Multiplayer Test Today - Sun April 1st

[Myshkin]

So Frank or Fez, will you be able to be around today? I see that I wrote the "west" side of the island in the other thread, it is actually the south side of the island, the west side would be Honolulu I guess. From what I can tell, once we "find" each other and make "friends", it is much easier to keep in contact after that.

I don't know why you have to be a friend before it allows you to invite someone to your club. That is silly.

Anyways, I'll be around in about 40 minutes, and I'll start the MP race at Manalua Bay in about 1 h 10 mins.

[Myshkin]

So of course, just when I want to do an MP test, I can't connect to the server. :rolleyes:

[Myshkin]

What a POS. Servers are down? Niiiice going Atari.

Though we recall the days of PU fondly, I also remember how often the servers went down.

So, I am going to keep trying to connect, and I'll try to make a MP race at the designated location on the hour every hour for the next four hours.

[Justin Martin]

I can't get to gamespyid.com to register for an ID. :( I can view gamespy.com fine, but gamespyid.com just times out.

[Myshkin]

It seems that Gamespy is down, not just the TDU servers. At least, I read on the TDU forum that someone couldn't get into one of the Battlefield servers either.

[Myshkin]

Okay I am in now, I have created a MP match for the Manalua Bay Race. It is unrestricted, so you run what you brung.

P.S. I might walk away from the computer for a few minutes, so if I don't respond immediately, give me a few.

[Justin Martin]

Okay, gamespy is working now, and i'm creating a new online account. (my old one was offline) Since it's a new account, i'll have to drive over to Manalua Bay, so maybe i'll be over there by 3:00 or so.

[Myshkin]

Hah I just raced with Strobe!

That was kinda cool. MP is fun!

Anyways I am waiting in my MP race now

[Justin Martin]

Mysh, KC5KQL was me. I couldn't find the talk button until after you left the game. I'm going to need a faster car. ^_^

[Myshkin]

Hey Justin that wasn't you? KC5KQL?

I thought it might be your radio tag.

[Edit: Heh you beat me.]

[Myshkin]

Yeah a Saturn Sky isn't quite gonna cut it... unless I level the playing field. Where are you now? I am back at Manalua Bay.

[Myshkin]

Hey Justin you have an invite to Club RP.

[KyzrSoze]

I just started my download a few minutes ago. I want to join the fun asap.:)

[Justin Martin]

When you create your profile in TDU, make sure that you supply a Gamespy ID if you want to use that profile online. Profiles seem to be either offline-only or online-only, and I don't think that you can convert from one to the other.

The only downside that I have found with online-only is that you can't play with that profile if you don't have access to a internet connection - which is probably only a concern if you are playing on a laptop. (like me)

[Frank N. O.]

Sigh, I've been offline for hours since I couldn't boot XP after having to use msconfig to re-install my internet security since a password function was messed up so it didn't work, but then xp froze several times when I tried booting up normally. I only just now got it working. I've ordered a new extra WD SATA-II SE16 hdd since I was running low on space and I thought my old 80gb Seagate IDE needed a replacement as storage hdd and that way I could make a clean install on the new harddrive without loosing this old one in case the new one got into trouble but I'm going to make back-ups of my hyperlinks, gamesaves from documents etc. just incase. After that I'll try to see if the re-installed Kaspersky will allow me to grant full access to the internet for tdu so I don't have to manually accept every single player ISP adress like I've been forced to now.

Btw, I tried reducing detail and screen res to see if that would help the game-lag online, nope not a thing (I didn't really think so either since only the city gives some low fps in my offline profile so it pretty much seemed like internet-related).

Frank

[Frank N. O.]

Woohoo! It works and there's not that giant lag anymore! The re-install of my internet security so I could set permissions automatically (but without de-activating mind you!) worked! Players come and go without any big lags, or forcing the game to jump to desktop and then take multiple whole seconds to re-start the game.

I got myself an XJ220 again and am now cruising around Honolulu to find a paintshop for it, and the blue Alfa I want to get resprayed to deep red, similar to my mom's new Lancer which we hope we'll finally get within two weeks.

