Great, I have no doubt that eveybody has something to offer. I believe strongly in the fact that people can do great things as long as they are all pointing in the same direction. I guess the big question is does anybody know the direction?
I appreciate that the devs play their cards pretty close to their chest but I am sure saying we need £x to license a track wouldn't cause much effort. Currently there are only 247 licensed racers online surely that number can be a lot higher. A little promotion push could also be a way of raising more funds.
Applying a little basic maths and business knowledge means that there is no way they are rolling in cash. Having been a developer myself for 15 years I know that extra developers doesn't always mean more development and I didn't suggest that the money should be spent on more people. I am sure the developers have a wish list of things they would love to have and I am happy to help them if I can.
I have read many threads about people who want additional features in LFS especially new tracks such as Nuerburgring. The big problem seems to be that some people are happy to pay for the extra features/tracks but the LFS developers will have to fork out a huge licensing + development cost before it can appear, so we are in a chicken and egg situation. As a business owner myself I know that the rate of development normally comes down to time and money, if you have more money you can develop faster.
So my suggestion is that we setup a donation fund to help boost the resources of LFS. It is already a proven method and works well for SETI (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donation_history.php) and many other distributed computing projects, they have raised huge amounts of money for hardware and the end user doesn’t really get anything better for themselves. It would be great if the devs could setup a target fund saying for £x we can deliver this new feature. Maybe the people that donate get a t-shirt or advanced preview. I am not promoting a two tier game but a way to help the developers out for a game I love.
I know everybody out there won’t be able to give but some will be able to. Plenty of people are happy to spend £200 on a G25 so a few extra pounds to LFS should be possible.
I am looking for the best race frame for under £500. I have found http://www.gameracer.co.uk/ and http://www.gamepod.co.uk/ but wonder if there are any other options out there. My welding skills are rubbish so a self building is not an option but if somebody wants to volunteer their skills a custom build would be great also.