I like Unicorns!

^^ nice avatar I LIKE UNICORNS and are you the real borat

Unicorns are fine (if you like that kind of thing). But come on, what kind of a lame-arse poll has no Giant Armoured Squid option? Bah. I wash my hands of this topic. Bah!

I dont wanna sound like a queer or nothing...but unicorns kick ass
[/obscure reference]

Seriously though, while its nice to have new tracks they would have to all come from an official source or something.

Its real annoying trying to find a server that has the same track, version and file name as you...

More tracks is a great idea. Modding is not such a great idea.
It doesn't matter as it won't happen before S3 is complete, according to the Dev's ( if then ).

An Offical track release of say 3 very different tracks would generate a lot of renewed enthusiasm.

Quote from Gabkicks :

my hero

meh as much as it does start to get abit boring now and then, no for modding.. i want this game as propper and real as possible..

if LFS is opened up then i think that the best way would be for the mods to be submitted to the devs and then if they feel the work/ results are acceptable, they could release them through an automatic update.

and for the record i'm quite happy with LFS being developed as it is now as one of the biggest attractions for me is the way that multiplayer works so simply and smoothly. new tracks may be interesting but there will still only be a certain number that get used and others that hardly ever get used online.

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 think that happens to everyone after a while. You get bored, lose interest or simply find a game that just takes up all the time you have because it's so good (to play something new/different).

What makes LFS so successful is that it has something that makes most people come back over and over again, no matter how many times they left it behind. I know I do

Regarding the topic:
LFS should be open to modding some day, but now is far too early. To be honest, I rather enjoy not having to wade through 3941 revisions of car X and to find version 125 of track Y just to have a race. Dev sanctioning would also not really work I think, considering that a) it takes time which they don't have now and won't have forever, and b) content sanctioned by the devs kinda makes it "official", which would basically rule out and real world content that needs licensing.

So in conclusion, Unicooooooorns

This thread wouldn't even be here if the devs would provide new content every once and awhile(over 2 YEARS since a new track was released)

LFS has survived long term, without any modding. I think LFS will remain popular because it works, modding or not. The devs will release new or updated content when its ready or when they see fit, as they will enable modding when it suits them. Fine by me.

Furthermore, the devs are listening to the community and have accommodated the wishes of the community as best as possible.

When/If modding comes, I'm sure it will be of the same high quality as the rest of LFS.

I don't like the idea of modding this game at all, but that is just my personal opinion. The really sad thing is that, as with all games, it does not matter how much new official or modded content there is, there will allways be the the favourites that get played to death, and the rest will be left to gather cobwebs in the corner.

I liked the LX month idea to promote different combos, and would love to see more done by the devs and community to promote the diversity that already exists in the game.

/me puts on flame retardant suit

The variety is already there, and it is not being used, so why do we need more content?

Borat,

The only thing you are paying for with this game is the content (Tracks and Cars). Everything else you get for free in the demo. Opening up the sim to user tracks and cars means the devs now don't need to make them and will be in compitition with free content. That will spell the end of development on the core functionality and physics engine.

Is that what you really want?

Quote from AndroidXP :

.....

What makes LFS so successful is that it has something that makes most people come back over and over again, no matter how many times they left it behind. I know I do

....

For many of us it's the physics that take us back even after years of playing.
I know I've said it myself....nothing wrong playing another "sim".
However, a few more tracks in LFS would mean the world to many of us as only LFS gives me the "edge of the seat yet comfortable" feeling.

If it comes down to mod tracks, I'd suggest something semi official.
Devs would have to OK every single track and that would be somewhat time consuming. However, it'd still be less time spent then creating the tracks them-self. I can't imagine anyone not liking free labor to be honest. I'm surprised devs haven't looked into it yet. As you can tell, I'm fine with fantasy tracks as long as we have a few more.

As far as cars go, my heart says yes but my brain says no.
I've see way too many disputes over physics when you toss real cars into the mix. I'm not sure I'd like to see those disputes in the LFS community.

/OFFish
I finally got SlickMod and V and put some nice R1's on the LX6. My oh my that brings out the perfection of that car.
My point being, if dev's included "track" versions of some current cars, they would get many of us off their backs and the effort would be minimal in terms of new content and specifically cars.
LX4 track & LX6 track would popularise the LX class without taking much effort nor changing anything about the game itself.
The RAC still sucks even with R1's one

Not sure what to vote. First of all I would love real tracks but I don't think we need modders to make them. The devs should be in control of the content as long as they are still working on LFS.

Saying that the small LFS community needs mods to survive in the long run is just plain wrong and backwards. LFS has been going strong for a lot longer than any of the competitors' games and the number of active players is a lot larger than in the competing games. I don't know where the rumour that LFS is a small niche of the sim racing community keeps coming from.

Quote from Gimpster :

Borat,

The only thing you are paying for with this game is the content (Tracks and Cars). Everything else you get for free in the demo. Opening up the sim to user tracks and cars means the devs now don't need to make them and will be in compitition with free content. That will spell the end of development on the core functionality and physics engine.

