http://www.simhq.com/_motorsports3/motorsports_107a.html

Agree, disagree, want to comment? SimHQ is soliciting feedback on the article here.

Not a bad review at all. Complimentary in the right places and critical where required. I totally agree about the AI (everyone here would, I think) and until now I hadn't thought about skins in that way. Good points indeed :up:

I'm having trouble understanding this statement...

Quote :

However, the inflexibility of skin-management and the inability to switch between and store two or more car sets for a specific car, e.g. the Formula V8, is bothersome.

Can someone with a clearer head enlighten me please?

The review is a mess really... talking about AI's and Skins all the time

And the conclusion is like "yea, not bad, if you have a spare space on your HDD, try it out, if you don't, skip it"... something like that, yea, great conclusion for the most popular racing sim..

Quote from Gunn :

I'm having trouble understanding this statement...

Quote :

However, the inflexibility of skin-management and the inability to switch between and store two or more car sets for a specific car, e.g. the Formula V8, is bothersome.

Can someone with a clearer head enlighten me please?

I cannot understand that either (I don't have a clearer head ). Either the person doesn't know how to manage multiple skins & sets for a car in the garage, or is just complaining that the technique you use to organize them is bothersome.

I dunno... LFS has one of the easiest systems for managing both the skin and setups, I don't know why this person would have a problem with it. I guess the author could only explain it better.

Kinda sounds like he`s expecting to select a car like the FO8 and be able to swap between an "F1" set, or a "Cart" set of skins that will automatically get applied to himself and all the AI cars at once.

And no, my head isn`t much clearer either, but I`ll give him a bonus point for posting a screenie of my RAC interior...

Becuase it's not an actual review.

Quote :

The following is thus not a comprehensive review of LFS but more an update to spread the word that Live for Speed is alive and doing very well.

Quote from Tweaker :

I dunno... LFS has one of the easiest systems for managing both the skin and setups, I don't know why this person would have a problem with it. I guess the author could only explain it better.

Actually, one way to improve the setup selection and storing would be to have one folder for each track(track as a whole, aston, kyoto, bl, and so on). Or mayby you could define the folders yourself.

So you would only be seeing contents of one folder at a time, and not ALL the setups for that specific car. And of course you could copy and move the setups around between the folders.

Example:

Main(defaults&generic sets)
|
|-Aston -> sets for all Aston layouts
|-Blackwood
|-SouthCity
|-Hotlap -> hotlap setups
|-Rally -> Rally setups
|-Autocross
|-etc....

The weird thing is that he is only refering to the single player part, he's taling of it as if it would be the main part of lfs...

so when he's talking about the skin and setup management he's refering to change that for the AI cars.

I don't even think the author tested the multiplayer...

The updated review has some mistakes:

• LFS is not DX8.1 but DX8 .At least according to NVIDIA development tools.I am not sure from where he got info about LFS being DX8.1.
  
• LFS can handle multiple skins with Ai.

Quote from three_jump :

The weird thing is that he is only refering to the single player part, he's taling of it as if it would be the main part of lfs...

so when he's talking about the skin and setup management he's refering to change that for the AI cars.

I don't even think the author tested the multiplayer...

Idem dito, you don't have LFS for the singleplayer mode... This review is and I dare to say it, rubbish.

Someone minds registrating at the forum and give a very good, long and clear response in the feedback section ?

It started off so promising too... it's not exactly logically thought through. I love the way skins improve realism. And physics changes with patch V? Erm...

Quote :

The AI is still not quite up to scratch.

Quote from unseen :

Kinda sounds like he`s expecting to select a car like the FO8 and be able to swap between an "F1" set, or a "Cart" set of skins that will automatically get applied to himself and all the AI cars at once.

This makes me think that maybe Scawen should just dump the AI/single player mode completely until it's better. Then they'd be forced to review what they should be reviewing.

Quote from andy29 :

This makes me think that maybe Scawen should just dump the AI/single player mode completely until it's better. Then they'd be forced to review what they should be reviewing.

They should be reviewing Live For Speed- Online Racing Simulator, and mention it's well documented single player mode which is neither
the reason to buy it, nor high on the list of near future upgrades.

well, the reviewer has no clue what lfs is about. beside that it's ok

i have no idea what the reviewer is going on about with skin management and setup management, i can only assume he's talking about AI, as LFS imo has the best skin and setup thing of any sim.

