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!

 

[Leemstradamus]

Just curious as one of those player still very much in love with AC, actually more than ever, but really not that much interested in MP, in any shape, neither iRacing or other formulas.

Is MP just not that many attractive to most people, as in yes racing against other real drivers is a great concept, but when you factor real life issues ( like, but not limited to, time available, different level of talent, some people attitude, time zones, network issues, etc....) then it is not that practical and exciting anymore.
I personally like AI a lot, someone mention they are a crap shot, compare to what?
Not MP, MP is much worse, as far as being varying from worst to good. if it is compare to the very elusive perfect AI that nobody has, then maybe, But as it is AC AI is by far the best I have experienced in any SIM.
So I hope AC continues to address aspect of the SIM that is important to most of ( the silent one) us, because MP really is never going to be like what people dream it should be.
This post my not be so popular on this site, but I thought some of the very expressive MP aficionado had to hear it,

I am very much still in love with AC but I haven't raced the AI but once since Multi-Player was released. The one time I attempted last week I got punted coming out of the pits lol. I plan on maybe running a race this afternoon with them once I get home from work. I have found that I have had the most fun I have had in any gaming title to date running online races. They have a ton of issues with over zealous drivers going into turn one and things of that sort but it has just been a blast racing online.

Now onto if multi-player is dead? At the moment it appears to be, interest has dropped off noticeably online. I think Kunos are really working hard and trying to prioritize resources the best they can. Let's be frank no one is perfect and people are vocal about what impacts their enjoyment. Hopefully we will get some online additions to the tools to help in the next update but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Raig Strehlow]

i read something that it need some time until mp changes are added, which are necessary.
ATM Wealthy Soup Server is open and mostly full So we need some servers, which attract many people, like always^^

 

[cerebus23]

The sale will pump things up a good bit but the bad news its probably like the wild west on public servers.

 

[Raig Strehlow]

Oh damn, yesterday i had the best races on Wealthysoup GT3 ever.
10 fast driver and nearly all were clean driving.

 

[Tom Uytterhoeven]

Oh damn, yesterday i had the best races on Wealthysoup GT3 ever.
10 fast driver and nearly all were clean driving.

I was on there as well, but I had the 'luck' to be starting towards the rear. First corner everything jammed up and I couldn't avoid. Few corners further on I have this guy on the inside, I pass him, I take my line and yes he just goes right into my side and I spin off the track.

Oh the joy of those public servers, that being said I bumped twice in a guys back (fortunately without him spinning off, just a light tap). That ling.speed dude was a very clean driver though (actually all drivers in the top 6 at least)

EDIT: as for the multiplayer changes. Somebody on the forums (non-staff) said it might come the earliest in 4 weeks. But then again when I see Kunos' announcement that says the next update will be the 18th, (in 3 weeks) I don't think that will already include significant MP changes. We'll just have to be a bit more patient, and that being said. Most people are going on holiday now anyways.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

The funny thing I see is that the a lot of the people that complain about the current multiplayer are the same names that where pushing for a multiplayer release a couple of months ago putting Kunos under huge pressure to release it in, even in an clearly unfinished state.

As long as the game is "early access" people should learn to lower their expectations.

 

[Tom Uytterhoeven]

The funny thing I see is that the a lot of the people that complain about the current multiplayer are the same names that where pushing for a multiplayer release a couple of months ago putting Kunos under huge pressure to release it in, even in an clearly unfinished state.

As long as the game is "early access" people should learn to lower their expectations.

It's what I have been saying for weeks: "it's an alpha" people don't seem to get that early access means you help test a game before it gets released. Or maybe yes, as you say: the expectations are set too high by the users themselves..

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Not just by the users themselves. In combination with poor marketing and community management this is what the result is when things escalate.

If you hire professionals to program a game, you should also hire professionals to do the other important parts of the process. Techies are just as good at community management as community managers are skilled to program a game.

I blame everything on the summer and FIFA world cup and once that is over and the fall arrives the racing fever awakens again Lets hope that by then the game is more feature rich so we can finally start with our leagues.

Can't wait

 

[Tom Uytterhoeven]

neither can I

 

[Adria Perez]

Not just by the users themselves. In combination with poor marketing and community management this is what the result is when things escalate.

