Is it just me or AC public MP is dead?

[Pablo Cortes]

I dont know if its my time zone and the hours I play.. but public servers are pretty much dead..
there is a bunch of servers with pre-registered players that are never there and you get tricked into playing empty servers with cars sitting in the pits.. it SUCKS
maybe its time to get that league rolling? even the club races are low in grid numbers...

back to SP race weekend!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I too get sick of joining a "20 player" server, only to find out that 15 of those "players" are sat in the pits doing nothing.

Thats because some servers think its cool to look crowded and just fill in 15 drivers on the prebooked list.

Make no sense at all, only results in five disappointed drivers

 

[cerebus23]

I was really looking forward to the netcode update this friday.....but yea i was hoping for official open join severs for practice and qualify as well as prediction improvments in the netcode so people would do less teleporting on track.

I am in a EU group so my ping is in the border at like 180ish me being in the states. They run good servers and have good races but until the netcode update i fear i may be wasting their time atm trying to play with that ping.

 

[Alejandro Bentos]

MP with no rules is a chaos...its a shame but is true.I bought Iracing because I needed run with serious and normal people. I don't have time to privates leagues and I just want run in public servers with good people....that is not possible in AC.

 

[simseany]

Thats because some servers think its cool to look crowded and just fill in 15 drivers on the prebooked list.

Make no sense at all, only results in five disappointed drivers

This is not true. I have a similar server set up to what you describe above..20 slots with 9 prebooked drivers...What are we supposed to do? We have to use the booking system so that if our team drivers come to race, they can join straight away with out us needing to reboot the server or having them staring into space for 15 minutes until the booking session comes around again. Which is what we had to do before we used the Entry list.

Don't blame the hosts, blame Kunos for this really poorly thought out system.

Unless they change this system, Assetto will just be another sim that has masses of potential but ends up just being an offline mod testing and playing sim (the way Rfactor was for me) because it is crippled by a bad multiplayer system. That would be a crying shame.

There is one benchmark for how online sim racing should be done and that is LiveForSpeed. Any one who has played this will find it very, very hard to live with this current Assetto MP method.

Kegetys showed that the system can be more flexible, so hopefully there is glimmer of light here.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Not blaming anybody just explaining why people think they join a full server which in fact they aren't as the prebooked drivers aren't physically there and that is happening on a lot of servers. Always the same people "online"

Kunos system is far from poor. Its how people are (not) using the full potential that makes it look poor. Ill take a prebooking of a few minutes over a system that randomly disconnects you without ever having the option to rejoin any time of the day

Only thing that needs improvement is the netcode for me.

 

[djkostas]

@simseany Please dont take this as a personal attack but if you want a server for your team drivers then put a password on it so that only your team drivers can join and new people dont get tricked into joining!

 

[simseany]

@simseany Please dont take this as a personal attack but if you want a server for your team drivers then put a password on it so that only your team drivers can join and new people dont get tricked into joining!

Heh heh we're just discussing the pros and cons, no personal attack detected

But, it's pretty normal to have a team server that allows public racers to join. This is very normal in LFS and is how you grow your community/team/friends. If people feel tricked that is a shame. But ...again, unfortunately the problem lies solely with Kunos. Not the Hosts.

Aside from changing the whole system, I'm sure it would not be hard to make it more visible to clients about what types of player are connected to the server ( Prebooked or real). Again here, the ball is Kunos' court. Servers and hosts are just trying to set up their servers they way most other games work online.

I think it's a bit strange to believe server hosts want to "trick" people into joining. I doubt you would find many hosts who have prebooked public servers that have them set this way solely to trick players into joining...or making themselves "look cool" for that matter

They just want a public server to have casual racing that allows their team mates to join when ever they like. That's how I look at it anyway.

 

[djkostas]

OK but this isnt LFS. Its AC.

Yes a marker or something to show who is prebooked would solve everything and thats why I suggested it some time ago but it turns out its not as easy as it sounds. Devs are looking into it though!

Nobody said you are purposely trying to trick people into joining your server but thats what happens. Only downside is that after a few times people remember the server name and avoid it, thus giving your club a bad rep.

 

[Damien Wintz]

Public servers should not have prebooked players, end of the story.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

With no changes to allow joining a session when in practice mode and still not being able to set a single parameter (fuel/tire wear; pro mode; etc) I predict that the already near dead public lobby pick-up racing will be pretty much extinct very soon.

I hope that when they get around to actually implementing the features that are needed it won't be too late. As a fanboy it hurts me to say these things, but they are the truth.

 

[Stelios]

With no changes to allow joining a session when in practice mode and still not being able to set a single parameter (fuel/tire wear; pro mode; etc) I predict that the already near dead public lobby pick-up racing will be pretty much extinct very soon.

I hope that when they get around to actually implementing the features that are needed it won't be too late. As a fanboy it hurts me to say these things, but they are the truth.

Version 0.2 , its a loooooooong way home it seems

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Aris replied on Twitter that they hope to have the server controls implemented by Fall since that is when most leagues start.

Looks like it is going to be at least another two weeks (probably longer) of hotlapping, getting frustrated with the AI, and occasionally getting a MP race with more than a couple people.....

Quality takes time and waiting sucks...hell of a combo...LOL

And I would have thought that by now people knew and understood that the version is just a number....If all the things were somehow ready for V1.0 in two weeks I doubt that we would have to wait for another two years worth of updates just so the numbers could catch up.

 

[Stelios]

Did he just say that the server controls will be ready in almost 3 months? LOL .

 

[xRacF1x]

why are the MP drivers now ghosts lol? !!

 

[seanvdburg]

Is anyone else having serious issues with the booking timer as well? Sometimes when it reaches zero I am not able to join. The timer is clearly out of sync. I fully agree with the thoughts here. Rfactor is what I was used to, and that system was much better.

 

[Ben Lee]

Is anyone else having serious issues with the booking timer as well? Sometimes when it reaches zero I am not able to join. The timer is clearly out of sync. I fully agree with the thoughts here. Rfactor is what I was used to, and that system was much better.

There are times when I click join and it does nothing. I have to keep clicking and eventually it does work. I just wonder why we need to click join at all. Why can't it just load up your client when the timer ends...?

 

[seanvdburg]

Exactly, however things might change in the future. (at least I hope so )

 

[InsaneOzzie]

Just a thought, but maybe Kunos could code 2 server models for AC, the current booking system for use with leagues etc and another for public servers which would allow instant joining. Sure it would involve more work re-coding the public server etc, but it would potentially solve the issues of empty or pre-booked public ghost servers.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Just a thought, but maybe Kunos could code 2 server models for AC, the current booking system for use with leagues etc and another for public servers which would allow instant joining. Sure it would involve more work re-coding the public server etc, but it would potentially solve the issues of empty or pre-booked public ghost servers.

I'm willing to bet they have a plan, it just takes time to code and test.

 

[InsaneOzzie]

I'm willing to bet they have a plan, it just takes time to code and test.

We can only hope that you are right Michael, I have my fingers crossed