I never thought about it before, but:
Schwarz=Black
Wald=Forest(woods?)

Does that mean that BL is located in south-east Germany? And maybe represents some real racing track located there? What is your opinion on this?

taken from live for speed website:

This environment has one road and one rallycross course (plus reversed directions), situated in England's countryside.
Blackwood is known for its versatility, because it contains a bit of everything.

Dang! illepall

Does England have the power wind mills? I know there's plenty of them in Germany.

As you drive down the back straight in BL you can see the motorway signs, they're for English towns/cities.

Just because Blackwood is described as being an English track doesn't mean the track it's based on is as well

The only Blackwood location website I could find in English is a town in Wales, and it doesn't look like it has any race tracks nearby

Quote from Davo :

Does England have the power wind mills? I know there's plenty of them in Germany.

Yup, loads of the ugly buggers

It's a pity we don't have any other European tracks located outside England, it would be fun to blast trought some German woods, sort of like the Hockeneim, or the green hell. Trees everywhere!

I don't get why it's called Blackwood... where is the forest part on the track? For me it somehow looks like it could be located in California on some location near the sea...

something like Monza or Hockenheim (before it got ruined) would be nice, with a long woody section.

:doh:

Every track is pure fantasy in LFS. They are based off of similar tracks, but they don't have some mysterious location in real-life The location of all the tracks have been stated in many areas, the only places are 3 countries:

England:
Blackwood
South City
Aston
Westhill
AU Lot

Japan:
Kyoto

Jamaica:
Fern Bay

Just to make the tracks the least bit believable I guess

Wonder what Eric was smoking when he came up with the idea for Fern Bay..

Quote from danowat :

Yup, loads of the ugly buggers

Ugly? I think wind turbines are amazing looking machines, and I'd happily have a farm nearby if one was planned.

Quote from Rtsbasic :

Wonder what Eric was smoking when he came up with the idea for Fern Bay..

He was smoking something good, because FE Black is possibly the best track in LFS.

I could get license for some finnish track with little or no money I think, but I'm not quite sure if real tracks are what devs are after, also it is not too easy to get all material to make it in really good standard, I suspect that devs are putting real track to S3 at earliest, because work needed and as graphics engine would allow and require different things in future too.

Quote from Captain Slow :

Blackwood is known for its versatility, because it contains a bit of everything.

A bit like England now, contains a bit of everything ROFL

Quote from JTbo :

I could get license for some finnish track with little or no money I think, but I'm not quite sure if real tracks are what devs are after, also it is not too easy to get all material to make it in really good standard, I suspect that devs are putting real track to S3 at earliest, because work needed and as graphics engine would allow and require different things in future too.

Having real tracks isn't always easy, especially because Eric would want to visit the track himself and have plenty of reference material. (He has said this himself). There would need to be a lot of attention to detail too, so it is a lot of work. I guess that is one reason why iRacing has a pretty good system for scanning tracks -- saves a lot of time.

Though I am guessing you'd want that Motopark you drive at That shouldn't be too hard, it's quite simple

I am still wondering why those 3 public housing buildings are near a racetrack like Blackwood, and remote from anything called a metropolis.

Is that where the UK Government sticks the poor? Nears loud smelly racetracks out in the open countryside?

Quote from Tweaker :

Having real tracks isn't always easy, especially because Eric would want to visit the track himself and have plenty of reference material. (He has said this himself). There would need to be a lot of attention to detail too, so it is a lot of work. I guess that is one reason why iRacing has a pretty good system for scanning tracks -- saves a lot of time.

Though I am guessing you'd want that Motopark you drive at That shouldn't be too hard, it's quite simple

Yes, it is simple but it is lot of work still, you had to measure it first, also elevation, taking pictures in different weather conditions, etc. So that is why I think devs are really not interested from such load of work until they have made base somewhat ready so that there is no need for extra work and info for track building.

I did research for material and arranged bit contacts of Botniaring track for rFactor, teached me a lot how much there is things needed for track building Jka did worked for 9 months almost daily to make that track, it really took lot of his time, of course testing took some time too, luckily had some contacts so we got some real world race drivers to test it.

I don't see the value in going to the trouble of making a real track, if (almost) nobody has heard of it. Just because it's real doesn't make it better or more fun to drive, and in many ways you are just limiting and restricting yourself. I actually think the same goes for the cars too. Is RAC any more fun than a fictional car would have been?
Ok you get a bit of publicity, but the level of that is purely dependant on how well known the car/track itself is (or will be).

If they ever add a real track, it HAS to be one people know instantly and want LFS because it's there, otherwise what's the point? I doubt many people look at the LFS website and think "hmm, I'll just do some research on these tracks I've never heard of. If none of them are real I won't be buying this game, that's for sure."

You often find highrise low income public housing in the outer skirt of cities in the UK, just out of the blues there's one single 20 story modernist building, left abandoned surrounded by typical two story houses.

I've seen that quite often in outer London and Birmingham.

Quote from LFSn00b :

Your avatar is scary.

Why?!

Quote from Funnycat :

Why?!

cause it eats children for breakfast

Quote from sinbad :

I don't see the value in going to the trouble of making a real track, if (almost) nobody has heard of it. Just because it's real doesn't make it better or more fun to drive, and in many ways you are just limiting and restricting yourself. I actually think the same goes for the cars too. Is RAC any more fun than a fictional car would have been?
Ok you get a bit of publicity, but the level of that is purely dependant on how well known the car/track itself is (or will be).

If they ever add a real track, it HAS to be one people know instantly and want LFS because it's there, otherwise what's the point? I doubt many people look at the LFS website and think "hmm, I'll just do some research on these tracks I've never heard of. If none of them are real I won't be buying this game, that's for sure."

Only blackwood feels like real race track, maybe Aston national too, but most of current tracks are some how feeling quite artificial, or then it is just that I don't like driving them enough

Donington track would be great, but it would cost too much, closest to feel of Donington I know is Motopark. But anything that has similar flow and feeling is ok by me, there is none of such track in LFS currently.

Quote from JTbo :

Only blackwood feels like real race track

I don't get it... for me it feels the most unappealing track. It's just somehow too absurd to be a real modern track.

Quote from deggis :

I don't get it... for me it feels the most unappealing track. It's just somehow too absurd to be a real modern track.

Maybe this modern is thing here, I really don't like modern race tracks, specially not from those f1 tracks that one guy is designed, stop-go-stop-go-stop-go baaah, not even single challenging corner where you should carry some speed trough it. Infamous S-curve at blackwood for example is one of the best corners in LFS, took 2 years from me to learn how it should be driven, still I miss it most of times, but when you get it right it is really rewarding.

Sure many tracks are ok, but blackwood is one what I still prefer, even I have been driving that quite many years now, lol.

Old blackwood was better in few things, but it was really lot harder than this new one, also perhaps bit more rewarding. Maybe devs could put retro Blackwood into game

Quote from JTbo :

Old blackwood was better in few things, but it was really lot harder than this new one, also perhaps bit more rewarding. Maybe devs could put retro Blackwood into game

Tried the 0.1 vesion few days back and could not agree more.