I think S2 Final isnt that far off, at least, from what Scawen has said on the subject it looks to me like Scawen has a lot less planned for S2 than what I first thought it might - probably with the intention of including some of the things that I was hoping for in S3.

I think it is also possible that S3 might take a different direction than what many of us expect. The 'plan' for S3 was laid down a long time ago, and time is the bringer of change so who knows what ideas Scawen has had in the meentime?

Quote from Becky Rose :

I think it is also possible that S3 might take a different direction than what many of us expect. The 'plan' for S3 was laid down a long time ago, and time is the bringer of change so who knows what ideas Scawen has had in the meentime?

What's the plan for S3 then?

I don't think they'll be any huge "boom" of players when S2 final comes. The booms are when s3 comes out. When s3 alpha comes, all the demo players who thought that S2 licensed people had to pay 36 pounds for S3 will get the license. Then, if LFS ever allows some sort of modding i definetly think a couple rTractor junkies will be coming here.

Quote from ajp71 :

What have the Devs got officially in the pipeline? I thought officially it was just the GTR cockpits and some hints of higher res textures. We know we've got a physics incompatible patch coming but has anything been confirmed by the Devs as to what's in it?

thing is time without any updates from eric is in a way a promise in itself
the longer we dont see anything the more the community will expect to get whenever his work will finally be released

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I would welcome more people. More people means more chance of seeing greater diversity online - more choice. That would be really good for LFS I think.

yeah youll be able to go to cone dodgers 5 6 7 and 8 for even more as-nat gtr

Quote from Becky Rose :

I think S2 Final isnt that far off, at least, from what Scawen has said on the subject it looks to me like Scawen has a lot less planned for S2 than what I first thought it might - probably with the intention of including some of the things that I was hoping for in S3.

I think it is also possible that S3 might take a different direction than what many of us expect. The 'plan' for S3 was laid down a long time ago, and time is the bringer of change so who knows what ideas Scawen has had in the meentime?

i got that impression from his last post on the subject too
by the looks of it he seems to be dead set on getting rid of the alpha tag asap
but it still sounds like many of the things we think he had planned for the final will be included during the s2 phase later on

so if im correct the current plan seems to be to tie up all loose ends and call it final

Quote from Cr!t!calDrift :

I mean, do you really want s2 to be finished in development, possibly even put on sale, and maybe even retailed? Publicized?

Our family of racing sims will be overrun with new people, to the point of when this community is just a bunch of people who don't know each other so well. Where all the older people have left and are replaced with a community like a First-Person Shooter.

Even though I'd like to see LFS and all of the developers shooting for the stars and becoming successful, what will happen to the community?

I think the veterans will stay, and some of the new guys will stay for a long time and become veterans after a while.
I see your point in that the old familiar guys will be harder to spot on servers and stuff, but just add them to your friends list on lfsworld ( I have a bunch there) and look if they are online before you join a server.

But in the long run LFS will be better off with more people, more servers and odd combos to choose from on the public servers.

As it is now its usually the CTRA, redline or cone dodgers servers that are populated, with the odd team server with a bunch of guys.
I really adore CTRA for their curage to try unusual combos, and the fact that if you use Shift-S during race you have to wait until the next race/round to "play".

I don't even think bringing up "S3" is even a good idea, especially when all we are discussing here is S2 final. S3 is something non-existent, never talked about as if it were 'real', and just purely fiction at this point in time. Such hype or enthusiasm toward an imaginary day of "the holy S3 release" is just a poor reminder that fans look too far ahead and trust the dev's 3 stage plan... when S2 isn't even finished!

S1 picked itself up and went final, and had a good turnout in my opinion. S2 was going at the same rate for a while after its release, but things have slowed down, dramatically. Interviews with the devs have shown that S3 is not even under discussion or such a positive target for them right now, they want to finish S2 final as far as I can see. Even back in the day with S1 (and still to this day iirc), they wrote their own fortune on their website about buying licenses where they state "you can always donate more if you'd like to help developments, though we cannot assure you we will ever finish the entire plan up to S3". Something of that nature.

I agree with Huru that S2 should've been final when the BF1 was released, but then again, S2 had so many broken pieces in the puzzle to be fixed, it's only a matter of time before something else breaks, and we wait and wait for it to ever be finished.

