Quote from Jakg :

I thought he meant the demo wreckers that claim their only wrecking to get you to buy S2

Ohhhh! That's the 2nd time in as many days I've heard about this. It's a bit of a novel conspiracy theory. Last time, it was that people were being PAID to wreck. A commission-based wrecking/marketing strategy.. some people have some strange ideas!

The last conspiracy theory was that aliens had landed.. that turned out to be true, though! Just look at biggie's online chart.

Quote from Burnzoire :

If I understand the OP correctly, he's saying that not many people will desire to purchase S2 because the demo servers give a bad impression of what the full product will be like.

He's 100% right! I had to twist my friends arm to buy S2 because of the idiots int he demo servers just ruined the experience for him. I too had the same worries before I bought S2. Infact I tried the demo ages ago and wasn't all that impressed with online play (the game's key feature) simply because everyone would just wreck on T1, drive the wrong way, spend the whole time doing burnouts or drifting when people are trying to race.

Only through word of mouth did I purchase S2, so there's little wonder that demo users outnumber licensed users. When S2 is finished, a new demo will have to be worked on, one that counters all of these problems on demo servers.

It's a discussion that crops up frequently on the forum, and the lasting impression I'm left with is that LFS travels really well through word of mouth - which itself is testimony to the standard of the program, I think.

Everyone seems to have a different idea of what should and shouldn't be in the demo; how it's managed and how it functions, and some even think there shouldn't be a demo at all... we'll never get everyone to agree on the subject.

The crux of your last point, I think, boils down to the balance between well-administered servers where poor behaviour always results in kicks or bans, versus the fact that anyone can host a demo server with a home broadband connection - even planks, twits, twonks and so on. I think it comes down to a community-related problem, which means it'll be a community-based solution, when it comes

thisname, SamH, one of your ministers (John Prescott) said the other day that Bush was "crap". LMAO at that one! Leave it to a "renegade" British MP to break the mould and say what everyone's thinking Although it seems quite a few of his Labour colleagues agree with him
So I guess not everyone in the UK government is on board with Curious George.

As for the actual topic (come on, Hank old chap, focus) I wasn't put off by S2 demo w4nkers. I think that's because I started playing LFS really soon after it was released (late '02 I think). I played the S1 demo for ages before paying for my license. Back then the S1 demo servers were nowhere near as polluted by arse-clowns as they are these days. It was still sort of a cult thing because not many knew about it, so you could have some good fun on a server and buying a license wasn't a choice forced on me by fools - I bought it because I'd had enough time to evaluate the game and the online racing and I liked what I saw. When the S2 demo came out there were many more people online than I'd ever seen during the S1 days (word of mouth in action - makes me laugh when I see those threads telling the devs to market more aggressively - perhaps those people haven't noticed the thousands of people with LFS licenses who've never seen an advertisement for the game). Naturally when a population increases, so does the number of idiots - it's a law of nature. By the time S2 was ready to purchase I was more than ready for my license. Wreckers were (and still are I guess) a huge pain the arse of any demo racer. I'm not sure what a good solution would be, save for the rubber mallet remedy described above :up:

Quote from Hankstar :

thisname, SamH, one of your ministers (John Prescott) said the other day that Bush was "crap". LMAO at that one! Leave it to a "renegade" British MP to break the mould and say what everyone's thinking Although it seems quite a few of his Labour colleagues agree with him

He did, but like a chicken, he denied it.

Not just ANY minister, the Deputy Prime Minister.. and since Blair's sunning it up at the moment, somewhere that it isn't peeing down, you may as well call the guy "Acting Prime Minister"

I like the man!

Quote from SamH :

Not just ANY minister, the Deputy Prime Minister.. and since Blair's sunning it up at the moment, somewhere that it isn't peeing down, you may as well call the guy "Acting Prime Minister"



I like the man!

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

He did, but like a chicken, he denied it.

Of course he denied it. But in politics, a denial is as good as saying "Yeah, alright, fine, I said it - but you people in the press weren't meant to hear it. Therefore, I'm now publicly un-saying it."

No more OT, I promise. Sorry!
PS: multiquote rocks :up:

Yanno, anyone who knows Prescott at all KNOWS that he doesn't know anything about the roadmap, or understand its intricacies. They also know that, from HIS mouth, "Bush is crap" is a pretty long sentence.

I reckon that's probably exactly what he said.. nothing to do with any roadmap to middle east peace!

[EDIT] I'm a mod, now. Should I be steering this conversation back on topic, or moving it to the Off Topic section? I reckon I'll let Bob or Al fix it tomorrow

Quote from SamH :

Not just ANY minister, the Deputy Prime Minister.. and since Blair's sunning it up at the moment, somewhere that it isn't peeing down, you may as well call the guy "Acting Prime Minister"

I like the man!

I don't, he lives (lived, not sure if he moved) close to here, and he often had the police over for beating up his wife. His a douche and I hope he never takes full power of the country.

Quote from Hankstar :

Of course he denied it. But in politics, a denial is as good as saying "Yeah, alright, fine, I said, it but you people in the press weren't meant to hear it."

Haha, true. One of my best quotes (but the BBC have got rid of it now) was some Whitehouse spokes man was quoted saying "Presedent Bush was talking with Prime Minister Blair, who is the prime minister..." Which just range with bells of WELL DUH!

Quote from BBC :

a campaigner for the disabled who said he had been forced to struggle 40 yards to get to his destination because he had been unable to park.

