Hi, and I dunno if this is the right forum/section for this, but I have noticed a few things about the community that get under my skin (and I'm sure a lot of other members' skins)

They are:

1) (This is in /no/ way meant as an attack on the devs, they do a damn good job). Whenever a new patch or feature comes out, there is /always/ somebody whining 'but...why didn't they do it this way'. It is insulting to the devs. Put yourself in their position. You have just spent X amount of time developing a labour of love, only to have people who know nothing about game/program/sim/whatever design, to come along and start flaming you.

2) The use of the words 'noob', 'n00b', 'newbie' and related words as an insult (No offense to Niko/LFSn00b btw). Why do the people who were here earlier see the need to pick on the members with newer join dates. We all have an equal right to be here and give our opinion. OK, so people may not agree with it, but that is no reason to start flaming. On a related note, what /is/ the point of the flaming bannana (sp?) smiley?.

3) The insistance that the aformentioned 'noobs', 'n00bs' and 'newbies' should go play offline. As somebody (I forgot who) said in another thread. LFS is an online racing simulator. It has AI for single-player. I am willing to bet that if the experienced online racers suddenly lost their internet tomorrow and had to race offline for, say...a month, they'd change their tune and welcome people to the servers. After all, every demo racer is a potential S2 racer. And every online racer is potentially somebody you can have a great battle with

4) The constant bashing of demo racers. I just don't get WHY people (S2 licensed) see the need to flame/bash/criticise (sp?) demo racers. LFS is a racing simulator. I am not going to get involved in the quite franky, ugly, drift/grip war, but if people want to drift, they should be able to. It's like buying a box of chocolates and being told you can only open and eat them a certain way

5) The attitudes of some racers to mouse/keyboard racers. Not everyone is able to buy, or indeed, use a wheel. I know a friend in Ireland who wants to get into S2, but has no movement in his arms at all. At this point he could either:

a) Post here, or have somebody post here and get flamed/ridiculed
b) quietly go and buy S2, and get ridiculed/flamed in-game
c) Not bother and tell everyone how bad S2 is

See my point there?

7) The belief that if you have a blue flag, you MUST dive off the road/the belief that ANY contact is wrecking. These two really, really, really, irk me. A few days ago, I was on the Conedodgers UFR/XFR server at AS Cadet, I got loose coming onto the SF straight, spun into the grass, rebounded off the wall and caused somebody else to spin, and got 'what the f--k were you doing you f---g wrecker, learn to f-----g drive you w------r' Then later on after the race had been restarted, a racer was spamming 'BLUE FLAG! MOVE OVER! BLUE FLAG! MOVE OVER! BLUE FLAG! MOVE OVER! BLUE FLAG! MOVE OVER!' again and again. Wake up people...in the real world, a small tap isn't wrecking, and cussing like that wouldn't be tolerated. And how many times have you seen backmarkers throw themselves off the track to let the leaders through?

8) The belief that LFS /must/ be the most realistic simulator ever. Hint here: NKPro, Look how realistic that is, and look how that's turned out. There is a line between realism and fun, and the people who want LFS to be just like real life, let me paint you the following scenario...

It's 9pm, the kids are in bed, you have an hour before you're going to go to sleep. So you fire up LFS, input 50,000 bits of data needed to create your virtual online persona, and select your favourite server only to find you have to walk across the virtual paddock to your race trailer, which you do happily, as it's another step in realism. Just then the kids come downstairs wanting a drink and a bite to eat, so you go to type 'I'm AFK', but you can't, as chatting's been disabled due to it 'not being realistic'. So your virtual self stands there like a lemon for 5 minutes, then goes to the garage and gets in the FXR, goes through all the checks and starts the engine, only to find the door's shut, and once you get in the car, you can't get out, as it's 'not realistic'. So you stop the engine and force the car's door open, and open the garage door, only to find it drops on your character's foot, there is a wincing sound effect. You think nothing of it until you get back in the car, close the door, and try to accellerate (sp?) Nothing happens, the ignition's on, the car's in first, but it won't go. Because injury to drivers has been modelled 'because it happens in real life'. Frustrated. you go to log out, but are told 'You have to walk back to your motorhome to log out' as people don't want drivers suddenly vanishing as 'it's not realistic', so you do that, then you want to go to anther server, but you can't, as your characters are the same across all servers. So you finally log out and go to sleep.

