If LFS is going to survive long term then its going to have to be opened up to the moding community, I know a lot of you old timers out there are shaking your heads and saying, it will be the death of LFS. Your right, I think the community is too small to support a vast array of mods, but also having a small community can help too.

Ok I will say it now, I'm not talking about opening it all up, just tracks. Real Tracks.

The way I see it, it can only really be a good thing, it will grow the community which in turn puts more $ into the development of the game. Secondly it will extend the life if the game. And thats ultimately what the community and the dev's want.

The cons, are that it could tear apart the already small community.
Well this is where we have to be smart. We need to set up ONE place to upload/download tracks. This could work in a few different ways. One is the community votes, another is that a small group test and filters out all the crap. Even just one new track every 6 months would be cool.

However that part works, the important part is to have 1 map pack to download. So people wanting to race custom maps only have to download 1 pack and not look around for different tracks. This pack could be updated ever 6 months or so.

I understand why the dev's don't want to let go of their baby, and thats totally fair, but also I think they need to look at whats best for the community and ultimately best for them. Its obvious that they have a huge amount of work ahead of them, you could say almost endless. So why not make use of the great talent out there that is happy to not only work for free, but put content into the game that you would normally have to pay for.

LFS doesn't have a huge marketing budget (I'm guessing) I would guess that 90% of the promotion of this game is done via the community, and these days the ability to mod a game is a huge selling point, it instantly says to someone I will get great value.

So really what I'm saying is allowing some modding will help build the community and with that bring in more $ to help the dev team build the game. Seems like a win win situation to me.

So now stand up and be counted! Lets send a message.

Another one of this kind of topic, do you guys use your eyes or are you so up in your "original" idea so you can't use the search button nor see the 300,000 other threads about this exact thing?

And for the record. How many games/dev's accept these kinds off things? How many people post threads on the EA-forum saying that they want this and that and EA does what ever the people on the forums want?
They don't.

Everybody that posts these threads are forgetting one thing, the game belongs to the Dev's. There is an open forum with a suggestion-section, sure. But that does not mean that you can decide what should be in the game if you get 200 posts in your thread that is positive, it does not change one thing.

The Dev's choose what is in the game and they also decide what not to bring in the game, and if they say that we do not want this and this we as players should respect that. Let's face it, we get to play the game and be a part of a really nice community even when the game isn't finished! How many other games allow that?

Please, stop these threads. The Dev's don't need it, the players don't need it.
How do you know that the Dev's are not working on new tracks and new cars as we speak? You can't know. You shouldn't know either. But just stop these threads.

The only thing I would ever want is a proper Top Gear test track. It would be really fun to compare times with the XFG with the actual times from The Stig. Other than that I don't really care for mods.

I totally disagree. Not opening up LFS to modding will NOT spell the end of this game. If that was the case, people would not play the demo for 2 or 3 years straight. I started playing this game at S10.5E or something and only got my licence when S2 Alpha was released.

Look at rFactor. It may have a larger user base (although I dont think its too much bigger than LFS) and is totally moddable. Given this, it should be a highly developed huge game with massive popularity, yet it doesn't. It is not highly developed and is by no means the best simulator. In this instance, modding may have saved rFactor in terms of changes in content, but playing it online is almost impossible due to no servers or everyone wanting to play a combo that no one else wants to play.

For a game to survive in a demo stage for so long with such a different and open development schedule is a testament to this bunch of computer code.

Its a big NO to the modding!!!

firstly comparing the dev's to EA is just silly. EA sell their games due to huge promotional budgets, not the community's they create. Anyway Ea don't even really make the games, studios do and if they are multi player and they want to build a community they open up to mod, not that I'm saying we should do that, I do think this community is to small for that.

2nd, I'm not saying they should hand over their game to anyone. That is the reason why I am saying "just" to allow tracks, its a small part of the "overall" design of a game.

and 3rd, if there are 300,000 threads on this, then maybe thats a reason to start listening to people. We are the people who buy the game who pay for the development of the game, now its totally up to them what they do with their game but to say they shouldn't listen to the us is also silly.

