Dear LFS Community:

I posted a press release for our show Sim Racing Tonight approximately 12 hours ago and it was considered spam by a moderator here..

First thing I want to do is apologize if it seemed that way.

Representing SRT, I sent an email to the developers of Live for Speed and this was their reply..

"Hello Darin,
Thanks for your email. It is great to hear that you are providing this exciting service for the sim racing community!
It is difficult for us to just send you information about LFS. It would be easier if you were to perhaps send over some specific questions that we could answer for you?
Also, you may like to visit our forum www.lfsforum.net and make a post there. You will find that our community members will be more than happy to give you some background info about LFS. And I expect they will be interested to hear about your show too!
I hope it continues to go well and please let me know if there are any specific questions you want answered.
Thanks"

I should have been more specific in my post to this community about the show and for that I apologize too. We want to cover LFS ! Thats the main reason we posted here.. This is a viable sim racing community that deserves recognition.

I know that the show may have looked like it only covered rFactor and Nascar 2003 but that is only because it is the community we are most familiar with here at SRT. We started there in Episode 1 and now want to report on Live For Speed, GTR2, Netkar Pro, Arca Racing and any other program that is considered a racing sim for future shows.

That being said.. If the LFS community would like to be mentioned on Sim Racing Tonight, please send us as much of the following:

1) We'd like to do a "How to get started in Live for Speed" segment. Information on the best way to start, etc..
2) Who is the best in the LFS community
3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim
4) Point us to leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community.
5) Interviews with key people in your community

Please send to [email protected] or [email protected] .

Give us a chance to report on your community.. We hope you won't be disappointed.

Best Regards,

Darin Gangi
Sim Racing Tonight
www.simracingtonight.com

Quote from DarinSRT :

1) We'd like to do a "How to get started in Live for Speed" segment. Information on the best way to start, etc..
2) Who is the best in the LFS community
3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim
4) Point us to leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community.
5) Interviews with key people in your community

2) Me.

EDIT: Seriously speaking, I'm sure you'll receive plenty of proper feedback instead of the silly stuff.

EDIT2: Mail sent.

2.) spankmeyer

no one ever said it's spam. it was just moved to the off topic section , because it had nothing to do with lfs. off topic isnt always spam, you know?

+1 Spankmeyer, he da man

actually, the moderator did..

"On the basis that the OP joined the forum, posted one post (this thread starter) minutes later and was never heard of again, I'm concluding that this thread is pure spam advertising. "

quote=Da Hoe;530277]2.) spankmeyer

no one ever said it's spam. it was just moved to the off topic section , because it had nothing to do with lfs. off topic isnt always spam, you know?[/quote]

serioulsy speaking,
I am at work at the moment, so posting links is kinda hard for me (not enough free time)
on 4)
Im sure you should include the info about the Becky Rose's STCC season and broadcasts of the races (exiting stuff, really)
there's many more good stuff, but that just pops into my head when you say "LFS racing leagues"

also it would be nice to tell about the CTRA servers...


and why not tell about the massive amount of movies on LFS done by the community? Show some of them (Don's Slow Motion vids for example, Yamakawa's works are brilliant too)

+1 for Spanky

But, on a more serious note, I'd like to link you to an article about Live For Speed in the most recent AutoSimSport magazine, it will cover a lot of the information you're interested in:
http://www.autosimsport.net/ (download volume 3, issue 5)
The article is on page 33. Hope that helps a bit.

Darin, you have mail

Quote from DarinSRT :

Dear LFS Community:

I posted a press release for our show Sim Racing Tonight approximately 12 hours ago and it was considered spam by a moderator here..

It wasn't considered spam, where'd you get that idea from? This is the LFS General Discussion section. It is for general discussion about LFS. The original thread was not discussing LFS. It was just an ad for your show which also did not have anything to do with LFS.

After looking around here a bit STCC is high on our list to cover o doubt.. I love their shows ! Im listening to STCC7 right now and I happened upon one of their shows when we were coming up with our concept...