I want /everyone/ who reads this to think long and hard about the points raised. It just really angers me that the community has gone downhill in the last 2-3 years

I 100% agree with you. I've been wanting to put a post in like this for ever, but I've been somewhat biting my lip for about a year now.

This is still a great community, that is if you've been here for more than a year. But the bashing of new players, even people who post things in the wrong section on a forum. I know someone who used to not know how forums worked at all and didn't have a clue how to use them. Took me over a week to tell them how they work etc - mainly because they keep forgetting things. These people might not even know how to use the search function, or know where it is.

Just think before you bash.

Great words from You DieKolkrabe... I agree with all the point you writed...

Quote :

2) The use of the words 'noob', 'n00b', 'newbie' as an insult (No offense to Niko/LFSn00b btw). Why do the people who were here earlier see the need to pick on the members with newer join dates. We all have an equal right to be here and give our opinion. OK, so people may not agree with it, but that is no reason to start flaming.

I'd like to see join dates removed like RSC removed post counts from under avatars.

Quote :

On a related note, what /is/ the point of the flaming bannana (sp?) smiley?.

It comes with VB IIRC and it also used mainly for anti-cracker, not anti-new user purposes.

Quote :

3) The insistance that the aformentioned 'noobs', 'n00bs' and 'newbies' should go play offline. As somebody (I forgot who) said in another thread. LFS is an online racing simulator. It has AI for single-player. I am willing to bet that if the experienced online racers suddenly lost their internet tomorrow and had to race offline for, say...a month, they'd change their tune and welcome people to the servers. After all, every demo racer is a potential S2 racer. And every online racer is potentially somebody you can have a great battle with

LFS is for online, the LFS AI isn't that fun. I hate servers that want to have PB kicking and so-on, people just want a race. I don't care if I come in the bottom half or dead last, I just enjoy racing. End of.

[/QUOTE]

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

7) The belief that if you have a blue flag, you MUST dive off the road/the belief that ANY contact is wrecking. These two really, really, really, irk me. A few days ago, I was on the Conedodgers UFR/XFR server at AS Cadet, ... a racer was spamming 'BLUE FLAG! MOVE OVER! BLUE FLAG! MOVE OVER! BLUE FLAG! MOVE OVER! BLUE FLAG! MOVE OVER!' again and again.

Wake up people... in the real world ... how many times have you seen backmarkers throw themselves off the track to let the leaders through?

I now have a "THERE IS ALREADY A BLUE FLAG MESSAGE, NOOB (sorry about that, I couldn't resist using that one when I wrote it)" bind for when the inevitable happens (me getting lapped). It is the responsibility of THEM to get past ME. I do NOT have to ease off on a straight or take an exeedingly wide line.

I agree with you 100%.

I agree with you for the most part. But on a related note to your point 4, here's my

subsection 4b)
The oversensitiveness of certain groups in the LFS community (demo racers, drifters, CnR players, etc).
Ofcourse there's no need to bash someone just for being a demo racer or drifter, but these days you can hardly give any criticism to let's say a demo racer.

You're automatically labeled a demo racer hater even though you would have said the same thing if the person in question was an S2 player. That's what I call annoying and hiding in a victim role.

The "hate" towards demoracers on this forum is EXTREMELY exaggerated. Everything you say that could be interpreted in a negative way has someone going off when it's a demoracer you're adressing to.

