I see you (Sc@wen) are ennoyed by allways the same posts since age and that's why you made the new test patch section. But as it is more a work section people who would like to say thank you, keep up, you rock, go on, so coool... are no more really wellcome. That is what I would have say for every test patch ! From the outside LFS seems sometimes to be stucky, but you do lfs the right way and you know it.
I can't wait for... and for... and for... (and also for working pedals) but anyway :
thank you, keep up, you rock, go on, so coool

Quote from Scawen :

Here is where we differ. You think I should do everything now, get S2 finished as quickly as possible. Also I should not even eat, sleep, have a bath, watch TV or go shopping I suppose?

Wrong, I said, some of your priorities seem wrong.
e.g.:Vista-compatibility is imho something doable after S2 is finished. It's something for an OS, which isnt yet on the market and is postponed to 2007 anyway. Why dont you do CPU Multicore-support then too?

Quote :

LFS is about Eric and me leaving Lionhead to make the product we wanted to. LFS is the result. And it WORKS! If you like it, use it. If you don't like it, try something else. if you want it to get better, then WAIT. It always gets better.

I know that, and I enjoy every step of LFS getting better, but maybe I love LFS too much, that I often want it to become bigger and greater, than maybe doable. Maybe some of my dreams of LFS future are doable with some other priorities in your way of coding, maybe not. Maybe that's why I am that harsh. Maybe I want LFS to be finished one day, and I see that atm LFS doesnt gain enough new players, due to the lack of being an S2 full version etc. etc.

Quote :

If there's ONE thing we have proved, it's that our development system works very well and LFS gets better every year. And we do that by working the way we want to work, and being happy (being thankful for the thanks and appreciation that we get, and not letting the frequent attacks get us down). It's not about giving up all that is fun, and putting our nose to the grindstone and acting as Vykos and Kidcodea's slaves that they bought for £24. It's about following our inspiration including ideas from the community and REAL LIFE, and getting it done. There is no time limit. There's no reason to think we are about to fall over and die, and neither are you.

well, why then sell it anyway? Hard word, i know, but you do that for a living, and if there arent new customers, there is no living....

Quote :

Every year it taken is another year too many. But guess what, things take time. And a lot of people enjoy the journey.

as said already, i enjoy that journes too, maybe sometimes too much

Quote :

If you and Kid know so much better (as you claim) how to make a racing simulator, then why the **** don't you get off your arse and make your own one?

This sentence just tells me, that I hit something right there. You should know, that not everyone with your skills gets a nice goodbye-money from former boss to be able to live up to three years from it. I for myself simply DONT have the skills and the money to do, what you did. And I admire you for this. Still, I'm not saying, I know how to code that sim, but I have some insight into the gaming market and how it delivers and therefor I think I can allow myself some opinion on it.

And now dont reply and get back to coding, cause else I have to cut your TV-time

Quote from Vykos69 :

Wrong, I said, some of your priorities seem wrong.
e.g.:Vista-compatibility is imho something doable after S2 is finished. It's something for an OS, which isnt yet on the market and is postponed to 2007 anyway. Why dont you do CPU Multicore-support then too?

It's coming at the end of this month to companies, and "normal people" will be able to buy it in a couple of months. IMO if there were critical problems that are now fixed with this patch, it was good to do it now. I'm not planning to upgrade to Vista, but I don't like the fact that other people who use it will have problems using LFS with it... And at that point the updates would have to be rushed.

I have to agree. It would not look very good if LFS had massive problems with sound not working at all, not being able to unlock at all etc. under Vista. I can see Vista being forced on to consumers because businesses will make more money out of it, it's better to get LFS ready before it's too late

Scawen, it's your game, your design, your project. If you know your plan is good, stick to it.
There's a few other games like LFS, being done by no more than 3 or 4 people, and they get exactly this sort of ranting too.
Neither those other devs nor those or these players are in your shoes, so their idea of the optimal dev. flowchart will always be different than yours (altho that other dev team has come to pretty much the same conclusions as you have, so you're without a doubt on the right track there).. and when they are seeing things thru your eyes, then still a few of them will disagree, and that's why it's you doing this game, not (no offense) those Brazilians, nor KidCodea, nor license hackers, nor the West bros., or anyone else really.