If you hire professionals to program a game, you should also hire professionals to do the other important parts of the process. Techies are just as good at community management as community managers are skilled to program a game.

I blame everything on the summer and FIFA world cup and once that is over and the fall arrives the racing fever awakens again Lets hope that by then the game is more feature rich so we can finally start with our leagues.

Can't wait

I blame the Early Access businesses model (that includes kick starter and the like). And Valve is the main responsible for that.

Early access is a model to get the money before the product on sale is made. The idea is good, specially for small and indie developers, but at the end of the day you are selling a promise and not a game. And that is what AC is currently, a promise that happens to be playable for the moment.

I understand it and I have no problems with it and therefore I am not going to complain about its current state or how long it takes to get a 1.0 label. But modern society, specially young people with resources to spare on video games want entertainment, they want it now and they have no problems complaining about they not getting it as they want, and they know that the louder they cry the bigger impact they have on the forums.

And the result is this plethora of useless complaints...

 

[Leemstradamus]

We had a great race last night again. So just shy of 2 hours of great fun. Frankly with the sheer amount of hours I have in this sim, it's given me my money's worth! I understand people frustration but some just need to take a look at the amount of hours they have in the game so far and realize that it's an amazing product in its own right, even at the moment.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

From the Twitter:
Michael Hornbuckle ‏@oooRickyBobby 13m
@KunosStefano in serious, will ability to join MP 'old school' way with no booking happen on the 18th? non-organized MP is suffering rt now

Stefano Casillo ‏@KunosStefano 12m
@oooRickyBobby im trying.. most of it is there. I really hope so.


Things will be much better soon!

 

[Stefan Mizzi]

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.

Same thing here. I don't waste my time anymore in trying to find a server, wait for 5 minutes and then end up racing alone! WTF. Have better things do to. Until MP and booking are fixed, I'm not looking at it :/

 

[djkostas]

Oh come on, those prebooked servers are not that many.
You can easily remember their names and just avoid them.
Another hint is that if 10/15 players have something similar in their name (like (AC55)) then chances are they are prebooked!!

 

[Ben Lee]

Not just by the users themselves. In combination with poor marketing and community management this is what the result is when things escalate.

If you hire professionals to program a game, you should also hire professionals to do the other important parts of the process. Techies are just as good at community management as community managers are skilled to program a game.

I blame everything on the summer and FIFA world cup and once that is over and the fall arrives the racing fever awakens again Lets hope that by then the game is more feature rich so we can finally start with our leagues.

Can't wait

This is exactly what I was saying some months ago. People were clamouring and begging for mp to be released (often with the best of intentions, people are just fans etc) however I knew that if it was released too early, the reaction from the community would be negative and the online experience would suffer as a result.

 

[Leemstradamus]

This is exactly what I was saying some months ago. People were clamouring and begging for mp to be released (often with the best of intentions, people are just fans etc) however I knew that if it was released too early, the reaction from the community would be negative and the online experience would suffer as a result.

I agree, I am glad that multiplayer is out and is allowing us to give this feedback now. Basically server hoping and public racing aren't very good at the moment but club racing for those that keep coming back is great fun. It's still limited but we were able to race GT3 cars for just over an hour Sunday.

 

[Ghoults]

The funny thing I see is that the a lot of the people that complain about the current multiplayer are the same names that where pushing for a multiplayer release a couple of months ago putting Kunos under huge pressure to release it in, even in an clearly unfinished state.

As long as the game is "early access" people should learn to lower their expectations.

I don't this whole thread has anything to do with unrealistic expectations. What I see is that people are not enjoying the mp in its current form. The worst thing kunos could do next is to enable damage in mp. Not only do you get trashed in T1 in 80% of your races but your race would also end there. It is absolutely imperative for the mp that the the issues with booking and netcode are fixed and improved before bigger game changing features are added into ac. It is not about "I want it now and I want it perfect". It is simply about what a lot of people see being the biggest issue in ac righ now. And that is mp. That doesn't mean releasing mp in its current form was a mistake.