The way I see it is that this is a very straight forward community. People around here tend to be honest and therefore outspoken. So it's really a matter of "you get out of it what you put in yourself"
People in general in the sim and on the forum are extremely helpful and generous (most helpful forum I've ever been a part of), but if you're going to be a lazy bastard, you're going to get treated as such. Come in and ask your questions/suggest your ideas in a well mannered way and you're going to get all the help and good discussions you need.

hmm, edited my post to add to my thoughts and I said exactly the same as srdsprinter :0 spooky...

While you have some points that are correct, I must disagree with you as to this is the most "noob-friendly" game I've ever seen.

Most online games have terrible elitest communities. If you ask for advice/guidance in LFS, most likely you will find it.

If someone comes in with a crap-attitude the community will tell them that. It's sort of a self-regulating system of keeping the community up to a certain, albeit fairly low, standard. If you look at some discussions on the forum, you will see very well writen, non-attacking, and clean debates. These happen when members share respect for one another and keep open minds.

On the contrast, when someone new comes in with a Closed mind, thinking they absolutely know best, the community will call BS and the thread will usually fall to hell. I'd say this community is mostly straight-shooters, where you will get out exactly what you put in.

Lets try to keep this as a discussion everybody and not an argument. (im not mentioning any names).
Some points have been raised. Some I agree with. Some i dont, But lets not turn this into a flame fest please. I dont want to have to close anything prematurely.

very good +1
i agree definately with al the points brought up there, although i wil agree the demo/noob hate point is slightly touchy as was discussed above, but personally i think every current and new user should be made to read that post and should think of it before posting.

I haven't seen evidence of most of the stuff you're ranting about.

The new version stuff I agree with - especially when Scawen's been running busy test patch threads for over a month, there's plenty of time to gripe about new features before they are included. And yes there are a few people who spend way too much of their time being overzealous crack cops, but it's a tiny minority.

The people I see getting flamed get flamed because they're clueless, don't search, make the same requests that were made last week and/or embarrass themselves in a variety of other ways. IMO forumgoers should flame these people, otherwise all forums would soon become flooded with them and be rendered unusable by those visitors who have working brains.

Never in the history of time did one single speech change how everyone lived. You may say, well what about MLK Jr's speech? Well, same with his, it doesn't take a speech to change the way the world turns, it takes practice. It is like this commercial I saw once, one person does a good thing to someone, and that next person notices it and does the same to someone else and so on it goes and finally returns back to that first person. You can't stop people from acting a certain way, they just do, it takes brainwash and years for a person to change the way they act (deep down inside). No there is no point in calling someone a noob, but sometimes people just have to get the point across after repeated tries, and while you may think it is negative, it isn't always that negative. Some people view "noobs" as well, what they consist of, the people learning LFS and joining the community, it just takes time that is all.

As for #1, sometimes we bash the devs, but like I said, sometimes the point just has to be put across and can often be hidden in the depths if it isn't thrown around enough, the devs are only 3 people, if one doesn't catch the other, chances are the others wont catch it either.

For #'s 2 and 3 I think you are confused. Rarely do I see many S2 licensed users call other people noobs unless they do it in a joking manner, but instead I see a lot of demo users call other demo users noobs and then post about it on this forum and it turns into a heap of trash.

There is no other way to do it, if one person is nice, it should spread through everyone else and a person that isn't nice will probably pick it up some day. No guarantee, but there is nothing you can do, you can't force someone to change their ways, it is their God-given right to act as they are.

But I will continue, as Kev has brought up with the test patches, people here get so worked up in the latest patch that they just spam away and don't even notice at all what other people say, and then you get one mad Scawen, and a bunch of pissed off forum-goers. And when you have not even a full handful of moderators on duty, this forum becomes a jungle. Just the other day during the release of Patch X, I bet some of you people have no clue how many new useless threads were made. Well, I will tell you what the normal number of threads are made during mid-season when a lot of people have found other things to do, threads usually come up at a rate of 5 a day. During patches, they sprout to over 20 new threads a day, that is a lot of work, and over half of which threads consist of basically the same information which can be read in the test patch thread of bugs.

You have to act yourself, not tell others what to do, they have to change their own ways.

