Quote from Eldanor :

it's way cooler to race on a real track than a fictional one.

May I ask why?

First licensed tracks, then people will want licensed cars, and soon enough LFS is turned into a mainstream racing sim.

My 2 pence

Quote from geeman1 :

"Would like to have" and needing are two very different things. I wouldn't mind if real tracks would be added to LFS, but I wouldn't donate any money to get them.

Me either... All this talk about real tracks and money: well, if you chose a historical track (ie. one no longer in use) then you probably wouldn't need to pay anyone. But then GPL has that market cornered... If I want to learn something about a circuit, the GPL track database is approaching Googlesque proportions.

Frankly, this is only a problem for people who never drive anything but LFS. Talking of which, there are servers out there that never run anything but the same combination day in, day out. How often does the Kyoto GP circuit appear, or FE Black (for racing...)?

Why add another track if no one uses what we have already to its fullest extent?

Quote from Eldanor :

Argh, not again, I mean, I really don't understand some people point of view.

"LFS doesn't need real tracks": What? Of course you don't need a real track to make great races, but anyone who likes motorsports (and I think we are a lot here) would like to have some real tarmac to race on.

I'm starting to think it's a pretty fanboy attitude, just because other games have real tracks, they say LFS doesn't need them, and the same happens with sound, eyecandy, etc.

Come on, are you really saying to me you don't want to take the FZ5 out for a lap at Spa? Or the BF1 at Silverstone? (or whatever your favourite track is) I don't believe it

I agree completely. It seems a bit fanboy for someone who enjoys motorsports to suggest that they don't want real cars and tracks to be in the sim. I've read through several threads with these types of opinions.

I think LFS is a better product than rFactor and GTR but I can still recognize that it would be AWESOME to take a 911 GT3 out on the nurb within LFS. More awesome (if that is possible.. ) than a FZR at one of the Aston circuits because it's a real car and a real place!

We all like this sim because it attempts to model vehicle dynamics as realistic as possible and is currently more realistic than other offerings. Why do we then stop short with regards to realistic cars and tracks? If the ideal is realism then cars and tracks are part of it.

That doesn't address licensing and workload but an open LFS would distribute that to the community.

Either way this an awesome piece of software! $0.02.

Quote from meanjeans :

Why do we then stop short with realistic cars and tracks?

Imo answer to that is that it does not make any difference to the actual racing. That said throwing money at car manufacturers/track owners is not a very benefical thing to do.

Quote from geeman1 :

May I ask why?

May I ask why not? It's a matter of preference. As I said before, you can play FIFA or ISS with fictional teams, but if you like football you'll prefer to play with a real team!

Quote from R34GTR :

First licensed tracks, then people will want licensed cars, and soon enough LFS is turned into a mainstream racing sim.

My 2 pence

So? We want LFS to be a great sim, but then we fear it becomes too popular sorry but I don't get it. Or is just that you guys feel so special about not playing a mainstream game?

I can understand people saying "I don't care about real tracks" but I don't understand the efforts to say "No to real tracks!"

Quote from Eldanor :

May I ask why not?

Why is a good question to ask when you want to add things or making improvement suggestions in general. You should come up with a good reason why, before suggesting things. I don't need to give you a reason why not, because I am not against real tracks. Imho people who want to add stuff should make the reasons because adding stuff equals work for the devs and when they are making something they can't be making something else. And in this case this addition would require spending money too. They can't just add things because they are cool.

Quote :

"No to real tracks!"

No one is someone saying that.

To be honest I don't really see it as an option that LFS dev team paid some real money to get track x into the game. And with iracing's approach most of the (american) tracks are already gone. There are few smaller tracks still and even fewer where you might get some discussion happening, if the actual idea of having that said track gets support.

I see at least 3 ways how LFS might get the infomation and permissions for some real track.
1) The Intel/McGill deals. LFS gets the track, LFS makes a special sim version for them.
2) Through some public project. Like there was this one guy who made a whole castle for Unreal tournament few years ago. He got blueprints and all to make it as accurate as possible. It was used to show the locations to the visitors and the actual "footage" was in game 2st person walking in Unreal tournament. The right word is preservation. To create a virtual version of something that can be used as a tool, a show piece or public attraction. Having a precise version of the track would be great for visual presentations as well. But we are really talking about "small" unknown tracks.
3. The owner of the track just likes the idea of having the track in LFS.

