Quote from KiDCoDEa :

true, but thats not whats in question here.
if you review latest "madonna album", trash it in public media, yet always adress it in the review (AND TITLE) as "britney's latest", there is sue material or at least a very good reason to be pissed about.
.

I think Madonna would be happy to get any press at this point.
But as for this particular review, it is not something one could sue over, at least not sue over and win. That's all I meant to say.

Women tripping over children not-withstanding.
( no pun intended )

Quote from Mr. Jones :

I have to admit that I have been totally turned off by the "demo" crowd myself.
They really are a bunch of Arseholes. It does give a bad impression. I also hear of similar problems on servers even when you do purchase a license (hence the reason for me not purchasing S2 yet). He did seem to go overboard a tad, but I have had similar experiences, too many times. If someone wants to test LFS, this is what they get. It does not leave a good impression for people new to LFS, like myself. Anti-semetic names, consistent crashers, general disrepect. It is not my idea of a good time. The license holders here will just tell me to buy the game. Well, as I stated before I have heard from many that this behaviour is also commonly present on the S2 servers as well. I believe this is a quality product, but it is difficult to enjoy if you are berated and crashed into and kicked from servers before you even hand over your money. I think some sort of control should be implemented on the demo servers. Since you are charging money for S2, even if it is an alpha, shouldn't that count as a full game? I am just giving you my opinion, I hope you repect it and see it as another view from an "outsider".

It's been made clear from the beginning that LFS will be released in stages, that these stages are part of a greater evolution for the sim and if you decide to pay for any or all of the sim that you understand what you are getting for your money. So nobody owns the full product yet.

I do not accept that the demo community (if we should even call it that since it is ever changing) should be stereotyped as wreckers or fools or as not being serious or good racers. If you go and play any first person shooting game (CS for example) you will be inundated with cheating, spamming, racism, all manner of childish insults, lag, disruptive players and it is really unavoidable on a public server. Any multiplayer game where the player has control over the "destiny" of others will be exploited by immature brats who think that everyone else on the Net is also an immature brat.

Indeed you will always find some bad apples wherever you go, but S2 licensed racers on the whole are here to race. Our community is growing so fast now that it is very easy to find a group of like-minded individuals who will cheerfully share a private server with you if you don't have the confidence in public racing.
It's not a perfect world, bad experiences in the demo may cause some people to abort the decision to get license but is any game different than this? I'm not sure what people expect the devs to do but as far as I can tell there's not a lot that can be done by them without ruining the concept of LFS.

This community is strong and for the most part we are all pulling in the same direction. If you want some serious racing join a team or a league rather than a public server. The licensed community represents people who have gone that extra step and decided to get involved in LFS properly, not just play a demo. Does this put us above an unlicensed racer? No. Does it make one man better than the next man? No. What it does do is create an environment where organised and seriously competitive clean racing is propagated. There are leagues and race series being held around the globe with great success. Many friendships have been fostered and you will be pressed to find a community that is so enthusiastic about the future of its chosen game or sim.

I have always said that the number of true race sims can be counted on one hand. LFS is one of those fingers. If you enjoy motorsport and racing and can see yourself making new friends and having a fun but competitive experience then come on over and join us. There's certain to be a place in our community for you. LFS is the real thing. Wreckers and brats wouldn't enjoy it anyway.

Hense the warning when you click Multi Player when you select Demo? ( See Below )

Obviously didn't read it ? And if he failed to read this little warning then what else did he fail on ?

I am not going to go through quoting the Warning, as you can see if for you self. Its all there in hmm, Grey, White and bold YELLOW WARNING

Nuff Said

Fordie

"need To Bleed"

"need to bleed"? reviewer - "Need to read"

its only demo m8

Quote from CI-Man :

Hi Racer Y

I guess by this remark you mean me ? Well i was one of the guys who read the review and was attracted to LFS by it, infact so much so not only did i buy S2 i brought a wheel to play it with. What reading the magazine and this review has to do with Phil Wand's (the writers) parents i dont know. What could you possibly be implying ? Comments like this just go to proving the writer right in his asumptions. We should be doing more to dismiss the fact that we are all Ar** Holes rather than helping prove it. Just for the record i was not "there by accident" and yes i am interested in racing sims.

