During the life of this thread I didn't pay much attention to it, but I was in email contact with Tim McArthur. That conversation has just been concluded.

I used to think there was this wider sim racing community and that LFS was on the fringe on it's own.

Over the last few weeks I have revised my thinking on this. I dont think there's a wider community of sim racers at all, if they havn't descovered LFS it's down to one of two reasons.

1) Playstation mentality - the goto the shop, pick up a box and play crowd. Nothing wrong with it, but online racing is an afterthought.
2) The sim mentality - that hasn't realised there's a sim out there that already caters to all their requirements.

They want the sim racing to be more organised, they despire at wreckers, at not sharing skins, at the inability to find a pickup race because of no master server / mismatched mods.

Group 1 will never be satisfied with LFS.

Group 2, well they're missing out. What they need to do is take the gamble and fork out £24 for a real online racing sim that isn't on the shop shelves, and has solved these hurdles.

LFS doesn't miss much: Real cars/tracks are all very nice (actually for my purposes would be detrimental re: STCC broadcasts) and weather is noteable by it's absence. Further, LFS keeps improving whereas other sims gets replaced wholefold.

It's my feeling that Tim is probably as into sim racing as we are, and we should not mock him for that. He's just not an LFS'r, because he hasn't experienced it he's still 3 years behind the online racing community, that's no fault of his own, before last March I had no idea about LFS myself and look at me now...

Unfortunately regarding any possibility of Tim and myself working together, it isn't going to happen. We go together like chalk and cheese, and for this reason I can categorically state I will not be solving the technical issues Tim needs solving to support LFS, further, I actually dont think Tim realises that there really is no need by LFS players to use his server, because we have it all already. Sadly, Tim's own experiences of sim racing dont match our own, so he doesn't get why his idea isn't appreciated or received warmly here.

Well, maybe Tim's research was actually done properly and that's why he excluded LFS from his marketing plans from the beginning.

Funny it took us 3 pages to conclude LFS doesn't fit in R2P.

I have a PM that disagrees with that

Thanks for the conclusive post Becky, I now finally understand what this thread is/was about. I read the first post a few times, and besides somehow hinting at getting LFS more public attention - which would've been good - I couldn't really look through that salesman talk, if I can call it that.

Anyhow, I'd say "nice try", but as it now turned out there was no proper market research beforehand, which would've made it obvious that LFS has no need for this, as the benefits are either irrelevant in context or are already better implemented in LFS anyway.

I don't think it is fair to think that there is no place for the likes of LFS over at R2P, rather I think R2P needs LFS more than LFS needs R2P. R2P represents more potentially active LFS servers online, for US players in particular. I'm sure several LFS racers in that region would agree that there is some value in that. The clear message though is that R2P is not the magic bullet for LFS leagues. It's a different type of league, and in the case of LFS, R2P doesn't realise the true potential of an LFS league.
R2P isn't as attractive to an LFS event organiser as it perhaps is to event organisers of other sims/games.

They have some good intitiatives and it is obvious that a lot of time has been put into their project, these things are apparent, but it's a bit of a square peg - round hole issue with LFS and R2P. Personally I am happy to see a real racing organisation getting involved with sim racing and I like seeing real world rules being used, these are good things for the future of sim racing. So it isn't all bad after all, it's just less than ideal in its current incarnation for LFS event organisers. And personally, I find it too expensive.

I understand english pretty well, and i can speak it pretty well, but i am having really hard time understanding what Race2play is really...
Can someone sume it up in one or two sentences??
As i roughly understand it, it is a website where you can find races of various simulations, that are organized proffesionally, and you have to pay in order to participate, right? But i didn't understood, wheather or not, there are some prices for the winners, or something like that? What exactly am i paying for?

@Boris: Services that make other sims a little more like LFS and workable online. And a USA race license.

Quote from Nard :

Well, maybe Tim's research was actually done properly and that's why he excluded LFS from his marketing plans from the beginning.

I think that's exactly right, the LFS community still seems to be unable to acknowledge the fact that other sims exist. At the same time the rest of the sim world (GPL, N2003, rF, GTR, GTL etc) don't wish to come over to LFS not because they don't like the physics or the range of cars and tracks or because of the wreckers on demo servers but because they perceive the community has an attitude problem because their exposure to LFS is mainly certain individuals who just have to go to other forums and mindlessly bash other sims with completely unjustified (true or not) claims that people don't believe.

