As a huge fan of this sim, I was thinking - as more and more sims (and maybe "sims" ) appear on the market, isn't it time LFS focused on what niche of the market it can command, be it pick-up online races, etc. in order to keep selling and thriving?

I'm sure the LFS team could take a stronghold on the lower realms of motor-racing (Formula BMW, Formula Ford etc.) far more accurately and enjoyably than taking on the likes of Codemasters with their impending F1 2009 on the PS3.

Also, is it laughable that the same real-world experience and technology Scawen used to implement the Formula BMW goes hand-in-hand with drift and cruise servers

Where do you think LFS holds the aces?

Thoughts please!

If LFS would focus it would lose a lot of interest for me, at least. And being LFS a work in progress, and seeing the path it has been taking, i don't think it will ever focus as you say, and that's good

And the technology and experience of LFS's physics are based on real life physics, and as you should know, real life physics apply both to drift, city driving and racing.

Quote from The Very End :

This topic has allready failed :shrug

Every frikkin topic here fails these days, especially if there's something worth discussing. Not referring to this topic specifically, but it seems it's impossible to discuss anything of value without being snowed under by the volume of idiotic comments and worthless spam, usually from n00bs or freeloaders (i.e. permanent demo players), or the ten year old cRuIsErS, or other people that dispense make-believe as solid fact whether it be in relation to LFS development, PC advice, real cars, the list goes on.

This topic has already received 10 replies, and not one of them is to do with the subject at hand.

So, on topic: Yes, it is time for LFS to focus. The abuse of LFS to go drifting and cruising probably does tarnish it's name and reputation as a "serious" race sim, especially when it already suffers from a lack of respect from rival sim-racing communities due to the fictitious cars.

How? A realistic damage model would, surely, refocus LFS on what it's all about - racing, in any form or format. I'm talking real-life realism and tolerances to damage - you smash the radiator, your race is over unless you can get back to the pits almost straight away. LFS would benefit greatly from what I call "race procedural" improvements - making race procedures happen without the need for a willing coder to make use of insim. Things like rolling starts, safety car, qualifying and racing happening at pre-determined hours, more realistic on-track marshalling, and so on.

None of us know for sure what Scawen has planned for the next patch, but this kind of hard-core stuff that helps with the racing immersion is something that would help refocus LFS.

well we can't just tell the cruisers and drifters to sod off do we?

First of all we cannot ban drifting. The only way to do it is to rework physics, and then it wont be a sim anymore :P. Devs created insim, and thx to that we have cruise servers.

Personaly I have nothing against cruising and drifting, i do this myself sometimes for fun, and I believe that LFS should never focus. Seriously, if You like racing, You can race, drift You can drift, cruise You can cruise. Thx to so many possibilities(i'm just waiting for motorcycles in here ;P... would be interesting, races with them and with cars, for the first time in games ever propably :razz more people might join. And having more people is not a bad thing. We should have multiclass racing simulator totally. Thanks to those amazing physics it's propably not difficult. And dont say that You hate cruise servers because they are taking people away from racing, some/most those people dont like to race, so they wont race even when cruise servers will be offline.

Well.. that's my opinion .

Btw. About realistic damage, totaly after! But it wont refocus LFS :P. Realistic damage doesn't stop drifting and cruising in real life... doesn't it?

I've removed the spam posts.

Spammers, please try to stay on topic or simply do not post. We want this forum to be somewhere that sensible and mature people can have discussions. We don't want people who discover this forum to say "this place is full of 5 year olds and weirdos" and run away before they give LFS a chance.

Quote from petercollins :

Where do you think LFS holds the aces?

At first I was going to say: In the flexibility that not having a binding affiliation gives it perhaps? However other projects haven't had such affiliations and went a little sour (see nKp). So then we have to add dedication and professionalism in the mix. Perhaps it's a combination of the above?

Quote from Scawen :

We don't want people who discover this forum to say "this place is full of 5 year olds and weirdos" and run away before they give LFS a chance.

True - that comment should be reserved for the regulars.

Scawen would you be able to make a topic telling the racers that they have no control over the servers in lfs and to stop flaming drifters and cruisers. Every time someone says something about cruising. All the racers come and say things like oh look more cruiser noobs or go play tdu and sometimes more insulting things. Cause drifters and cruisers never tell the racers to go play another game or call them noobs cause they race. It is getting out of hand now. So Scawen it would be appreciated.

Luke

Ok sorry for beeing not constructive.
In my opinion it's up to people to chose how they want to play the game. If they have payed for it I see nothing wrong by letting them drive it the way they do. I am too, as others, tired of the usually flamewars that accure.

