Basicly the suggestion is, if possible, to have a 14 days trial-version of S2 which makes it possible for the players to try out the different cars and tracks and be able to know what they are missing when they first start to play.
People who are sattesfied with the demo stays that way.. Alot of people buys S2, am not saying oposite, but it would probably bring more S2 drivers to the world if they where able to accturally know what they are missing out of...

When I first got to know about LFS, I was told by my friend, Zyber / ZyberWaX, that LFS was one of the best simulator games he ever played.
So I downloaded it.. I prushed the dust of my MS S FF wheel and hooked up and started to play the demo.. I played it for less then 1 week, after visiting
my friend at his place and I was able to try the BF1, FXR and the rest of the cars... 2 days after, I purchased a license.

So having this option, if people want to download a 14 days trial which expires and locks it to Demo, I think, personally, that people will accturally care less of the Demo then of S2...

There are currently 628 racers online in LFS. (451 Demo - 177 Licensed)

The differense is huge and I accturally belive that if we could see a 14 day trial in the future, the onliners on Demo will be far less then licensed....

Quote from blackfang :

Well, length of trial was just a suggestion... I would agree on shorten it but IF there where to be hackers, the devs would probably be able to find out how they managed it and lock/fix it...

Trial players would only have access to Trial servers...

Maybe not a bad idea basically, but I think, 14 days for free are FAR too much. Maybe 5 or 10 hours.

And then, there would be an even bigger problem with hackers, I'd guess. So -1.

It is actually quite complex suggestion to make. At first you would need to do some windows registry editing to make that 14-day trial to lock/unlock well. Secondly, would these 14-day drivers allowed to drive on S2 servers? Hope not, because the demo provides a good learning ground for the demo racers. And it would require updates for the LFS netcode as well.

Imho, the current demo does well enough, though it doesn't have any cars with slicks.

No please

Well, length of trial was just a suggestion... I would agree on shorten it but IF there where to be hackers, the devs would probably be able to find out how they managed it and lock/fix it...

Trial players would only have access to Trial servers...

I think that it can be a good idea if done right.
However 14 days are far too much for a racing sim. Maybe max 5 or 7 days since trial activation, or 10 12 hours of playing.

And those players should be allowed to play on trial servers and to spectate on S1 and S2 servers.

Or maybe devs could allow trial players to play on S1 servers (for the trial period obviously), so S1 licenced will find someone for racing and devs does not need to code too much.
And noone need to host more servers then the actual ones.

Maybe devs can do this:

Demo => trial on S1 servers
S1 licenced => trial on S2 servers (s1 players can be tracked and are on lfsw, so are controllable)

you can use :google: and youtube to view s2 content.

Watching is not like driving

I dont think its a good idea. Too much potential for hacking and as Hyperactive pointed out, where would they race, with S2 drivers?...no thanks

I think the demo is fine. I knew with the S1 demo that I would like the full S1 version. I still think its a good representation of the physics/tyre models etc. Demo drivers are spoiled with the XRT. Such a great car given away for free.
It shouldnt be taken away or anything, it shows how much variety Scavier have given demo drivers since the begining. Plus the demo gets updated with the full game. What more can you ask for?

so if you change your pseudo every 2 weeks, you can play S2 for free

Welcome 14 day-wreckers

And when the 14 days pass, then 14 more days.

I understand your intention blackfang, but demo users have enough now, a great sim with 3 cars, one of them a great car for races and drift things (XRT), with free internet play and other things for free. Enough is enough

If anyone is really interested in LFS and honestly wants to test all the contents before making the decision to buy, he can always go to his friend house, try it, and decide if it's worth

I think that there should be a 10 day trial with S2 content but no online.

No! No trial!!! 14 day wreckers will format registry every 14 days and become infinite wreckers.

Demo is more than enough to decide to buy or not.

i decided to buy lfs in a very short time with the demo and not to buy "gtr2" and "race" in 1 minute each.

It's way too easy to surpass a time trialed program and use it for as long as you'd like.

Quote from duke_toaster :

I think that there should be a 10 day trial with S2 content but no online.

Atm, sadly, there is effectively unlimited time trial with no online, so that idea has little merit.

As far as I can see it, there need be no changes to LFS what-so-ever, this could all be done (master) server side.
You simply create a demo account, apply for you x-length of time trial, your account gets temporarily upgraded to S2, you can unlock S2. Once the time is up it simply doesn't allow you to go online and LFS locks itself.

OK so I didn't think that through enough, LFS won't lock itself atm, so that bit would be new. And obviously the time info should be stored locally, otherwise they could avoid re-locking by never going online.

The important question is it all worth doing? I reckon the demo is easily enough incentive to buy the game, if anything it shows too much already, that's one reason why some people play the demo for so long (years in some cases).

it wouldnt take long for someone to unlock the amount of days. im even suprised that all of the content is put out and all you do is add a name and password ie all the cars and tracks are there they just need unlocking. i say do away with that also.

I think

1) Good Idea, gives the demo people a chance to sample S2
2) 14 Days is to long .. its not EVE Online its a simple racing sim ... a 6hour trial wil be enough to sample online racing, all the tracks/combos and also the cars.
3)If introduced, people may set up many accounts to get free hours...possible safeguards beyong same IP as people have dynamic ips

Overall : I think a good idea, seems wierd havent thought of this before.
And the numbers say it all.. like nearly 700 online only like 150 ish were S2 licenced? 6 Hours , and I would guess 1/3 to 1/5 people who try the trial wil buy it ... more racers = more fun!
+1 trillion

But how will you stop ppl resetting registry or creating new lfs accounts to take another 14 test days over and over?? They already have S2 cracked and can see the content, play lan races ... I agree about ppl who can't afford to buy a license but if so, there might be a limited and free version of lfs. Should connect to it's limited servers like 3 laps per race no pitstop, no car skins, random user names and etc..

after all , demo is ok i think.

Maybe that trial check problem is a Scawen problem, not ours

He can do for example a check of some important part of PC, like a CPU serial or something like this, together with the check of Win serial.