To clarify - I hated iRacing when I tried it like two years ago. I know that they have better tire model and that they are making better physics, but I won't install it just for checking actual state. But I believe that rFactor 2 is somewhere near LFS, and I strongly feel about pcars being even better when they ship.
That being said, I was not talking about graphics only, I am talking about every part of that game and general "untouched state of things". And don't tell me that you like sounds for instance.
When I first heard of LFS, it was almost state-of-the-art game with unparalleled physics (It is only game up-till now in which I actualy enjoy just driving a car). But now, we are entering 2014 and that game is still the same. It is nice and all, that you will make even better tires, but there are other projects, that are way better in many other ways. You need new graphics engine (and by that I mean DX11, teselation, folliage on tracks...). Badly. I love your online stuff, but it is kinda obsolete in many ways. You need new cars, new tracks, maybe singleplayer championship/career...
Why don't you have anything of this? you have 10 years old project, which was on top of the hill - you could easily work on it for 10 years and make it better by every year (EVE: Online - anyone?), you could hire few other people to help you (whilst still managing small company). 10 years have passed and now, there is rFactor 2, there is p.C.A.R.S., there is Asseto Corsa and even iRacing is fixing their physics and shifts to simulation.
Now I've played only p.C.A.R.S. (and when I was playing it, I was enjoying driving in it very much), I know nothing about actual physics in AC, iRacing or rFactor, but those games are advertising themselves as hardsims and they look way better than you do right now. You are missing your train (for like 6 years now).
How can you compete with them? If any of those games nails physics (to your level), you will basically became irrelevant. You should really rethink what you want to have 2 years from now, 5 years from now... Dead legend, or EVE with cars?
Why don't you have anything of this? you have 10 years old project, which was on top of the hill - you could easily work on it for 10 years and make it better by every year (EVE: Online - anyone?), you could hire few other people to help you (whilst still managing small company). 10 years have passed and now, there is rFactor 2, there is p.C.A.R.S., there is Asseto Corsa and even iRacing is fixing their physics and shifts to simulation.
Now I've played only p.C.A.R.S. (and when I was playing it, I was enjoying driving in it very much), I know nothing about actual physics in AC, iRacing or rFactor, but those games are advertising themselves as hardsims and they look way better than you do right now. You are missing your train (for like 6 years now).
How can you compete with them? If any of those games nails physics (to your level), you will basically became irrelevant. You should really rethink what you want to have 2 years from now, 5 years from now... Dead legend, or EVE with cars?
Now I am not trying to be "that guy who says you don't need it", but you really don't 
. Skin is car color, paintjob and sponsor logos - You can't say anything about sponsors or color, so in the end it's all about that paintjob and if that's that good, you should just make it useless for anyone else - and that's an easy part... just include your nick in your paintjob design. For instance, if you have flame design, you should just draw those flames around your nick, or make your name drop shadow in them etc. - fellow racers will see your design with flames and your nick and thiefs will not use it, because the can't stole it without your name on it 
. Skin is car color, paintjob and sponsor logos - You can't say anything about sponsors or color, so in the end it's all about that paintjob and if that's that good, you should just make it useless for anyone else - and that's an easy part... just include your nick in your paintjob design. For instance, if you have flame design, you should just draw those flames around your nick, or make your name drop shadow in them etc. - fellow racers will see your design with flames and your nick and thiefs will not use it, because the can't stole it without your name on it I will look in OWRL. THX for the tip
About Warcraft: you are playing the game from lvl 1 with other lvl 1 gamers, there are lvl 1 quest, monsters, dungeons etc, so you don't have to be 60lvl to play the game.
And I really don't want to handicap better players, but I believe that they don't want to race with me either. (What if I try the "first corner hero" technique, or crash them while they will be lapping me?)
About my times: 1:36 with rear-nonturbo demo car and 1:49 with hatchback are my BEST on lfsworld. EDIT: I can manage 1:41 with hatchback and I misinterpreted lfsworld data.
My idea is based mainly on playing with "equals" I will not try to race with others on track, which I don't know, same with the car, but if I give like 100 laps offline (same car/track) and I am not new to racing games, or simulators (not that I excell in them) I want to be able to compete, even if I will be somewhere on the very end of the race, I want to see the others, or maybe pass one normally and one which will crash... Not to go online until I will race 1000 laps (1:45 - lets say 100 seconds... so 27 hours, with 5 hours a week its more than a month alone...) is not an option and maybe I am just not that good. Then again, in real racing world, I will be playing local leagues, because better racers will be in more prestige leagues...
bottom line: don't you guys think, that it's actually very sad, that this game has tops of 2thousand people online? It is a sim (which I love) but it's struggling to be a game and it's very very demanding, before It starts to be rewarding which is problem for MANY gamers (why can iRacing have 25thouslands of them?)
About Warcraft: you are playing the game from lvl 1 with other lvl 1 gamers, there are lvl 1 quest, monsters, dungeons etc, so you don't have to be 60lvl to play the game.
And I really don't want to handicap better players, but I believe that they don't want to race with me either. (What if I try the "first corner hero" technique, or crash them while they will be lapping me?)
About my times: 1:36 with rear-nonturbo demo car and 1:49 with hatchback are my BEST on lfsworld. EDIT: I can manage 1:41 with hatchback and I misinterpreted lfsworld data.
