Season 8

[pdanev]

So what do we do, do we go on with racing every weekend or postpone things/take a bit of vacation? Seeing that this season, especially the last races had almost no participants, I'm puzzled whether it makes sense to go on with this.

I'm also wondering about the lack of participation.
- lfs is getting boring?
- unsuitable racing time?
- bad organization of the season, i.e. unattractive race format, combos etc?
- real life issues, work, studies etc?

To be honest, I'm loosing a bit of interest in lfs myself, mainly because there hasn't been any major update for ages. FBM and the new SO track are not major updates I'd say... with all the respect to the developers. I'm guessing I'm not the only one feeling like this.

So one option is to take some time off and wait for the next big update, maybe that will bring back some interest.

Another thing that can be done, is if we decide to cancel the races for now, to still have some racing but on public servers like CTRA or so. Same time as current races, everyone interested goes onto CTRA server XYZ.

Alternatively, take part in some other league that has regular races.

To be honest, I'm indifferent as to what we do... I still enjoy racing in LFS, no question about that, but I won't get depressed if we take some time off.

What do you guys think?

[MXM]

Originally Posted by pdanev

- unsuitable racing time?

Nope, fine for me.

Originally Posted by pdanev

- bad organization of the season, i.e. unattractive race format, combos etc?

I don't really see how it can be made any "easier" to join. Remember when we had 1h (even 2h) races with tons of people? It's not the format problem.

Originally Posted by pdanev

- real life issues, work, studies etc?

No, not really that either.

Originally Posted by pdanev

- lfs is getting boring?

That's the main reason for me. I've been doing it with finalgear for over three years pretty much every weekend at the same time. That's by far the longest I've been playing any game, ever. It has become such a routine, it's sucking all the fun out of it. Points don't matter, I haven't checked the situation for weeks. I still get a kick out of it when I can be competitive, but that's not happening lately, because I just can't get myself to practice. So in the end I pretty much know what will happen in the race, and it all comes down to "let's just get this over with".

Sorry, I have no clue how to fix this. We don't get any new permanent players, the regulars are fading away (can't blame them), and S3 isn't even on the horizon.

[Loz]

The time is fine for me, i have no other real life stuff either, but i do have slight trouble sleeping, so i may miis a race because im asleep.

I dunno about the format, it seemed ok. I wouldn't mind doing an F08 Series, i feel its the best car. Requires skill, it could be a good spec series like GP2.

I dunno why people are interested in the CTRA server though. I am not really fond of them.

[burnsy]

- lfs is getting boring?
- unsuitable racing time?
- bad organization of the season, i.e. unattractive race format, combos etc?
- real life issues, work, studies etc?

i agree that LFS is starting to get just a bit boring, since every track has been run up and down so many times. i've started to get myself joined into a different part of lfs, namely marshaling. i helped out with IGTC (was mainly looking to see my program work, but fortunately, no safety cars needed), and marshalled the last MoE race too, though i did have to wake up at like '0-dark-30 for it.

what about a mini season to test out an idea i had. i raced in the MRT CCC in LOTA, and it was actually really fun. Le Kid has released the layouts used in those events.

would anybody like the idea of maybe a mini-series of 4 races with the MRT? here's the link to the layouts, with pictures of the tracks. don't have to use them all of course, but we could vote on the ones that interests us the most. i would supply a set i used that won a few of the races, until i had to retire from the series because of school scheduling.

Alternatively, take part in some other league that has regular races.

i'm sure most of our regulars know that i've been trying to push us to other events like IGTC or LFS GT, or even BOTT. maybe this may be the time to start heading in that direction?

PS. Damn you pete, was just about to make a new thread about Season 8 myself

[Loz]

I quite like the MRT races Very rarely you get to use that car.

[ESPNSTI]

I'm personally not bored with it, although I have been practicing a lot less than I used to.
However, I sometimes wish the seasons were a bit shorter and with a bit more time off between them.

I also wish the performance gap between the front runners and the people at the tail was a bit narrower.
The weight penalties should be quite a bit heavier I think.

[FireFox]

The same as pdanev LFS is slowly getting 'boring' after a few months/years. I'll will join the FG races if I can, but right now I'm more in the lfs programming area than actual racing. Although i race from time to time but not as often as a few months ago.
What burnsy said, I'm wanna compete in a more professional leaque but my laptop doesnt like a grid with 32 racers... We tried the LFS GT for 1 race and I liked it.
Maybe its best that we don't focus at a 'season races' anymore but focus at random races. Just a few 10min races, then it doesnt matter if you crash for example in lap 3 because the next race will start in 8 minutes.