So -

You bought the game - play it how you want. The other just have to accept it or shut up about it. It's not like you are forced to drive on the cruise server you hate.

I have no problem with drifting or cruising servers. As long as they have to use the same excellent physics model as the proper drivers (the racers), they can do what ever they want. An option to filter out drift servers would be good though.

What LFS needs is not a special focus on things. What it does need is up to Eric, Victor and Scawen. What I think it needs is real life tracks, a prototype and a V8 Supercar

Quote from The Very End :

You bought the game - play it how you want.

kekekekeke yes but they should stop ruining things what doesn't belong to this racing sim.
Now where is the dot for this subject, there has been sooo many discussions about this and I can't see why someones are still talking about this

I'd say that one of the strongest points of LFS is that it simulates physics very well, a few things need tweaking and I'm sure they will be.

As for the cars not being replicas of a real model, I see this more of an advantage than a dissadvantage.

What people do with their LFS, in my opinion is realy up to themselves. I fail too see how this can affect me. If I don't like or enjoy what people do in one server, I can always join another or even create my own server. That people have freedom to do most stuff you can do with a real car is a strong point and just shows how good the software realy is. Drifting, cruising, racing, demolition derbies, driving with all your family in the car and stopping on a green bit to have a picnic.

Thanks a lot to all the devs and great comunity here for such a great simulator.

PS: Haven't got S2 yet, as there was some kind of transaction problem, hope to solve this soon.

Flexibility, ease of use and wide variety are the strong points of LFS. Adding more things to do in cars, and different cars to do it in, is the way forward (IMO).

To be more specific, we need more and decidedly fresh corners to tackle, vehicles that are unlike what we have at the moment, different types of courses. More emphasis on the drag racing, autocross, point-to-point rallies, etc, will all be welcomed, to get them up to the level of the circuit racing. More + better loose surfaces (e.g. gravel, snow) will make things more varied and interesting. I'm sure I've read somewhere that the aim of LFS is to simulate as many forms of automobile racing as possible. I can't see adding "more of the same" is going to bring back people who have lost interest, LFS needs something that makes you think "hey, I've not done that before, I want to give it a go".

Focussing on one niche, like low level Formula's, will not help the size of the community (although some would argue that's a good thing) and the likelyhood of finding a decent server online. I see LFS as an accumulalation of lots of niches, which is what makes it so interesting, while all the more commercial sims tend to focus in one area. One sim to rule them all, as it were.

Quote from STROBE :

n00bs or freeloaders (i.e. permanent demo players)

Am I a freeloader now?

I like how LFS tries to focus on a lot of things, but I think the devs should try to focus on one aspect first, i.e. new tracks before new cars. I know I am not one to criticize, but this is my opinion.

LFS focuses on racing, but people use it's flexibility to do other stuff, wheres the harm in that?

I'd have thought the fact that it is cheap and does everything is pretty much it's best point. It has open wheel and tin top racing, so it trumps most stuff out there. It has realistic physics and your real life driving can benefit from using it, so it trumps most stuff out there.

What more focus could it possibly need? You can't tell players what to do with an item they have, so even suggesting that you remove drift or cruise servers from it is pointless and stupid.

Product A: Does this really well.
Product B: Does this and this and this and this really well.

Which would you go for?

Quote from petercollins :

with drift and cruise servers

again ... again ... again ... and yes again !
why evryone complain about drift and cruise server .....
this game can offer us some real car driving simulation ... some like to get chased by a cop in a game and not in real life

and drifting is a motorsport like other

in your mind its like they should do ...
live for speed I(race sim)
"" "" II(drift sim)
and why not live for speed III(cruise sim)

nvm when someone start a toppic about what lfs should do there is always a points against drifting and cruising

Quote from STROBE :

Every frikkin topic here fails these days, especially if there's something worth discussing. Not referring to this topic specifically, but it seems it's impossible to discuss anything of value without being snowed under by the volume of idiotic comments and worthless spam, usually from n00bs or freeloaders (i.e. permanent demo players), or the ten year old cRuIsErS, or other people that dispense make-believe as solid fact whether it be in relation to LFS development, PC advice, real cars, the list goes on.



This topic has already received 10 replies, and not one of them is to do with the subject at hand.



So, on topic: Yes, it is time for LFS to focus. The abuse of LFS to go drifting and cruising probably does tarnish it's name and reputation as a "serious" race sim, especially when it already suffers from a lack of respect from rival sim-racing communities due to the fictitious cars.