Frank

[Myshkin]

Hey Kyzr, yeah join in the fun. I had some fun races with a group of people that were there while I was hanging out waiting for Frank and Justin. Once you start racing in a group, the race creator can take you to any of the MP races, and it works pretty well.

I found that I couldn't join other people's races though. I think my firewall is blocking it, although I have given it complete access.

I have been off the servers for awhile now, but I'll be back tomorrow evening. My wife has been working the night shift, so I'll probably be there all evening. Kyzr, if you can be around tomorrow, let me know when and we can try to find each other, so we can make "friends". Once you do that, it is easier to find each other... but not really easy unfortunately. As a friend, you can join the club and we can have club races. Justin and I only raced general MP races, I want to see how the club races work.

A couple of suggestions, Kyzr: Besides making sure your profile is online, after you do a few races you will see challenges where you can take someone's (not MP) car from one point to another, and it pays well. Do those as soon as you can, and drive safely so you don't do any damage, you'll get a 50% money bonus. Meaning that if it pays $90,000, you'll get $135,000 for a perfect run, just don't hit anything at all. It is the best way to make a lot of money fast.

Don't bother with hitchhikers or picking up models... you can only get clothes for that :rolleyes:

[Justin Martin]

If anyone wants to meet up, i'll probably be online off and on tonight. Just post a message here, or look for KC5KQL in the game. (press "m" for map, then click the people icon in the upper left corner - i'll be one of the red dots)

I finally got a faster car (Z06) for my online profile. :D

[Frank N. O.]

Well I'll be racing around in my deep red XJ220 in the south-west corner of the island, near the smaller airport. I'll keep an eye out for a Corvette with your radio nick.

Frank

[Justin Martin]

I see you. :D

[Frank N. O.]

Ditto, however how to talk/start a race? I tried the chat-function but couldn't see a response.

Frank

[Justin Martin]

Go to the Wailua Race, north east corner of the airport.

[Frank N. O.]

Ok

Frank

[Justin Martin]

Heh, not sure what happened in the last race. Server crap out on us? I'll be back on in about thirty minutes. :D

[Frank N. O.]

Not bad, not bad at all! (the online racing that is, I was horrible).

After installing new drivers, defragging the drive, changing my internet security programs etc. then this game is not that bad, not bad at all! There's a lot of good things in it! So I say people should try to relax and try various things if there are problems since there are some nice things going once the game works :)

Now, I'm going to find the find the UK tuner and see what my XJ220 can become because I got my butt handed to me by the americans (Justin's C6 Z06 and two other dudes running a Saleen S7 Twin Turbo and Shelby GR-1 Concept).

Edit: Ok Justin, I'll also look at the club house now.

Frank

[Justin Martin]

Okay, I invited you to join Club RP. It's the clubhouse located at the southeast corner of Diamond Head. I think all that you have to do to join is just go in it. :)

Yeah, this game is awesome. Other than the somewhat flakey server, the too small chat text, and the confusing user interface, this is a worthy successor to NFSPU. -^


Edit: Hey, cool, you can chat while in the club. :D

[KyzrSoze]

Still downloading - 3 hours left - so I'll not likely be around tonite.:rolleyes:

Car show tomorrow nite, so I'll get some practice and be ready for Tuesday. :)

[Frank N. O.]

That's why I bought the game on DVD instead, so much easier imho but of course that might depend on the circumstances. Looking forward to see you there and I plan on posting more info soon.

Speaking of which, Justin how do I chat in the club? It doesn't work.

Frank

[Justin Martin]

Are you in the clubhouse? I'm in there right now. I thought it would show both of us in the list???

[Justin Martin]

I just setup a race through the clubhouse. I have no idea how you would get to it, but if you see this, try to find it. :)

This clubhouse thing doesn't seem to work as well as I would have hoped, or maybe we're doing something wrong...

[Myshkin]

Justin, I am trying to join your game but I can't. It just says "waiting".

I tried creating one, and it says "Lobby unavailable"?

[Justin Martin]

Let me set it back up again. Is it listed under the intra-club challenge page?

[Frank N. O.]

