One person will receive an S2 license from me. This person will make the best attempt to summarize the current situation of development and the feelings of the community. I am looking for experienced users who know this program well. You will receive an S2 license from me immediately.
Does it really matter? I lurk these forums for so long looking for an answer. Encouragement even. I am keeping the spirit alive by contributing in my own way. Please contribute and keep the optimism alive by your statement alone.
So you want someone to summarize the current situation of LFS?
It's really hard to keep the optimism alive because the repeatedly postponed updates are behind time since years and LFS is becoming more of an anachronism day after day
They all know more than we know. I have never begged and pleaded for anything from developers from any program. And nore should you. All I ask is for the passion of the LFS community to speak up and give your feelings of enjoyment and anticipation for the gifts we should receive soon. A statement of ignorance or pride is all you need to think of.
As you may or may not know, the VW Scirocco (VWS) and Rockingham have been created for LFS - but are withheld until the tyre physics are improved.
The VWS will be included as S1 content, and Rockingham as S3. As part of S3 content there will be at least 1 more car (I'm quite sure about this).
Whilst developing Victor's LFS Record, Scawen found a way to open up the configs - i.e. not having to stick to a specific route. Along with those patches came many updates, mainly to do with autocross/layouts and hotlapping. The cheat protection has been improved.
From Jan 2011;
And more recently, on 30th Nov;
Feelings of the community? I'm sure you know what its like looking at few threads that keep circulating... Obviously, people are not happy about the delay of the release of the VWS, Rockingham, new interiors, more cars/tracks, updates to exsisting cars/tracks and over 9000 more stuff. Some people are put off by the lack of communication from the developers. Eric was supposedly working on more content, but sadly that was it - nothing more was said (cant blame them after the "we plan to release the new VW Scirocco in Live for Speed" and the chaos that followed).
Part of the folk have taken up other sims, moved on with life or simply put LFS on hold. You can still see a lot of them around the forums or [thankfully] racing time to time.
Some are, again - thankfully, organizing leagues and events and keeping that aspect of the LFS going. The number of events and drivers are dwinding, but, I quote,
The rest, including myself (a relative new-comer) are making use of what's available. When time permits we can be found in public servers having a grand old time. I'm still having fun as much as I did in 2008.
Hopefully, soon enough we would get more content or the much talked about "new tyre physics", if not, the patience of ye old faithful LFSers will be tested, but I'm sure some will stick till ends of time...
Join in for a race - you might have forgotten how entertaining LFS is, with the "same old" content.
My G27 was purchased solely on the realism I could feel only with LFS. Everything else is too close to arcade. If I want to show off my G27, LFS is the first thing. Tire physics and H Shifter alone have the quality I want. I have not been very active on the forum or races, but I am happy when the community is happy. I just want to keep it alive as long as possible.
ive got a friend who would love one so ill give it a go...
LFS development has been rather slow due to the development of the new tire physics (see the new progress report). The devs have released a patch (0.6B) which allows for better autocross and more tracks (open configuration tracks.) The devs state that new content, including the VW Scircoco and Rockingham UK track, is coming but a lot of impatient people in this community just whine about how slow it is and many are leaving forever or for a leave of absence. The community although dwindling in activity is still active enough to find leagues and public races throughout each day at almost every time of the day.
The community has been awaiting the muh anticipated S3 content including the VWS and Rockingham and other content from Eric, there has only been evidence of the first 2 seen in this forum. Of the latter, the devs have not released any screenshots or data. The VWS was announced years ago, but due to new tire physics it has been put to a halt. The Rockingham circuit was not even publicly released, infact the only reason the community has knowledge of it is because of a LFS user who visited the track in real life and had the priviledge to try the Rockingham track at a promotional viewing (according to Micheal "Boothy" Booth). The obscurity of information by the developers has put the community into despair, and the lack of new content has seen many drivers fleeing to iRacing and even rFactor.
