I brought this up at the RSC forum a while back, but not in it's own thread, so I though I might suggest it here as well.

How about a replay viewer? Something that let's you view replays from the full game without having to buy a license? I bet it could really help when trying to convince those who are unsure about buying LFS and thus, increase sales.
Also, a neat .AVI export tool included in such a replay viewer would also be nice, hehe

Is this possible?

... where would demo people get replays from in the first place....?

Example: You say to me, "Hey, man. You should buy a license, the cars are WAY cooler, and the tracks are Uber-Wicked, man!"..
I respond: "Prove it. Show me a replay."

*Nod*

My point exactly. I got a bunch of community friends over at SCORE where we've raced Nascar Heat (mods) for a long time. Before that it was SCGT. Now I feel it's time to move on to LFS. I did manage to "turn" one of them, but only after I made a movie clip of some GTR cars blasting around Kyoto GP. If I could hand them a replay viewer and a bunch of replays, I might turn more of them

if they are mates and you guys have raced other games/sims before... surely they would take you on your word that S2 is good?

No. To see the cars in action in replays and to drive them, I'd say pay the mere 24 pounds, it's nothing and it's 10 times worth it.

Tho what would be a better idea in my opinion is indeed a replay viewer but one that play SPRs and MPRs depending on what license you have.
If youre a demo racer, you can check out Blackwood replays with the GTi GT and GTT, bein S1 licensed you can check out all S1 tracks & cars and so on.

Like, dragging a replay file you got on MSN or you downloaded from the forum onto LFSReplayViewer.exe and it shows it where you can use all camera options.

Quote from -SE1Z- :

if they are mates and you guys have raced other games/sims before... surely they would take you on your word that S2 is good?

Well you know how it is. Sim racers tend to stick with their sim of choice for a VERY long time, even if it's old. It has to do with what one is used to and how willing (unwilling?) one is to even try something new :-/
Something to really show them what they're missing would be great

Yea.. I'd say us sim racers are a stuborn bunch aren't we? :P

Quote from MAGGOT :

Yea.. I'd say us sim racers are a stuborn bunch aren't we? :P

Yea I think we've seen too much racing games. Racing sims are rare so when we found one we actually like, we wanna stick to it.

Maybe I'm missing the plot on this one. But what 'value' does a replay really give a person? Is a replay worth 24 quid? I mean... The dev's aren't going to loose anything by letting demo-ers view replays. It's not like it would require a lot of coding to do, surely. There's no money-value in a replay. It's not like you can 'race' a replay, yanno? So, why not. Nothing to loose by doing it, but perhaps something to gain. If they like the replay, they might buy a license. If they don't, at least it was tried, and they have gained nothing other than the ability to watch somone else race the same race a thousand times. Nothing exciting, just extra advertisment opportunity.

That's been discussed before over on RSC, it seems to create security weaknesses because it decrypts the otherwise locked cars to be able to view them for Demo users and S1 users.

The demo is enough demonstration of how good LFS is anyway.

My understanding of the way the replays work the game itself is basically the replay viewer. As far as I know when a replay is run all the physics etc. are calculated on the fly so it probably won't be till we get an overhaul of the replays that something like this would be feasible.

I don't mind the idea of demo or S1 people being able to view S2 replays though, rather that than give them extra content in the hopes of getting some more sales.

Quote from BlackSpider :

Maybe I'm missing the plot on this one. But what 'value' does a replay really give a person?

play a SPR... hit Esc, and hit USE CAR.....
simple enough aye? that way the demo fools could just have a replay for each car and track... and play

Quote from XCNuse :

play a SPR... hit Esc, and hit USE CAR.....
simple enough aye? that way the demo fools could just have a replay for each car and track... and play

Haha, that button will disappear of course.. lol

Quote from XCNuse :

play a SPR... hit Esc, and hit USE CAR.....
simple enough aye? that way the demo fools could just have a replay for each car and track... and play

Well, I wasn't aware of that. So... onder:

I agree with you now. Unless, as said, that button was removed/disabled.