Justin, I am trying to join your game but I can't. It just says "waiting".Same here when I tried, and I couldn't see you even when you were driving around in that ring-track just north of the clubhouse, weird.

When I join the clubhouse then only my name shows in the first list so there's no way to tell if another member is there, really weird, but I'll continue to try, and maybe then afterwards read the manual :D

Edit: Yes Justin it was. And when I looked again then you know had a silver crown btw, not sure what that means yet though.

Frank

[Myshkin]

It might be a server problem?

Yeah, I see it on the intra-club page.

It won't let me create any races now.

[Myshkin]

Heh it means I named him Vice President of the club :p

[Justin Martin]

Can you connect to the game I created, Frank?

Mysh - we're racing at Wailua, in sw corner of island

[Myshkin]

Okay I can start a race now.... either one of you there?

[Frank N. O.]

I can see Justin on the map, but not in-game or when I enter the online race location icon. I've tried all match-setups and no-one finds the race, and several times I couldn't even activate the chat-function after having driven away from the area. Or maybe that's because no-one was shown in the in-game location?

I tried reading thrue the manual I got but it didn't really say much at all :(

Frank

[Justin Martin]

I guess the server's acting screwy again...

[Justin Martin]

I setup a custom, non-ranked game at Wailua

[Myshkin]

I am there, it just says "Connecting..."

I think their servers are still funky.

[Justin Martin]

Mike, try to create a game. Maybe i'm the problem...

[Myshkin]

No, I can't even get to the race list now to create my own race. It looks like a server problem, unless you all can create your own races or join others.

I can't do crap... after selecting "Non-Ranked" I just get "Connecting" and it never gets out of it. I have to ESC and change my profile to my offline one, then back to get back to normal.

[Frank N. O.]

I tried making a race, and it said: Lobby unavailable, so it does look like a server-problem.

Frank

[Myshkin]

I'm out for tonight, maybe we can try again tomorrow or another day.

I like the MP when it works, I had fun today. But it seems that the Atari servers are even flakier than the EA-PU ones. If it weren't for this MP race issue, I would recommend it to everyone without any "but..."s. No, it isn't much of a sim but it is a pretty fun arcade-type game (I would agree that it is about the level of PU on the Sim-Arcade scale), and the maps are realistic and fun.

[Justin Martin]

Yeah, looks like the server is having problems. I'm going to quit for the night...

[Frank N. O.]

Me too, but we had some fun and I'm looking forward to trying it again later :) I'll make a note of the experience and we can hopefully get some info collected to post here to help others.

Good night :wave:
Frank

[FeZ]

guess I missed something :slap:

How does this online thing work. When you have a club are all the other 1000s of players on the map blocked out?
Are there some ports that need to be opened on a router?

EDIT: ok I opened the ports described in the readme. Now the game seems to run lagfree but I cannot see any players driving around. I can see other players on the map but not when I drive around the area?
Online Name is XR-FEZ by the way

EDIT#2: I tried again the last few minutes, but could not connect to the server, after checking the atari forum it seems as if the server is down ..... this is so lame ;)

[KyzrSoze]

Download finished.

I am installing right now, and I need to uninstall some other stuff and defrag before I give it a try.

@Frank

I couldnt find the DVD at any local stores, so an overnite download wasnt so bad.:)

[Myshkin]

Fez,

The Club thing is better than nothing, but it doesn't seem that great either. If you use the filter when looking at the map, then yes, you can limit it to club members or friends.

But the club does not impress me because:

1. Despite all three of us being in the club at the same time last night, we could not chat and had some difficulty arranging a race. As you can see from this thread, we were using it to communicate. NOTE: I think if you set up the voice comm correctly, you can voice chat to just club members, even if you are not in the same race. I think I read this but I have not confirmed it.

2. In order for me to invite someone into the club, I have to make them my friend first. Despite me knowing your user name, I can't add you until I see you in-game. Luckily any club member can add you though.

3. $350,000 to start this club? Not worth it so far.

Positives? Well, you can filter your map on club members, you can create races from within the club, and if they are club races you can track stats from those races. You can challenge other clubs. There are club rankings. And best of all, I could name a Vice President! Everyone, meet Vice President Justin! And I can hand over the club to someone else. And I can exclude people.