The bottom line is, imho, that is it worth to build a whole new track environment for some unknown track just because it is real track? Of course I'm fully biased here if I say that I'd like to see some finnish tracks in LFS, like the old Keimola track, Helsinki thunder track or Ahvenisto. Just like everyone would like to see certain track. But to find a track that gets the general ok from all people, impossible.

Lx8 with TVR Sagaris and some hilly twisty track with long front straight...

Quote from geeman1 :

Imo answer to that is that it does not make any difference to the actual racing. That said throwing money at car manufacturers/track owners is not a very benefical thing to do.

It makes a difference to the immersion, which is the single weakest link in LFS.

Yes, it will make a difference to immersion, but the lack of real tracks/cars is IMO by far not the biggest immersion 'killer'. No false starts, car resetting, the general arcadey race management, weak default sounds, unfinished damage/clutch/differential model that lead to unrealistic setups and driving behaviour... these things have an noticeable impact on immersion. If you were to add real tracks then that would temporarily overshadow the other problems, but it wouldn't take long till the nagging started again.

Quote from geeman1 :

Why is a good question to ask when you want to add things or making improvement suggestions in general. You should come up with a good reason why, before suggesting things. I don't need to give you a reason why not, because I am not against real tracks. Imho people who want to add stuff should make the reasons because adding stuff equals work for the devs and when they are making something they can't be making something else. And in this case this addition would require spending money too. They can't just add things because they are cool.
No one is someone saying that.

The effort needed to build a real track is nearly the same as a fictional one, so I think the workload isn't a good excuse. And anyways, the one with more work to do would be Eric.

Should I come with a good reason? I like them. If we take the situation of adding a new track, and having solved the money problems, if I have to choose I prefer a real one.

Quote from AndroidXP :

Yes, it will make a difference to immersion, but the lack of real tracks/cars is IMO by far not the biggest immersion 'killer'.

Of course! If I have to sort priorities, there are lots of thing to be done before adding real tracks, but once they are fixed, I would love to have some real tarmac

Quote from JJ72 :

It makes a difference to the immersion, which is the single weakest link in LFS.

Immersion? Immersion has more to do with the graphics, sounds, ffb etc than with what name the car or the track has. To me the game is just as immersive when I drive a Sauber F1, RaceAbout or a MRT5 when compared to the other cars in the game.

Quote from Eldanor :

The effort needed to build a real track is nearly the same as a fictional one, so I think the workload isn't a good excuse. And anyways, the one with more work to do would be Eric.

It comes down to the money really in this case.

Quote :

Should I come with a good reason? I like them.

Not a good reason. Think harder, there must be a really really good reason down there.

For a race fan, the historical importance of where you are racing is part of immersion. Cars are less pronouced in this regard since the level of detail in cars you can put in is rather less then in a track environment, unless you go all out and simulate individual electronic systems and drive trains. and to be honest the RAC ain't known to us before LFS, so there ain't much connection to start with.

Personally, knowing that I am tackling the same corner that many real racers does, and realizing what works in a sim also reflects in real life, is great pleasure.

Of course there are people who just go out and race, nomatter what track and what car it is, but people who care about real world relevance are no way in minority.

note: I have no compliant whatsoever about the cars in LFS right now.

i feel the same way. it would have been nice have had a few laps around albert park in the bf1 so i could have better idea what the drivers weree going through on that track yesterday.

Quote from geeman1 :

It comes down to the money really in this case.Not a good reason. Think harder, there must be a really really good reason down there.

Yeah, the money is an obstacle, but I think LFS could afford if in the future. Maybe some racing team could be interested in having some tracks for training purposes, who knows

Quote from Fischfix :

as far as i know, the only license cost is the NAME. you can make nurburgring and name it different and you won't have any problem...

I've got no idea why this is such a widespread belief, but it's not true. You can't just make a track that looks exactly like Laguna Seca and call it something else. The name and the likeness are both trademarked. The same goes for other things as well. Chery in China made a car that looked exactly like a Chevrolet and was sued for it. Even the likeness of people has to be paid for to be used.