Games are evolving now to much more complex systems, with better graphics, better environments to interact with, better ideas, etc... By the time S2 is finished, it will long be in the dusty closets of our harddrives, and the ONLY thing that can really truly show us that the devs have S3 in a goodie bag to hand us is if they can update to a more modern era of a game with a blueprint presented somewhere of what we should expect. Or else you will just keep saying "oh its gonna be in S3", and we will all sit and keep dreaming about something that isn't even legitimate.

There is no plan for S3. If there is, show me in words, pictures, sound, etc... what exactly their plan is for S3, what it will include in detail, and maybe even show signs of its development.

Ugh. I kind of agree with you.

At this point in time I would've thought that with things dragging on this long, and with talk of moving S2 to final, that there would actually be some semblance of public information about what precisely we should be thinking about in terms of S2. Just cockpits and AI with some tyre mods? The engine temp gauges have been there in S1... Brakes are a big issue in real life racing...

I also recall some idle rumours of the talk of abandoning the stage system, but who knows? Meh, probably sounds like whining... I'm not meaning to whine in all honesty, I hope Scawen doesn't take offence at our thoughts.

I understand that the whole thing is their hands, I understand they do it the way they want, I understand there is no timeline, I understand how frustrating it really must be to see this same topic creep up every few months, I understand that this is an entertainment product and I should get a life rather than worry about it (well, I do have a life that I quite enjoy, but still), AND I do understand why they choose not to say anything about their plans most of the time. It sucks that a few people will bitch and moan if something they happen to let slip doesn't come to fruition for whatever reason, because for every person like that there is probably 100 that are just genuinely interested in what the devs thoughts are and what their hopes for the sim are. It's a shame it's just not safe for them to be like that. Personally, I'd rather risk it to keep the loyal people happy and just ignore the moaners in those situations; of which there probably wouldn't be a lot anyway.

I don't think there was talk of abandoning the stage system, just a mention from fans how "LFS will never be finished" in terms of it being a finished S1, S2, or S3 version because of more and more patches. More like the kind of talk that it is always in an ongoing stage of development, and that if S2 ever does reach final, it would keep on being developed as S2 Beta A, B, C or whatever.

Still, in this regard, I do agree that the stages are purely a name to set the different versions apart from each other, and that a lot of the community believes it to be like big finished version and then the devs can finally get to developing S3. When S2 goes final, that most definitely does not mean S3 will be in the works soon after. S2 will still need to be refined, fixed, improved, etc... so if you put that into perspective, realistically S3 is still going to be just our hopes and dreams. If S3 is ever truly going to happen years from now, by that time some will have grown older of LFS becoming less and less of a 'future sim', and probably moved on by then, to something new, or wont play games at all.

The dev's envision quite a nice sim, and have made something spectacular up to this point. If it were to ever keep growing, you'd need to see some big changes for it to keep up with modern games... or else business is just going to crumble to just a small group of community followers (much like GPL fans). I wont go into what LFS 'should have' to make it a competitive driving game in this era, been repeated too many times already

We do know that the devs need to earn money one way or another, so if they are still getting purchases through S2, I wonder how long they can survive. If they slow down with progress, I very much doubt they will have a stable income, and choices are either A) Keep developing to satisfy their users, or B) Go find another job in game development. Scawen has a kid to care for, so being at home to work is really convenient I bet.

Very interesting points.

I think what I meant is that I don't want to see like, a number of users equal to WoW, CSS, or Runescape. It would just completely ruin it for me, because the community would no longer be tight. I mean on this forum I think I know a LOT of you. (Well, by familiarity).

But in a big community, everyone seems to be so much more separated. And teams won't matter anymore. I mean, Drift teams like Saiko^D, or racing teams like ...I dunno, a famous racing team. , will just become lost in a sea of clans.

Though, I do play demo more because the servers are always active. S2 seems to be like a barren land. I mean 600 servers, take off the empty and the private, and you got
< 100.

I would not like to see full servers all the time, since servers are all run by users and if they all get packed, it would ruin the game.


In terms of actual development, offline play could be better, since LFS tends to get a bit bland after a while. Needs something to keep me playing. Like the training, but more in-depth. I can wait for Graphics, if my computer can't run it, I won't play it. And that's bad. Especially for my poor 30fps graphics card.

Physics are a priority here, and I hope they don't affect the performance of my computer too much, or the file size of the game.