Van gogh didn't paint da Vinci's stuff, nor Bougereau's..

You've come this far along this path, and have so many people already hooked, soo.. it's too late to change directions

On the Vista subject, really, there wasn't any choice, There wasn't a thought to the idea of writing on our website "LFS does not support Vista". People contacted technical support - they had tried the demo then bought a license and could not unlock LFS. That makes me feel bad. Should we refund these people, or put large notices all over our website in bold capitals warning that if they have Vista, don't bother with LFS?

That kind of thing is a *strong* motivation to find out what's up - it could only be a simple thing, but one requiring a compatible patch. And after the unlocking was fixed (for Vista 32 only, it turned out, at first) only the sound issue remained. Would I really say at that point, "OK, I don't know what the problem is, but anyway, I'm not even going to investigate, I'll give up now before I start, and we'll just advertise all over our website, not to bother if they have Vista?" I can't think that way. Giving up before I begin isn't the driving force behind LFS. And all the time, tech support mails still coming in, reporting Vista issues!

Anyway, no-one should be sad about the sounds being fixed for Vista, the underlying system has improved and has got me on a roll with the sounds. This very productive time as I push hard towards patch V is just not the time to complain about anything. Do you really want S2 final released with the S2U sounds? No of course not, so why does it matter if I do sounds or physics first? The sounds are actually worse than the physics right now, if you want my own opinion.

DaveWS made a really good point, the features that some people have complained about, are ones that took about 20 minutes here and there. It's funny that they aren't complaining about the important things that have taken the bulk of the time these last few months. They are just getting in some kind of a flap because I spent 10 minutes on one thing, 20 minutes on another and half an hour on another thing, when there are some more important *several weeks long* things to do.

Should a man who has a broken leg not scratch his ear if it is itchy? Should he not waste 5 seconds scratching his ear, just because he should be more worried about his leg? I don't know, ask someone with a broken leg.

Vykos, would you buy some crappy shoes that dont fit your daughter's feet just because you need to leave the shop earlier? I guess you just cant understand game design or design in general, because it's a very personal and emotional thing. Most mistakes are done in the heads and mouths, not on the hard drive or desk.

Once you are unhappy with something, you can't work effectively as you lose the fun and thus the work flow. Also psycholgical and interpersonal conflicts might make things difficult at some point. "communication" and "management" are the keywords baisically.

Nowadays game design has changed a lot because of the enourmous time and money pressure - I have asked a couple of big names in the business (Tom Putzki, Piranha Bytes founder, Phenomedia - Gothic1-3; Andreas Siuka, Ubisoft Lead designer - Siedler (the settlers)) that I met here in my uni, and none of them said he is really happy with his job. I mean, you are working all day long and in the end your game sucks because it full of bugs (Gothic 3 eh...)

No decent game dev can be happy if he has worked many years on a game that won't even get a 80% rating in the end.
Simply because you are doing the whole thing in order to reach people. Game design is about 2 things:
- the smiles and tears on the player's face
- the smiles and tears on the dev's face
Everyone forgets the 2nd...

Maybe Scawen is the happiest game dev in the world
He can do exactly the thing he wants to do, and like he wants to, without having to worry about any external people telling you what to do.
AND he is successful with that.

Of course you can come and say LFS cant be successful if it's never going to be released. Well, it isn't even released yet and they can already live from that
LFS is really like an adventure and Im quite sure even EA will learn from that way in a couple of years. Outsourcing and buying online are the future.

Anyway, do you really think someone leaves a company such as Lionhead, with a genious like Peter Molyneux in it, if he isn't 100% sure what he's doing?
Or rather, why he is doing what he is doing.


Now I said "Scawen" all the time, but actually I wanted to write "they" or "LFS"... but now Im too lazy to change that all over again

With the level off support the devs give us £24 is dirt cheap compared to other games. If this was any other games manufacturer they would sell us this game as a finished product and not provide the same level of improvements.

