I find it hard to believe that such a small development team could create a game that is far superior to all other racing sims on the market. I doubt even GT5 will have as realistic physics as LFS (i think physics are LFS's best feature). One things for sure though...GT5 will have great graphics, but i would choose a realistic feel to the car over next gen graphics everytime.

Ide just like to thank the Devs for creating such a fun sim....i love it

I think you have the agreement of the whole forum on this one

Of course it's been posted before, but these threads never get old

Go LFS!!!!

:sleep1:

Quote :

Ide just like to thank the Devs for creating such a fun sim....i love it

In motor racing circles the word "Ide" is actually something of an insult...

On a more serious note you are dead right, but unfortunately it's systematic of the mainstream industry. All of the industry game designers openly state that us end users only want flash graphics, yet as sooon as an original and novel idea comes along, like The Sims when it was first released as a recent example, we lap it up. Yet still they focus on just selling us ever prettier graphics.

The frustrating thing about that is graphics are getting harder and harder to make because the standards and the technology keep raising, programmers now need to develop ever more complicated shaders, artists have to work in ever more complicated animation methods, the whole time gameplay isn't improving - it's all recycled rubbish.

The reason I love LFS is because it does deliver gameplay, that's the reason most of us are here, and that's why I continue not to be inspired by mainstream software titles.

That and the fact that I really do find shooters dull, but saying that suddenly makes my post less credible...

That's because with the cost of game development going up, due to the extra eyecandy, pubs won't allow devs to create anything quirky, or out of the box in fear that it'll flop, so they only work to the tried and tested games, and give us the same crap year in year out, just they make it look pretty.

Many many moons ago, when it cost a fiver to make a game, you'd always get something... odd, an example here would be H.E.D.Z, damn weird game, but loads of fun. But you'd never see anything like it today because it's too out of the box.

There wont be a GT5 thought...GT4 was last one i think, and yea lfs is the best.

Quote from Becky Rose :

That and the fact that I really do find shooters dull, but saying that suddenly makes my post less credible...

No, no it doesn't .
After six years of playing various shooters I started feeling the same. Better late than never, I guess

Quote from Slidaaaa :

There wont be a GT5 thought...GT4 was last one i think, and yea lfs is the best.

its already in production for the ps3, sadly =(

Quote from SID135 :

its already in production for the ps3, sadly =(

Designing games on vaporware must be a lot of fun.

/\ for sure /\

Quote from spankmeyer :

Designing games on vaporware must be a lot of fun.

And when did you get that info.The dev kits were already released a lot of time ago!

I think the main appeal with LFS for me is the mouse control. It enabled me to get more of my, less than enthusiastic, friends playing. Once they tried it they wanted more so we buy the full thing, now they are getting wheels and playing regularly. LFS is the the first real simulator (that I know of) that was interested in keeping the simulation aspect but try and be open to all users. The fact that it also has an excellent online community and (for my experience) superb, online, lagless play makes it a sure fire winner. If it gets a graphics makeover then I will be untroubled but for me it is more important for a racing sim to have clean lines and high res so you can make out the racing line, kerbs etc and LFS does that very nicely. Improvements to the lighting would be my first non simulation request as I think that HDR, true diffuse lighting, reflections etc would improve the immersion level far more than just adding more polys or higher detail textures. However I'm more than happy for the devs to sit and tinker with the physics and balancing issues.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I keep meaning to download the Source SDK to see if that's worth applying to anything other than a shooter (the facial animation system looks interesting at least), but never have the time.

The Source SDK is dead anyway. Valve updated it, broke it, not fixed it yet. Put many mods on hold.

If I may quote Jon Hare, who was one of the creative minds behind the original Sensible Soccer, who was recruited back for the new [commercial] Sensible Soccer remake as the creative lead to try to bring a fresh lively feel to the forthcoming release, here's what he had to say on the subject...

Quote :

"I don't think there is a specific demand for anything except more of the same in the marketplace at the moment."

How wrong is that!? The demand is there, but publishers are just closed minded to new ideas now. Like Psychoman with the kiddy-1337 spelling says, it wasn't like this before they ramped the prices up on games, somewhere the games industry went wrong, and i think it was when the corporations tried to widden the gap between themselves and independents like Scawen and crew.

Some of you know i've been around the indipendent programming circuit for many years, more than a few of our less aged members have lived, and in all that time every major step forward in technology was also accompanied by some form of mutual-exclusion for the independent developer, what is the Sony Playstation license system for? £20k and they dont even test the title works... ie: Rockstar had to submit GTA San Andreas three times because of bug fixes they found after submission to Sony, and consequently had to get new licenses each time - Indie coders can't afford that, so what purpose does the license system serve? The license revenue is nothing to Sony... It's all about shutting the door to bedroom coder teams like the LFS team and (to a lesser extent as i'm not as good) myself.

