I feel that the demo provides to much, in all aeras. If they'd limit the game play per person then more people would buy, but allowing them to have access to everything but tracks and cars wich dosent leave much but more people are on the demo then s2. Cut back on connecting to the master server, the ablility to set up your car and the option of tracks, should be blackwood standard and the rally cross, in wich the game play should as well be limited to a couple of hours to give the player an idea if her/she would consider buying the game. Wich in terms means More money for the producers and in return more online races for us "s2 licensed" players. What could possibly go wrong? And to make sure the guest dosent try to download the demo again have it read ip's so each computer can get the demo one time. I know when i frist foung the game i was hooked and all i wanted to do was race, and if there were a time limit for playing i would have boughten alot sooner.


This is just an idea on how to possibly improve sells. If anyone feels different please reply. And I didnt use foul language, so please dont respond with any. - Mike " Typercivic "

I have often thought the same thing. I think having a bit of variety gets people hooked on LFS, then once that begins to fade they will probably reach for the wallet. The point of the generous demo seems to be (to me) to offer as many people as possible something that interests them enough for them to give it enough time to see what LFS is really about. 10 minutes online in a demo server would leave 95% with a fairly bitter taste in their mouth, not to mention the fact that there would be no occupied servers for people to try it on.
I think it's fine as it is.

This has been mentioned once or twice before and the usual consensus is that limiting the demo in such a way would be a bit unfair, especially in this late stage of development. LFS has had an unlimited demo (in terms of time and online play) since its release and to suddenly start imposing restrictions would be inappropriate, imho. The best way to get people interested in a license is to let them get fed up, in their own time, with demo server idiots

Some people can't afford 24 quid for a license but it's possible they will be able to one day, so to exclude them from LFS now, after having an unlimited demo for so long, would put a bad taste in their mouths - worse than the once caused by the idiots - and may turn them off buying a license in the future. The people who can afford a license but continue to play the demo exclusively have only themselves to blame for the frustration and annoyance they feel on demo servers

I sometimes hear the argument which goes "It's not the money - I'll buy a license when it's out of alpha stage" or something similar. Fair enough. But why continue to play the demo at all if you're not satisfied enough to buy a license? If it's a good enough product in it's alpha stage to run fully-fledged demo leagues and race regularly, imagine how much better it is with all the other cars and tracks, not to mention access to all the test patches

Quote from Hankstar :

Some people can't afford 24 quid for a license but it's possible they will be able to one day......

And FWIW, just recently, I've come across 2 ex-demo users whom I've raced with plenty of times since the first S2 demo release. Yes, they were still playing demo nightly since April of last year until just a few weeks ago. I would jump to demo now and then and see the same folks from a year ago and razz them a bit about it. "yea yea, I'll get a license someday" they said. Well, to my surprise, they showed up on licensed servers one night recently.

yeah, its kind of sad that the amount of demo players online always outnumbers the licensed..

I was thinking about that, what the Devs could do is limit the amount of demo players online at once, lets say 300 demo players at once, that might push them to buy the game, and would somewhat (at least I think) slow the wreckers since they would have to wait a space to join the online games once more.

What you guys think about that?

Yeah that sounds ok. Perhaps even limit the amount of demo servers that can be online at one time (which would, obviously, limit the amount of players as well)...

That won't create a good feedback among the demo players, I always think it's a very short sighted way to increase sells by not giving them what they want. It works to some extend but not entirely ideal. I think we shouldn't do that cos unlike big time publishers, we don't have a target of sales to meet, and if LFS grows in strength it's a matter of time people start to think about getting a license.

I would never had bought the license if I didn't test the demos for months before even considering. As it is, the demo is just fine. And if I didn't like the demo (aka it was CRAP), I wouldn't have bothered.

Here comes another silly way to increase short term sales by force.

who says it's coming? It's just an end user that doesn't like people playing the demo, hardly the first time it's happened...

This discussion pops up from time to time, so yes, it's nothing new. The conclusion is, that there's pretty much nothing that can be done, which wouldn't in some way or another alienate some demo players.

