Hello! This is my speech.
I have been lfs member since something
Back in days lfs was the first sim what got me hooked to sim racing.
It has been pleasure to be member of this long term community.
Times have changed, in terms of simracing and real world racing.

Today normal racing has lost many spectators and fans, maybie bechause it has become not so exciting.
What i think what caused that to racing is evolution of suspension, aerodynamics and tyres.
The formula one, wtcc and many other class is going in wrong direction with their new regulations concerning bigger downforce and tyres.
This sport lives from the spectators, not from the laptimes.
No one remembers the few second quiker laptimes after race, but evryone remembers sliding cars, passes and action on track.

Evrything has it consequenses.
It does reflect to simracing. Other forms of racing have come and started increase their popularity, like drifting.
What i have read from somewhere, cant remember where that drifting is fastest growing form of motorsport. It is fun to watch, it is fun to do, it is exciting and appears to be spectacular. Also it is easily accessible.
Evry kind of attetion to motorsport is good.

Now to simracing and lfs.

Its truth that lfs has lost most of its racing servers.
Now when i go check server list there is many cruising and drifing servers.
Its not bad, its not wrong, but i do miss those full racing servers.
Where are all those racers??
I would say that they are most likely on some club servers. Many have moved to iRacing and other sims.
Why? I think the success of iracing is the marketing and the way they do it.
You can find competitive races. Its pure clean racing. Its bechause the rank system.

Once in a while i play lfs, just take a car of current mood and give it a blast.
Lfs feels great. It feels different than others, others feel different than others.
Lfs does simulate car handling characteristic very good. It does not do any special effects or over do it. It feels like it looks. Very basic and right. It feels all the time like i know what im doing, and it does it.

Lfs does have potential to be anything.
Few days ago i was gonna buy 3-month subscription to iracing. After getting to payment site the price scared me. Over 40€! Not gonna happen.
What i want is good racing with reasonable price check. Why not to do offical rank system like most populated games? (example counter strike, iracing, league of legends). Its the way to match similar level of drivers agaist each other. And market the game with it!
Is anyone else frustrated to the lack of clean public racing? I'am.
This has been said on some popular simracing channel (cant find the video, someone might find it ).
Regular race start times. Evryone knows when racing starts. It has it benefits.

Here is jumping from subject to fifth.(like we say in finland)
btw, latest blackwood update. Nice work again!


This might not be on the right part of the forum, so moderators please move it to it right part.

I answer in all the questions:
There are not many racers. Only few aliens did stay on here. Others went to other sims like they did change their girlfriend for bett... let's not talk about this...

I am not frustrated of clean public racing, because there is clean public racing.


Counter-question: Where you have frustrated about lack of clean public racing?

We have far too little of a player base remaining to introduce any sort of match making.

And although I sympathise with your view on real world racing as a whole, I don't think it's the racing itself that drove players away from LFS. It probably was the lack of progress for many years, both in terms of content and overall development.

To UnknownMaster.

I have frustrated now, once i started looking other options than iracing.
Something less expensive.
Do you remember example fox junkies? Open game and there you go.
Is there any server you can jump on and have a blast?
Please give example
I think this kind of conversation has been here before.
I have no idea what kind of plans does lfs dews have, but they might not have any idea what kind of potential they are sitting on.

5tag, youre right. Its not the racing itself what caused this.
I think there is massive amounts of drivers who would rather race without monthly payment on ranked system.

Other sims have progressed and use latest tech. You can always find versatile content on other sims. For example AC allows modding and most mods you can find on racedepartment or their own website are rather good.

LFS still has that something about it, but it simply does not attract people anymore. You know..it's 2017 now and things are still improving along with the demand.

iRacing offers a lot more these days. Despite the ridiculous cost, if there's a chance for drivers to win a prize, there will be competition and hell that competition will be a lot higher compared to what you got in LFS now.

I am happy that there are updates coming out for LFS. It's better than nothing.

In my opinion LFS needs a few more cars, a lot more tracks and a couple of updates.