How? A realistic damage model would, surely, refocus LFS on what it's all about - racing, in any form or format. I'm talking real-life realism and tolerances to damage - you smash the radiator, your race is over unless you can get back to the pits almost straight away. LFS would benefit greatly from what I call "race procedural" improvements - making race procedures happen without the need for a willing coder to make use of insim. Things like rolling starts, safety car, qualifying and racing happening at pre-determined hours, more realistic on-track marshalling, and so on.



None of us know for sure what Scawen has planned for the next patch, but this kind of hard-core stuff that helps with the racing immersion is something that would help refocus LFS.

you fail for me ... you saw a race sim without drifting ... drift is real like race is real why you want to just remove drifters ... how does the game would like ... you will grip on the track like in need for speed ???? this is ridiculous ... removing drifters is impossible nvm ...

after all of this i think lfs shouldnt focus why ?
1: its still an alpha and they still have a lot of time to work on REAL important thing not like ban all drifters/cruisers (that would be immature anyway)
2: there is a lot of ppl who paid for this game not only for racing
3: if they focus on only one thing what would like the rest ??? like impressive car but bad graphik ... yeah its just a stupid exemple but you see my points

thats all

Quote from Dajmin :

I'd have thought the fact that it is cheap and does everything is pretty much it's best point. It has open wheel and tin top racing, so it trumps most stuff out there. It has realistic physics and your real life driving can benefit from using it, so it trumps most stuff out there.

What more focus could it possibly need? You can't tell players what to do with an item they have, so even suggesting that you remove drift or cruise servers from it is pointless and stupid.

Product A: Does this really well.
Product B: Does this and this and this and this really well.

Which would you go for?

So it's cheap and cheerful then? Yes, the future of LFS is safe

I happen to think that the physics in LFS are probably the best out there. Why have a server advertising "police chases" and the like, when really LFS is so much better than that?

The market is getting flooded again. If LFS is to survive, I think the 'jack of all trades' approach won't help.

I knew nothing about LFS when I stumbled upon it and didn't even know it had an F1 car, never mind the Formula BMW following up later for free and completely unexpectedly!



APOLOGIES - DRIFTING IS FINE BY ME, SORRY FOR INCLUDING IT WITH CRUISING!!

Quote from petercollins :

I happen to think that the physics in LFS are probably the best out there. Why have a server advertising "police chases" and the like, when really LFS is so much better than that?

What part of "the developers have no control over what person x does with thier sim / server" do you not understand?

Quote from danowat :

What part of "the developers have no control over what person x does with thier sim / server" do you not understand?

Nice attitude there

They may not have control, but they should. It's off-putting when a newcomer logs on to see a glut of cruise servers for what is a top-class racing sim.

Which is why there is a cruise server filter on find server screen.

How do you propose that the developers stop people providing cruise and drift servers?

Also, you are looking at it all a bit negatively, LFS's primary focus is racing, because that side of it is so good, drift/cruise/sandbox whatever is an off shoot from that.

I have NEVER seen any improvements / additions to LFS that pander to the sandbox side of the sim, everything that has been added has been for the racing side of the sim.

Quote from petercollins :

Nice attitude there

They may not have control, but they should. It's off-putting when a newcomer logs on to see a glut of cruise servers for what is a top-class racing sim.

so you think they should do another masterserver with another exec as another games only for cruisers ??? you know that removing insim possibyllity will kill some nice comnunity ...???? cruising server is more than only an hour of work

and i forgot something does street racing can exist in a race sim ?

Quote from danowat :

Which is why there is a cruise server filter on find server screen.



How do you propose that the developers stop people providing cruise and drift servers?



Also, you are looking at it all a bit negatively, LFS's primary focus is racing, because that side of it is so good, drift/cruise/sandbox whatever is an off shoot from that.



I have NEVER seen any improvements / additions to LFS that pander to the sandbox side of the sim, everything that has been added has been for the racing side of the sim.

Drifting is an off shoot from that ??? does a Drift server need something special like cruising ??? no not realy only driving skilz

Quote from petercollins :

Also, is it laughable that the same real-world experience and technology Scawen used to implement the Formula BMW goes hand-in-hand with drift and cruise servers

Sadly right now easiest way to sell a lot more licenses would be to add NOS, support for bigger steering lock and a cruise mode and so on

No, being able to drift in LFS is an offshoot from the racing side of it being so good.

FTR, I don't accept drifting as a motorsport, like I don't accept ballet is a sport, and I have never understood cruising.......

Quote from danowat :

No, being able to drift in LFS is an offshoot from the racing side of it being so good.

FTR, I don't accept drifting as a motorsport, like I don't accept ballet is a sport, and I have never understood cruising.......

if you dont accept drifting as a motorsport its beacause you must know what is a motorsport

drag
drift
race
stunt
rally
and more ...
you cant decide if this or that is a motorosport or not