But in exchange for this closed market, you get much glossier graphics .

Quote from Becky Rose :

The frustrating thing about that is graphics are getting harder and harder to make because the standards and the technology keep raising, programmers now need to develop ever more complicated shaders, artists have to work in ever more complicated animation methods, the whole time gameplay isn't improving - it's all recycled rubbish.

The reason I love LFS is because it does deliver gameplay, that's the reason most of us are here, and that's why I continue not to be inspired by mainstream software titles.

That and the fact that I really do find shooters dull, but saying that suddenly makes my post less credible...

No mate! You're dead right! And i'd like to add that i cannot wait until the devs reimplement the graphics engine to work on more platforms than MS-Windows since that would make me save lots and lots of disk space!

But therefor one would need to convince the makers of ffb-wheels to agree on an open-spec, mulit-platform standard in ffb dev-toolkit. Without that, any advancement of lfs in that direction would be, of course, rendered useless.

I want lfs in Debian/non-free!

EDIT
@ ALL

You all nailed the essence of lfs in this thread!

I also would like to add:
i would rather spend my little money on improved verions of lfs than having to buy myself new gear, worth hundreds of euros, every year, just to find that better graphics don't give me the value i anticipated

First of all, i am interested in a quiet PC, since i spend a lot of time working with it, non-lfs related stuff for my studies and so on...
BUT the game industry wants to drive me into buying new gear, especially graphics-wise, since their new games will look like crap on a box more than say 1-1/2 years of age. PLUS all that high-end GPUs demand more and more power, getting hotter still and thus uncoolable if you want your PC quiet. That is frustrating, since i like Computers and PC-Games a lot. But i just cannot afford an air-conditioning system for my PC, since
1. something like that does not really exist
2. would be more expensive than the whole box in parts
3. is doomed to driving me nuts by making a tremendous amount of noise!
AND no, i have neither the time, nor money or good-will to all-too-many experiments with new and expensive gear.

Currently i think a lot of upgrading to a (half-new) box since my current one is over 4 years old, now - and thus i begin to "fear" future updates to the game. Currently in online-gaming i temporarily get to as low as 15-20 fps with no AA or AF turned on whatsoever. But think about this:

Presumably, lfs is this popular since it does not require people to spend a fortune on using it! -- I also started off with mouse-steer and still use it every once-in-a-while

To give one more thought about it, i really anticipate the launch of that new G25 Wheel, which will - let's name it - cost me a small fortune all by itself, if i can get ahold of one later this year.

Quote from DrBen :

No mate! You're dead right! [i]And i'd like to add that i cannot wait until the devs reimplement the graphics engine to work on more platforms than MS-Windows since that would make me save lots and lots of disk space! [i]

But therefor one would need to convince the makers of ffb-wheels to agree on an open-spec, mulit-platform standard in ffb dev-toolkit. Without that, any advancement of lfs in that direction would be, of course, rendered useless.

I want lfs in Debian/non-free!

Not gonna happen mate, unless some high-profile marketing consultant convinces them that there is profits to be made in the 1-5% userbase.

Some interesting stuff about the state of the games industry in this thread

Heres some of my thoughts...

[warning] LONG RANTING POST FOLLOWS [/warning]

I've been playing games since 1980, I've been programming since 1981, although only professionally (gamboy advance) since 2002.

I have strong opinions as to the reasons for the current situation in the mainstream games market.

There are lots of little reasons floating around, but there is one BIG FAT REASON that outweighs the others by a huge margin !!! It all comes down to that old favourite passtime 'keeping up with the Joneses' otherwise known as GEEK WAR

In the old days, is was Atary2600 vs coleco vision vs binatone etc, then it was C64 vs Atari800 vs Spectrum vx BBC micro... then AtariST vs AMIGA...
Each of these eras saw folks buy into one or other of the competing systems, then spend the next few years arguing with their friends about which was the better system. For this argument to have any weight, the combatants had to have something more substantial than subjective ideas of gamplay and style, so it has always been about software and more importantly hardware technology rather than content. Arguments like "Z80 is better than 6502 coz it has more instructions and runs at 4Mhz"... "C64 has hardware sprites and sound and Andrew Braybrooke"... "Spectrum has Ultimate play the Game", "AtariST has midi... so there... humph" etc. GEEK WAR had begun.

