indeed it is about time some people have areality check on LFS some people believe or think they 'know' that LFS is the best sim around. indeed LFS is a goodun, but it still has some big issues to be resolved - tyres, dirt grip reduction, more advanced damage, and definatly physics:
since when does running the nose on a formula car, or GTR car as high as possible make a car handle better/go quicker
Indeed, i as well as most of the lfs fan base know about the bugs, but what bugs me is that some people, like your self defend LFS at any time they can (which is a good thing) but when people are wrong they cant seem to understand..
take critisism on the chin - its a good aid to improove things.
Actually it was just this what I was talking about. It took me a lot of time to get the feeling for the cars, to know when you're at the limit. That's why I drove the FXR so long (because that car has no feelings, lol).
It's always about the final score with every review that most people argue about. I just hope people still download the demo and try it, but the 5/10 review will make some think twice
EDIT: Damn typos. I command you, my keyboard, behave!
ok, first, the review overall is pretty good, lfs still has some flaws but thats why its called alpha at the moment. exactly cause of that you shouldnt have given it a score imo. and saying that its your subjective opinion doesnt make it better. reviews everytime should be objective otherwise they arent reviews for me, just opinions...
also i personally think there shouldnt be a single player mode, cause everything lfs is about is the online part. i know myself that it isnt easy to find clean servers, but thats just cause not everybody is as experienced as you need to be. its a simulation in the end, not some arcade racing game everybody can play without practice.
in addition your comment "But I'am looking forward to seeing what they are going to do with s2 final, hoping its not just a bunch of further language updates." is just silly cause not everybody on this world speaks english...
maybe you should read the posts made by scawen here: http://www.lfsforum.net/showth ... ge=18&highlight=patch
What is with all the whining, bitching, and moaning in this thread? Just last week people were trying to think up ways to get word of this game out. People were talking about getting it into the hands of reviewers and even trying to get Jeremy Clarkson to review it. Well, we now have someone reviewing it and giving exposure to the game and people are bitching because it didn't score high enough! What would you all be saying if Mr. Clarkson had driven the sim and said exactly the same things?
I love LFS as much as anyone else on this forum but the review makes some very good points and I agree with it for the most part (except the 'boring tracks'. Westhill is a dream). Many of us are willing to look past bugs and shortcomings because of our love of the game. However; the average Joe will not. If we want to expand LFS and increase the number of users we need to appeal to a broader audience. This is going to mean prettier graphics (even though I personally think they're outstanding already, so long as you run AA/AF), better sound, and improved physics.
And this whole issue of "it's an alpha" is just stupid. While it may be an alpha product it IS for sale. If someone can purchase it, they should also be able to review it and compare it to other products for sale in the same genre (rF, NR2003, GTR, etc). The alpha status of LFS has been used as a crutch by this community for too long. LFS costs approximately the same as other sims and therefore we should expect as much and directly compare them (again, I personally feel LFS is the best out there or I wouldn't be here, i'd be playing GTR or something). I'm sure that Scawen and company know that their product is good, else they wouldn't have many thousands of us paying for it. I'm sure they also know there is room for improvement. And i'm sure things will improve markedly as we get closer to S2 "final".
I think LFS is the best racing sim on the market by a wide margin. However, it is not without it's faults and this review does the community good by pointing them out. Hopefully this review will fuel the dev's desire to make LFS a better game just that much more. If the sounds and "slipperyness" of the physics are addressed I don't think any other sim will be able to touch LFS.
Ok, sorry to stick on a detail, but i just don't agree with this Gunn.
In fact, i did some research to make sure i'm not just talking out of
my butt. A simulator, by definition is a machine, it's a physical thing,
while the simulation is the process of simulating, what LFS does.
The simulator is the seat/wheel/cage and computer itself, all of which
respond to outputs from the simulation, a software, LFS. We make words
to better describe and understand each other. If we all go using our
own definitions, what's the point of having words ?!
Ok, again sorry for being nerdy there. More on-topic, i also agree with
just about everything in the review (except the personal comments on
the tracks with are not very objective imo). What i'd like to add is that
i always felt LFS was playing catch up since it never manages to improve
as fast as the industry/competitors. Heck some newer games had time to
'steal' ideas from LFS, make a whole freaking game, release it, have it
being reviewed and they are probably working on another sim already
Because of this, i feel LFS will always be at a disadvantage and this
is directly a result of the number of people working on LFS, imo.
LFS is like a TVR or something. It's not as popular as a Honda, not
everyone knows what it is, but it's fans are devoted and would
probably kill to defend/protect it hehe
I'd call the whole thing, the program and the equipment a simulator. A simulation is that a person sits inside the caged thing and uses specific inputs to get certain outputs. Imho, of course. In the case of LFS the simulation can't be done without a human being. And this is certainly OT
Unfortunately guys, most of us are talking apples to Richard's oranges.