@XCNuse: I see 'noob' 'n00b' 'newbie' 'rookie' being thrown around on servers as insults all the time, it goes (something) like this

'Watch your mirrors you f=====g noob'
Or
'Noob, learn to drive'
or
'n00b, go practice offline'
etc

Quote from CSU1 :

....

Every one of his points is completely valid. Who's the spammer in this thread?

I was at Westhill last night for my first patch X experience. For a while, the majority of the 10 or so racers had less total laps in LFS than I had in that one particular combo until a few other veterans showed up. I spectated until the grid was set to put myself in last starting position. I won several races passing the entire field, half of them pitting and rejoining so they were blue flagged. Only once did I accidentally tap a blue flagged car causing him to go sideways and me to spin out. I did apologize and continue on after straightening out my car. He didn't spin out completely, so he continued his race or practice (whether pitted out or not was the reason for him being blue flagged, I don't know). I didn't notice the name of the guy I tapped, so I didn't get the chance to apologize to him directly after the race. It was a tap from me trying to go inside of his unpredictable driving, then trying to back back out because I saw him not knowing how to hold a line, but I apologized with the chat bind.

The point is, what DK typed is all completely valid. I don't know what it's like in UK/European peak times, but it generally isn't like that in US times. I do see this type of behavior on occasion though.

If you do, then shame on them.
But you can't change that.

If you are an admin of that server then tell them politely not to, and if they do it repeatedly a few more times just give them warnings, and if you don't ban them immediately so that they come here and post about how some jerk banned them from a server for doing nothing, maybe they will learn.

Rejecting someone goes nowhere. That is why banning often makes situations worse.

@LFSnoob... well.. its your name, what do you expect?
No one's fault for calling you your screen name you chose.

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

@XCNuse: I see 'noob' 'n00b' 'newbie' 'rookie' being thrown around on servers as insults all the time, it goes (something) like this

'Watch your mirrors you f=====g noob'
Or
'Noob, learn to drive'
or
'n00b, go practice offline'
etc

im afraid you may wish to re-evaluate the servers that you race on. I very rarely see this in S2.

Are these insults generally directed to you or other drivers? i'm just curious because like i said. its not something that i tend to see "often" although i do tend to visit the same servers and rarely go into servers that i do not know.

Quote from LFSn00b :

Actually i get called a n00b here. How hard is to say Niko instead of n00b?

Well you should have thought of that before you registered on the forums

Quote from CSU1 :

nope...



a post full of bs imo. Stop spamming, YOU must now stop whining because YOU are unable to drive any car in LFS in a straight line.

If you cant find the time to AT LEAST TRY to drive in LFS with some care I dont think this is the sim for you. Imo you should stop using this community as some sort spam target, go back to writing poems DK and stop using the LFS sim as a medium to spam with this senseless spam, I've seen lerts make more sense.

To finish off, you are noob) stop spamming MY MSN and this forum/out.

-----------------------------------------------------------

BTW @ everyone this gobshite ain't Irish, thank God.

N/C

Quote from franky500 :

im afraid you may wish to re-evaluate the servers that you race on. I very rarely see this in S2.

Are these insults generally directed to you or other drivers? i'm just curious because like i said. its not something that i tend to see "often" although i do tend to visit the same servers and rarely go into servers that i do not know.

I jump around servers quite alot when I see a combo I like, and I very often see people saything things as quoted. It's not really a rare thing at all, it does happen alot, and I'm really sick of seeing it.

What's more frustrating is that half the time it's the accuser who's at fault, NOT the 'noob' (as they call the person they just took out).

@Franky500: They are mainly directed at anyone who does anything out of the ordinary. Case in point, a few weeks back on the TE server, myself, Niall, Shaggy and Leprekaun were racing TBOs around SO Classic and Leprekaun got baulked by a driver, he said 'n00b, learn to f----g drive', I told him to calm down and he said about how the guy was in the middle of the road, I was checking his LFS stats at the time, he was a rookie, and disconnected shortly after, I haven't seen him since.