Quote from andy29 :

This makes me think that maybe Scawen should just dump the AI/single player mode completely until it's better. Then they'd be forced to review what they should be reviewing.

Indeed, you can't say something is bad that doesn't exist

I don't think anything incomplete should be taken away. What's the point in that? There's hardly anything complete in this game.

Quote :

If, on the other hand you have LFS on your harddrive and wonder what has been happening during the last 12 months, hopefully the following will provide you with a fresh look at this terrific racing sim.

Quote :

LFS is still a very good sim for going online and for hot lapping, and as such it deserves a place on your hard disk.

What's the problem with you people?

I thought that was a very fair update. Dealing with skins and setups for the AI is a PITA. If I was to summarise the review, it would be this:

You've tried Live for Speed and you know that the physics is good. There have been a few developments lately, but if you're expecting a change in the AI system, it hasn't been addressed yet.

You are really playing to the stereotype of being a bunch of cultists...

Not a fair and balanced review IMO,

The reviewer has concentrated on the single player mode as stated above, all the patches that are stated within the review concentrate on the online side of the game and this is the authors fundamental error.

The reviewer seems to have only played the single player mode with the Al, Hence the fact he only lists the changes implemented within patches but does not review the changes that have been implemented.

It seems to me that the reviewer is not S2 licenced and therefore has become hungup on the issues with Al and skins in the single player part of the game as we all know is poor due to the dev's rightly so concentrating on the main portion of the game which is the online experience.

Conclusion :

just an analogy - If he had read a book he has only reviewed the contents page and the first chapter IE Patches and Single player so has totally missed the rest of the content in such the online part of the sim and how the patches have effected this experience since the last review and some how he has come to a conclusion ?

But he doesn't know yet how to use the single player mode either. Multiple skins and sets have been a reality in LFS for a long time. Though to rise in his defense a little, the inclusion of a PDF manual with the LFS download would prevent a lot of misinformation from being spread by reviewers. LFS is not basic by any means (and neither should it be) but that means it is not easy for a newcomer to know where all of the treasures lie, how each of the features work.

Quote from askoff :

I don't think anything incomplete should be taken away. What's the point in that? There's hardly anything complete in this game.

Actually that's true isn't it. It IS an alpha. Maybe people should be made to mention that every time they say something negative

Quote from andy29 :

Actually that's true isn't it. It IS an alpha. Maybe people should be made to mention that every time they say something negative

Being an Alpha makes it all the more necessary to understand why people might criticise aspects of LFS....

@Gunn... Yes, skins and sets can be used with AI, but I think the criticism is that its a really cludgey process.

Quote from nihil :

@Gunn... Yes, skins and sets can be used with AI, but I think the criticism is that its a really cludgey process.

To me it is easy and effective. Name your Ai, make colour sets for them and choose their skins. That's all there is to do. If you want to change their skin just load the colour set and go to town. Perhaps improvements could be made by using drop down menus and such, but the current method is effective and workable, just poorly documented. He mentions no more than two setups but, IIRC, multiple setups for AI is possible (haven't tried that in a while though). Furthermore, the AI learn as they go. If you want a variety of AI skills amongst your AI, simply train them for different amounts of time, they'll all perform differently but will still keep learning as they go. For an online sim the single player mode really is useful for practicing, despite the incomplete AI (which is a low priority anyhow, for any online game).

For me the review is summed up in the system specs of the reviewers computer. He paid extra for the SLi version of a motherboard and then only stuck 1 graphics card in it.

He does raise valid points for single player play, and lets face it that's what most other sims focus on. No other sim on the market is focused on online play, or indeed has anything like a remotely acceptable online experience. Therefor when compared to other sims, by people who are not online racers, LFS is always going to be weak.

This is a fair and true point, and it's one we online racers have to take on the chin.

Just before i'm flamed for this point of view, I do accept that other sims CAN be used for online play. I just dont believe they SHOULD be used for online play - because i've tried and been wrecked by the rFaculty students and the GToddlerR2 crowd.

Actually there isn't much stopping rFactor and it's derivates from being good online games, but they've chosen not to take the right leaves out of the book thus far. So one is left to ask the question, why?

I'll tell you, it's because most sims are single player, and therein lies why LFS exists on the fringest of the 'sim community'. Actually, LFS pretty much IS the sim community, the rest are just playing single player and thinking they're smug for joining R2P in order to avoid wreckes, unlike those LFS racers with their public servers...

LFS is years ahead for online play, that's a given. It's years behind for single player, that's also a given.