Some of the movies, servers and other cool things in this community would be great to report on.

The more the merrier

Quote from squidhead :

serioulsy speaking,
I am at work at the moment, so posting links is kinda hard for me (not enough free time)
on 4)
Im sure you should include the info about the Becky Rose's STCC season and broadcasts of the races (exiting stuff, really)
there's many more good stuff, but that just pops into my head when you say "LFS racing leagues"

also it would be nice to tell about the CTRA servers...


and why not tell about the massive amount of movies on LFS done by the community? Show some of them (Don's Slow Motion vids for example, Yamakawa's works are brilliant too)

Some points worth highlighting:

- LFSWorld: LFS's own statistics tracking database and website.
LFS automatically updates the LFSWorld database when you play online. The LFSWorld website allows you to query the database to obtain just about any type of information you can imagine. Want to know the race results and every laptime for every player in a specific race back in March, 2006? No problem, you can look that up on LFSWorld. Want to know spankmeyer's best laptimes for any track/car combination or how many races danowat has joined or finished, how many 1st places he has, how many 2nd, how many pole positions, how many laps he has run, his average gas mileage, etc? No problem, you can look that up on LFSWorld too. And that's just the tip of the iceberg; there's a vast amount of information at your fingertips.

- STCC/CTRA: basically an enormous league with over 14,000 users, a league table, licensing system and semi-regular events. This is a great way for people to get started without having to join a formal league. The system automatically registers you the first time you join a CTRA server and it tallies your performance, awards points and updates your license every time you race on one of the CTRA servers subsequently.

- Intel Racing Tour: run by Intel and BMW in Germany, a series of sim racing events using LFS and BMW Sauber mockup cockpits at various locations throughout Germany. The grand prize awarded at the end of each season is a brand new BMW car: an M6 last year and a Z4M Coupe this year. Over 25,000 people took part last year, the final event of the season was attended by Dr Mario Thiessen of BMW and the prize was awarded by Nick Heidfeld. More details here: http://www.intel.com/deutsch/racingtour/

Quote from BuddhaBing :

The system automatically registers you in the system the first time you join a CTRA server and then tallies your performance and awards points every time you race on one of the CTRA servers.

IIRC, the system doesn't register you automatically anymore the first time you join a server. Since CTRA-X you have to register and set a password using the wonderful ingame interface Becky has made. I'm not really sure if all your stats are tracked and if you get points if you don't register

Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!

Quote from DarinSRT :

1) We'd like to do a "How to get started in Live for Speed" segment. Information on the best way to start, etc..

Well, getting started is very easy. Just hop on www.liveforspeed.net and download the game. It is worth mentioning that you don't pay for the game, but for content licenses. That licensing comes in 3 stages:
Demo - that one's completely free. You have limited content, but unlimited access to it, meaning you can use it as often and as long as you want. What you get is one track in various configurations and three cars, which will entertain you for a very long time on their own.
Stage 1: Costs 12 Pounds, you get more tracks and cars, plus access to LfS World and you are able to upload custom skins which then get downloaded automatically for everyone you race with on S1 servers.
On a sidenote I den't know if it is still possible just to unlock S1
Stage 2: You get everything. Costs 24 Pounds, or 12, if you have an S1 License already.

Quote from DarinSRT :

2) Who is the best in the LFS community

I guess that can't be answered easily, as there is a multitude of leagues, tournaments, ladders and even race-types.

Quote from DarinSRT :

3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim

IMHO, the driving just feels real compared to other sims. I think reason for this is that almost everything is dynamically calculated, whereas in most sims, many things are done by prescripted and simplified calculations. That may work during normal racing, but once you get in extreme situations, the cars don't react like you'd expect them to. In LfS I have the feeling to know what's going to happen next at all times.
Still, LfS has flaws to, which are hopefully and very likely adressed in future patches, as LfS is, unlike other Sims, in constant developement. Features are basically getting added every few weeks.