I only bought ac after the mp was released. I don't do hotlapping so pure offline sims are worthless to me. Do I think kunos should have waited for the mp to be better before releasing? Even if I think it is not very optimal at the moment? No. Even with its current faults it is still much much better than nothing. But is the mp the feature that atm needs fixing and improving the most now? Yes, hell yes. Before stuff like damage is added the mp needs to be better.

The problem with mp is that once it is out one really can't stop working on it until it functions as most people expect. You can release physics that don't simulate dynamic camber, tire wear and tire blowouts but it is really difficult to release mp that has "a booking system" and leave it like that for long time. Very few complain about missing damage because it is not very important at this stage. But mp is important as soon as the feature is out in some form.

I also think it is unfair to say people put pressure over kunos to release the mp early. If you hold the carrot in the air people will jump and try to get it. Mp in ac is without a doubt the most single important and expected and wanted feature. If people were not going nuts about it it would be a bad thing. I'm not saying nobody is at fault. I don't think there has even been a mistake or error. But now it is simply the most important thing that mp improves. The sooner it does improve better the ac experience overall will get.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I don't use public multiplayer racing as you will "get trashed 80% in the first corner" even with all the multiplayer features enabled, thats why its public racing

For the racing club however enabling damage would be the solution as the current accidents are almost identical: the pack of drivers is to close too each other (due to a standing start) and where you normally can bump the car in front a little bit or swap a bit of paint during rubbing now the infamous "harmonica effect" kicks in catapulting cars back from their original position causing large pile ups for now reason at all.

If they can tackle this issue by adding damage then Kunos kudos to them for fixing our main online racing issue.

 

[Leemstradamus]

I don't use public multiplayer racing as you will "get trashed 80% in the first corner" even with all the multiplayer features enabled, thats why its public racing

For the racing club however enabling damage would be the solution as the current accidents are almost identical: the pack of drivers is to close too each other (due to a standing start) and where you normally can bump the car in front a little bit or swap a bit of paint during rubbing now the infamous "harmonica effect" kicks in catapulting cars back from their original position causing large pile ups for now reason at all.

If they can tackle this issue by adding damage then Kunos kudos to them for fixing our main online racing issue.

We did this for our last GT3 Race and had no turn one incidents!

 

[Ghoults]

I don't use public multiplayer racing as you will "get trashed 80% in the first corner" even with all the multiplayer features enabled, thats why its public racing

I don't think that is true at all. T1 massacres happen in every form of sim racing all the way from bestest alien leagues to random teenagers venting their hormones in super car track day servers. What good mp allows is good quality servers that have live admins and other tools to control the server. In lfs we have seen insanely complex and innovative servers all the way from community controlled crasher barricade to organized minileague points racing with multiple car classes and even few servers with mmo type progression and safety rating type of automated systems. On those server you had automated systems that prevented you from even driving out of pits during a race or when someone was close to the pit exit.

Public racing doesn't mean carnage and T1 mayhem. It can be that but if you give people the tools people will do their best to clear those problems. Even in gt5 public racing was really clean once you found a server with admin that was interested kicking out the trouble makers. I remember doing 10-15 lap races in the supergt cars for hours without being taken out even once and that was with damage on. With total strangers. It is almost impossible to do that in ac because there simply aren't tools for that.

For the racing club however enabling damage would be the solution as the current accidents are almost identical: the pack of drivers is to close too each other (due to a standing start) and where you normally can bump the car in front a little bit or swap a bit of paint during rubbing now the infamous "harmonica effect" kicks in catapulting cars back from their original position causing large pile ups for now reason at all.

If they can tackle this issue by adding damage then Kunos kudos to them for fixing our main online racing issue.

I can't believe you actually wrote that. You want to combat netcode problems and T1 crashers by enabling damage? Damage only makes bad netcode worse. I completely fail to see the benefits of taking out multiple cars from a race just because the server had a tiny hiccup or some netcode weirdness happened. Best case scenario is that a wrecker puts you into the wall and continues without damage but you are out. At least now I can take some heavy hits in T1 and keep racing. After waiting 5 minutes in booking more, 10 minutes in practise and 10 more minutes in qualifying just to do a 5 lap race... Nor ro mention the joys of having people drive around the track slowly with damaged cars or 90% of the people leaving after T1. You gotta be kidding me!