Quote from Racer Y :

You know, it always seems that around this time of year that threads like this get posted

School holidays.

Quote from ColeusRattus :

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

To this list you can add:
South City update (confirmed)

I would like it to be much bigger. More servers that are active with more combinations of tracks & cars to race. With the spam of the crusing and drift servers there is only a handfull of servers to choose from for people that want to race.

Many times I jump onto demo servers to find some good racing. Every once in a while I get some good laps in but you know what eventually happens on them.


+1, Make LFS bigger! Ill join the U.S. Promotion Department whenever we need one.

Quote from Dj-Aeri :

Of course we want S2 final, but, for the moment, I conform with the Y patch...

Anyone knows how is it going?

Scawen sure does.

Maybe because he is either resting/holidaying, or working.

You must remember that this is his "job", and I am sure you don't like thinking about your job 24/7

No one does, just like last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.
As soon as Scawen is ready to post some information about it, then no one knows, other than what has already been posted from him, updated South City and Westhill, updated GTR interiors, and possibly AI improvements.
Patch X hasn't been out for that long, I would expect Y is a way away yet.

Quote from danowat :

Patch X hasn't been out for that long, I would expect Y is a way away yet.

I'd agree with that, I wouldn't expect anything or be asking about patch Y until at least around christmas time. If you start wondering about the next patch now it will just go really slowly just don't expect anything soon, like danowat said, X hasn't been out long.

Can someone tell me why improving the AI is so important?

I presume they are popular in single player mode of for beefing up race numbers in multi-player mode?

I much prefer to race real people or HL, maybe used the AI for competition half a dozen times or so.

Are they really that popular or have I missed the point

To me, it's not important at all, because the multiplayer is so good.
However, there obviously are plenty of people who, for whatever reason (and lots of reasons have been stated in the past) do like using AI.
Also, a "finished" sim is expected to have half decent AI, not the muppets we have now, Scawen obviously envisages a "finished" LFS to have decent AI, so thats what we'll get.

Quote from HVS5b :

Can someone tell me why improving the AI is so important?

The AI is necessary for anyone who wants a race in an LX4.

Hold that thought

Quote from danowat :

Also, a "finished" sim is expected to have half decent AI, not the muppets we have now, Scawen obviously envisages a "finished" LFS to have decent AI, so thats what we'll get.

Is this not covered by the AI's 'learning curve' whereby they get better with practice (much like the real thing!). I appreciate they are awful to start with, but.....hey ho.

Back to the OP : I kind of dread the day S2 Final is released. As this will most likely mean no updates for a considerable time, plus I agree with previous statements that some of the things envisaged (rightly or wrongly) in S2F will not actually appear until S3.

But at the end of the day, it's just a name for a damn fine sim racing game

Quote from HVS5b :

Is this not covered by the AI's 'learning curve' whereby they get better with practice (much like the real thing!). I appreciate they are awful to start with, but.....hey ho.

the learning as it works now (ie by not taking any s2 variables into account) leads to the effect that the ais will learn to be quickish with warm tyres and later on in the race go off at every single vorner with red hot tyres
plus they dont know how to pit etc

so in other words theyre broken and since the feature set for s2 final obviously includes a functional ai and scawen apparently want to get rid of the alpha tag asap its one of the loose ends hes tieing up atm

I'm just waiting for the next patch.

Just out of curiosity, what other features- assuming AI gets fixed, the collision bug gets fixed, interiors and tracks get updated... etc, do people hope for or expect for S2 final?

I don't think there was ever any mention of improvements to the collisions. I don't think that's coming, sadly.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I don't think there was ever any mention of improvements to the collisions. I don't think that's coming, sadly.

actually there was
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=468716#post468716

seeing as one might consider the collision detection broken chances are its high up on the list of things to get s2 out of alpha

I think LFS is the best racing sim out there...if not please name one better.
Anyone play Colin McRae. I played the demo and it is garbage. LFS is the most lifelike racer I ever played. True I dont want dumb asses all over the track but I would like to see more available servers more races, cars. and such. It is too limited. I should be able to pop on anytime and have a multi-player race especially after paying 50 bucks for an incomplete game. I think we should try to market this game to serious players only, but that will only attract more more people.... Nothing wrong with that. You can alway boot'em. Plus if you are worried about immature racers there could be private servers that need a password to join. It is not hard to keep a respectable race environment. There will always be noobs and non sense players but they will always be out numbered by the serious racers.
BTW: What do you think the possibilities are of one day having motorcycles in LFS?