The sound engine needs a bit of a polish. I mean it's a very advanced way of producing engine noise and I don't think any other game has come close to synthesising it as well as LFS does and yet... when a new player exits the Blackwood pits for the first time I can't help but imagine that the sound aspect will seriously underwhelm him. It still sounds too dull, too artificial.

Other than that the existing content needs to be kept fresh as well. For instance they did a mighty fine job of updating the XF and XR series of cars years ago, they've also taken care of Blackwood numerous times now.

But once a new player finally decides to buy a license and takes the RB4 for a spin on Fern Bay... well it's all 2003 again. God awful geometry and even more awful textures as far as the view distance can render.

However not much is going to change as far as content goes. From what we've seen in the last couple of years we might get a new or updated track every year or two and sadly that doesn't seem enough to get LFS going again. Not until the devs start releasing a development software to the community and run competitions to act more as a sort of quality control instead of doing all the work on their own.

Thanks for the replys!
Always nice to see on these forums that discussion is still going strong.

Community modding would cut the bottleneck of developement.
I have tried rFactor 2, well that game does not have really fancy graphix and the feeling is not so much better than lfs. What comes to online racing what makes it good and fun. I think the basics what are needed is
working net code, right physics and competitive grid.
Games like iRacing has not done anything so good on these years, what LFS could not do.
LFS have done so many thigs right, at this point its not really about the big things anymore. The groundwork has been done properly.

If this would be gone for modding, I am not sure if I would be here then anymore, not like at this point

Quote from tvradio00 :

Is there any server you can jump on and have a blast?
Please give example

As far as I know, if we only look at licensed servers, both B2R Rotate GTi and TBO have been active every evening these days, so I would count those as servers where you can jump on and race. See you on track!

Maybie modding is wrong term. What i tought was more like community help.
Ill check those servers on evening!

Weekends should be a bit better for pub racing, if you want to race with bigger grids then Rony's Tuesday Fun Race and (FM) Fox Friday are good for popping along to, no sign up needed. If you want to be even more serious, CityLiga is starting it's last season in 2 days (Grid Quali) and the AWD Winter Series is on its 3rd round next week.

^ What he said, but yeah the racing community is pretty small now..

Quote from tvradio00 :

To UnknownMaster.

I have frustrated now, once i started looking other options than iracing.
Something less expensive.
Do you remember example fox junkies? Open game and there you go.
Is there any server you can jump on and have a blast?
Please give example
I think this kind of conversation has been here before.
I have no idea what kind of plans does lfs dews have, but they might not have any idea what kind of potential they are sitting on.

Fox junkies still there and i think enough open wheel lovers (not me sorry but i will bumb in when bussy) anyway think 1 guy should start there and maybe more follow

Quote from tvradio00 :

To UnknownMaster.

I have frustrated now, once i started looking other options than iracing.
Something less expensive.
Do you remember example fox junkies? Open game and there you go.
Is there any server you can jump on and have a blast?
Please give example
I think this kind of conversation has been here before.
I have no idea what kind of plans does lfs dews have, but they might not have any idea what kind of potential they are sitting on.

Well, Fox racing is still alive. We race fox every Friday at 21:00 CET on (FM) Fox Friday, currently hosted by Teho GP Motorsports team (me) instead of Fragmaster

If you join that server, you will get mates to practice with. If you want some Fox Junkie days, I could make them on that specific server or I could host another one.

And of course, if you want something pretty "X-treme" in terms of racing, there is always Flat Out! Series! ... Tomorrow has a race on 15:45 UTC, with qualify and mandatory pitstop on.

Quote from 5tag :

The sound engine needs a bit of a polish. I mean it's a very advanced way of producing engine noise and I don't think any other game has come close to synthesising it as well as LFS does and yet... when a new player exits the Blackwood pits for the first time I can't help but imagine that the sound aspect will seriously underwhelm him. It still sounds too dull, too artificial.

That's the main reason i put LFS aside. I've never really complained about it but you worded it well.

Don't get me wrong, it's the only big downside i can say about LFS. I still think it's a masterpiece! But because of the rendered sound, i'd rather just read the forum to see what's going on, every now and then.

On a side note, Scawen and Eric really pushed DX9 with their latest Blackwood track. It looks gorgeous!