I'd like to see LFS going that much further, and being publicized, but right now, LFS is that special game that not many people know about. I find it's really something that makes LFS special. It has been so underground, in fact I would get bored of it if it weren't for:

1. Someone who showed it to me, and we had lots of fun with it.
or
2. Online play

CD, I don't think there's any fear of LFS turning into a huge phenomenon like WoW, CSS or Runsecape (heaven forbid :eek. For one thing, from a purely technical point of view, you need much more than data entry skills to be even half-decent at it.
You also have to be sufficiently interested in racing - not just cars themselves, because every second game out there has cars - to want to play a game without any RL environments and few recognisable "big brand" cars. It's also in your interest to buy specific hardware (i.e. a wheel) to get the most out of the game. That can cost a lot more than an LFS license.

For those reasons (leaving aside the incomplete nature of LFS, which may well turn some people off from the start), LFS or any other dedicated race sim will always be something of a niche product, attracting a smaller audience than larger, mass-appeal games. Even the very popular ones like GTR still don't make much of a blip on the average gamer's radar. So don't worry - regardless of how popular LFS gets I doubt you'll see it overrun by clans of halfwits very soon. LFS isn't immune to people like that, but from what I've seen they're less of a problem than in loads of other gaming communities.

I like the underground factor, I like the "word of mouth" marketing, I like the exclusivity. Keeps the community relatively small and manageable. It's lucky I happen to like racing too

Quote from Tweaker :

just a mention from fans how "LFS will never be finished"

actually i think thats exactly what got me interested in the game and what keeps me comming back to it
its like a new game ever few months
obviousy a quicker pace of development would make things more exciting for my kind

either way i do enjoy playing something thats a bit raw and that every now and then will be cooked a bit further towards well done
by the time it gets there i usually tend to loose interest ^^

As far as I understood Scawens words, its not really going to be S2 Final in the original meanig. Due to marketing reasons, they just want to get rid of the "alpha" tag, as it really does not do the quality of the game justice. So, after we have S2 "Final", which I think is at least 2 large patches away, developement on S2 won't start immediately, but they'll still update S2. I think for us, the existing Playerbase, nothing will change, it's just that S2 isn't called Alpha anymore.

Still, I too would like a roadmap of LFS developement. Nothing exact or with ETAs, but just a list of features they plan to do for S2 and for S3.

As far as I know, the list would look like this. Additionally, I have added if a given feature was announced by the devs. If I missed any, feel free to correct me.

S2:
Graphical Updates of the GTR Cockpits (confirmed)
AI Improvements (confirmed)
SO update (confirmed)

S3:
Weather and Daytimes (community guess)

Which leaves following features to be classiefied, announced or confirmed:
better clutch handling (confirmed)
advanced damage (community guess)
advanced engine handling (community guess)
aero effects (community guess)
brake heating and wear (community guess)
graphical updates

What a dumb question - of course everyone who loves LFS wants it to go final. There's already a constant influx of demo racers and new S2 licensees and the occasional one of them is a total muppet, so we're used to and prepared for that anyway.
Besides, the majority of idiots don't bother with forums anyway, so it's not like we'd see a huge number of new people here all of a sudden.

And yes it'll eventually reach a "finished" state where even Scawen is happy with it, as much as any other full product does anyway. It'll probably still see the odd patch, but with such a long development time and so many people already testing it, most of the issues that exist will be dealt with very quickly.

Of course I would like to see LFS S2 finished! The devs made a lot of effort in it, and they wouldn't leave it unfinished I think. Quite a silly question, tho

Quote from The Very End :

The graphic could easly work for many years to come. Sure, it would be outdated compared to DX10 graphics, but still it would do the thing.

And, as you perfectly says, if there are more racers, then there will be a bigger chance to get new and odd combos with a lot of people playing, and that would be great fun.

Graphics arent that important, main point is the VR, the suggestion / feeling of all... You can have DX10 Ubergraphics and still dont be much into the whole feeling at all... My thinking is they could be improved (more polygones, dynamic light,...) but the feeling is great already...