Quote from Deezy :

I should be able to pop on anytime and have a multi-player race

I'm always perfectly able to choose from a whole list of populated servers Then again, I haven't tried playing LFS at 3 in the morning, and I'm in a different timezone

Quote :

especially after paying 50 bucks for an incomplete game.

This is absolutely positively 100% irrelevant IMO

Quote :

BTW: What do you think the possibilities are of one day having motorcycles in LFS?

It has been suggested countless times before. Use the search function. Personally I hope the devs never bother with adding motorcycles to the game, although Scawen has said that he would like to try and simulate motorcycles at some point in the future.

Although the dev's have stated S3 work has not begun, I imagine it (initially) would be little more than new content, similar as S1-S2 was, and a significant patch.

Eric has probably been working hard throughout all this quiet time, and S2 complete's content is conceivably just short a few track updates and new interiors away.

It is not hard to imagine that Eric's PC has a few new track environments, and a few new cars (Prototype, GT1, Stock Car, Historics, Touring Cars, WRC, formula ford, super car, there are plenty LFS has yet to explore) in various stages of development. Some polishing and voila, S3a could be a significant upgrade to all of us in a relatively short amount of time.

If this were the case, Scawen could continue with whatever further S3 physics development he choses at his own pace.

This is just one idea, probably 0% correct. Feel free to flame.

Quote from srdsprinter :

It is not hard to imagine that Eric's PC has a few new track environments, and a few new cars (Prototype, GT1, Stock Car, Historics, Touring Cars, WRC, formula ford, super car, there are plenty LFS has yet to explore) in various stages of development. Some polishing and voila, S3a could be a significant upgrade to all of us in a relatively short amount of time.

To me that sounds highly unlikely. As far as I've been able to gather S3 will have revamped graphics and that will require most, if not all, content to be modified to take advantage of any engine changes (shaders must be written, higher res textures created, normal/height maps created/more polygons added).

That's actually one of the things that worry me the most about the developent of LFS right now. That's A LOT of artwork for one man to do if we're going to get brand new content in addition to what we have now. As the artwork gets more detailed, the time required to make it also goes up exponentially, so based on that I could easily see S3 being many, many years ahead still. I'm sure the devs know what they're doing though, but I don't, so I worry.

I agree, S3 will probably have a Lot more than more content.

That said, I hate the doomsday-sayers of S3's never developing. If the dev's really wanted to/needed too, I'm confident they could have a Large % of S2'ers being S3'ers in a matter of months.

Quote from HVS5b :

Can someone tell me why improving the AI is so important?

I presume they are popular in single player mode of for beefing up race numbers in multi-player mode?

I much prefer to race real people or HL, maybe used the AI for competition half a dozen times or so.

Are they really that popular or have I missed the point

Maybe the online demo options could be seriously cut back so people stop staying with demo mode and make a contribution towards the cost of its development? LFS needs to showcase it abilities which at the minute requires online racing. Giving good AI the requirement to allow big field online racing in demo mode would be reduced. Just my opinion, nothing I have seen from Scawen suggests this is in their minds.

Maxim

Quote from srdsprinter :

Although the dev's have stated S3 work has not begun, I imagine it (initially) would be little more than new content, similar as S1-S2 was, and a significant patch

8<-------------------------------------- *SNIP*

A good post, unfortunately this is the kind of posting that gets people's hopes up for nothing. Hope for nothing = be positively surprised

When you get a baby your life changes. When you buy an apartment your life changes. LFS is no longer the primary thing for our developers. And that's life .

Racing sims are quite hell of a boring hobby now anyways. ISI are pushing out nothing interesting. Nothing happens in LFS. Iracing are ...working... Netkar pro keeps doing what it has been doing since its launch. And drivers' republic is ...working, kinda like the West brothers. The kartsim is in its early stages and all the old sims, like GPL and nascar are just concentrating on their strongest points, single seaters and ovals.

And the bad thing is that nothing might not happen in the next 12 months. Not that anything very interesting or very good has happened since GPL imho. Papyrus at least tried but there hasn't been anything to replace them. And it is over 10 years since the f*****n GPL for christs sakes! Racing sims just keep going in circles... LFS is good because all the rest is so bad.

It is kinda sad that with LFS everything is just black and white. You either get to make your own stuff, like in rfactor where 90% is garbage and 1% is excellent or you wait 3 years for updated interiors. Which will be updated by out forum artist in the next few months anyways.

I need a new hobby...

^shoot me now.... LFS is still a fine sim, and it has a very bright future yet.