Flaming other sims is a completely useless activity which detracts people away from LFS. Just go and embarrass the other sims by spending half an hour of fiddling with text files and suddenly fixing the physics which took two years to develop

btw I feel that not joining something like R2P is a huge loss for LFS as it will no doubt reduce LFSs exposure to good clean drivers and possibly isolate it even more in the long run when people are choosing between (DR, iRacing and other next gen sims).

Quote from ajp71 :

I think that's exactly right, the LFS community still seems to be unable to acknowledge the fact that other sims exist. At the same time the rest of the sim world (GPL, N2003, rF, GTR, GTL etc) don't wish to come over to LFS not because they don't like the physics or the range of cars and tracks or because of the wreckers on demo servers but because they perceive the community has an attitude problem because their exposure to LFS is mainly certain individuals who just have to go to other forums and mindlessly bash other sims with completely unjustified (true or not) claims that people don't believe.

That's total BS, and your post just makes things worse.

I'd quite happily race GPL if it provided the type of racing I want. I'd quite happily race NR2003 if it wasn't oval racing mostly.

rF is just rubbish, and those that play it (and think it's good) don't know any better, so they won't want LFS.
GTR(2) - if you can convince thousands of players that dodgy tyre slip curves are even vaguely correct (and all the handling problems that ensures) then no wonder they won't play LFS.
GTL - same as GTR, just with different car models.

I think there are quite a number of people who play both nKP and LFS, because they both try to do it properly (although nK has too many bugs, including in the physics, to be a proper contender).

It's not we're averse to any other sim, just we know that 'other sims' haven't been made yet, and we don't want to play arcade games like GTR.

Likewise, the arcade game crowd can't really cope with a simulator, so stick with their games and make comments like LFS people have a superiority issue. It's not an issue, it's a fact, and we all know it.

There IS a bit of a "small town mentallity" in LFS, it reminds me of the first time I moved to Norfolk, Norfolk folk are a bit like the die-hard LFS crowd, very, VERY unaccepting of anything that doesn't (have webbed feet) come from Norfolk.

LFS'rs are a bit of a strange breed, maybe a bit blinkered that anyone can have FUN on anything other than LFS.

GTL IS FUN, GTR2 IS FUN.

I say the same to the die-hard LFS'r's, as I do to the small town Norfolk-ese, there is a world outside Norfolk (LFS), you might not like that world, but it's there none-the-less, and other people do enjoy it.

Quote from danowat :

I say the same to the die-hard LFS'r's, as I do to the small town Norfolk-ese, there is a world outside Norfolk (LFS)

You'd be hard pressed to find many LFS users who don't use or haven't used a vast number of driving sims/games. The idea that there is somehow an isolated community of people who don't know any better is rediculous.

Quote from Gunn :

You'd be hard pressed to find many LFS users who don't use or haven't used a vast number of driving sims/games. The idea that there is somehow an isolated community of people who don't know any better is rediculous.

Fair enough, they may have USED them, but I bet my arse that 99% of those die-hard LFS'rs have then proceed to slag the hell out of said sim.

There IS a certain section of the LFS community that are EXACTLY like it Gunn, you'd have to be pretty blinkered not to see it

Quote from tristancliffe :

GTR(2) - if you can convince thousands of players that dodgy tyre slip curves are even vaguely correct (and all the handling problems that ensures) then no wonder they won't play LFS.

Haha, I've always been amused by how people on the GTR2 forum will throw Doug Arnao's biography at your physics arguments. illepall

Quote from Gunn :

That's total BS, and your post just makes things worse.

The fact that the majority of posts in the RSC GTR2, GTL, nK Pro forums by LFS users are my sim is better than yours type posts or other irrelevant flaming kind of casts that impression, I'm not trying to say that everyone in this community has anything against other sims but that the wrong impression of LFS has been created, being involved with some rFactor and N2003 communities it is clear that this (wrong) impression of the LFS users is created. I know some people who have S2, love racing it but have never ventured onto public servers or LFS leagues for they don't want to race with the LFS community (who they have got the very wrong first impression of).

What the community or even the sim is like isn't important if people feel that the community is made up of immature people who have nothing better to do than go to other forums and slag off other sims. I have seen at least one group of about 20 people switch from N2003 to rFactor, directly because a few of them didn't like what they had seen from the (fringes) of the LFS community. That's 20 clean, polite, friendly racers of mixed ability who would all be an asset to the LFS community and be right at home in it lost, I'm sure that isn't the only story like this.