Well, there are some interesting points mentioned in this thread. I think that the stage system is really only good for getting new people interested in LFS. As Scawen said, they need to get rid of the Alpha tag, for obvious reasons, as the general public will perceive LFS in a different light then.
But in my opinion, we could completely disregard the stage system. I mean, it is nice for the version tracking, but apart from that... I seem to recall Scawen mentioning the fact, that we are not paying for versions, but for the content. And quite honestly, the content is one of the major conditions to attract new licenses. Scawen is working hard on the code, releasing a lot of patches since the initial S2 Alpha release. But from Eric we got "only" BF1, albeit for free. I can only speculate on this, but I would be surprised if there would NOT be some extra content ready for the release by Eric. So my question is, why the LFS release "system" could not be done simply by Eric releasing his stuff "off sync" with Scawen? Off course, it comes down to "paying" more often, but maybe in smaller amounts. This way, we could have been already at for example S5X, with steady flow of new content, and with a steady flow of cash for the devs.
But then again, I am sure the devs know exactly what they are doing, and they have their arguments for the way they are working/releasing stuff, which I do not want to question at all.

I'm not bothered about S2 'final' one way or the other.

However, some of the elements that are likely to be part of it would be nice to see.

A good example is decent AI.
(assuming that there is enough of an in-sim interface to the AI, it would be possible for stuff like 3rd party career mode type things...)

Others much needed updates include the often complained about collision response, the damage modeling and the aero.

................................

As far as the final release bringing a whole bunch of new people and the existing community being fractured and changing, that has happened more than once already... It's ironic that the OP is worried about this when he was part of one of the previous waves of new folks that caused this to happen (I'm not saying it's a bad thing - it's just one of those inevitable shake ups that happen in any growing community)


Long live LFS

Quote from ajp71 :

I can't see why any true LFSer won't upgrade

Well I am no true LFSer (yet) but I will upgrade to S3 when available. Bad luck for S2 then, I guess

Quote from shockman :

...I can only speculate on this, but I would be surprised if there would NOT some extra content ready for the release by Eric.

I would expect one or two little additions, but we already have a massive ammount of extra content when comared with S1. What I do think we'll get are a lot of improvements to the existing content.

Quote :

So my question is, why the LFS release "system" could not be done simply by Eric releasing his stuff "off sync" with Scawen?

I'm sure there are many good reasons, but here's a good one that comes to mind immediately.

Incompatible updates to things like damage modeling, rendering, collision detection will require changes to the data formats of the cars and tracks. Some changes will need models to be tweaked and updated. Scawen can give Eric new versions of the modeling tools that generate the new formats at any time, but the content they generate can only be released publicly when the physics/graphics updates that they are tied to are also released. If new versions of tools are made, it makes sense that any other tweakes e.g. graphics engine updates, little optimizations and the like are included at the same time, any or all of these things could require work to be done on all the existing models, so it makes very good sense for public releases of incompatible Patches and releases of new content and/or updates to existing content to be synchronised.

Quote from Cr!t!calDrift :

I mean, do you really want s2 to be finished in development, possibly even put on sale, and maybe even retailed? Publicized?

Our family of racing sims will be overrun with new people, to the point of when this community is just a bunch of people who don't know each other so well. Where all the older people have left and are replaced with a community like a First-Person Shooter.

Even though I'd like to see LFS and all of the developers shooting for the stars and becoming successful, what will happen to the community?

Aren't you relatively new yourself ?

Quote from f1r3b4ll :

Aren't you relatively new yourself ?

Depends on your definition of new. It probably doesn't matter but I have more posts than you, even though being a year behind you.. but that probably makes me a spamming retard, right?

I dunno I started somewhere a year from a few months ago, so about a year and a half on lfs. To some that's a lot, to some that's nothing.

I don't want S2 final.....















I want S3

To have S3, you need S2 final first .

I just wish that Eric would at least show a sign of activity.

Quote from hrtburnout :

To have S3, you need S2 final first .

I just wish that Eric would at least show a sign of activity.

Is there any info from the DEVs about their actual progress? I would like to know when the next patch will come out and how much of it is done. I hope that Scavier will consider this possibility as it will psychologicaly shorten the waiting for next patch :P

Anyone have a crack for LFS-4????
I dunno, I was happy with plain ol S-1. Dark windows, white skins and all. My biggest fear that when s-2 came out you'd see an overwhelming amount of wreckers and worse, morons that can't seem to get that this is just a game (albeit a very well made game) and take it way too serious like the NASCAR crowd. Thankfully, neither has happened. In fact LFS still seems to attract the same people that it's always had. The only thing I'd really like to see done is better A.I.
I dunno, aside from passing curiosity, I really don't care when S-3 or S-2 final will come out. I have a hard enough time just getting around the track.
You know, it always seems that around this time of year that threads like this get posted