I think a required registration for online play would've been a good solution against or atleast to slow down wreckers, but then again, sorry but who really cares about wrecking on demo servers, besides the demo racers themselves? It's not like they have the right to demand anything.

There will always be demo players who need months (Jamexing ) to decide wether they actually like the game, and for some reason or another the £24 will always be close to threatening some people's existence apparently. Imposing some limits will just remove that few sales, and it won't really increase the overall sales longterm, IMO.

In the end, any time Scawen spends on something specificially for demo users is wasted time - I rather see him improving physics or sound, or the other 2947 things on his ToDo list, which are all more important than a bunch of demoers who already get so much for free, yet will never cease to demand more for £0.

-1

I have played the demo for months, before I decided to buy the full game. If i would have only few hours to do testing, I wouldn't be a S2 lincensed racer today.

I think the demo is just optimal. Just look how much more S2 can offer.

All I would do is remove some InSim (like no RCM messages, no echos) and the XRT.

Quote from duke_toaster :

...and the XRT.

And what would you archieve with that?

Quote from AndroidXP :

And what would you archieve with that?

3 cars is too many in a free demo.

"too many"

Do you really think removing a car that was there since ever is going to make the demo racers happy and increase sales? I'm sure no fan of adding demo content, but at the same time removing some wouldn't be good either. I don't think there's a good solution to the current situation at all, so there's nothing to do other than simply leaving it alone.

ALL THE CRASHERS, THE WANT TO HELP THE DEVELOPERS AND TO DRIVE BETTER FASTER CARS MADE ME BUY S2.

SOONER OR LATER, THE DEMO RACERS WILL GET BORED OF CRASHERS AND THE 3 CARS. WE DON'T NEED TO REDUCE WHAT THEY GET TO MAKE THEM BUY S2, THAT WILL MORE THAN MAKE THEM STOP PLAYING DEMO.

JUST MT $0.02.

P.S. SORRY ABOUT CAPS, IM AT WORK - AS SHOULD YOU

What escapes me is how this thread is in the "Improvement Suggestions" section of this forum. Anyway, the demo is fine as it is, no need to add or remove anything. As AndroidXP has already said, when was the last time a reduction in demo content and quality actually made people happier and positively encouraged them to buy thewhole thing? And if the demo was an absolute pile of crap to begin with, most LFS racers won't even bother to have a second look.

Hope this much is clear to all.

I dont give a flying weeble wobble what's in the demo content, i'm licensed, I dont race there.

The LFS business model is the concern of the LFS devs. They put the content in they feel is best, and they have all the statistics and data from sales order tracking and LFS World access to know what's best to earn them a bigger Turkey at Christmas. I don't have that information, so I wont pretend to know what is best.

leave the demo as it is, there aren't much games where you actually get something for free, including full support

Quote from herki :

leave the demo as it is, there aren't much games where you actually get something for free, including full support

^^agree

just let it like this, I mean, if you look at 'normal' demo's you don't get the full physics and stuff!
The demo now shows what the game REALLY is, not what it could be like...
It's now clear how the game is, and so make S2 licenses...
I mean players who only stick to demo aren't players to have on S2 (get it?)

-End post-

err, mabe limit their time to like 1 hour a day? as in evry day they can race for a hour, if they dont, it doesnt go to the next day, you just get 1 hour?illepall

That remembers me to a program my dad made...
1 hour a day, every minute too much was 1 minute less next day... (but that would go on forever so it's sort of useless unless you have an auto-shut-off function for it...

Just let the demo be like this... think about the people with brothers...
It's like:
--Can I play LFS now?
-No, the hour is over
--crap.
--- WEEKEND ---
--Can I play LFS now?
-No, I already played it.
--How can I have weekend then?
-Don't know, try tomorrow.
---Tomorrow---
-Hi.
--Hi.
-Played LFS already?
--No.
-Ok. *runs to pc*
--argh, *censored*

See next post

When was the last time this happened:

Gamer tires demo. Demo was crap.

Oh, wait, I know , lets get the real thing!

If someone actually bought a game because the demo was crap, please feel free to downgrade the demo to who knows what.