DK

Since patch X came out, almost every server that didnt have a spectate/kick/ban for driving backwards has been full of wreckers. Please don't tell me this is starting to become true that s2 is starting to fill with flamers, spammers, and wreckers. I can tell S2 has its share of it, but since patch X, demo racing has become a "keep away from the wreckers that are driving backwards" game. I am planning to buy S2 on Wednesday.

Yep, i totally agree wif u. I have experienced (a few times, in fact), that people crash me out of a race whether purposely or accidentally and when i get back to them (in a polite way), i get flamed instead. I guess there's nothing much we can do about it besides ranting and complaining, cos u cant ban all wreckers forever.

Also, the crash simulation isnt quite well done... cos a small tap can cause a car to fly, spin, then eat wall. Maybe this problem can be first solved before the devs improve the AI and other stuff... hehe

The majority of the community is great, just a few (if i may) idiots who are wasting their 24 pounds bent on destroying a great day for many the racers.

Yeah, DieKolkrabe, it's all true. But it's obvious, I guess it's something you learn to expect when you come here. On a forum where most people can be entirely mature, we can sometimes get a tad out of hand when it comes to another person's behaviour.

I'm sure your post helped but I am pretty sure it won't stop it all.

Will it stop the next demo racer for asking for more cars? Or arguing about grip vs. drift ?

Will it stop the 1337 5p34k3rz all over the place with their n00bz0rz 4 l1f3 ?

Probably not, but at least you tried.

At least you made good points.

Post date has no relation to being a noob IMO, there are plenty of fast people who are just dangerous if you try and race them and who you really don't want to be lapped by.

I have no issue with new racers and slow racers (I'm hardly fast) so long as they can control the car and aren't dangerously slow, I'm sure most people here probably went spinning and crashing everywhere the first time they drove a sim (after inevitably picking the fastest car on what looked like the longest and hardest track), so a few laps offline until you can drive the car for a few laps without going off at a reasonable pace, and TBH it should only be a few laps is better for everyone than somebody turning up and constantly spinning and getting hit, that's not the way to get the basics right.

As for controller methods I have no issue with what people use so long as they can control the car, in general though it has to be said that the keyboard is seemingly an inappropriate control method for driving powerful cars, having said that some people have mastered it and I have even see keyboard users win races in full servers, but that is a fairly rare sight. I don't think your friend will get any slack for using the keyboard so long as he doesn't drive dangerously

Quote from h3adbang3r :

Since patch X came out, almost every server that didnt have a spectate/kick/ban for driving backwards has been full of wreckers. Please don't tell me this is starting to become true that s2 is starting to fill with flamers, spammers, and wreckers. I can tell S2 has its share of it, but since patch X, demo racing has become a "keep away from the wreckers that are driving backwards" game. I am planning to buy S2 on Wednesday.

Erm... no S2 hasn't descended to that level, I've never seen anyone driving the wrong way (other than messing about post race) and have only ever seen one or two sit and wait style wreckers in nearly two years.

Quote from LFSn00b :

I totally agree with you.

I got tapped out for no reason when i tried to give way.
I was thinking that i'd give way at the end of the T1.
Then he just taps me out, for no reason and not even a sorry? Only got "you deserved it idiot".

Yes, the LFS community is corrupting, thanks for those drivers who think they can go T1 without braking and they are the best and they can do anything.

Actually i get called a n00b here. How hard is to say Niko instead of n00b?

But i don't keep myself as a spammer, if i am, sorry, i will try to behave better.





4th month in DR! \o/

Spammer n00b

Seriously, you're absolutely right. I am a slow driver and I know it, but that doesn't give people the right to crash into me. I hate it when someone is trying to pass you in an impossible place, even when I'm being lapped. And don't get me started on people who go full throttle into t1 illepall

Sure, I make mistakes, lots of them actually, but I try to race fairly and cleanly, and most of the times I wait for anyone I spun out to overtake me again, instead of just saying sorry and running away.