's barriers to entry (namely initial cost).

Quote from tacovendor :

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Hi,Dustin!

Quote from tacovendor :

Steam Greenlight is not a crowd funding platform (you don't "raise money" with Greenlight). It's simply a "Do you like this game?" voting site, to allow an indie developer the ability to circumvent some of Steam's barriers to entry (namely initial cost).

Ok, but it doesn't explain why we can't do both.

I can relate to Scawen point of view but also have to agree that one should adapt the business to how the consumer wants its games delivered.


One could say that for a game to live, its needs audience and todays audience is younger and steam addicted.


But the biggest problem LFS faces is not its delivery method nor is it an obscure problem unique to LFS. Every community outgrows games whose content remains stagnant, even AAA budgeted games with all their graphical novelty and prowess will suffer a quick death if stagnant.


The visual and auditory aspects of the game could have been mitigated if the content kept coming. Now, it lost the popularity train and the dated visual/auditory it presents it self with have become a huge obstacle bringing new plays in.


The best of my wishes would be to have a larger company buy LFS technology and give it new life. It would be a monster of a sim. Either that, or having the original team upping their game.

cheers

Quote from spyshagg :

But the biggest problem LFS faces is not its delivery method nor is it an obscure problem unique to LFS. Every community outgrows games whose content remains stagnant, even AAA budgeted games with all their graphical novelty and prowess will suffer a quick death if stagnant.
cheers

Not all AAA budgeted games suffers that, many games took the lead now, let's be honest here, people wants to have a big variety of content nowdays, most people would buy another game because well it has lots of tracks and cars plus a Online Multiplayer that is easy to access

I know LFS has one of the best Online services when it comes to multiplayer, but still lacks simple interactive things

Quote from Scawen :

I have also noticed that many of the modern sim community members have never heard of LFS. And some don't think it is even possible to try it because it is not on Steam, and the thought of using an installer just makes them say "WTF" and that seems very strange to me.

We can't afford advertising so as ever before we will have to rely on word of mouth (or word of text). There was a quiet time in development (probably inevitable after many years of hard work) but we are really working hard again now to produce more content and update the code. So I believe in time it will pick up again and we are making our best efforts to make that happen. But no matter what we do, it will only spread if the community tells people about it.

Word of mouth..... I can tell you a few big names and a few more up and comers in the gaming industry are finding out about you and your little game - sans steam.
Yeah. I don't really know who any of these people are as they are my son's people, but I do know they've been turned on to LFS.
Ever had any experience with venture capitalists?

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