Kindest Regards Tim

OK then it's YOU, people already exposed to LFS and his parents.... better now?

Oh and welcome to LFS.

Oh and the "parent" bit? uh you know.... kinda
like, "That Movie was soo bad, the only people that seen it was the director's parents"....
I was celebrating my birthday and was a little trashed when I tried to make my point.
LOL you gotta point though. He could be an abandoned orphan and that could be his problem

I don't know guys... Sure there are wreckers.. BUT for the most time, it is very very well spent time on the net! We have our public demo server in my country, and mostly we race there.. There are also people from another countries that come, and it is very good racing.. but sure there are idiots, who can ruin your good time.. Also, when i go to some foreign server, there is also good races.. Mostly people are ready to help you out.. and it is almost always a friendly atmosphere.. It is important to say "sorry" when it's your falt, put a smiley here and there, when something is funny, like someone flipping on the roof, or say "good race" when it realy is.. and so on.. Whit that attitude it is always a good time..

Well Boris, we all know that but people totaly new to LFS don't. Theres no easy and 'official' way for them to learn those guidances, like it is easy to skip the warning and join any demo server. I hope Vykos put some links and guides in together with those 300'000 (three hundred thousand noobs are coming! run for your lives! ) LFS demos on new Fujutsu Siemens PC's.

It seems that it is our job to spread the spirit of LFS racing to new people, and we would have to spend bit more time on demo servers to do that. Everybody who wants, take your time to just be there, be yourself, race well like you do and talk and help the others like you always do. I'm doing that quite often because many friends are still racing only in demo, and if people with more experience are there, all that mayhem that you might think is there is not at all that bad as it seems from outside. There are a couple of servers with good and friendly atmosphere for most of the time, but still, admins cannot be present there throughout the day. We need more people. So whenever you have nothing better to do, take your time and sink into the wilderness. Make a better image for LFS.

Its a tedious job, I hate policing the servers arguing with childish people but someone's gotta do it sometimes. But the reward for seeing someone new liking what he sees and not being put off by idiots, which would happen otherwise, and joining us in the whole fun LFS is, is well worth it I think.

Quote from Mr. Jones :

Maybe You don't have public servers for demo? It looks like it may be a disservice to the game itself? I know LFS is all about the MP...

...Why offer it? It does no good.

Interesting theory. Just think about it for a second, where would you go racing if there wouldn't be public servers? Set up a private server of your own and try and get some of your friends to race with you? That would be fine for everyone IF they had friends interested in racing sims.

Having public servers is the key point to LFS (and the demo) because it gives you the possibility to find and race people on the same skill level (or at least the same speed) as you. If there would be no public servers then you'd be pretty much racing against your friends until you beat them race after race and they quit - you ending up having nobody to race against.

Unfortunately there will be those who don't either know how to race properly or they just don't feel like it. Those aren't just kids, being able to wreck races anonymously is something that even older people enjoy when they feel like letting off some steam. It's like this with every game (and especially the demos), just like you said. This is something I wish everyone would realize, aswell as the following:

Buying a LFS license gives you an identity, albeit a string of characters. You can always be recognized, and you can lose your reputation. If a wrecker does buy a license and keeps wrecking races he'll soon be banned from the servers / kept an eye on. And there's no way around this other than registering again and buying a new license.

Not being funny or anything, but this thread still going on. I think I sumed it all up on my last post. There is very visable warning about demo servers, and how this is not controlled.

Obviously the reviewer didnt read this, and has compared the demo racers ( no offence to 90% of them ) to us that has paid for S2, and has build up a rapport.

Now me personally, I have been racing almost 3yrs with lfs ( Reg Sep 2002 ) to be called your average arsehole does make me mad, but to be honest, what on earth is it going to do complaining here?

Come on Guys, we are better than this. Lets move on and go forward. Prove that we are not your average arseholes and show the mag what is the best Simulation available to date?

How do we move on and go forward, well ignore there crap reviews and comments. tbh, and imho, the average person that reviews these games, hasn't never looked into it properly ( good example here I feel )

We can complain here until we are blue in the face, but tbh, sh*t happens. These sort of reviews will still happen.