[pdanev]

I like the idea of racing on layouts, and I also like the idea of short races. Maybe having short races on a small layout will compensate somewhat for the lack of people. But then again, if we do short races we might as well race on some random public server where there are lots of people... So although I like the idea, I'm not sure about it.

We can try the MRT thing though, do a few races, see how that goes.

[geeman]

I am bored with LFS too. I can't bring myself to practice and because of that I am not very competitive. And when that happens it makes me want to race and practice even less. I don't want to join the races just to drive by myself.

[burnsy]

since everybody seems to be down on LFS right now, a bit bored, Storm_Cloud, on the lfs forum, made a great post that says pretty much everything i feel about LFS.
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.p...671#post762671

[pdanev]

That is true, however we are only a handful of people, there isn't much competition when the track is empty, for the last 2 weeks there was only 4 of us.

I'm all in if we would have 20people on the grid, then the field is distributed and everyone has an opponent, there's always traffic etc. But when there are only a few of us there have to be some new elements every now and then, that you can enjoy even if you are lapping alone half the race.

Maybe we have to approach things from a different perspective. How do we gather more people? Ok it's pretty easy actually, fix up a league of some sort and post on lfs forum, we have 20 people in no time. But the problem is that the races here are supposed to be with people you know pretty well. So it's a bit hard to get 20people from the finalgear forum. All in all there were much more people racing from here over the years, but they are not into lfs anymore. Even if we convince them to mount up their wheels again, they are not in shape and would quit after the 1st race.

[burnsy]

Originally Posted by pdanev

Maybe we have to approach things from a different perspective. How do we gather more people? Ok it's pretty easy actually, fix up a league of some sort and post on lfs forum, we have 20 people in no time. But the problem is that the races here are supposed to be with people you know pretty well. So it's a bit hard to get 20people from the finalgear forum. All in all there were much more people racing from here over the years, but they are not into lfs anymore. Even if we convince them to mount up their wheels again, they are not in shape and would quit after the 1st race.

no, don't really need to make a post on the lfs forum, but on this forum. i PM'd all the old drivers we had a long time ago at the beginning of this season, and we got like 1 or 2 at one point, but maybe we need to extend out to new drivers of this forum.

so, we need to make a post about our races in the main entertainment forum here, not just our subforum. that way lots of people see it, and hopefully we get a few who have it come and race.

the other thing we may be able to do is do a mini demo league for just the FG forum. i know there's only 3 cars and 2 combos of 1 track, but given those numbers, the combinations are actually somewhat high. we could do a small, mini-season of it, again maybe 4 races with any combination of those cars. we open the server to only racers from this forum, to make sure at least all the stupid noobs of lfs demo racers can't get in.

think that that could be possibility?

EDIT: didn't fully read your post, so didn't see the part that explains about the 20 people from the fg forum, but i still think it may work to get a few more drivers.

[Loz]

What about having the 2 Leagues running on the same server? Maybe have the road cars that the STCC uses one week then the next week, use something like the F08's. That way, i guess you could cater to fans of each.

[pdanev]

Running demo is actually not a bad idea Burnsy, I think that could quiet work. And there are plenty of combinations we could do indeed, easily enough for a few races.

[burnsy]

here's all the combos that i see are possible. unfortunately, no reverse configs allowed in demo, so only BL1 and BL2 allowed.

• XFG at BL1
• XRG at BL1
• FBM at BL1
• XFG at BL2
• XRG at BL2
• XFG+XRG at BL1
• XFG+XRG at BL2

[pdanev]

No reverse?

Damn, since when is that?

[burnsy]

as far as i know, forever. don't want to give the people too much content for a demo.

[geeman]

Originally Posted by burnsy

as far as i know, forever. don't want to give the people too much content for a demo.

Actually only since patch Y.

[MXM]

I'm for demo races. Got any specific plans in mind? Should we take a break from current season first or not? Should regulars join and race normally or have big handicaps? In any case we should make a thread in entartainment section, as was suggested, and see if there's any interest. I also think the rules should be as simple as possible. No pits at first, just a bunch of 5-10 lap races, in the beginning it's hard to be consistent, and making a mistake in lap 2 shouldn't mean waiting 20min for the next race.

Remember when we just started, and only few of us had full S1? We used to race for an hour or so on demo, and then switch to full. That would motivate people to get a license If they had fun of course... I'm not suggesting we should do exactly that now, the demo races could be a nice entry-level league, with a prospect of joining the "big" one once you get a license That is if we have enough will to do a "big" league now...

[pdanev]

I'd say take a small break, so we start maybe beginning of May.

As for handicaps, I think we can adjust that on the go depending on how much slower demo racers are.

We can strike up a schedule, which week what combo, post in entertainment section server name, time etc and see how it goes.