My idea is based mainly on playing with "equals" I will not try to race with others on track, which I don't know, same with the car, but if I give like 100 laps offline (same car/track) and I am not new to racing games, or simulators (not that I excell in them) I want to be able to compete, even if I will be somewhere on the very end of the race, I want to see the others, or maybe pass one normally and one which will crash... Not to go online until I will race 1000 laps (1:45 - lets say 100 seconds... so 27 hours, with 5 hours a week its more than a month alone...) is not an option and maybe I am just not that good. Then again, in real racing world, I will be playing local leagues, because better racers will be in more prestige leagues...
bottom line: don't you guys think, that it's actually very sad, that this game has tops of 2thousand people online? It is a sim (which I love) but it's struggling to be a game and it's very very demanding, before It starts to be rewarding which is problem for MANY gamers (why can iRacing have 25thouslands of them?)
Last edited by GonziHere, .
So I should join server, where I will be left behind and then I should still race, step aside when I am lapped and that's better, because I can see, that my time is worse than theirs? I am not talking about "someone is better in that corner, how can I be as good as he is in that corner" but about "someone can go around blackwood in 1:35 while I manage to do only 1:40 so we are basically not racing together"
In my point of view, if you are not in the grid, you are playing solo singleplayer and if you don't fancy going around track like thousand times, you will -sooner or later- leave the game.
PS: you can still be motivated by "there are 6 splits and you are in the last one"
If you are in boring race, then you have to win few times (twice?) and you are switching league... but if you have laptime 1:14 and there are people with laptimes from 1:00 to 1:30 (one driver per second
) you don't want to race with drivers from 1:20-1:30 (they will left you in the dust and you will play solo) or with drivers from 1:00-1:10 (you will left them in the dust and you will play solo) you want to race with equals fom 1:10-1:20 (so noone will be left anywhere, you will be racing as pack) now amount of distribution is given via amount of players, but with this system, you can take 200 players signed to event, order them and then take first 10 players for one race, second 10 players for other race etc.I really don't believe, that you will enjoy racing with 3s faster/slower racers, which will left you on first 3 corners far behind (or you them).
PS: times were just to show concept...
Last edited by GonziHere, .
online league with many start times for one race and MATCHMAKING
Hello,
at firtst I must say, that your physics model makes this game better than anything else out there and I am comming back to this game for many years now, but I keep leaving the game too. It is because its online system - you are heavily missing few things, mainly iRacing like races (one race is started like 100 times per week, you can join whichever you want and how many you want and at the end of the week, your 2 best races are averaged) and matchmaking.
In real world, I would start by racing gocarts (which are "slow" but they have small track too, and they are raced by other amateurs), in LFS i have to start with hatchback, which is boring as hell and I still manage to be one of slowest guys on server, because many "pros" keep racing it and one lap takes almost 2 minutes, but has like 10 corners (Blackwood).
If you were to track "avg of last 10 laps with car a on track b" and averaged it and that time per person used as "skill" and then, if you were to provide some stable races, which will start several times a week, but will be "one race" (iRacing), and if you were to matchmake players primarily from same group (or you can just order 30 people signed for race by their skill and then have 3 different starts, 10 worst players, 10 medium players and 10 top players of that group), it will be a gamechanger.
Basically every online racer is missing good matchmaking system, but in this genre, it is absolutelly crucial - if you are 3s slower per lap, you are not racing, you are driving "hot lap" while others are racing. (However, if you are lame FPS player, you still get lots of fun playing against "pros" in Quake, because even if you loose by score, you will manage to get some kill)
Now this is based on population of server, so I sugest that you implement those mechanisms and start just one league, which can be track a week style, and have 3 different car types mixed race, will be launched on like 5 servers which will be filled by "skill" order and in time you will see, how much popular it becomes and you can add more leagues then or cancel even that one...
I don't know, how you like that idea, but frankly, your actual system is not really useable for casual gamer, which just likes good car physics and that is heavy underseller of the game. I don't want to play iRacing, I hate their snap-slide braking, their little oversteer=360° slide because we cannot simulate drift etc. and this is basically problem with every other race game, except LFS.
at firtst I must say, that your physics model makes this game better than anything else out there and I am comming back to this game for many years now, but I keep leaving the game too. It is because its online system - you are heavily missing few things, mainly iRacing like races (one race is started like 100 times per week, you can join whichever you want and how many you want and at the end of the week, your 2 best races are averaged) and matchmaking.
In real world, I would start by racing gocarts (which are "slow" but they have small track too, and they are raced by other amateurs), in LFS i have to start with hatchback, which is boring as hell and I still manage to be one of slowest guys on server, because many "pros" keep racing it and one lap takes almost 2 minutes, but has like 10 corners (Blackwood).
If you were to track "avg of last 10 laps with car a on track b" and averaged it and that time per person used as "skill" and then, if you were to provide some stable races, which will start several times a week, but will be "one race" (iRacing), and if you were to matchmake players primarily from same group (or you can just order 30 people signed for race by their skill and then have 3 different starts, 10 worst players, 10 medium players and 10 top players of that group), it will be a gamechanger.
Basically every online racer is missing good matchmaking system, but in this genre, it is absolutelly crucial - if you are 3s slower per lap, you are not racing, you are driving "hot lap" while others are racing. (However, if you are lame FPS player, you still get lots of fun playing against "pros" in Quake, because even if you loose by score, you will manage to get some kill)
Now this is based on population of server, so I sugest that you implement those mechanisms and start just one league, which can be track a week style, and have 3 different car types mixed race, will be launched on like 5 servers which will be filled by "skill" order and in time you will see, how much popular it becomes and you can add more leagues then or cancel even that one...
I don't know, how you like that idea, but frankly, your actual system is not really useable for casual gamer, which just likes good car physics and that is heavy underseller of the game. I don't want to play iRacing, I hate their snap-slide braking, their little oversteer=360° slide because we cannot simulate drift etc. and this is basically problem with every other race game, except LFS.
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