I am bored of all the content in LFS. I know every corner and have raced every car I am interested in. I want a new challenge. Make of that what you will, but thats how I feel.

Quote from Damo74 :

Look at rFactor. It may have a larger user base (although I dont think its too much bigger than LFS) and is totally moddable. Given this, it should be a highly developed huge game with massive popularity, yet it doesn't. It is not highly developed and is by no means the best simulator. In this instance, modding may have saved rFactor in terms of changes in content, but playing it online is almost impossible due to no servers or everyone wanting to play a combo that no one else wants to play.

This is why you only open up a small part, so it keeps it simple, and easy. People still know how to drive the cars, keeps the racing close, but if you want custom tracks then you get the one pack that everyone who wants custom tracks has. there for hopefully keeping the community together.

Quote from Borat :

and 3rd, if there are 300,000 threads on this, then maybe thats a reason to start listening to people. We are the people who buy the game who pay for the development of the game, now its totally up to them what they do with their game but to say they shouldn't listen to the us is also silly.

Why? It's their game. They should do what THEY want and not what the people want, if it was your game would you do what-ever someone on the forums wanted?

There is 300,000 threads about putting NOS, bodykits and bling-bling into the game, should the Dev's "listen to the people" on that one to?
I know that I would not listen to what-ever the people said, sure I would listen on some points but it had to be in the frames of my dream.

Quote from Dalarna :

Why? It's their game. They should do what THEY want and not what the people want, if it was your game would you do what-ever someone on the forums wanted?

There is 300,000 threads about putting NOS, bodykits and bling-bling into the game, should the Dev's "listen to the people" on that one to?
I know that I would not listen to what-ever the people said, sure I would listen on some points but it had to be in the frames of my dream.

In short Yes the Dev's should always listen to the community that plays their games. If that fits in with their vision of the game thats another story.

Here and now we are talking about real tracks, now I understand and the community understands that there are more important things they focusing on, I think its about letting go of a little to gain a lot.

Quote from Becky Rose :

I am bored of all the content in LFS. I know every corner and have raced every car I am interested in. I want a new challenge. Make of that what you will, but thats how I feel.

I canot say that I maybe know evrtu combo and such, but I know that I have drive all tracks and cars, eighter in offline or online mode, and I really have to say that it`s startomg to getting borring. We haven`t had any new stuff for a long time, so I hope the DEV`s at the moment are working on something new for us.

Quote from Becky Rose :

I am bored of all the content in LFS. I know every corner and have raced every car I am interested in. I want a new challenge. Make of that what you will, but thats how I feel.

I have a similar feeling, but maybe for different reasons. I don't mind having seen all the layouts, but the thing that bugs me is LFS feels too safe.

Racing is still very hotlappish as you know only a major driver error, like flying side-first into a wall in South City, will end or hamper your race (unless you can limp back to pits and away you go again). Tyres can be perfectly tested before the race to make sure they won't overheat and since 90% of all possible malfunctions and damage variables are missing at the moment... You just feel too damn comfortable sometimes.

Quote from spankmeyer :

I have a similar feeling, but maybe for different reasons. I don't mind having seen all the layouts, but the thing that bugs me is LFS feels too safe.

Racing is still very hotlappish as you know only a major driver error, like flying side-first into a wall in South City, will end or hamper your race (unless you can limp back to pits and away you go again). Tyres can be perfectly tested before the race to make sure they won't overheat and since 90% of all possible malfunctions and damage variables are missing at the moment... You just feel too damn comfortable sometimes.

This is why I like to drive rfactor at the moment so much. Every time you hit the wall or spin you just can't press that magic F9/10 to see if the car got damaged or if the engine still has all the power there. Add new tracks to that, corners that you are not sure of where the ideal line is or know exactly where the bumps are. It is all for the excitement and immersion - it just feels fresh and something new. Something that LFS hasn't really felt like for many months tbh...