We have voiced our opinions and said whats needed. Lets leve PC Zone to read the above and mull over what they attempted to do, but never succedded Give LFS and Proper review

Fordie

He did read the warning in the demo, he said so in his review. Fordman is right though, I think we have exhausted this topic.

Uhhh... I'd like to exrend the post just a bit more Fordman

I'm kinda going off topic with this, but it is related and I think it ought to be addressed............ UH in a way, we might actually be turning into "arses".

Used to be when somebody got a license and posted their first post on the forums, they were whole heartedly welcomed by the community. Now,
when someone gets their license, it's like," So? Do you want a cookie?"

Now as far as the wreckers in demoland goes, we have no real control over that but it seems we as a community have gotten more callous with the way we treat the new people. I mean it's still friendly and all, but we lost something.

Like the guy who posted above... C-I man. He noted he got the license after reading the review... AFTER reading the review. Heck he went out and even got a wheel to play the game!.....I said, "welcome to LFS", but it was jumbled in the middle of my response to him. It might have looked sarcastic instead of genuine.

I dunno, it's hard to explain what I'm trying to type here, but hopefully, y'all
will understand anyways.... I think the community could use a little tweaking.

Yeah, I talked to that reviewer's parents, they thought so too

Hi Racer Y, All

Thank you for your response Racer Y i can see it was a mis-understanding on my part, i guess this was due to the different sayings our countries have for things.
It suprised me that only one or two people picked up on my post and the fact that i actually went out and brought the game after reading the review. This seemed to get lost in all the negative or bad feelings that most members are experiencing.
Obviously i can understand why people are angry at being called Ar** Holes, i would be myself. However the way i see it is that the game did get 90%, as for the other childish comments i am adult enough to realise every online game has a small proportion of Ar** Holes spoiling things. I am sure there are a lot of other people like me that read the review and have gone out and brought not only the game but a wheel too because they can see its awsome potential.
If anything is going to put new members off joining its going to be the fact that this matter will not be allowed to die. The fact that people keep dredging up this one bit of negative press and refusing to accept it and move on. The fact that people still find it hard to accept any one who makes mistakes without fear of them being a wrecker. In the end the only winners will be the wreckers who like parrasites will move on to the next first person shooter leaving the shattered corpse of LFS behind before its fully got off the ground.

Kindest Regards Tim

I just want to mention : I believe that PC Zone do recognise this possible miscommunication, and will be publishing an interview (Q&A) with us, in one of their editions coming soon. They have to cut down the text we wrote for them, to fit it into the space available, but i hope it sets the record straight a bit.

Thanks CI-Man for not being put off by the text of the article, though my guess is that a lot of people would be put off, simply because there is no mention that all that text was purely about the demo. It was good to hear from your point of view anyway.

My first post on this thread was intended to simply point out both sides of the argument, trying to avoid a full repeat of the RSC thread, but it didn't really work out!

Anyway, Phil Wand shouldn't be surprised by the negative response from the LFS community. When you call hundreds of people a bunch of arseholes, or words to that effect, then you must expect some sort of negative respose from them, no matter what high score is attached to the game. We are thankful for the high score of 90%.

PC format has S2 on it's cover disc

Though they weren't really the first ones to make that mistake. Testing the S2 alpha demo as S2 full on the other hand, that's pretty impressively lousy! I mean, gaming journalists should be somewhat accustomed to the concepts of "demo" versus "full game" and "you have to pay/enter cd key or whatever for the full game you know".

And calling the LFS community [whatever it was he said], that's borderline dangerously foolish.

Nice to hear about the interview. :up:

scawen > mabey the download page for s2 alpha could have (in big font) that its pre released, unfinished, etc?

that should stop the confusion

Guys - he said he liked the title, that it was fantastic. It doesnt matter if it was a pre-alpha release...he liked it. He'll like it when it's a beta, he'l like it when it's a release candidate, he'll like the final release. The version number doesnt matter one iota.

What he didnt like was the behaviour on the demo servers. Who would - it's disgusting. But that wont change with a proper release version. It'll stay the same.

The only mistake the reviewer made was not mentioning that he was using the demo servers.

Doug

I might add that pretty much everyone was using demo servers at that time.

Anyway, we certainly have covered everything here so I'm putting this one to bed. There's no point flogging a dead horse, which is all we are doing now....

An interesting discussion, thank you everybody :Handshake