Somehow i got this optimistic urge all of a sudden...
It came to me that all this graphics optimizations are connected to some new graphical content (cockpits for example).. It makes sense, i don't see why would Scawen mess with that for no reason.
Since iRental is definately not my cup of tea, i can't do anything then to believe in LFS devs, as i always did, but some decisions and maybe "not so inevitable changes" (various languages) had some people to kinda loose a bit fait in future of LFS. I hate to say it, but if i don't see at least one completely new track and cockpits in the Patch Z, that fait will be on a life support...
All the kerbs fixed, corners revised and rescaled? Well, mostly rescaled and some kerbs were done differently. The kerbs weren't broken as the term fixed suggests. If some kerbs are broken they are the kerbs on Kyoto that are broken and not fixed. Kyoto especially has one buggy and totally bad corner plus other issues which have not been touched, even if the need to ge them fixed is 100x in my books compared to "updated" BL or SO.
Blackwood had one or two kerbs which had a sharp edge. Now chicane has been changed to even easier one, cutting is the way to go so for me the "new" chicane is even worse than the old one. South city's update was mostly graphical plus few kerbs I guess, I'm not seeing any different lines or new bumps if I drive with same settings as with the "old" model.
None of the updates on both tracks has made any difference on how the tracks feel or how I drive.
Not that it isn't good to see the stuff getting updated but looking at how long it takes to get something done I wish all that time was spent into new content instead of refining the old. There are no significant improvements that I can see. It will be interesting to see the Westhill stuff though. There doesn't seem to be any old roads to use as "new" configs so we may actually get something that is actually new! But as it is the westhill I have quite low expectation of it being fun, challenging or much different...
And if anything it is a total mystery how people can get so hyped up about simple cockpit updates? They basically change nothing else but how the cars look. For me cockpit updates are the small things on patches, kinda like nice to see that those have been updated too, kinda like in a "nice touch"-way.
Where is the essential stuff? Stuff that makes LFS go forward, progress?
Sorry, I may be off topic but I stopped reading this thread as I realised that those planning to "switch" to iRacing, are those with the least posts on lfsforum. Not that it matters, but I smell advertising. This is LFS forum if you want to discuss how competitive an ALFA game is, consider the fact that arguing on the internet is [ insert random angry word here ].</offtopic> iRacing may or maynot be an awsum GAME, I am sticking with LFS because I like to witness the progress, however slow and dramatic.
That's strange, because on blackwood not only kerbes are different but also the corner after the straight. It's sharper and the track is less wide there (also on some other parts). If you drive the same as before, you can't get trough that corner.
I think you expect to much out of it. The new testpatch (Y30 has lots of graphica changes compared to Y). The essential stuff is what you allready have, not an extra track that may or may not be added to S2 (I think that if there are extra tracks in development they will be part of S3 if development will continue after S2 final).
For me an essential change is something that makes or forces me to do things differently, it makes LFS a bit different, maybe even fresh. Not necessarily more challenging or harder but not easier either and not necessarily by adding new content by new tracks or cars at all.
Things that would do this for me are more sophisticated tire physics, limiting setup options, more sophisticated mechanical damage, varying track conditions, new track(s), LX8.
Stuff that makes LFS more realistic, more fun and more rewarding. Stuff like new interiors are nice but essentially they have 0 effect on anything, at least for me.
Stuff like dynamic weather would be nice too, wih rain and dark nights and all but that's not really what I'm asking for. Simple things like limiting setup options would make the road cars more interesting and maybe even more easier to approach just like better tire physics or turbo modelling would make the starts of races more challenging and rewarding, or the racing less like hotlapping and more like real races where the car starts to show up how it has been treated through the race.
The least what I want is updated graphics or some other fancy flicker and shine. I admit, the fps boost was great, all props for doing that. But to see time spent to make LFS "look better" instead of developing the features I wrote above, I dunno, I'd feel very disappointed. Like I do a bit .
Things I'm especially disappointed with are the sound patch, the ai patch, the track updates and the FBM. I feel that all these were released way too early or at wrong time and as such did not justify the time that went into developing those.
I really hope to see a new track before end of 2008. Now when Eric gets done with GTR interiors he can go on track modeling.
Hopefully that track is located out of Great Britain, but still somewhere in Europe.
Well most of the things you mentioned are scawen's tasks while the interiors were done by Eric so I don't think it held up any software development. I think the graphics updates are very important for people that don't currently own LFS. If LFS looks dated while other sims look much better who's going to want to play it? Standard road car interiors looked plain bad previously, atleast the XRG. I never drove in that FWD econobox lol... :hide:
I just reread your post and I got to point you something. This things had to be done. They were bugging us all for a long time, and even more ppl outside LFS, who are potential customers and the ones that bring new money. Let's be fair, interiors have been delayed for so many times that it become chronic lack of lfs. Also SO city graphics were bad and AI was bad. AI still stayed bad but at least it's not horrible as it used to be. And FBM, oh well, that's had to be done for V1 champs.
So now when all this has been done, I really hope that Eric is on the totally new track that will be great for any type of racing. Well, I wouldn't like it to be too good for F1, because no one really likes those parking lots run off areas
But something like Oschersleben, maybe just a little bit longer lap, but I mean that concept of track.
