I wounder how to bring the chat function to life. I'm playing for about 2 weeks LfS and the chat is almost anytime deserted. But it could be such a good place in order to gather people there and to decide what cars and tracks they want to drive.

Everytime I'm waiting in the chat and I see someone entering it too, he left the chat imidently as if he has entered a forbidden area where a dangerous creature is lurking for him. Sooner as I can type "hi".

Perhaps the chat can be combinded with the car selection group, which could also open the corrosponding chat room automatically, e.g. TBO -> TBO Lounge, STO ->STO Room, S-S -> S-S Only Room etc. Also a class independent chat room for Newbes, Average and Pro Driver would be nice.

In UT almost everybody entered the chat and it was a really handy way to see where (what server) people were playing, so you could find/follow your mates.

A system like that would be great indeed.

I don't know Unreal, but I like the way of combining chat rooms and a game's server list like it has been done in the gamespy client. There you enter at first automatically the chat of a certain game, then you can look for free players in the chat room and talk to them. You can also join a running server.

Due to the huge amount of online players (compared to other racing games) and the high diversification in driver skills and available cars it should work in LfS with more than one chat room, too. That could also help to gather people with simillar interests and skills in certain rooms.

If nowadays with only one chat a pro driver wants to drive a clean race without noobs in the FO8, he has proberply no interest in talking to someone who is new to the game and who wants to try out another track with the XFG. I think many people try to avoid such fruitless discussions and therfore they don't use the chat as it works today.

LFS already has a meeting room. Go to multiplayer, check for online games and at the top right is a link to the meeting room. Nobody uses it though. I once ran a poll and out of 82 replies only 3 had ever been to the meeting room, that was a long time ago though. Using LFS World it is easy enough to find buddies.

Solution to this would be that you'd automatically enter the "meeting room", but it's still sorta minimized so you only see one or two lines of chat maybe? Everyone in the MP tab should be visible in the meeting room but the chat window shouldn't take up too much space.

The only reason people don't use it is, and here comes the kicker, because it's empty most of the time. The few who try instantly leave again as soon as they see it's empty. But if everyone automatically showed up in there then I'm sure it would be much more used.

as android said, plus.. as few servers are ever up and running in LFS there is almost no need at all to use it, because you can make your decision quick.. unlike alot of those RPG games where there are about 500 servers up constantly

I agree with AndroidXP. At least an automatically log in in the chat would be fine. Then we'll see, whether the chat is more accepted and used or not. If people should do so, we can think about inroducing further features or additional rooms again, if wanted.

Yeah I think the meeting room is under-utilised. I guess if you usually race with your buddies then you don't have much use for the meeting room thanks to LFS World and its handy features. And some people just hate chatting anyway.

Sometimes I hang there while waiting for our server to start but it's a cold and lonely place, a little breezy at times, and you may even see the odd tumbleweed blow by near the old fence where the raven sits.