Ok, first let me clarify that this is no attack on Scawen or any of the people involved in the development of LFS. It's your lives, your families and your time.

I am a little concerned with the pace of development of LFS. Scawen just had another baby, and being the father of three I know how much time this takes, no matter how 'nice' and 'easy' the baby is. We've seen a slowdown in development the last years, and I see no reason to think the pace will pick up. No matter how far your head is stuck in the sandpit of LFS, you gotta see that other titles are catching up. That in itself does in no way make LFS any worse. I still think it's one of the best sims there is.

With the current development pace we will not see much progress at all, unless there is a large amount of incompatible changes that we haven't seen, for a long while yet. I for one am playing other titles when I race at all. I know many still get alot of enjoyment out of LFS, and I still do at times, but the current content will go stale eventually.

I'm just worried that this is the beginning of the end of a wonderful adventure. I've been around since the first public demo, and I've seen this game grow from the raw, homemade, awesome little demo it was, into the pretty mature, and slightly boring grownup.
I see Scawen nibbling away at small, insignificant issues. I keep hearing about new content. I keep seeing the same tracks, the same cars, the same races.
I know I am being slightly unfair here. I know the developmnt team is small. I know hacking away at the same stuff for months can drive a man up the wall. I guess what we're seing in the patches is the compatible fruits of some 'bored with the big stuff' bughunting and code optimizations that just turn into other things. I know ho programming goes, and can lead you off the intended development plan when you get bored. It's stuff that needs to be done, I know this.

Still... I have a nagging concern that it's not going to pick up. We're not going to get another flurry of patches, forum crazyness, weeks of speculation and devs toying with us about a new patch that they are obviously very proud of and can't wait to show us. No more hints in screenshots. No more Blackwood Gurus... Sad really...

I'm not worried TBH, sure progress isn't always going to be fast but LFS is still one of the best sims out their and if you take a look at SCGT you'll realise that no significant progress has been made on the ISI engine for years. To do things well takes a lot of time and we've just got to be paitent.

If it slows down, then so be it. It's been nice. But I don't think it will - I think LFS will actually pick up the pace of development in the near future. I certainly don't see it dying, and nor do I actually see other titles catching up. ISI remain as crap as ever, console games remain just that (no matter how many trolls try to pretend otherwise), nK is dead, and the ones being hyped aren't reality yet.

Will LFS even be beaten? Of course it will. I just haven't seen that challenger yet.

I was saying to Clownpaint the other day I think patch Y killed it for me. Not because of the clutch heating or the more complicated gear shifting, but because all my setups went up the spout and some of my car control configs don't seem to work any more. A year ago I would've happily started again with setups and figured out what was up with the scripts, but after three years of S2 I'm not excited enough about racing to do it so I packed my wheel away and made room for a midi controller and a firewire audio interface.

So yeah I see what you mean.

If you're bored with the cars, try handicaps or balanced car classes, it can be great fun. If you're bored with the tracks, spice them up a bit with some AutoX layouts.

Or if you're just plain bored then join a league

I for one refuse to believe that Eric has been working on the same bloody interiors for over half a year now, as Scawen has been claiming:

Quote from Scawen :

Eric has been continuing work on the GTR interiors using new reference material, we visited some racing car garages and got a lot of interior photographs of some cars to help make the LFS ones a lot more realistic.

There's got to be something they're hiding from us.. new cars? New tracks? Who knows? But that's just what's so great -- the secrecy, the speculations and the expectations for what is to come.

So no, I'm not worried. Plus, being a freshman still, I think today's content will be more than enough to keep me content (!) for any foreseeable future. It's already so great the way it is.

Hang on a moment, didn't we just get a brand new car? All we expected were a few tweaks to the physics and some car interiors, and we ended up with a new car. At the time I said I suspected they were infact working on a big extention of the South City track which was to be the nice suprise for us, when they got roped into making the FBM. I think there is more work going on in the background than we know about, and Scawen said in the thread about his lovely new child (who you seem to be calling a nail in the coffin, way to go on that one) that it had infact held up a big development push.

I don't see any other titles catching up either, the only one that even comes remotely close is Forza 2, and even thats miles off the feel of LFS. All the others we have known about for a while and the development has stopped (Netkar, Rfactor). I leave out the simbin stuff because they have used the same crappy physics since...well forever. The only threat I see coming in the near future is a sim that costs more than S1 just for a 1 month demo.