Is that what you really want?

Excellent point against modding right there. That point is something I had never thought of.

I think for S3, for the future of LFS, that will have to change. When everyone with lower licenses reap the benefits of stuff like night racing, rain/weather, track conditions, better models, better graphics, etc for all that would come with S3 (simply speculating for the point), then I am thinking that many will stick with lower licenses and not move on to S3 content and get the features for free. I think for the future of LFS, looking at it in the developer's eyes, they would have to sell S3 as both the content and the features.

Just because a feature gets added at licensed level does not mean it is available for demo users. TC, EBR, slick tyres and downforce for example, are all missing from the demo. Licensed servers have been recently increased to 48 connections/32 racers, yet the demo stays at 16/12 respectively.

So if night and wet racing gets added, there is no reason why the demo can't be limited to daytime dry conditions. I don't see a big problem.

Tis true, Bob, but you mention features we currently have that are car specific with cars that demo doesn't have and not features to the general LFS racing. Both demo and S1 licenses (or lack of licenses ) both recieved the graphical and physics update features when we recieved S2. That is what I was meaning.

Then again, you could call rain, weather, and night as content I suppose rather than features. And I wasn't speaking in the demo vs. licensed sense, but more the difference between the licenses (current S1, S2 vs. S3 when it comes.)

People itching for new content have given up too easily.

Remember, Live for Speed offers you something truly outstanding in that little line of concrete boxes beside the start/finish. If you go off and study the mathematics of things like yaw moment, roll angle, spring frequency, then attempt to build your own setup based on that knowledge, you will see that LFS offers you a whole universe of racecraft ready to be explored.

In real life, the best pilots compete in trying to figure out how to get a tenth quicker, and in Live for Speed, so can you.

If modding ever comes in I would like to see it tightly controlled in that the Devs or someone similar says yes/no to content. Once a car/track is released it should be LOCKED DOWN, no more changes at least until the next physics change in the release cycle.

Modders will need to perform FULL offline beta tests and perform all fixes BEFORE people can use online. None of crap "rate my first mod track/car" that happens on rF followed by patch after patch after patch until you cant play online because of version mismatches.

This control will mean NO real life cars or tracks because the devs involvement in the modding would cause licence issues.

The upside is that it will mean content could be integrated with LFS world easier. Also if modding were not controlled it would be the same as allowing LFSTweak without controls on its usage.

Why do we have to discuss this now? IIRC, the devs have already said that IF this is opened for modding, it happens AFTER the final release, which is, even by the most optimistic guesses, years away.

Does anyone recall any of the devs saying that LFS will definitely not be mod-enabled when it's finished?

And there's certainly no point doing it when the current content, graphics and physics could be changed at any time in the next few development years.

Let's look at it another way. Imagine all of the skinners at MasterSkinnerz or even just here having to redo every single one of their skins to be compatible with a new version of LFS. Thousands of people editing hundreds of thousands of designs to make what may be a small change but if not done would make them look crap. Sound like a lot of work?

Now think of the modding community having to do the same thing to (potentially) thousands of lines of their own code. I mean look what happened when we got the update to InSim - it killed off most mods for a while, and that wasn't even that big a change.
In that situation you'd do more harm to the modding community than good, because they'd get frustrated having to redo their work every time something changed.

We don't know what the guys are planning on adding themselves yet, so how about we let them finish their own content before we allow people to add theirs?

Exactly.

It's not doing any good thinking about modding at this time. Let's think about it, talk about it, when and whether it becomes an actual possibility in the future, when Scawen gives the go-ahead. The devs know demand in the community for modded content is high- they don't need to be reminded. There's little we can do now.

Mods including new track or car models are not allowed for now so there's not really much to discuss. What Scawen doesn't seem to mind is editing the attributes of the existing cars to, essentially, create new cars (ala LFS Tweak). Of course such programs need constant updating to work with current patches but that effort is know up front before work begins on a program.

So a question, if a mod came out that edited the attributes of the three demo cars (not allowing users to edit the attributes) to re-create three other cars, how would that likely be received? Assuming all testing was complete before release and thus there would never be any version mismatches.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Mods including new track or car models are not allowed for now so there's not really much to discuss. What Scawen doesn't seem to mind is editing the attributes of the existing cars to, essentially, create new cars (ala LFS Tweak). Of course such programs need constant updating to work with current patches but that effort is know up front before work begins on a program.

So a question, if a mod came out that edited the attributes of the three demo cars (not allowing users to edit the attributes) to re-create three other cars, how would that likely be received? Assuming all testing was complete before release and thus there would never be any version mismatches.

As that would essentially create 3 new cars, I think it would be great.
Having the same models as the 3 demo's would be a bit strange but otherwise I like the idea...at least until there is an official addition.

I have a feeling you are planing something along these lines.