You may be right ajp, I dont pay too much attention to the wider community as like you I found LFS. I've not tried racing GPL online, I didn't like it in single player enough to warrant giving it a go - and I think as I bought it when it was new, online gaming was something that wasnt really mainstream then.

Your original point about LFS losing out by not getting involved in R2P being a loss is something i'd contest though, as the service offers nothing to LFS players, it is merely solving problems that LFS has already solved - and R2P has 3 years of community knowledge to catch up on.

They can't ban by license name in most sims, banning is as effective as it is on demo in LFS. There's no barricade for instance. It's an attempt at creating the kind of community we have.

And lets face it, there's a reason LFS'rs tend to be so pro-LFS. In most cases it is, as Matt points out, because they have actually played these other sims.

Dammit! Why is everyone faster at typing than me, today.

What Gunn said..
What Tristan said..
What Gunn said..

There are core problems for other sims, that have been addressed and conquered by LFS literally for years. When you consider these things (LFS licence system, Dan.. we've been talking about the Barricade already today).. doesn't EXIST in other sims. The best thing those paid games have, is the worst thing about the LFS Demo - no accountability beyond an IP address.

Once R2P gets up and running, they'll run up against the small cluster of people that we've dealt with and beaten off in LFS, and find that the lack of licencing system in those other sims (swap your IP and you're a cleansed driver) means that there's a mountain and a half to climb. I suspect they'll have to EXPERIENCE it, once they have an online network properly up and running, to realise that these issues are core SOFTWARE issues and need addressing.

LFSers might have difficulty resisting the sense of superiority that comes from being LFS-licenced.. LFS really is literally years ahead of other sims in the respect of online play.

Quote from ajp71 :

I think that's exactly right, the LFS community still seems to be unable to acknowledge the fact that other sims exist. At the same time the rest of the sim world (GPL, N2003, rF, GTR, GTL etc) don't wish to come over to LFS not because they don't like the physics or the range of cars and tracks or because of the wreckers on demo servers but because they perceive the community has an attitude problem because their exposure to LFS is mainly certain individuals who just have to go to other forums and mindlessly bash other sims with completely unjustified (true or not) claims that people don't believe.

Then how come when you even so much as mention LFS in a comparitive way on an iSi game forum (Race in this case), people immediately bash you for "preaching LFS, and trying to convert them"... Honestly, the hostility comes from the other side more than it comes from us. They create the atmosphere of hostility, not us.

Just check this post and the reaction 2 below it.

Quote from TagForce :

Then how come when you even so much as mention LFS in a comparitive way on an iSi game forum (Race in this case), people immediately bash you for "preaching LFS, and trying to convert them"... Honestly, the hostility comes from the other side more than it comes from us. They create the atmosphere of hostility, not us.

Just check this post and the reaction 2 below it.

You are still posting on their forum in by the looks of it a thread which has nothing to do with the physics in which you make a statement that the physics in LFS are better. Without having looked at the reaction I can guess that it's probably not deserved. Ask yourself this though how many threads are started on the LFS forum by users of other sims on the LFS forum saying there sims are better. If you made a post in an LFS forum thread saying the physics of rF are better than LFS you'd be shot down so why should it be a different rulebook for different forums?


@Becky - you've missed my point if this service becomes popular (and I can only hope for Tim that is does) and LFS is offered it may be a way of introducing new racers to LFS and showing them the plus side of it. The thread started with complaints that LFS was NOT being represented, now the feeling is we should isolate ourselves from the rest of the world?

On the contrary, I just am personally not going to invest time helping somebody I frankly do not like on a personal level, to make money by offering a paid for service to me and my drivers that grants absolutely no benefits what so ever.

There are other ways of reaching the wider community, and thankfully, none of them involve having to go via this 'influential' figure .

It seems very much like a lot of people are taking the opinions of a very few people and turing them into a soap opera. I've been a sim racer for a very long time, have always dreamed about a sim that doesn't walk around with its dick in its hand crowing about how much wow will drip out of your arse if you play it. I'll be a sim racer for a very long time more, I believe, and I won't be the least bit affected by all of the sheep and monkeys on the Internet. I know what works, I've wasted a smeg-load of cash and a lot of leisure time over many years finding out.
I'm able to turn my back on the dross and block out the weak bleatings of the cry-hards. I highly recommend that others attempt to do the same.
If the LFS is supposed to have so much of a complex, why do we welcome genuine new racers so warmly? We are only too happy to share the good fruit with those who could be bothered to have a real taste.