From my own experiences I feel the game is possibly dying, but the newly released open track configurations has brought some new light. Patch 0.6B also allowed for ramps on all tracks, custom curbing, and the new "armco" objects. Also in 0.6B was a fix to the spastic collisions with barriers that we saw from other versions. As a LFS racer I feel that www.cargame.nl has done a fantastic job keeping public racing alive, with their multiclass ranking systems. For leagues, there are many. New Dimension Racing has organised leagues from Touring Cars, Open Wheel, and Endurance Racing all the way to the American Oval style of racing. In this aspect, LFS is very much alive. However, on the development side things are slow, and there is not much pictures to report progress. From this point of views, some members are unsure about the future of the sim, though there are many oppurtunities now due to insim and restrictable cars.
Despite all of these positive attributes, there is still a lot to be able to moan about. The development rate is extremely slow, what do I mean by slow? Well, for example the progress report from last year is almost identical to that of the most recent update. Scawen actually had a shorter and less informative post this year. The "models" look exactly the same as they did last year, and all that has been said is that we are "working" on new tyre physics for around 3 years now. The VWS was announced that it would be released in a December some many years ago, however we are still waiting. S3 was announced many years ago, however we are still waiting. The tyre physics were announced many years ago, however we are still waiting. What is the emotion felt by the community? An agonizing wait for content that may or may not come, and that has little evidence behind it other than fewer than 10 screenshots. The emotion that the community has been feeling is the need for more support to show us what Scavier (Scawen, Victor, and Eric) have been doing over the past few years, however the developers (Scavier) have no allowed this oppurtunity to come forth.
The extent of the knowledge passed from the LFS developers to the LFS communtiy members is what the colors of a line means. To many at LFS, all that shows is that Scawen can make a pretty picture and post it on the forum. Somehow, this is supposed to make us believe that these tyre physics he has been working on, will be the most realistic out there. To many, this is not very convincing and to others it has even brought doubt about the LFS development "team".
In the past progress reports, hundreds of pages of comments stating either dissapointment or even avid resentment for the lack of development can be seen. In whole, the community is not happy about having to "wait" for years on end, and would rather see content, now and not have to wait another few years. Many people say that the "haters" are not helping things, but truth is that the developers are not going to work any slower because of them, they choose to work at their own pace (or keep us in the dark) regardless. But we will remain patient.
Not exactly what I was looking for, but it is a start. I would rather hear a summary of the emotions and the best statements the members have expressed on the forums since the earliest release of info on the Scirocco and new tire physics. True feelings that do not have to include a thorough account of history. The replies to Progress Report December 2011 have been interesting. No doubt it will bring a lot of attention. If these statements could be a repeat from earlier threads it will be welcome.
summary = LFS developers seem to be stuck with the current development of the tyre physics, hense the patch hasnt been released for nearly 3 years now. but this doesnt bother me
people are hating and being impatient and are looking forward to the future too much to enjoy what has been created around them, they are moaning and saying some harsh things which, imo will de-motivate the developers instead of encouraging them. The normal players (not mods or developers) have created amazing addons such as EQ Worry, Created Airio and gives it away at cheap prices, always adding and updating it. There are awesome cruise insims available and are put in use by some dedicated programmers and server owners.
I myself Cruise and drift, but mainly race. Im based in the GTR side of racing and participate in leagues. I just try to find whats fun and worth doing at the time instead of worrying when new stuff is going to be released. If you look hard enough, you will find there is much to do and a few decent populated cruise, drift and race servers if you know where to look.
updated my statement with another paragraph. I wrote it from more of a 3rd person view because you wanted a statement and not a personal opinion. If needed I can insert evidence with quotes.
ScaViEr their aim was since the very beginnings in 2001, to create a game to their wishes, and work on their own way. Now since we are in 2012, it's still the same,...
The development takes longer, but this is thanks to the perfection that both Scawen and Eric put into it.
This really pisses off the community for the past 3 years, because you see... People nowadays are greedy, whining, trolling, and raging!
This on the other hand pisses of the devs even more, and resulted them into banning certain people, which was the best thing they've done.
Now with 2012 ahead, a new moderator called Flame CZE, a new report by Scawen, a developer under a secret account, very active in the community, etc.
I can't see no single other way, than that this final year of the internet, will be the best damn year ever!
Live for the speed, cause we Live.. for.. Speed...