I just don't think he gets the point of LFS. This will be an on-going problem with reviews. You cannot spend a few months driving the tracks and trying the cars and really evaluate this phenomena. You will only get an analysis of the cars and the tracks.
It is fair to review the product now. It is an Alpha... but it is for sale. If you can buy it, it can be reviewed, no matter what the state is. The development model used by the LFS team is different than anything else out there, so there is bound to be confusion.
I think the review and points are good. I mean which other game with an outdated grafik and soundengine could get 5/10?
I can't see how people still use that "S2 is Alpha" argument for protecion. If S2 is alpha what was S1 then? Would be a nice trick for Microsoft too "well here's our new Windows , it's alpha but please pay for it. And if you find bugs or you are missing some features, don't go on our nerves, its alpha."
Most likely, the devs chose players having fun asap, over being a magazine review poster child.
Because in the long run, as long as all objectives are met, you're free to play around with the schedule and shift/exchange item orders.
Compare Racing Legends and LFS: LFS delivers as soon as it's playable, and goes from there, while RL is absolutely nothing, not even news, until the entire thing is on the shelf at full price.
You could compare LFS to some other box game like GTR, but GTR took a lot of quick and dirty shortcuts (e.g. sample-based sounds), and it's nowhere as open-ended as LFS.
You can't appreciate a piece of art, or any design, for what it was meant to be unless you see through the maker's eyes. The devs already said this game is made on the condition that they're enjoying doing it.
That excludes frantic deadlines, publisher cashcow tactics and other stigmas of development the game industry is becoming so full of.. it's a totaly different purpose.
The review should've noticed and mentionned this. Game development isn't all fun and games nowadays, it's an industry with money to be made or lost, and with so much at stake when trying to stay on the leading edge, it's easy to get lost in the current..
I completely agree with his points, but at the same time I have to admit that I never ever had so much fun playing a racing game online as with this title.
But yes, the physics are weird to a certain extend
I'm glad they made this decision. We're all very lucky to get to play S2 now, rather than still being at S1.
I would argue that point. In my opinion, GTR is more open-ended because it can have user made cars and tracks added. However; I actually feel that this is a bad thing as most user made stuff is mediocre. Not to mention that it fragments the community and causes problems joining servers when you don't have all the same cars/tracks as the server is running. I hope the devs will leave LFS locked down through S3 and beyond, as long as they continue to support the game.
another point that shows that you dont know what youre talking about ... the fo8 uses the exact same physics model as any other car in lfs
and all the bugs that the fo8 has are in every other car that has either slicks downforce or a double wishbone suspension
lfs doesnt use physics desinged specificially for one car to make that one car feel "right"
ive just picked you out of a whole bunch of lfs critics ... one thing most of you have in common is that you critizise lfs for its incompleteness in fields other sims dont even try to simulate and then come up with the conclusion that lfs physics are crappy
afaik lfs is the only sim that simulates dirt on tyres ... real time tyre deformation ... flatspotting (other do simulate this but not anywhere near as complete as lfs does) ... physics you can actually interact with etc
do you even know that with an s1 license you get all the physics and gameplay updates of 0.5q and that a s2 license actually is nothing more than an expansion pack thatll buy you a bunch of new cars and tracks ?
(admitedly with the current sitation it also buys you the chance of ever finding anybody to race with online)
what the heck are you even talking about ? the fps genre hasnt made a single bit of progress ever since quake world at all (except maybe the grav gun in hl2 but thats about it)
gameplay hasnt changed even the tiniest bit since qw ... all the "progress" that has been done since then is a bit more eye candy and nothing more
and now something totally different about the physics behind lfs ... i just realised something important while showering ... as far as i can tell lfs is the only sim that has a sizeably community of drifters ... actually if you look into the movies section you get the feeling that lfs is all about drifting
but why is lfs the only sim which attracts drifters ? well to explain you should maybe start by watching a video made by don (i hope its still up): http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=2109
(actual link to the video: ftp://lfsmovies:[email protected] thx rotary)
(note to all the drift haters its not a drift video)
what this video shows is nothing but an fxo going round fern bay in slowmotion and i know what youre thinking right now ... youre thinking youll be bored to death ... and youre right you will wish to die while watching this video since don somehow got into his head that "superstar" (a really crappy pop song) was the perfect soundtrack for this video
but in case you survive ... or you simply turn off your speakers youll instantly be intrigued by how right it looks how the car rolls and pitches and how it reacts to all those little bumps and pedal and steering inputs
put in crude terms youll see a car undergoing a series of weight shifts which are just bang on (and remember everything lfs graphics shows you is something its physics simulated)
now to close the circle back to the question of why lfs is the drifters sim of choice
if you know anything about drifting youll know that its all about deliberately shifting the weight of the car ... underloading and loading tyres so they either grip or slip when you want them to
so if the conclusion i draw from that video that lfs is miles ahead of the competition when it comes to simulating weight shifts it should be the one sim drifters go for
and the fact of the matter is that lfs is the sim drifters choose ... coincidence ? certainly not
and another note on the oh so crappy rwd physics ... yes there is something wrong with the grip level at low speeds and rwds feel the worst since the allready too low and to slowly recovering grip level of the tyres gets overwhelmed with having to deal with the force to drive the car too
but i keep hearing that lower powered cars are nowhere near as oversteery as they are in lfs even at higher speeds and that notion is just plain wrong
if youve ever seen one of those japanese drifting videos (yeah i know ive been going on about drifting this whole post ... still im a gripper though) youll certainly have seen how loose sub 200hp cars with balanced setups (good drifting setups are balanced) actually are
I class physics as the physics in the game, and what the car is told to be, each car has different values and that is why they handle different I would guess, and as different cars require different areas of the physics engine, certain flaws are exposed more in certain cars.