Quote from DarinSRT :

4) Point us to leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community.

As already mentioned, I think the most outstanding league is CTRA. http://www.raceauthority.com for more Info.
I guess the Electronic Sports League, the biggest e-sports plattform in europe has a lot of high profile leagues and ladders too. (http://www.esl-europe.net)

Quote from DarinSRT :

5) Interviews with key people in your community.

I guess most people would be interested in Interviews with Scaven, Victor and Eric to hear what the next big updates are gonna be about.
I also recommend Becky Rose and SamH as they are the masterminds behind CTRA.

Quote from obsolum :

IIRC, the system doesn't register you automatically anymore the first time you join a server. Since CTRA-X you have to register and set a password using the wonderful ingame interface Becky has made. I'm not really sure if all your stats are tracked and if you get points if you don't register

Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!

All your results are tracked from the first time you race on a CTRA server. You don't show up in any of the tables until you put in your details, and you can't view reports/license notes etc until you have set a password.

About the spam thing...SamH was quite right in suspecting that the post was by an advertising bot, I thought it might be as well at first as it was from a brand new user who posted and ran, full of links, and in an oversized font. Typical of the ad-bot posts that appear on forums from time to time, although they mostly advertise viagra and the likes.

Quote from DarinSRT :

1) We'd like to do a "How to get started in Live for Speed" segment. Information on the best way to start, etc..
2) Who is the best in the LFS community
3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim
4) Point us to leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community.
5) Interviews with key people in your community

1. I got started in LFS through word of mouth so went to the site
and liked the look of it so downloaded it. First impressions have to say were not good couldn't even go round a corner hehe but i stuck with it and changed the setups and got better and better, so got the S2 and haven't looked back. Played GTR and GTR2 and a few others but ALWAYS come back to LFS put it simply its the best "racing sim" out there nothing comes close to it and having your stats recored and custom skins on the cars makes it a complete package

2. don't think anyone can say who's the best cause there are so many good drivers out there and in different fields of racing

3. hmmm well customised setups, customised car's by the use of skins the tracks are setup for all types of cars and user lvl's and the best part of LFS is the community here on the boards and on the track nine times out of ten if you need help someone will help and if your just starting out you couldn't ask for more in the game its self the choice you have of car's and tracks is brill from simple front wheel drive cars to monsters like the BMW F1 anyone can drive with the right setups. Another great feature is the Auto X tracks if your bored or like to design your own tracks you can do it on there anyway can go on all day saying how good the games is but the best way is to try it and find out

4. Sure if you look around the forums here there are many leagues and events going on all the time so keep checking and look in the league part on here

5. well Dev's would be a good place to start

Yes, an interview with the devs is always a great read. You would get every man in the community on his legs to hear what Scawen and Eric have to say especially.

Quote from obsolum :

IIRC, the system doesn't register you automatically anymore the first time you join a server. Since CTRA-X you have to register and set a password using the wonderful ingame interface Becky has made. I'm not really sure if all your stats are tracked and if you get points if you don't register

Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!

You are wrong. It tracks you automatic. Password is just for the sake of website. And the name and email is also for presentation. None of it is necessary if you dont want to.

To answer and close the CTRA debate so things can return to topic: Everything is tracked, we are just able to add extra services if you fill in certain registration information - but everything is optional and you dont have to do it (you just dont get services that rely on that information). Anyway I am speaking to SRT so thanks all .

Back on topic...

How should i read that becky "speaking"? You are being interviewed?

Quote from PRMLSCRM :

Please excuse our moderators. They dont represent our community and certainly don't represent me. They were not chosen by us and whoever chose them will never admit chosing wrong.

I don't think the moderators here were chosen wrong, but we are human and are sadly prone to making mistakes too.

@Bob & other moderators: Can we delete all the posts in all the threads where PRMLSCRM keeps starting flame wars with moderators. I'm getting a bit sick of it: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=530623#post530623

@SpikeyMarcoD: We've exchanged emails, we might do something together in the future. I think there has been enough interviews with me in the last year anyway, time for somebody else to have the limelight.