Imho, opening LFS for modding and making the modding deliberately hard would defenately bring up some interesting and quality-wise excellent stuff. By deliberately hard I mean that something like the GPL route might keep the low quality stuff rare. I know that in rf 80% of the stuff is very low standards and maybe 2% is excellent. Imho that 2% is still enough. By open to modding I'd add that tracks only. Cars should be something "by devs" only - and to make the separation between S1/S2/S3 to survive.

Of course the tools need support, as well as need to be usable enough but I can't really see any serious things why this couldn't be done. As everybody knows, the wait after S2 final is going to be one hell of long one...

EDIT: and I like unicorns too. Choises :/

I'm not bored of all the content in LFS, just all the content that it's possible to regularly race online. I don't know what's so fascinating about circuits with three corners.

I like unicorns, and the search function.

I voted for "I like unicorns". And rfactor.

I'm not interrested in real tracks but I'd like some totally original modded tracks! With weird layouts and environement

voted yes cos i totally agree with the poster , LFS is getting quite boring for me now since i first started playing it, and god knows it's been a long time !!! so yes for some new tracks, and if i only had to pick one, it'd be "THE RING" .. so, LFS definatly needs something NEW !

I voted "No soup for you!" simply because I had just watched that Seinfeld episode just a few days ago.....

I do not agree that no modding allowed would be detrimental to LFS. I do agree with some of you that stated you are bored with the fact that you have run every corner in every car that interests you. Usually the comment comes up that there are 800ish combinations out there and "You haven't even driven each one" in these threads. Some combinations simply doesn't make sense, such as XFG at Westhill or BF1 at Aston Cadet. "You haven't even driven every combo possible" simply isn't an arguement. As Becky stated, my thoughts are also that I have countlessly driven every combo that I'm interested in.

First, we have no idea what is in store for us as content coming from the developers. We can guess and speculate, but none of us knows. We have seen that improvements to current tracks are coming for the next patch, but no one can be sure that Eric doesn't have 4 more new environments to release for us or not.

Second, the point that this is a game in constant development still stands. For those in the community with the skills to make a proper quality track for a mod would take a long time. During all that time of developing that fantastic track, the development of LFS could be going on to make all current tracks now unusable where something would need to be drastically changed. The mod gets released, and 3 days later, a new patch is released causing the mod to be useless and needing a complete rework. It would get frustrating.

I would love to see quality mods coming from the community as I believe there are some here with the skills to create those quality mods. But how many times does these points against currently modding LFS need to be made in these 300,000 threads of this subject before it sinks into those who argue for modding?

Big fat no from me.

No, and I hope it will never get opened up to modding. If I see an rfactor server I want to play in( If I find a server to race that is), I have to download that mod to play ( note, I can only download 12 gig a month, and people with 64kbps would not like to download a different mod for every freaking server ). Now I can click multiplayer and I'm racing in just a matter of seconds. And that's a lot more important to me and it is the reason I bought Live for Speed. And in S3, I'm sure there will be more content added, so what's the fuzz about ? I'm getting bored about people who can't think further than real life cars and tracks and make a new thread about it, because it's been done before.

lfs has survived this long without real content so why change that now?

"I like unicorns", just because this topic has been discussed 100 googolplex times

There'll be new LFS content and features coming, I'm sure. Modding may be possible someday, but I don't want to speculate any further or encourage speculation in this thread. The thing is, it's pointless trying to influence what the devs will work on next. They run on insider logic that the rest of us don't understand. While a certain feature may seem unimportant or uninteresting to us, it may make all the sense in the world for Scawen to work on that particular thing at that particular time.

I don't mind. I just got hold of GTR2 after really enjoying M3 Challenge, so I've now enough new stuff to pique my interest for awhile- I'll consider it a bit of a holiday from LFS. Guys, get another hobby or seek out something new if you've had enough. I'm sure Scawen/Eric/Vic are busy working on new and interesting things for LFS. No game is going to keep you 100% interested 100% of the time, especially if you've been doing nothing but play LFS for 2/3/4 years straight!

Shame you diluted your poll with that third option, huh

I've done over 110,000 kays since s1; I reckon I've raced every combo that interests me. Even a single new high-quality fantasy track, made by the community, would go a long way towards renewing my interest