I am not sure if you said what I think you said, but the physics is the world of the game, like you say. Each car is different because... each car is different. Different weight, different suspension, different horsepower, cg, etc. The physics don't change for each car (from what I have read posted by the devs). (so in other words, I think I am agreeing with you)
Each car will tend to expose different aspects of the physics model. And I think this is one reason that it is difficult to fix certain problems. You can't just go and tweak a parameter here and there, you have to figure out what would really happen, and model it.
For example, lets say the slow speed tire physics is bad under certain conditions. I can't go in a just up the grip threashold for the tire. This would also affect the high speed grip, which seems to be fine right now.
I am not being very clear here, but I hope you get the point. Its late and I have posted way to many times to this thread...illepall goodnight.
I basically have to repeat what Hallen said: No car is told "what it is". I'm not sure if we actually mean the same but here you go:
A car basically has:
3D model
weight / cog
type of front suspension
type of rear suspension
position of each wheel (or maybe actually only the suspension mounting points)
geometry of front wheels (diameter, broadness, etc.)
geometry of rear wheels
engine parameters (# of cylinders, engine type, power, powerband, revs, # of gears, etc.)
wind resistance / drag coefficient
optional downforce settings
fuel tank size & position
cartype (which tyre types are allowed)
This are basically the things that define a car. You just set these parameters and let the physics engine do the rest. Granted, there may be some things I forgot, but I hope you get the idea.
But I have to agree, that the current flaws of the physics engine are most noticeable on the FO8, because it's the most extreme car we have.
That's just not the way it works.
Good code is seamlessly modeling something real, with as little code as possible.
What I think RT is saying is that the physics code will only include what's needed, just as the graphics code will only render what you see. No use rendering the part of the racetrack you're not in sight of, a loss for no benefit.
Just the same, LFS doesn't model trans- or supersonic airflow, nor any other conditions that aren't plausible, however possible.
Sometimes you can take shortcuts (computing-budget-wise) by amputating whole RL parts that won't be used, and sometimes it's simpler to do that and then add a little stub of what you amputated for an exception (such as 1 car in LFS).
Also on the topic of S2 being Alpha you simply cannot ignore it. It is not an excuse, it is an explanation. To almost completely ignore this aspect of the game in the review is just not right imo.
Anyway I do feel that Richard has tried to review LFS in a fair manner but like others I feel that maybe he has missed the point of LFS a bit and it's completely different philosophy as a game and as a development process.
Maybe it would be an idea to add a second opinion from someone who feels more favourably, only small but enough to indicate that many feel LFS is a diamond in the rough and that they feel the negatives Richard mentions are overshadowed by the positives.
I didn't read the review.... I see no point in it for me.
LFS for me is the best experience I've ever had on a computer, it's not the graphics, sound, physics etc that does it for me, it's the whole package. The fun, excitement, frustration, determination.... you can go through many emotions and states whilst racing online
Even when LFS is finished it won't score as highly as the more mainstream titles if it's still independant. Companies like EA can release complete rubbish and it gets to No. 1... work it out
The only way LFS will become mainstream and get the best reviews and millions of players is to have it published by one of the big boys, who mostly market products that look and sound fantastic but can have the playability of concrete football boots
But LFS can still become the winner (Is it a competition?) ... once the Physics are near-perfect (You can't totally simulate the real thing!) and the graphics and sound are competing with the rest then word of mouth and the fact that it can be downloaded and tried out online in demo mode might be enough.
The problem....
What the LFS hardcore (me too ) must realise is that if review of LFS are fantastic, 10/10 or whatever, then millions of first-timers will be swamping your bloved servers and creating havoc!!!
We'll have to lock down our servers and have private races for a long time, if not for ever !!!
I vote for bad reviews... and then only hardcore simulation drivers will join the LFS ranks and we'll have even better clean races
My main point is this.... If you love LFS, enjoy it!