Well this one is for TV. That would be a first. Visuals! Or not ready yet?

I wouldn't want to turn you to stone!

Quote from LFSn00b :

1) We'd like to do a "How to get started in Live for Speed" segment. Information on the best way to start, etc..

Best way to start is to buy a wheel, and do the practise lessons.

2) Who is the best in the LFS community

Me

3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim

It has the most realistic physics i've ever seen, the suspension and tyre deformation physics are just... amazing...

4) Point us to leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community.

Sim Touring Car Cup is maybe the only league that is properly broadcasted.
www.simtouringcarcup.com

5) Interviews with key people in your community

Dunno

Would have expected to see a me at question 5 also Niko

You are right STCC speaks most to even ppl outside of LFS i suspect because of the broadcasts. Now we really need live broadcasts.
And more leagues to do it.

Quote from DarinSRT :

That being said.. If the LFS community would like to be mentioned on Sim Racing Tonight, please send us as much of the following:

1) We'd like to do a "How to get started in Live for Speed" segment. Information on the best way to start, etc..

Best way to start would be to get a wheel (guide to wheels in my signature), and an S2 license and have a go in each car (Using the "RACE_S" setup, which is a fairly nice setup for a beginner) at a different track for maybe an hour to get used to how the cars drive, what the tracks are like etc. I'd then recommend that they jump onto S2, and into the CTRA Race 1 server. I'd recommend they spend a couple of laps watching onboard with the leaders just to see the lines, the braking points etc. Then they should pick the XFG (as it's easier being FWD), put some fuel in (25% is a nice place to start), use RACE_S setup and join the race. After a couple of races you'll get the hang of things, and if you've got previous racing experience you should be "getting up to speed". As you to better, you might want to try the slightly harder XRG, which is RWD, and keep driving. As you do more driving the track will automatically change, and each time you should just spectate and watch the layout of the track etc. and have a go. As you get used to the tracks and cars you'll have done a fair few miles and will be ready to start racking up the points and maybe advancing up the CTRA ladder, or moving along to another server to try your hand at something different.

Quote from DarinSRT :

2) Who is the best in the LFS community

Best at? Becky Rose is one name that springs to mind due to her hard work into the CTRA system, and through the STCC broadcasts, taking Sim-Racing to (without sounding cliched) "the next level". Elektrik Kar makes some incredible texture mods, as does DoN, and Unseen, as does- oh, do i have to pick just one? :P Kegety's has made some very nice LFS Programs (including Momo Leds, and SoftTH, which isn't strictly an LFS program). We've got some great, fair, clean and fast drivers like the T7R drivers, and some others like Moose etc.

Best in what...?

The most important people in the community have to be the devs - unlike most games the devs (or at least 2 of them) ARE members of the community - we get posts from Scawen (the lead coder) periodically telling us how things are going, and what might be happening along the time - we also get a lot of patches from him (ie we got 46 (!) test patches before the main version of "X" was released to make sure everything was nice and bug free)

Quote from DarinSRT :

3) Tell us why LFS is the best or most realistic sim

Without opening the physics can of worms, if you want racing, LFS has the most active online community of all - 1,000 racers online a night, pages of packed 32 slot servers, good fair clean racing translated to good fun!

Quote from DarinSRT :

4) Point us to leagues, broadcasts, anything that may seem news worthy to the sim racing community.

The STCC Broadcasts, imo the best Sim-Racing broadcasts i've seen by miles - www.SimTouringCarCup.com

The CTRA website, showing stat tracking etc for the CTRA system - www.RaceAuthority.com

There are lots more leagues, like the MoE, but to be honest for someone who's never played LFS before the STCC is the best "hook" as the MoE is a number of laps around a track in a car they've never seen.

Quote from DarinSRT :

5) Interviews with key people in your community

Dev's speak, we listen...?

Couldn't be bothered to neaten up the quotes