Despite all of the faults of MP, when it works, it all clicks together well. My only real beef with it when it works is the chat interface... several times someone would be saying something right after a race, while we are looking at the results, and the screen changes back to the start race, so if you didn't read it fast enough you're out of luck. Oh, and there was someone with their microphone on last night that was driving me crazy. I thought it was one guy because it started when he entered a couple of times, but he said it wasn't. So imagine you are driving along while listening to a bunch of static and the sounds from someone else's driving laid over your own.

Deja vu. I can remember when I liked PU but was severely annoyed at EA for their servers. Things improved over time, but at least PU had a separate MP module that did not require their server. TDU is on their server or offline, and that sucks.

To anyone about to buy the game or have just bought it (like Kyzr), don't let any of these comments discourage you, it was not THAT hard to get it all working last night, so there is hope. And I think the game is worth the money. But expect to struggle more than you should need to.

P.S. Fez, while driving around you will see names on your screen and how far away from you they are. They have to be within a certain distance to show up.

[Frank N. O.]

Ok, I just drove 40 km's to find Mysh and I can see his blac Audi but it doesn't seem like the chat-function works. Has anyone tried the voice-chat function? It can be set to group only.

Frank

[Myshkin]

Heh sorry Frank I was away from the computer. Oops there you are.

[Frank N. O.]

Ah np, just wanted to find out if there was a problem with the chat, apart from it being too small in race-lobbies.

For the rest of you I can tell that Mysh and I had some great races online after I met up with him in the clubhouse and joined an intra-club race, we also tried the speed challenge and I smashed his Sagaris in my Top Cat.

Frank

[Frank N. O.]

You know, I really really miss a SMS-system so you can contact online club-members/friends to ask if they want a race or such. While also trying to open the roads around the island in my online-profile I tried to intercept Mysh as I saw him on the map, but not on the roads at all.

Frank

[FeZ]

I will try again later if I can get online today. Yesterday I could not connect to the server

Ok I could go online but same problem as few days ago, I can see loads of players on the map but none on the road

[Frank N. O.]

I'm currently low-flying around the map opening the roads. DCFrank - Jaguar XJ220. I'll be looking around the map once in a while incase any RP Club members comes online. I really miss a system to send to give notice when other club members are online when racing/driving in TDU.

Frank

[FeZ]

I try if I can see you (on the map)

Look out for me XR-FEZ in a Little Blue Corvette :D

EDIT: IS it of any relevance that all the players i can see on the map are in RED ??? Red is bad or something

[Frank N. O.]

Several players show as red, and orange, light blue and white. Connection problems show as an icon in front of the name, like this: -//-

I'll try hanging around the small airport to the south-west of the island.

Frank

[Frank N. O.]

Well I saw mysh several times on the map, but it always said N/A after his name, gotta find what that means again. I saw some cars almost 10 km's away so I wonder what it is that the program uses to decide who gets shown and who doesn't, ping? I saw some germans (judging from the name and what they typed in the on-screen chat) but no XR-Fez and I tried setting the filter to only show classics in the hope that I'd get a better chance to spot you but no dice.

Frank

[Myshkin]

Frank, I was making some money to buy an Enzo. That's why it said N/A.

[Frank N. O.]

Aha, thanks for the info, so that's what it says when one is doing sp missions/races, that was one thing the manual didn't tell. Now I also know why I never saw your car.

Frank

[FeZ]

I have the strange feeling that my connection is somehow not capable of online gaming. I tried to find Frank last evening but no chance. I was going all over the island and did not see any playername pop up on my radar.
But it seems that I am not alone with this, at the Atari forum other players also mention that they can see players on the map but not on the road :rolleyes:
The strange thing is that the red icons on the map come and go as they like, some second there is a group of cars in the Honolulu area then suddenly they are gone but a bunch of people show up all the way in the north =((
Only positive side of the online profile is that you can keep track of your records and compare your times for the challenges with others. Although it is lame that you cannot filter these times by classes or even better by cars.

