Why aren't blue flag situations prevented not allowing mid race joining? It's an easy option to prevent people from disrupting races they are not even part of.
I have to admit that I join races in progress from time to time. Even when I try not to disturb any action I sometimes fail misserably .
So why have the temptation? on 5 or 6 lap races the next race is always within minutes.
Some servers like to keep the flow/influx of players on the server and let them get right in on the action... even when a race is in progress. This usually fills up the server faster, as people don't have to wait until a race is over to join.
Other servers don't like people joining in the middle of races for fear of join lag and/or disrupting the race.
Those are the pros and cons in simple form Your poll is too hard to vote on, I am yes and no about this subject, it doesn't really matter to me.
It's all down to the server admins' preferences, and I guess that in proper situations mid race joining won't be allowed. It's an option, after all. That's why I won't vote this poll: if I ran a server I would turn off mid race joining only when needed.
Mid race join isnt a problem, unless there are some idiot drivers around. Actually it makes things boring for those people that have just joined and need to get used to the track first.
I even think that mid race join makes T1 less crashy, if the noobs can drive a few laps to get used to the car/track combo.
I like having mid race join. I tend to race with three or four friends and it's nice to be able to start a race with whoever is there, then have the others join in as they connect.
If you're having issues with people joining and messing up your race, or if you're messing up others, it's not a problem with mid-race join, it's a problem with the players.
The ability to disable mid-race join is one of the best features to ever be implemented in LFS, in my opinion. It prevents impatient people from ruining good races or voting them to restart. I don't mind waiting for the next race to commence when I join a server, especially if I know it will not be interrupted once it is underway. Still, it's good to have the option to disable it or enable it as desired.
Mid-race join probably does as much good as it does harm, I think. It lets new arrivals run a few corners (maybe a few laps) of the combo before the next restart, which probably helps avoid accidents at the start of the next race.
If you join decent servers you won't get too much trouble from mid-race joiners. I very rarely get people joining right infront of me (with the mini-map there's just no excuse for it!), or not yielding to blue flags.
From a server admins view we turn mid-race join on when the racing is all in good fun. The only time its turned off in our servers is when there is a league race on in it.
It does get really annoying when we get laggy Euro's joining our Aussie servers. Most of the ones that do have no idea of what the blue flag is or what racing etiquette is.
I think the Aussie LFS racers most of whom know or know of each other race alot cleaner and know not to disturb a race that is in progress by pulling out infront of cars involved in a race.
Let me put it this way.... If mid-race join was off then we would never get people to join our server especially when we have alot of 20 or so lap races in there.
Depends how long the race is and how many are on the server. For short pickup races mid race join on is my preference, for longer races 15 laps + mid race join off is my preference unless there is only a few of us on then mid race on is ok
It is annoying getting to lap 17 of a 20 lap race when you are slowly catching a front runner or your opponent is catching you and the race experience is lessened by some unthinking individual that joins and enters the track between the two of you
I like joining mid race as it gives me a chance to warm up But I always take care to join without getting in racers way. Like others have said, the problem is more to do with inconsiderate drivers than the ability to join mid race.
what would help is a delay between joining the server and joining the race, not long, just enough to take care of the "join lag" you sometimes get if theres a load of skins to download. also it would force people to actually look at the current race before joining.
if the new racers are sensible they shouldn't affect those already racing but what really p***es me off is when they join when the leaders are on lap 5 of a 6 lap race and promptly vote for a restart !
Do I mind when someone joins midrace, keeping out of the way of others who are racing? No.
Do I mind when someone pulls out of the pits infront of the action, holds people up and then tries to race people who are several laps into their race already? Yes.
Generally I don't find it a problem, people are usually pretty respectful. Now and then though, it can be really annoying!
If you happened to join just after the green flag, you could be sitting around for 20 minutes waiting for the race to end so you could join.
And people wouldn't do that (I know I wouldn't), so they'd leave the server and find one that has it enabled so they can join the action immediately. And an empty server is a dead server.
Yup, what Dajmin said there. When we first aquired the ability to disallow mid-race join, everyone was setting the servers up that way. And what happened is, people would log onto the server, try to join the track with the current race underway, not be able to join, and leave for another server. Eventually as those on the server logged off to go to bed or whatever, the number of racers would diminish to too small amounts to have a race.
If the multiplayer server list was updated with a few extra features, this wouldn't be a problem...
WinVROC for GPL is a great example. Most servers when I used to race had at least 15mins qualification, there was no mid race join, and often no car reset.
The main difference is that in the server list, you could see how much quali time was left on each server, so you could either go at the start of quali if you're a noob to the combo, or near the end if you're an alien and only needed 1 quali lap to get pole.
You could iirc set your server list so that the servers with least quali time to go were at the top... This meant that more people hang around in the 'lobby', so you get to chat with folk who: 1 - are not racing, and 2 - don't have to be into the same combos as you. Having experienced this approach before, I would be pretty happy to have this kind of setup in LFS - right now, the 'Lobby' is a joke.
Another benefit of this setup is that one common problem of LFS is less prevalent - when there are a few popular servers that are full and you can't get in, and the rest are nearly empty. Instead of heading for the full servers, folks tend to head for servers where theres only a few minutes of quali left to go... you can also all meet in the lobby and agree to joint the same server for the next race... Seems like a much more flexible and sociable approach than the current LFS setup.
In GPL you couldn't even join a server when a race was under way - I think that would be too extreme, but LFS could certainly improve by using some of the features of WinVROC
.
Your poll is too hard to vote on, I am yes and no about this subject, it doesn't really matter to me.
and the race experience is lessened by some unthinking individual that joins and enters the track between the two of you 