Quote from ajp71 :

You are still posting on their forum in by the looks of it a thread which has nothing to do with the physics in which you make a statement that the physics in LFS are better. Without having looked at the reaction I can guess that it's probably not deserved. Ask yourself this though how many threads are started on the LFS forum by users of other sims on the LFS forum saying there sims are better. If you made a post in an LFS forum thread saying the physics of rF are better than LFS you'd be shot down so why should it be a different rulebook for different forums?

I was making a post in a thread about add-on tracks for sims, in which I made the suggestion that (as opposed to some people saying conversions are bad) conversions are in fact a good thing because ultimately it makes the developers spend more time on the sim aspect, and less on the 'but we have this and this track'. Nowhere in that post did I mention LFS, except in the final paragraph in which I clearly stated that there will always be to camps in this deal... An iSi camp and an LFS camp.
Besides, I OWN Race... So it's MY forum as much as it is theirs. Most users posting anti-LFS threads on this forum don't own anything, so they have no right to bash anything.

Some valid arguments all in all, but the badgering about the money is senseless in my opinion.

Simworld in the Netherlands is a simcentre with all intentions of getting people together being able to play different racesims and making money out of it. Nobody seems to get upset over a company like that. Somehow trying to do a similar thing online is almost a crime?!?!?

Weird, just weird.

However they do not support LFS, so I never go there

Yes, there is a lot of sales craptalk to promote R2P, but they will try to make money out of it. And if it works, good for them.

However their idea of getting an easily accessible place with 1 type of official rules for all sims and easy setup of league races is not unreasonable at all. Being willing to promote/include LFS is not unreasonable at all. To ask for information is not unreasonable at all.

Pfff, realx people and get into the christmas spirit (not the stuffing yourselves hotdiggity )

Quote from ajp71 :

I think that's exactly right, the LFS community still seems to be unable to acknowledge the fact that other sims exist. At the same time the rest of the sim world (GPL, N2003, rF, GTR, GTL etc) don't wish to come over to LFS not because they don't like the physics or the range of cars and tracks or because of the wreckers on demo servers but because they perceive the community has an attitude problem because their exposure to LFS is mainly certain individuals who just have to go to other forums and mindlessly bash other sims with completely unjustified (true or not) claims that people don't believe.

take ya bullshit and drop it elsewhere.
this sim was breed, tested and feedbacked on mostly veterans of simracing. just coz this sim attracts new users and others dont its maybe because this sim offers something others dont.
i always said there is another sim on the market, n2003. other people will say something else. No one here is the elitist dinossaur as in gpl. People moved on.
rest doesnt qualify for my own quality criteria.
Bring me a new kickass real SIM and you'll see me playing it.
No dogma.

@ Gunn
@ KidCodea
@ SamH
@ Tagforce

I Agree totaly... with everything you guys said...
Somehow WE(LFS fans) are some kind of black sheeps of SIM community, somehow we are imature, etc etc etc etc..
How come??!!!
If you, lord forbid even mention LFS on RSC you are troll, you are spammer, you are a member of a cult!!? Who is imature here, may i ask?
The reason we are so much die-hard for LFS is because we are loving it so much, and the reasons are SO obvious. It's not like Scawen is my brother or something, or i am being payed by Scawen, so i HAVE to blindly worship everything about him or LFS..
It's about trust, it's about having a product that is not only better than anything else, but it is being maintained and improved ONLY so you can enjoy it even more...
We are considered as some kind of cult in the sim community, just because fans of other sims can't comprehend, how can we play a game that doesn't have real cars and tracks(although it has three real cars) and that it is not modable, that doesn't have "real" sounds, etc.. they can't understand, why are we playing it then..
We are the black sheeps because we want to enjoy PHYSICS FIRST, than the rest of the cake...
We want to feel the ADRENALINE FIRST, than the rest of the cake..

They can't understand why they're sim is not real.... because it has cars that look like real life cars... They can't understand that it is all "0" and "1"..
So, how come we are the black sheeps again??