Quote from Eldanor :

The effort needed to build a real track is nearly the same as a fictional one, so I think the workload isn't a good excuse.

I don't think that's true. In order to create a realistic representation of a rL track you need an incredible amount of data that has to be taken on location. Now, I don't know much about this, but I doubt that many track owners already have that data available and would just hand it out. iirc, I've read something about the creation of the Nordschleife for GT4 (or GT3? Whatever). They had to take all the data themselves. Or look at iracing. They did A LOT of laser scanning, even for a track like Silverstone (which you would expect to have a reasonable amount of data available), so that's a ton of work right there, that you don't have when building fictional tracks. And I doubt something like this is possible without a supporter like John Henry to shell out the money for it.

And like has been said before: I'd like to have rL tracks in LFS, but it shouldn't be a top priority imho.

Quote from Eldanor :

May I ask why not? It's a matter of preference. As I said before, you can play FIFA or ISS with fictional teams, but if you like football you'll prefer to play with a real team!



So? We want LFS to be a great sim, but then we fear it becomes too popular sorry but I don't get it. Or is just that you guys feel so special about not playing a mainstream game?

I can understand people saying "I don't care about real tracks" but I don't understand the efforts to say "No to real tracks!"

Not sure if this is right, but LFS has always prided itself on having fictional cars and tracks, not the same old tosh other games have. That's one of the reasons I came to LFS, it's different to every other racing sim out there in more than 1 way. Enough squabbling for me

Well, I was supposing some kind of accurate data is available AFAIK usually tracks have high detail GPS data for sale. Maybe is not the same as the Laser thing, but it's a start

But we are only speculating at the end of the day, it's the devs decision.

Quote from R34GTR :

Not sure if this is right, but LFS has always prided itself on having fictional cars and tracks, not the same old tosh other games have.

Mmm, I don't think it's a matter of pride, LFS not having real stuff it's a matter of money (I'm not in the devs head of course, but I think it is) LFS can pride to be one of the most popular sims without the need of real content, the pride comes from the popularity, not from the fictional content. I don't know if I can explain well the difference with my english

There's a buttload of tracks out there that wouldn't charge to be put in a game, Snetterton is just one. Whats a good reason for having real tracks? Because unlike ones made by an artist, real life tracks can be unballanced and have bits that are a bitch to get round quickly - they evolve around the land where they're built in an organic manner.

Take the corkscrew at Laguna Secca, nobody would have made that up. Also, I loved driving Riverside in Nascar Legends, that doesn't exist any more so sim driving is as close as anyone will now get to it now!

I really hope that LFS got atleast one real track (known one) when S3 get released.

Quote from JamesK :

There's a buttload of tracks out there that wouldn't charge to be put in a game...

I think so too.

I actually have all the blueprints (A0 i think) and pics needed to make Mantorp Park since i was involved making it for Grand Prix Legends.
It was never finished, but thats another story (Our site..).

They never in any contact i had with them mentioned anything about licensing or if we had any intentions of making money out of it.
That may have changed, but for these not so big tracks, all publicity they can get for free is welcomed, i think.

/Fredrik

Quote :

I really hope that LFS got atleast one real track (known one) when S3 get released.

I don't 'hope' for this, but it might be a good thing for LFS to have atleast one real life track, if only for the sole purpose of saying to people who say 'LFS doesn't have any real life tracks' that in fact it does!

I'm not one to be bothered much by having real-life cars or tracks, but then I'm not a racing fanatic. I'm an LFS fanatic. The tracks Eric's made so far are more realistic to me than probably any other virtual place I've ever been with the aid of a computer- they're really that well designed.

Quote :

it would have been nice have had a few laps around albert park

I used to do laps around Albert Park- but that was jogging.

Out of curiousity, I contacted Silverstone Circuits Ltd and MotorSport Vision Ltd, the owners of Silverstone and Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Snetterton, Cadwell Park and Bedford Autodrome respectively, and asked whether they required any licensing agreements and/or fees to use the 3D likeness of their tracks in a software application.

There is a £35-45,000 licensing fee required for the use of the Silverstone circuit and a £10,000 per venue fee for each of the circuits owned by MotorSport Vision Ltd. Additional track hire fees would be assessed for access to the track for photography, surveying and so on.

So, there you have it.