I'm probably the guy you're referring too. (not affiliated with iRacing, i swear) Maybe 'switch' is too harsh of a word, it's just that I expected more from the online experience in lfs. The public servers aren't doing it for me. I wanted epic online races but that doesn't happen with 4-10 laps and people constantly quiting and joining. There's fun to be had, that's for sure, but without lfs enforcing structure like iRacing does, I just can't see it staying on top of the game.
With that said, $50 well spent! I look forward to future versions.
Imo visual simulation is almost as important as physical simulation, and LFS was (is, on the cars still without any interior improvement) really needing it. With the new interiors and those two new little details (gauges and rim relfections) i think its good to go for quite a good time before another update on visual stuff.
Before labelling the visuals/cockpit updates as unnecessary or a waste of time, please consider that they take practically no time away from Scawen's coding. The only thing Scawen does on the modelling front is the UF/R, which looking at it Scawen didn't put too much time into either.
I do fully agree that significant gameplay related updates (anything that gets rid or lessens the currently practised unrealistic driving styles) are long overdue, but don't blame the cockpits for that.
Besides that, visuals can have a huge impact on immersion - they might not for you, but you're not everyone . Every time I drive a car without the new cockpits I already cringe, simply because how crappy the old interiors are compared to the updated ones. For the first time in LFS history the cockpits became believable in the road cars, and that's a big plus IMO.
After spending some time in iRacing and having loads of time in LFS I can honestly say that the two are not comparable. Its not because one is far better then the other but has to do with the fact that they each represent different aspects of this genre.
LFS is and will remain the best sim for getting togeather with your friends and racing door to door with the least amout of fuss and a high degree of fun. It has great accesability, ease of use and just works well for what it does. I will always remain on my hard drive for when I just want to have fun.
iRacing is a more hardcore oriented sim aimed with asperations of blending the world of real amature and profesional racing with that of simulated online racing. They are very structured, comitted to the attempt of turning sim racing in to a legitimate form of motorsports and they are off to a good start, and I feel their future is bright. Since I can not afford to field a real car in even am ammature class this is the next best thing for me.
At least that is how I see it. If the general racing enviernment, racecraft skills and driver respect I have found in iRacing were still the norm in LFS I do not think I would be in iRacing, but LFS has evolved in ways that have shifted the comunity in a different direction, which gives it new character. Not a bad thing but I miss those old days...
I guess I should have been more specific. I didn't mean to say that something that has been done is "waste of time", I never said that. What I meant was that the time invested into that one feature did not correlate with the benefit of having that feature. The time invested was not justified when looking at the result. As for Eric, the interiors, the SO/BL update, maybe even the upcoming WE update (I'm a pessimist with everything that has anything to do with westhill ) too have not been worth the time invested when you compare all that to having a new track, for example. As for Scawen, maybe the AI patch should have never happened, it was just left unfinished, just like the sound patch. Imagine the time spent on AI to have been spent in collision models or turbo models.
I don't really care about all these smal improvements, having the rewindable replay was fine (at last ), as was the false starts, the clutch heat (in essence) etc. was all good stuff but none of these small things are nothing special. It's all that stuff just gets done and released alongside of the big stuff. Where's teh big stuff?
I agree with the visuals, to a point. It's a bit like with the sounds in LFS. They are nothing pretty but when you are going wheel to wheel on some aston track in the UF1 do you really notice how crappy the car sounds or how crappy the interiors look? I don't cringe. In fact the new cockpits aren't that great either. The pasted headlights of the XRR make me cringe and some of the other stuff is nothing other than " slightly better new stuff". The LX6 hi-res cockpit is still the best I've seen and I'm already waiting for our forum artists to make some really good-looking textures for the "updated" ones
I'm aware of the different things our three devs do
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@Gimpster
Prolly wrong thread but... . LFS and iracing are most defenately comparable. Iracing and LFS both have great physics, I think iracing has better. Iracing and LFS have great online systems with different goals. Iracing aims to control all racing while LFS aims to mainly "just" store and show data in its various forms. One thing iracing doesn't really have, at least yet, is community. The iracing forum is not busy place and it lacks a lot character(s). Why isn't kev posting?
But, if anything iracing is not at all hardcore, just like LFS isn't either. Why do people see iracing as hardcore? What has that LFS doesn't that makes it "hardcore"?
Allan, I'm not an American, and I totally see Gimpster's point of view. I'm not yet in iRacing, but I will be shortly when a new system arrives, and the reason I haven't been frequenting LFS for a couple of years is very well summed up by Gimpster's comments. Sure, iRacing is a financial commitment, and if it doesn't turn out to be worth it, I completely agree that LFS is the almost the only other game in town, really, so I might be back.
But my point is that Gimpster's not alone. I think there's a whole demographic out there who will lean towards trying iRacing for the exact reasons G. outlines.
Not defending or accusing anyone - but it's part of the choice they've made by limiting the number of coders they have on the dev team to one (1) coder(s). Someone, that one, has to do all the coding - including the "small" improvements at some point. Unavoidably. Nothing much to be said on that I think. It's their choice.
Some marketing guy in a video saying that it's "serious" and has rating systems and licenses and acts like an official motorsports governing body. Also their site says the previous as well. Without a demo that's all, we cheapskates, have to base our perception of it.
etals:] i completly forgot about the alpha tag too 
. Every time I drive a car without the new cockpits I already cringe, simply because how crappy the old interiors are compared to the updated ones. For the first time in LFS history the cockpits became believable in the road cars, and that's a big plus IMO.