I for one am happy the way devs do things, regardless how little the improvement is. Thumbs up

Somebody with 'insight into the gaming market', but without Programming skills says Vista Compatibility now is not important

:feedtroll

I like the development process of LFS. I'm also happy with the product. € 36 for this Software feels like a steal

its probably just another useless post here but if somebody is complaining
there also have to be people who say how good the development of lfs is

best example how to not do it was netkarpro they where in hurry wanted to sell
the product as fast as possible and what happend? lots of little (and big) bugs
the costumers have to live with then 4 months silence and a big patch again who
cured some of the bugs but still there are 100 others to erase

so what i want to say with this? i happily wait and see the progress of test patches
instead of hearing nothin for months get another not finished update with lots of
patchwork and half done fixes, this is maybe the slower way but at the end
the quality commin out of this progress is everytime again astonishing

so long post short conclusion: keep up the way you where always doing your work there will
be enough people (they are just not so loud like the ones complaining) who want to see quality before quantity

Am perfectly happy with the way the game is going, wouldnt want anyone else working on it. People saying things to the tune of they need to put more effort in, is bloody insulting.

Oh and like it or not, Vista is important. Not that ill be buying it (well not yet at least )

I think I can see both sides of the discussion here, but I personally side with the Scawen view on things. LFS is what it is partly because it concentrates on simulating the things we love in a fashion we enjoy without (normally) resorting to fudges and tricks. And this has come about by many large development routes over the last few years by Scawen, Eric and Victor. However, to concentrate solely on the big things, such as sound, physics, damage etc would mean that the underlying 'interface' (for want of a better term) would become neglected and fragmented.

I think Scawen does the right thing in doing these little test patches and improving the overall experience now and again to keep LFS in check and working properly for the majority of the customer base. And when he's done tweaking, refining and adding options, he'll get back to the 'big picture'.

Surely if S2 Full was released tomorrow, with (let's say) fancy damage, amazing sounds, complete drivetrain support and balanced cars, but there were bugs, incompatibilities, difficult to understand features, sound that didn't work on everyones computer etc then the reaction wouldn't be entirely good.

Scawen is lucky in that LFS is HIS baby, and he can control when and how he improves it. None of us will agree that all his work on the test patches is for the greater good - I personally couldn't care less about a few of the new things he's done. But some people will care about those and care less about stuff I like. So at the end of the day LFS is a better product, and patch V will be a better product, and allow stability when the bigger features reach the top of the to-do list, so he can concentrate on getting them right, and not having to break off to fix yet another Vista bug or what have you.

I'm here for the journey. I've paid my money, and I'm in no rush for the journey to come to an end as long as I get to take in the scenery along the way and appreciate what we've got.

The other thing Scawen could do is do a Kunos, and never visit or talk on his forum again because of a few hurtful comments. Fortunately Scawen is thicker skinned than that. I get the impression that for all the moaning that goes on about delays to S2, silly tweaks and stuff, that Scawen remains his own biggest critic. That is something money can't buy, and will result in a polished, finished product when it's done.

I'm really not so sure whether I should or should not post short and easy improvements suggestions in the TEST patch threads. After all, some of the suggeted features (UTC clocks wtf etc.) seem to get into LFS, even if there are many warnings, announcements and don't-dos there. If the suggestions are after all good enough, why not create a thread for TEST patch improvement suggestions? Like "TEST patch related suggestions, post here". Where users could post. It would at least cut down the crap in the TEST threads. Or is it really a problem? A real problem? I have a plethora of very simple suggestions but I have done my best to not post them there, because requested not to.

And when I say plethora, I mean it

EDIT:

Quote from tristancliffe :

I think I can see both sides of the discussion here, but I personally side with the Scawen view on things. LFS is what it is partly because it concentrates on simulating the things we love in a fashion we enjoy without (normally) resorting to fudges and tricks. And this has come about by many large development routes over the last few years by Scawen, Eric and Victor. However, to concentrate solely on the big things, such as sound, physics, damage etc would mean that the underlying 'interface' (for want of a better term) would become neglected and fragmented.

