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!

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

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.


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!

Get a license and drive in a club race. I had very rarely contact in a club race and if you have, you can report it and if the driver has acted against the RD rules, he will loose his license for 30 days. You don't need any fancy servers for that. Most people here are old enough to know how to race fairly and those who are not won't stay long.

This is 10times better than any safety rating where drivers opt to start from pit lane just to secure their rating. I never feard to go wheel to wheel with any driver in a club race in public as that was impossible most of the time.

 

[Ghoults]

One race per week is not a solution. I want to race when I want to race, not when the clock says so.

 

[Chris]

One race per week is not a solution. I want to race when I want to race, not when the clock says so.

Then have fun with single player.

It's true that not every public server will be filled with 5 year old rammers, but the likely-hood of them being present in a public server is much higher than the chances of rammers being in a private one.
That's not an opinion, that's simply a fact.

Also, our club races aren't once a week.
The euro events have been quiet lately because Bram has been hard-pressed for free time to set them up, but on average there's at least 4 European events per week, 3 US events per week, and 2-3 AU events per week.

 

[Stereo]

One race per week is not a solution. I want to race when I want to race, not when the clock says so.

I think iracing is about as good as it's gonna get, you can't expect better than its hourly schedule for good racing against strangers. Whether a similar level of popularity is popular in AC, hard to say, but I don't think you'll manage better. People who expect to sign on and find a full grid of good racers for the car they like in 5 minutes are dreaming. The way AC's multiplayer works isn't a factor in that - there just aren't that many racing fans out there.

Joining clubs/leagues that play when you do is an option for lots of people, but if you actually play at random times 24/7 it's tricky to get consistency.

 

[simseany]

I think iracing is about as good as it's gonna get, you can't expect better than its hourly schedule for good racing against strangers. Whether a similar level of popularity is popular in AC, hard to say, but I don't think you'll manage better. People who expect to sign on and find a full grid of good racers for the car they like in 5 minutes are dreaming. The way AC's multiplayer works isn't a factor in that - there just aren't that many racing fans out there.

Joining clubs/leagues that play when you do is an option for lots of people, but if you actually play at random times 24/7 it's tricky to get consistency.

I'm living the dream! . It's called Live For Speed. It really sounds like many people here have never tried it. I race some evenings on a public server with admins and it is the most fun pick and play sim racing you can experience. There are other servers too that are public, that are really great places to race and meet other good racers. There may not be that many players these days (about 700 to 800 in the evening, mainly due to lack of content updates), It also may look a little dated for some people, but it runs perfectly and the physics are on par with Assetto.

Above all, it shows how easy public, pickup and play, multiplayer racing can be. I hope that Assetto/Kunos can take some inspiration from it. It's quite hard for anyone who has played LFS for any length of time to adjust to/accept Kunos's MP system, the way it is at the moment anyway.

I urge anyone who has not tried LFS before to give it a go. Any sim racer would not be disappointed.

Have you ever given Live for Speed a try Ghoults?

 

[Ghoults]

There may not be that many players these days (about 700 to 800 in the evening, mainly due to lack of content updates), It also may look a little dated for some people, but it runs perfectly and the physics are on par with Assetto.

The physics of lfs are good but not on ac level. Aero in lfs is super simplified (no ground effects), tires are fun to drive but it is not really realistic at really low slip angles when the tire is partially slipping. Or how the tires are fastest when there is fraction of millimeter left on the tread. And there are no mods so you are stuck with the few cars and tracks. And imho all the tracks are just mediocre. LFS was a great, innovative and ground breaking sim in 2005-2007 but then the developers just stopped developing it. Now it is just old.

Above all, it shows how easy public, pickup and play, multiplayer racing can be. I hope that Assetto/Kunos can take some inspiration from it. It's quite hard for anyone who has played LFS for any length of time to adjust to/accept Kunos's MP system, the way it is at the moment anyway.

I urge anyone who has not tried LFS before to give it a go. Any sim racer would not be disappointed.

Agreed. If someone hasn't tried lfs he is missing out. Especially if someone is new to sim racing I'd always recommend trying lfs first. It has great online system that allows you to do lots of races and learn a lot about driving and racing before you move into the deeper end of the pool. It runs extremely well, doesn't need any tweaking and it can do lots of things that you miss in other sims. But it is also dead in the sense there won't be more cars or tracks coming. If none of the cars and tracks interest you there is very little value to it.

Have you ever given Live for Speed a try Ghoults?

Yes, I have driven over hundred thousand kilometeres online in lfs. With that I've totally lost interest in it. LFS has just few boring tracks and dead development. Online works great but it is the same tracks all the time. Meh. And there are no new tracks coming. All the lfs devs seem to be doing nowadays is to post screenshots about tracks they are not going to release.

 

[Ben Lee]

I never really paid much attention to the state of mp of late, I've been rather ill too so I've not been that active. I had a look last night and I have to agree, public mp is tough right now. I remember being able to choose from maybe 5 or 6 near full servers that were local to me some weeks ago. When I tried last night there was 1 server near full, but it was in the USA, there was a half full server below that, but used mod content that I don't have, and actually that went for the majority of servers that were populated.

I hope things do pick up, for the moment I've gone back to hot lapping with rsr as getting a public race with a near full grid is very difficult at the moment. I guess I should try and sign up for a league or something? Does anyone know of a good gt3 league running at the moment?

 

[William Wester]

I'm living the dream! . It's called Live For Speed. It really sounds like many people here have never tried it. I race some evenings on a public server with admins and it is the most fun pick and play sim racing you can experience. There are other servers too that are public, that are really great places to race and meet other good racers. There may not be that many players these days (about 700 to 800 in the evening, mainly due to lack of content updates), It also may look a little dated for some people, but it runs perfectly and the physics are on par with Assetto.

Above all, it shows how easy public, pickup and play, multiplayer racing can be. I hope that Assetto/Kunos can take some inspiration from it. It's quite hard for anyone who has played LFS for any length of time to adjust to/accept Kunos's MP system, the way it is at the moment anyway.

I urge anyone who has not tried LFS before to give it a go. Any sim racer would not be disappointed.

Have you ever given Live for Speed a try Ghoults?

I haven't tried LFS online (don't own, thought about it), didn't know it was still active.

I really like AC but most of the club races are across the pond, and I don't always have blocks of time for the few in the US. For now, DTM provides my multiplayer fix. You can jump into any race during practice or qualifying. The Simbin netcode is very good and the racing has been very clean.

 

[Ryan Ogurek]

I haven't tried LFS online (don't own, thought about it), didn't know it was still active.

I really like AC but most of the club races are across the pond, and I don't always have blocks of time for the few in the US. For now, DTM provides my multiplayer fix. You can jump into any race during practice or qualifying. The Simbin netcode is very good and the racing has been very clean.

Have you tried posting in the 24/7 Server thread? Post there saying that you are, or will be looking to race online. Tag some people you think may be available around the same time, and see who joins. You can meet on Teamspeak and join together on the 24/7 server, or if it's not available coordinate hopping between open servers.

http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/various-cars-donington-park-24-7.87482/

 

[William Wester]

Thanks for the suggestions Ryan. I am enjoying DTM online too much right now to try harder to find AC online racing, especially with the AC booking system. I am sure it will be improved, but for now DTM is a blast online.