Yep, i've tried all the mainstream simulators (Rfactor 2, Raceroom, assetto corsa ans so on...) and no one can match the Vr experience delivered by Live For Speed. The physics + Vr optimisation (stereoscopic mirrors and helmet) is a blast and i definitely can't go back to another sim since i discovered LFS (March 27th 2020, still remember that day
If you have direct drive wheel + motion system and buttkiker it's a very intense experience, very close to real life!
The only sims i continue to play time to time other than LFS is dirt rally 1&2 because it's rally...other than that, i definitely uninstall all the sims i used to play before...
Alot of people want something new new new, all the time something new... and those people, even if they get physics and new tracks, or new cars, will just get bored in a week and demand new content again.
I can pound around Aston in FOX for next 10 years with no problem.
Both extremes are not good for anyone, neither the devs nor what left of the community.
I am all for slow but important changes when it's ready and stable for release, but stalling the game just because one or two are blinded by nostalgia, please no.
Buying a game that barely seen any development over the last ~14 years? I don't think so. This game had SO much potential 15 years ago. It could easily be the best racing simulator back then. If only it would been properly developed. Too bad it never was except for the very first couple of years.
What does properly developed even mean? To maximize income? To live forever? There's plenty of sims that were excellent that have fallen by the wayside and died, unlike LFS that still has a small but committed community.
LFS is still the best racing simulator and does many things correct. The one thing it doesn't do is simulate (much) real content, which is what most people mean when they talk about LFS' content deficencies.
LFS' core has things that other sims still haven't caught up to.
I don't see that as a deficiency. iRacing, Assetto Corsa Competizione, rF2, AM2, Project Cars etc..., to varying degrees, are all merging into essentially the same simulator.
With Live For Speed there is a fantastic base physics model (which for all its 'development' iRacing is yet to surpass imo), but there also a touch of art with it. It's not just stale repetition of what we see in reality with 'official' cars & tracks. It seems like an oxymoron to have a simulator that has artistic qualities but I don't know how else to describe it. But it's what help sets it apart. Out of all the 'proper simulations' Live for Speed is instantly recongisable. Sure you can pick up the visual qualities of each sim that make them recongisable to the trained eye, but Live For Speed is set apart from that. It might be part of the reason for such a dedicated community. South City is OUR city!
Funny thing is when LFS do add real content like Rockingham is stonkingly good.
I have never driven a GT3 Porsche in Long Beach, so doing it in a simulator / game is as much fiction to me as driving a XRR in Fern Bay. I don't know if the bump 50 m after turn X is accurate (or maybe the track has been resurfaced?), or how the car would behave in reality.
The appeal to me (LFS and more or less any racing game) has always been close driving and trying to nail that corner.
It's just difficult to add the proper amount of "bumpyness" if everything's fictional. You either end up super smooth (a la LFS) or you've introduced something that's ridiculous and equally fake by being too bumpy
When driving a laser scanned real track, it's not so much that I care about the exact bumps for my own driving training, it's that bumps actually form due to some natural process, be it that it's the curb lane so larger trucks have caused the lane to sink a bit, or just that the track is in a rainy climate so the track erodes or causes the soil to shift under the weight of the track surface.
No? I'm dead serious. After the release of new rendering and tyres physics, the amount of code inside the exe which dates back to ~2003 vs the amount of code written in last 3-4 years will be probably like 20:80.
Scawen could easily just not release the patch at all, name it LFS2 and release new game.
The LFS after this patch will be by no means "old game", it will have just the same name and same UI, and you can use the same license to play the content, but it's pretty much new game as far as game developer would be concerned, in every important aspect.
Most of the game-dev companies release "game 2" games with fewer changes.
So the one joking here is you. Either that, or you just clueless human who knows nothing about how computer works and how games are written. Did you ever write some game or software yourself? If not, then I guess we have nothing to discuss here.
The same goes about "why to pay for 15 year old work" .. well, people still pay for 15 year old car if they buy it from bazaar, or for 100 year old painting, etc. It's because the thing has value for them. If LFS has not enough value for you, keep driving demo. But then you also don't need the new patch. But I have strong suspicion you are just lying to yourself. The LFS provided you already with so much value, that the S3 license price is in reality bargain, you just don't want to support the devs for some sick reason I don't even want to know... that's your problem.
It means actually developing the game rapidly, adding new features and content to it. Like it used to be it the first couple of years of development of the LFS. For the last decade (10 years it is) LFS had 1 new track, no new cars, and 1 new feature added - VR support. That's pretty much it. You call this development? I call it a joke.
Ped7g, you sound like one of these aggressive hobos on the streets who not just begging for the money, but demanding for it. Like we owe them, or something.
Quality does not go well together with quantity. A rushed product almost always has game breaking glitches, and in the end there is more time wasted in delivering a half-finished product and bubblegum fixing it afterwards to be playable.
Not to mention the damage caused by that, as people nowadays tend to have an opinion of everything almost instantly. I'd much rather see a patch that the developers can proudly release than a patch that breaks more than what it's supposed to fix. It's a process that takes time for a small team, which you don't seem to understand.
Lets see here:
Blackwood remastered, and an industrial area added to it to drive around
Westhill remastered, with added back roads to it to drive around
Possibility to free roam in any track environment and using this mode to create your own track configurations
Concrete layout objects, that allow for the possibility to create more complex tracks and even make your own paths into the sky if you want
Remastered Formula XR, V8, XR and XF
Many bugfixes, optimizations, slight details like dynamic reflections, there is a lot they have done to the game in the past 10 years. Sure there has been breaks in-between, but there is visible progress.
There's more stuff that I can't remember at the moment, too.
Of course those won't affect your DEMOnstration experience much as a license is required for most of the content.
What does that make you then? You sound like you want everything without doing anything.
said the user with a demo licence demanding the developers act in a way that is completely incongruent with their published working motivation?
Also, how many new official tracks have there been for rFactor 1, Richard Burns Rally, Grand Prix Legends, NetKar Pro, GTR recently??? all contemporaries of the initial Live For Speed release, yet where is their 'proper development'?
The only sim comparable to LFS would be iRacing in terms of continual development over such a long period of time... and for that sim to have reached the point it is now a single user would have had to have spent thousands to have access to it fully during that period and even now it's tyre model still isn't as good as LFS in many areas.
Indeed, I demand £15 for this consultation (*). Thanks. (if you don't send it soon enough, I will call the virtual Internet FBI on you). Check-mate.
*) if you didn't realize it, you were reading wise words of ex-game-developer and computer SW coder, which miraculously didn't release almost anything truly genius within last 30 years, but still feels like one of the best SW developers in the world. You are really blessed to receive response from me.
With all due respect, you are not much different from the guy that you are accusing.
How can you people keep saying which tyre model is better than the other ? you are talking like there is only greed and zero patient happening with other development teams, that's totally unfair for those who's been bringing the genra forward.
Wait a minute. Are you the same guy with the 80286 and wanting to stick with it forever? And then dare to talk about development? It seems like you didnt even discovered how to wipe your own ass in these 15 years.
The point is that despite all the hurrah of constant updates and a subscription based funding model iRacing still hasn't matched Live For Speed in several areas. This constant repetitive drone of complaint about how the LFS developers go about their business is nauseating. They've made themselves so clear on how they work, it really isn't hard to grasp. The value of LFS is unquestionable. I can barely get a month and a decent car/track combo on iRacing for the price of S3.