Have faith the development push to finish S2 is coming, and we should expect quite a few new features to keep us going long enough for S3 to be made.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I was saying to Clownpaint the other day I think patch Y killed it for me. Not because of the clutch heating or the more complicated gear shifting, but because all my setups went up the spout and some of my car control configs don't seem to work any more. A year ago I would've happily started again with setups and figured out what was up with the scripts, but after three years of S2 I'm not excited enough about racing to do it so I packed my wheel away and made room for a midi controller and a firewire audio interface.

So yeah I see what you mean.

Patch Y made me a lot less inclined to play LFS, because it overhauled the game right as I was far into the process of learning it. As a result, I got frustrated, went on hiatus for a while and only recently started to get involved with it again. As much as I like a challenge, it's disencouraging when the game undergoes such a major change just as you're beginning to learn to be competitive.

i really dont see lfs being overtaken on scawens end anytime soon and the only real competitor is still a while away from being release and prohobitively expensive
so the only area where slow development is currently an issue is erics responsibility who as far as we know doesnt have a baby at the moment

I am starting to think that threads like these are making Scawen loose the will to live (or to develop)

As said, LFS developement was never really that fast when it comes down to really visible improvements. The GFX engine is still the same as on the very first S2 release, so are the cars and most of the tracks.

The problem is that many of the patches and updates are more changing stuff under the visible level, like the language stuff for example. It's all very time consuming to get it right and in the usual high quality, but it's not really adding something to the experience of driving itself.

I understand that those stuff has to be done, but some candy would be nice from time to time, hell I would even pay for content updates...

EDIT:
not all the posts on those threads are meant for bashing the devs of "loosing the focus" as a thread once was called, in fact those threads come around every few month and are always discussed with the same arguments on both sides, usually ending with a totally off topic going discussion.

For once I would like to keep one of those threads to a constructive level...

Quote from Gnomie :

I for one refuse to believe that Eric has been working on the same bloody interiors for over half a year now, as Scawen has been claiming:



There's got to be something they're hiding from us.. new cars? New tracks? Who knows? But that's just what's so great -- the secrecy, the speculations and the expectations for what is to come.

So no, I'm not worried. Plus, being a freshman still, I think today's content will be more than enough to keep me content (!) for any foreseeable future. It's already so great the way it is.

I'm in the same boat as you Gnomie.

I'm pretty sure something big is in the mix at the minute, and has been developed for quite a long time. I damn hope I'm not wrong

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I was saying to Clownpaint the other day I think patch Y killed it for me. Not because of the clutch heating or the more complicated gear shifting, but because all my setups went up the spout and some of my car control configs don't seem to work any more. A year ago I would've happily started again with setups and figured out what was up with the scripts, but after three years of S2 I'm not excited enough about racing to do it so I packed my wheel away and made room for a midi controller and a firewire audio interface.

So yeah I see what you mean.

Hang on a minute, are we talking about LFS development going stale or complaining that a patch meant you had to redo your setups? Seems like a catch 22 situation to me, no matter what happens................

Quote from Aiden McGeady :

Patch Y made me a lot less inclined to play LFS, because it overhauled the game right as I was far into the process of learning it. As a result, I got frustrated, went on hiatus for a while and only recently started to get involved with it again. As much as I like a challenge, it's disencouraging when the game undergoes such a major change just as you're beginning to learn to be competitive.

Unfortunately for yourself this was just bad timing and wouldn't say it was patch y's fault per se.

I have a different outlook of LFS and one that means development is less important to me.

Look at it this way. Anyone here play football on a Sunday morning? Still using a round ball? Goalposts still more or less the same as when you started playing all those years ago? Bored of football? Of course you're not and why is that? Because you've got that big semi final coming up or a grudge match against a big rival.

And that's what LFS is to me. It is the trusty old football pitch. I don't give a fig about new things and developments, even physics updates. All I'm bothered about is my next league race against a rival. It is competition for me.

I suppose development must come to keep others interested so I have people to race against.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I was saying to Clownpaint the other day I think patch Y killed it for me. Not because of the clutch heating or the more complicated gear shifting, but because all my setups went up the spout and some of my car control configs don't seem to work any more. A year ago I would've happily started again with setups and figured out what was up with the scripts, but after three years of S2 I'm not excited enough about racing to do it so I packed my wheel away and made room for a midi controller and a firewire audio interface.

So yeah I see what you mean.

You have done it the wrong way round, thats the problem. I have been using a controller since S1 and I never spend ages making my own setups. When S3 final is out I might consider getting myself a nice wheel so I can enjoy it properly.