That's the way it is atm. To enable trees in graphics options -> put the disable trees to OFF, the controller options under "Player" tab etc. (list: Speed display, pressure display are under Player menu while they defenately should be under Display menu. Brake help should be...). What I'm worried about is that you get some small improvemtns to the GUI but they are splattered around the menus making the adjustments less user fiendly than they need to be.

Amazing!

There are some guys finding the guts to tell there opinion here, bringing good points, true points and trying at least to move something with our beloved Ggame.

And then happens the same thing as every time a little sign of critism appears, its talked to death with those tiny thumbsup-smileys and praise songs about the amazing speed, that the journey of LfS moves on.

Its good to see, some people are not blind to find everything around here simply greatfull and amazing. time dont stands still, and there are other racing games to come. LfS has to move forward and I am not talking about the drivers position.

Just my opinion, please ignore it, if it dont fits here.

aw come on kid and vyk ... the most time consuming things that have been done in these test patches are the vista fixes which were absolutely necessary with vista hitting the selves this year ... i much prefer scawen fixing those problems now and forever instead of having him ripped out of his physics studies and see him lose time trying to work his mindset back to compatible vista fixes and then after those back to physics

and all the other fixes that were made are fixing all the little things that were wrong with lfs for years (like the chat that allways obscured the map when leaving the pits) not just icing on a cake

Quote from Scawen :

If a great majority of the time was spent on the core alone, we would have a physically accurate, but totally unusable simulator that attracted no more than the absolute hardcore simmer. And we'd be poor and have to give up LFS and go and get a job!

or you could just move to italy

Quote from Vykos69 :

Those people DONT care about the options, it's NOT a VITAL thing to have bling bling in menus, as almost every really succesful game on the market showed, or does quake or counterstrike has good options and menus? And people dont use the "console" where they hack their commands in?
Counterstrike, to stay with the example of a succesful Online-only game, isnt succesful because of the "great" menu or the easy way to use it/set it up. It's because of the gameplay, the possibilities to watch other games online, and the easy way to get into an online game on the server.

actually yes q and cs have very well thought out self explainatory menues (which lfs didnt have and in some points still doesnt have) which are enough to set the game up for casual gaming
and with the scripting system lfs has made its first steps into becoming an infinetly costumizeable console driven game which on the ui side imho is the only way to go

Quote from Vykos69 :

Wrong, I said, some of your priorities seem wrong.
e.g.:Vista-compatibility is imho something doable after S2 is finished.

iirc vista is due out this year s2 isnt ... so if scawen wouldnt use the release candidates of vista to fix issues his game has with them (which is one of the reasons why ms does rcs) hed be in a whole lot of trouble and lose many customers once vista hits the oem market

anybody who has a vista rc installed and actually knows what hes got installed will understand if scawen tells him lfs is currently incompatible ... anybody who just bought a new computer with vista preinstalled most probably wont

jeez i cant believe how much time i spent reading this thread

Quote from Scawen :

[reply written on Test Patch thread before moving]
It's a little sad the lack of trust displayed in those preceding posts.

It's not a lack of trust. I have a huge amount of trust and respect for your work.
Do you know how much i was waiting for you to say that Eric IS working on improving LFS. And i am SO glad for that. If we didn't moan we would never know that
We get so impatiant and angree from time to time because i really don't want to see LFS gets beaten by some other SIM, and i really don't want to switch boats. I am a kind of guy who likes to play only one SIM and aim for perfection in only that one sim, and that sim is LFS. I love it so much and i really couldn't stand some other titlle to take your crown in ultimate SIM.
That's why we get pissed when we see how time consuming these litlle updates are and how irellavant they are to the hardcore simmer.
And i am being repetative, i know, whit cockpits... but the fact is.. they are the same in terms of quality like they were in the first LFS versions.. but you said Eric IS working hard, so i am really glad for that.. that's all i needed to hear.

Quote from Hyperactive :

That's the way it is atm. To enable trees in graphics options -> put the disable trees to OFF

Have a look in U30

That "fix" was requested by so many people for so many years.
Why not do it now, just before the major update that patch V is?
I can't take seriously anyone who doesn't think that was a good hour spent.