Okay.. but then Mr Baggly said that Prescott..

Quote from bbc :

got up and moved it to one of the many free places.

Which is it?

Yeah, I forgot what a prat Prescott was actually. I know it sounds stupid, but I missed most of the gaffes because I was living in the US for most of the time Prescott was making a fool of himself. If he's a wife-beater, he sucks.

Quote from spankmeyer :

New Mars Volta lyrics?

':ices_rofl

Most of us who've been licenced for quite a while probably don't know the state of the current demo servers. I know I don't.

I started playing when there was only a demo, so all racers (good, bad, serious and causal) were on demo servers. When S1 was released most of the serious (and usually clean) racers bought their licence and said goodbye to demo servers. Until the S2 demo was released, of course, but then most of the names you knew from S1 were racing the demo and hosting races, so you could usually find some good servers.

I can imagine the current demo servers could be quite messy....

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

The more ironic part is, that people who natively speak English, tend to speak it worse online, then the foreigners speak it.

Quoted for truth and proof

Wow, do, I, use, Commas, enough,?

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Wow, do, I, use, Commas, enough,?

http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/d66.html

Quote from Rob76 :

Most of us who've been licenced for quite a while probably don't know the state of the current demo servers. I know I don't.

But some of the licensed users for various reasons still go in demo servers. And the situation, save a few notable exceptions, is very bad. Sometimes it's difficult to have a single clean race if the servers you trust (because they are constantly administered) are full. I know it could put more strain on the master server, but the more conscious admins and the most correct drivers would crave a registering system similar to the one adopted by S2. This way they wouldn't have to overpolice their servers.
But that wouldn't suffice. In fact the demo should also additionally lock the chosen name of the driver. No possibility to swap drivers. I don't care if it's limiting, renaming the driver is prone to very serious abuses in demo. Once your demo copy is tagged in a secure way, all the well known wreckers should face only the possibility of a complete reinstall and re-registration. And no possibility to launch simultaneous instances of LFS should be given, except for the dedicated host.
In short, there's nothing that could be done to definitely stop professional demo wreckers. But they can be limited to a point where continuing to wreck would be too much of a burden because once you're banned you cannot simply renew your IP address and you have to do something more boring instead.

knight_attack , thx for the translation et merci aux autres personnes aussi , vous remonter l'image que jai de lfs dans mon coeur .

Quote from SamH :

My French stinks. I'm so ashamed!

You should'nt be ashamed. You understood what he was saying prety well!

I have to admit, I go back to demo servers quite occationally to play with my friends that I'm introducing to LFS, I usually get fed up with wreckers so fast, that I create my own server for me. Them on the other hand, if someone wrecks them they'll wreck the other guy too (eye for an eye). Which doesn't make sense, but they are the morons to play the eye for an eye game.
The major issue is demo players think "Well, they can't track me so I don't care." which is wrong. I think that there should be mandatory registration even for demo. There would have to be requirements for the demo account (thus all accounts) , it should/could be:
1) Registered to an email address that hasn't been previously registered.
2) Verified to confirm the email address exists and is theirs.

That would make demo more enjoyable for all and make people think about not wrecking, and if they did wreck, then a iB style system for demo could be set up quite easily.

Yes, this would create more work for Scavier, but it would benefit the community in the long run by improving the quality of play for demo drivers, making them go "Hey, if demo is this clean, I want Sx for the additional cars!". Even having a Divided Demo where there is "Registered" and "Anonymous" with a large disclamer in the Anonymous demo that it is unable to track players, so the Registered demo is recommended for higher quality of play.

Yes, this same concept has been said many times, but I (along with I'm sure many others) agree that this would improve the Demo users' experience and make them more likely to buy S2, and train the ones that do buy S2 how to drive cleanly.

Quote from Krane :

http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/d66.html

It could be worse, a minor error like that is a pittance compared to the people who never use punctuation.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

It could be worse, a minor error like that is a pittance compared to the people who never use punctuation.

yeah i hate it when people don't use punctuation i mean it's not difficult is it and it makes reading things a lot easier and less time consuming talking of bad punctuation what is it with so many of the people who sell things on ebay

I overuse commas. I should use fullstops more frequently, but instead I like to create run on sentences using commas. Not a clever scheme, but at least it is better than other peoples attempts.

eBay is a joke though, everyone thinking they can get lucky by selling dumb things. There are some people who actually sell things validly, but I wouldn't trust any large value items over eBay, such as my 30 GB Video iPod I want to sell (freshly warrantied) to purchase a 30 GB U2 Video iPod.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

eBay is a joke though, everyone thinking they can get lucky by selling dumb things. There are some people who actually sell things validly, but I wouldn't trust any large value items over eBay, such as my 30 GB Video iPod I want to sell (freshly warrantied) to purchase a 30 GB U2 Video iPod.

problem is its like buying it from some bloke in the pub, you have no comeback, plus you get stuff like "i bort this grafics card but it pic expres and i don have one o them so im sellin it. yeh i know im stupid" (thats real btw!) and you have no idea if he is lying or being honest

PS - i overuse commas BUT it is still perfectly coherant

talking about ebay and the use of commas, do we all really need to read that?

Not really, but this thread was destined to go off topic, as there have been so many threads about the quality of online racing on demo servers....

Edit: Did I need a comma after the word 'topic'? Hmm.

Depends on whom is speaking, someone who is very strict on their usage of commas might think twice, whereas a person with loose comma usage will just use it and not think about it then, but might come back and think about it.