Is LFS drifting at a downfall?

Hello dear community, nobody might remember me, but those who do, its appreciated.

My name is Salss, leader of Drift Union (RIP), ex member of Garage Chaos, Team Need For Speed, WiLD and many other teams and clubs during 2008-2014. I have been a passionate LFS player, I've enjoyed the game, specifically drifting. LFS fueled my passion for the sport and the love of cars since I was very little when my older brother showed it to me when I was a wee lad. I spent years standing by LFS and always defending it ''It is still the best simulator'' ''It still has physics and they can stand up today'', while I still think this is true, many aspects make me start hating it. The very thing  - drifting, that made me buy this game, spend countless hours playing it through out my teens, spending late nights playing, is making me hate it.

I bought the game purely for drifting, I met some of my dearest online friends - shoutout MousemanLV/Granny/Elvis ,Ikey/Uldis, SpunK, Grex, Martin, Haarberg and many more.

The community used to be huge, with lfsdrift leading it, it actually felt like it will never stop, there will be always people playing it, there was this hope, but one day, I went up to my computer, typed in lfsdrift in my tab and... nothing.. Quickly I scrambled to join Skype and message my friends, nobody knew what happened at that point, it really felt like, that is it. The servers didn't seem that much affected at that point, but with time, you could see the decline, with Asseto becoming more mainstream, many pushed LFS aside and forgot about it.

Slowly, from 10 active drift servers, 5 were left.. then there were four.. then there was 2 and now.. in a evening, there is just one full.. and thats (I'm not calling anyone out) Drift+Scorer. Filled with people, who's only goal is getting these imaginary points, that mean completely nothing, an insim with I doubt has any logical algorithm that counts the points, so it would take skill to get any -  taking the worst lines, sliding all over the place on the TIGHTEST layouts that you can imagine. And layouts.. every server has layouts... the same god damn 10 layouts where you're in second gear all the time, 3rd tops if it has a straighter part. There is no growth, if you used to see people joining LFS for one of the first times and over time, you could see their skill grow, their lines getting better, their angle and speed growing and them developing their own unique driving style, now its all gone, its just drift+scorer and meihan layout with pre-heated tires so you could score the max points. Its not about having fun anyone, showing off to the people with your awesome twins, organizing large trains. Now its just.. insim points.. points that don't reflect your skill at all. People didn't spam up their ''records'' to seem cool, we just drove, we just had fun, it seems like people don't have goals anymore.

The people are still there..- there are people still drifting, but they're the wrong people, they're doing it for the wrong reasons. People make servers for the wrong reasons.

A great example that I observed was today, I joined a drift server named DrifterTM Drift Server, seemed half decent, and me and a few other guys requested a track change, the guy Logan, nice guy, actually listened, changed the track, despite him not liking it. Eventually a few scrubs filtered out and we were left 3 guys and an admin AFK, we were legitametly having fun ripping around the short Westhill doing high speed entries until another admin, I think his name was Dina or Dima came back from being AFK and instantly changed it back to layout, despite us 3, the only people on the server requesting him to switch it back, with a response being a kick, as I went back up I was greeted ''First warning then ban''. And soon people started showing up again. It was obvious why he did it, it was because his server didn't have any people on it. Quantity was more important than quality. He soon went afk again. Then me and 3 other guys did a vote and as we were about to change it back to Westhill, I was banned..

Yes, I did feel salty, but it helped me realize.. this is LFS drifting now.. it has come to drifting around 5 cones and 10 barriers in a parking lot. It has come to that there aren't any decent teams or servers around, It has come to that people don't have goals. People drifting in LFS have become scrubs. Those who we considered ''newbies'' at our time, at the peak of our community, are the majority now, with no goals, no wish to improve.

The only next step for LFS drifting to completly die.. and it will happen

And to to end off this long ''rant'', I have only one thing left to say...

Goodbye my sweet prince, it was fun while it lasted...

I completely agree with you. Drifting in lfs has become something different it reminds me too much of something. Something that is called cracked lfs. These new servers with insims to count points were always a thing in crack. I started playing in these and it was a really slow progress of improvement, but when I bought s2 and started playing with hachi it was like a new world to me, drifting here had a completely other meaning - it was about having fun, improving, style, it was something more than just scoring some points on a tight layout. Sadly I hopped onto s2 when it was already slowly dying.

I kinda disagree with your idea of there not being any people that don't drift for points, these people just aren't as active as they used to be before. I created my own club nearly a year ago with the intent of it being something more than just another useless drifting club, but as I soon realized it was going to be a lot harder to keep it alive than I thought. It was harder and harder to keep the idea of the club alive as the number of members grew bigger. A lot of people just want to join for another name in their list of clubs and have no idea about what the club is all about, which is why the idea of drifting changed. We still invest our time and money into this club and we try to keep it active and to still keep the idea and style of the club as much as we can, although it is getting harder and harder as the new players don't really understand this idea. law-break.com if anyone is intersted in what I'm talking about.

It is sad seeing how what once was a great community is overpopulated by players who redefined the purpose of drifting in lfs. As one of the last more or less active members of Night Wave, MCR and other clubs it really saddens me to see this when you come to the server and it's just some random guys sliding in the same layout for a week.