The big change has happened for a few of reasons - as the hardware has got better, it has become possible to produce much more complicated games with larger worlds and far more 'assets' - requiring more time and much more money to develop, this gradual development has made it more and more difficult for small teams and individuals to compete in the game market....
However, I think that the Main issue is the switch from static platforms like C64, ST, Amiga over to flexible component based PC hardware. Suddenly instead of a hardware hike every few years, its been every few months !! This accellerated flood of new hardware updates has been accompanied by Extremely aggressive marketing - and increasing prices.

The marketing convinces the Gamer that they have to have the latest card to really enjoy their games (i.e. WIN GEEK WAR).... they buy the card... their existing games don't improve... suddenly, they are in a sticky situation - they have made a (major) investment, they want to show off to their gaming buddies to WIN the next GEEK WAR BATTLE, and they also need to satisfy themselves that there is enough of an improvement overy their (5 month) old card that they haven't wasted their money... Sooo they need a new game that can use the new features of their fancy new card....
The game companies soon learned that the only way to ensure good sales it to fulfill this need - not for a good game, but for a game that will show off the latest graphics hardware !!!

You see it all the time even in the LFS forums - "great game, but.. oooh.. I wish they would improve the graphics." followed by a reqest for implementation of whatever fancy feature that plyers hardware supports. The sad thing is that as graphic tech has moved on over the last decade or so, each incremental improvement has made a smaller difference to the overall 'quality' of the graphics, while at the same time making a bigger difference in the resources required to develop a marketable game.

The only way things are going to change is if everyone stops buying into this process. I for one have !!! I've stopped buying pc games, the last game I bought was LFS, I don't play pc games other than LFS, freecell, minesweeper and the odd game of online othello or poker. The only time i buy a gfx card is when I Have to for a new system, and then its the minimum spec that will run LFS at a reasonable refresh rate and resolution.
Don't get me wrong, I still love games, just not the glossy crap thats out there now - the only company that is doing anything remotely interesting is Nintendo (but there are other issues with them - even more difficlt for small dev teams...)
....
enough for now

Quote from DrBen :

1. something like that does not really exist
2. would be more expensive than the whole box in parts
3. is doomed to driving me nuts by making a tremendous amount of noise!
AND no, i have neither the time, nor money or good-will to all-too-many experiments with new and expensive gear.

Although I agree with a lot of what you said. Yes, such a system does exist, it cost about $200 (it's a case with AC built in), and is rather quite, but some what louder then normal case fans.

But there is a large push for bigger and better hardware all the time. Windows Vista has the same system requirments, as most of todays games! The OS needs as much power as games do. That just screams piss poor preformance. Because of this we are told we HAVE to upgrade our systems again.

I will say that the fact LFS runs on anything is what makes it so great. When I got fedup of the nose my PC made, I just slapped LFS on my laptop, and played it on that. Now my lappy is no monster, but it had the power for LFS, which was great.

Quote from col :

[large rant]

Or to put it basicly, we are paying for tech demos to show off a graphics card to sell it to people. So we're just paying to do what marketing do?

Bah, I make no lies I do like to have nice new hardware every now and then. But I still use a PC that I built when I was in college as it still plays all my games, and as it was my first build using only my own money (all builds upto this point someone else would either give me hardware, or it was paid for by someone else), I like to use it more then the rest of my other systems because of which, and as LFS doesn't have all the bells and whistles most games have, not only is it a great game/sim, I can play it for much longer then most new games (after about 2 hours, all the jazzy crap in games starts to give me a headache, and make me dizzy). Win win.

Wow
Has not this topic generated some typing/ comment (all good stuff).

However in respect of the original message I fully agree that LFS is the business - so forget the rest and stick with the best

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I want one of tham thar Zalman cases that are like one big heatsink with heatpipes stuck all over the inside, but you can bet your backside if I spend the... £700, I think... on one of those the next day the ATX standard will become obsolete.

You could always get a server closet, which is sound proofed, so you can chuck any case inside it and not hear a thing. Though they are far from cheap (one I was looking at would set me back 1,300 clams), it'll be reusable, and most can fit a nice number of systems inside, which is an even bigger plus... if you have lots of systems in the same area.

"S2 is fun"

says it all

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Or to put it basicly, we are paying for tech demos to show off a graphics card to sell it to people. So we're just paying to do what marketing do?

I have considered that, but I don't agree.
They are not tech demos - they have to be games, and the metrics by which the GEEK WAR is won/lost depend on them being 'games'.
The delusion that the whole process is based on is that "the fancy hardware makes the 'games' 'better'. " illepall

Quote from col :

I have considered that, but I don't agree.
They are not tech demos - they have to be games, and the metrics by which the GEEK WAR is won/lost depend on them being 'games'.
The delusion that the whole process is based on is that "the fancy hardware makes the 'games' 'better'. " illepall

Ah, interactive tech demos ;p

I never could understand that, I've seen reviews for what I thought was great games, but they got badl scores for looking crap. When was how the game looked more important then how it played? What difference does it make if the car in a game has 1,000,000 pollies and god knows how many different filters, shaders and god knows what else, or cars that have 2,000, and no fancy jazz that gets your graphics card so hot, you can boil water on it...