I personally think S3 will be the one with all the new content and features, and that S2 is just about building a stable bug free platform for it.

Quote from J@tko :

I'm in the same boat as you Gnomie.

I'm pretty sure something big is in the mix at the minute, and has been developed for quite a long time. I damn hope I'm not wrong

maybe he's been building new cars to put the new interiors in this whole time

It is a strange feeling. Few years ago, late 2005 and 2006 when you saw an interesting improvement you kinda had that feeling that some day it might be in LFS.

Nowadays I have to hope really hard to see an image of better LFS in my mind. Proper engine damage, better turbos, better collisions, working autox objects, more better content, better looking wheels, better cockpits, better ai (really), brake heating, better damage etc.. All that gone and what's left is the little hope that some day, maybe, LFS will take step forward, even a small one. Tbh. I don't see that happening.

The racing sim scene is changing, or at least the is promise of change. There is the kartsim coming, a whole new physics engine. Along with iracing and the co. Maybe they are yet another disappointments following the line started by ISI on late 90s but for a long time there is hope.

It doesn't mean that you can't have fun with LFS but it is getting damn hard with the current situation.

Doom!!!11

Gloom!111!11

i am 100% with atledreier. some time in the near future the game is outdated when it comes to sound/graphic and maybe physics, which is sad. heck the game does not even take adavantage of a multicore cpu or an advanced graphic card. this is good for those who do not have a high end machine like me but its defo nothing for the future.
we do not even have proper pitting or a day/night rythm... don't talk about rain...

the game won't improve in big steps as to get on the todays technical standard it would need a complete rewrite.


we are in S2 ALPHA!
so S3? dream on...


but anyway, this game is the best enjoyment i've had the last years appart from my girlfriend and guitars

and probably the only thing that will rescue this ship from going down the drain is opening it up for new content like cars and tracks...
and do not say anything about "rights and money" other games have tons of cars and tracks for years and nobody really cares. its just an excuse not an explanation...

i do not say: open it up for modding, because this will end in frustration as in rFactor sometimes... but they should give the community the chance to add new content which can be reviewed by the devs and then put in the next autoupdate.

the game is great but time does not stop

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

I personally think S3 will be the one with all the new content and features, and that S2 is just about building a stable bug free platform for it.

Yea, I have to agree to this, I wouldnt mind a little stuff like this though. Hehe, Dunno how i found that thread.

Quote from ebola :

Hang on a minute, are we talking about LFS development going stale or complaining that a patch meant you had to redo your setups? Seems like a catch 22 situation to me, no matter what happens................

Nah I was just making the point that it seems I'm less interested in putting in the effort to play LFS these days, and it might be because the content hasn't changed much since summer 2005.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

You have done it the wrong way round, thats the problem. I have been using a controller since S1 and I never spend ages making my own setups. When S3 final is out I might consider getting myself a nice wheel so I can enjoy it properly.

I didn't used to mind doing it - I know it's still alpha and things are going to change and I just accepted that and got on with it. But it seems after patch Y all my tyres are burning up and my cars are all hitting the limiter 10mph earlier than everybody else and I either need to re-jig my setups or forget trying to race people. I decided to do other things with my free time instead.

I'm sure I'll put LFS back on the next time there's a big patch, I still think it's a remarkable sim, but it's not something I do regularily any more.

I would like to see the day when LFS gets all of these updates people want, because there will be endless threads complaining that their PC won't run LFS anymore. People seem to want a luxury manshion before the foundations have even been laid.

S1 = getting planning permission and digging the foundations
S2 = laying the foundations and smoothing out all the cracks
S3 = building the manshion and giving it a coat of paint

The last thing we want is Rfactor, which is basically a big house built on sand.

Whatever the pace of LFS development, I think referring to Scawen's new baby (however indirectly) as a "nail in the coffin" is not a good way to start. I was reading this, and was looking again and again, all the while wondering "he can't mean the baby, can he?".

Anyhoo, I'm not really playing LFS at the moment much at all. I'd love some serious quantity of new content, it would renew my interest, but I've long since given up hoping for it any time soon. Nothing has changed. Development is slow, it always has been really.

it would be nice if eric or scawen had any friend that wants to join the dev's group

Quote from sinbad :

Whatever the pace of LFS development, I think referring to Scawen's new baby (however indirectly) as a "nail in the coffin" is not a good way to start. I was reading this, and was looking again and again, all the while wondering "he can't mean the baby, can he?".

Well with all the sleepless nights Scawen will have now he might as well put his new found time to good use So Nicole is a good thing for LFS