Just my small addition:
As a player I want to see progress.
LFS's sounds suck. LFS's diffs suck. LFS's aero model sucks. LFS's balancing sucks. LFS's cars suck.
As a (hobby-) programmer I encourage Scawen to spend time with the program itself, not only with the physics.
A well structured program with easily readable sourcecode and streamlined features is easier to maintain. When a program grows you need to fix things that are wrong. These 'hacks' clutter the sourcecode and make it difficult to improve. Once in a while you need to tidy everything up. Then improvement is a lot easier. Less bugs come up when improving things. Development speeds up.

That's the two viewpoints. As a player I'd like to see route one, but I also understand why Scawen goes down route two. It's his project, after all. We just make suggestions.
Hey, I just managed to both praise Scawen and be critical about his work in one post!

Vain

Quote from Hyperactive :

...the controller options under "Player" tab etc. (list: Speed display, pressure display are under Player menu while they defenately should be under Display menu...

By the way there is a really good reason for that. These settings are per "Player" - you know, the selectable players. Maybe your little sister likes km/h and autogears while you like mph and shifter.

I don't claim that the menus are organised perfectly but those particular examples - they were done for a reason. The things in the player menu, are saved per "player".

Ah perfect opportunity to slip in an off-topic observation

Would be quite useful if the Controls stuff, including chat binds would be saved per user

If I had to suggest something, perhaps sound lag into audio and dynamic LOD reduction into graphics. I do like the changes U30 brings though, it is clearer than before.

I had always wondered why brake help was under player, but now we all know.

Quote from Scawen :

By the way there is a really good reason for that. These settings are per "Player" - you know, the selectable players. Maybe your little sister likes km/h and autogears while you like mph and shifter.

Users look always first under the Controls for these. There are stuff placed in different places because of the current gui system. And just to mention this, there is the "pressure" option (psi/bar) in the options->Player menu and in the setup Tires menu. One could easily do here, for example. When I'm commenting the gui, I'm not talking about the graphics or the way you go ticking thing on/off. I'm saying that a lot of stuff is placed in not-so-intuitive places, which means that you need to go through a lot menus to be sure that you have set LFS the way you want it to be. And this builds up as you add new features.

However, my point is that instead of adding small new features across the gui, the gui should be updated itself to fully accommodate the new features. The feature gets all the attention but the implementation isn't carefully thought out which results clutter in long run. This is partially what kid was talking about. Adding small things all over place (over-exaggarating) results in non-user friendly gui with options that don't make sense and require more options to be fully usable. The result is clutter. . And when you later add stuff like multiple controls presets or multiple custom views you will found out that the current gui has some unexpected stuff interefering with these special options. Requiring more work.

The gui isn't the topic but this applies elsewhere too. But these small request are usually something that requires gui updating and when the small updates are done.


---
(How did he know I have little sister...? )

Hey

I hope sc takes lfs onto the next level new gfx engine, new sounds, want 40+ online pls! hopefully the ability to make approved mods and new tracks (this is what i would like anyway:P) approved mods meaning, you supply tools and let people make content, get licenses etc and sell the material.

Lfs has huge potential but will be caned by iracing, it doesnt deserve this:P

cmon sc:P

iracing (if it gets complete) is gonna be very different to lfs. But, can we try, to stay on topic, in this off topic extra discussion area thingy bit thread.

Its great to finally be proved right on some people, but those opinions I will keep to myself here.

Scawen, Its great to hear that these people dont get you down, thats a great thing, personally, if it were me, id have quit visiting these forums a long time ago, I cant take the crap thats posted here sometimes, so the fact that you can read through all this and still be smiling on the other side.. .

I do wonder sometimes, what people are here for.. For a great, and growing Racing Simulator, or to see how much money they can make from it, and im not talking about the developers..

+1 To seeing a Kid & Vik(whatever his name is) Online Racing Simulator.

Keep doing what your doing Sca!

/me goes for a spin in his brand new Porsche 911 S4 which he payed with the money he made from LFS....