I mean, I never really understood the whole geek war thing myself, what makes a great console (or even PC) is the games it has, and in terms of consoles, if I can hold the controler. I'm a slim guy, but I have large hands, so getting a controler that fits my hands is hard, so far the most comfortable I've used is the Gamecube, and the first xbox controler as it was so big. That to me makes the winners. The playstaion pad always felt, odd, as do the smaller xbox pads.

Who cares how many megaflops it can turn out, or how "mad wikid the gafix are" (Taken from Gamezville, that show was such an aweful attempt a games review show). If you can use the controler, and it has good games, nothing else matters.

Quote from Slidaaaa :

There wont be a GT5 thought...GT4 was last one i think, and yea lfs is the best.

I'm no fan of Gran Turismo, but Sony/Polyphony wold be nuts to stop one of their main sellin series, makes no sense.

@ P5YcHoM4n and all others, interested

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Yes, such a system does exist, it cost about $200 (it's a case with AC built in), and is rather quite, but some what louder then normal case fans.

<warning! | long monologue>
I actually didn't want to deny the existance of something like that. But, a decidedly placed "NO!" - Such solutions are NOT quiet. If you considere a standard-office pc quiet i suggest you once wait till late at night, close all doors and windows, shut off aircon (if present) even shut off heating (if present) and your refirdgerator, anything that has moise-emmitting or moving parts on it. Well, if you live in a quiet place and do this, i bet you will get bored pretty soon, at what your standard-pc emmits in noise. Yes i have catched the "silence-virus" some time ago, that's why i spent some money and a good bunch of hours last year on making my oldie "shut up".
</long monologue>
However, the reason i've posted this is that i am really happy with the fact that lfs runs so great, even on (from today's point of view) low-range systems). This makes it stand out of the crowd. I feel like one out of many good racers. Not like an outsider, staring at ppl who enjoy a racing game that i cannot personaly compete in, just because of the better gear they have since they invested probably the same $amountOFmoney a glance in time later than me.
AND i still can enjoy the silence 'cause my system doesn't need the excessive amount of noise/cooling power what suggested game-pc's would require for just being capable of e.g. starting some arcarde racer like nfs:mw .

Quote :

But there is a large push for bigger and better hardware all the time. Windows Vista has the same system requirments, as most of todays games! The OS needs as much power as games do. That just screams piss poor preformance. Because of this we are told we HAVE to upgrade our systems again.

Well, if you use Windows just for playing lfs or RBR, like i do, you don't personally need Vista. And again, if the DEVs engage into the turnaround before it's too late and deny the implementation of the S3 Version relying on DirectX 10 (which will be available in binary only -as always-, and only for Vista AFAIK) then nobody in this community will have that problem. Not to forget that there are other systems like Macs or even the various Unix-like ystems as an alternative to that. LFS is still independant. The devs should considure making their work accessable on all popular X86 platforms as it would clearly benefit the growth of the lfs userbase. (There are a lot of people that would love playing lfs on linux, but nowerdays ffb is impossible through WINE and overall WINE is no clean solution, since it costs performance, naturally does not always work to the full extend and isn't easy to set up)

Quote :

Or to put it basicly, we are paying for tech demos to show off a graphics card to sell it to people. So we're just paying to do what marketing do?

Bah, I make no lies I do like to have nice new hardware every now and then.

me too, me too but my next PC upgrade will not only be quiet but completely inaudable , dead-silent. That's for sure. Take a look at www.silentpcreview.com or, if you are a german-speaker, www.silenthardware.de/forum That's where people talk about this topic AND lot's of those (not all, of course) are even gamers themselves. There is simply no need to buy loud and hot stuff if you don't want to win a benchmark! Plus if you select yourself the right stuff you controll the development with your market force (your money). -Not that i would have to tell you, of course, some other forum readers might happen to actually read this though, so i pointed this out in detail
It's really the same with lfs. I instantly fell in love with it's accurate physics model, even the graphics are nice to look at, in my opinion. So about a year ago, i finally got licensed and joined a team --> no more time for the any other game, now! and happy ever after? -- Sure! Plus every one of us makes the DEVs go on with their life which is, ATM, live for speed!

Quote :

But I still use a PC that I built when I was in college [...]

nice one! You're a good role-model, mate

@ threadstarter: sorry for bringing some slight OT'iness into this thread !

LFS: It's independant, It's so f****n' realistic, it's loads of fun:
it simply rules!