EDIT: I dont know what happened but today for the first time I met some online player on the road. I was not able to run a race but at least I saw that it works somehow. I will keep my eyes open for you guys in the future, hopefully we run into each other ;) sometime.

[Frank N. O.]

Congrats on seeing a car Fez, it's nice when it finally happends after all that wait isn't it? It was for me :)

The RP clubhouse is down in the south-east of the island, see the attached image.
Edit: I just now found out I'd forgotten to add the image, I'll do it in my new message a few posts down.

Are you still only driving your 69 Corvette? I'm using class-filtering to try and find your car but of course that won't work if you don't drive a class G car. I just got a Gallardo Spyder and am doing missions to save up for a AC 289 but I'll keep an eye out there, and here.

Oh darn! Just as I typed the above line, I now for the 4th time at least can hear low-quality sound from another TDU driver. I swear I heard someone saying a word or two the other day too, and it couldn't have been in any radio or song that was playing too. Oh man that scratches!

Frank

[Justin Martin]

Oh darn! Just as I typed the above line, I now for the 4th time at least can hear low-quality sound from another TDU driver. I swear I heard someone saying a word or two the other day too, and it couldn't have been in any radio or song that was playing too. Oh man that scratches!
Go to the options menu, then "Voices", and you can turn off that feature.

[Frank N. O.]

I've set the option to only hear group voices and I assumed that meant either club members or ones you've isolated for a cruise using the in-game menu.

Btw, is anyone going to be online in TDU later within next some hours? I'm going back online in a small hour after having late dinner. I got myself a AC 289 now and it's pretty good to drive actually, which sadly seems to be a bit un-authentic since from what I've heard about them. Silly me also though it got upgraded to a 427 since I saw the wheels named that in the files, but that must be for a add-on that may or may not be released, like the Ruf RGT, Skyline GT-R, Diablo, LM002 etc.

Frank

[Myshkin]

<Insert obligatory joke about turning off the voices in one's head.>

[Frank N. O.]

Good one! Getting even for the spanking online eh? :D

Ah, a taste of the classic fun spirit from the good old days :beer: :HB:

Okie dokie, I'm going online again, driving either:
Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder Class C, metallic burgundy with grey rims
Alfa Romeo GT 3.2 V6 24v Class F, metallic burgundy with optional 18" rims
AC 289 Class G, metallic burguny with wirewheels
and of course, Top Cat, Jaguar XJ220 Class B with level 3 tuning, guess what colour it's in? :D

Edit: just remembered I forgot to add the location of the clubhouse in the former post earlier today so here goes.

Frank

[KyzrSoze]

I have been playing a little in the last few days, and started my online profile. I did a car delivery today, and I made enough money for a few cars. I've got the cheap Saturn Sky, a Z06, and '71 trans am.

I have finally begun to see a few people online, but I don't know what online names people here are using, so I dont know who to look for.

Someone named Rummelstein (I think) driving a Yellow Enzo asked to be my friend today. Is that someone here? I didnt know what button to click so I was lost.

[Frank N. O.]

I just got an Esprit V8 (and that drives pretty good actually, good launch and turn-in like the real thing is legendary for).

I was contacted by someone called Masterchief (written partly in l33t) but I don't know who that is so I just quit the game since I was tired anyway.

The menus are defaulted to the keypad and pressing that brings up a MFD to the left that also includes the chronometer function for performance-tests, the radio-controls etc.
Pressing F allows directly jumps to the MFD showing who's visible and using the keypad arrow-keys you can select someone to accept as a friend key: A, and you can also select to include a group to drive with isolated from other drivers, and locked so you don't loose each other.
Often when I open the map to see who's online I don't see Mysh before I switch the filter to club members (it can also show friends btw).

I thought about making a thread about who you are in TDU, nick, cars owned and maybe house(s) and such if they want to add some more, I'll make one now. When that's done I'm going back online (I'm actually paused atm).

Frank

[FeZ]

<Insert obligatory joke about turning off the voices in one's head.>

LMAO :HB:

Someone named Rummelstein (I think) driving a Yellow Enzo asked to be my friend today.

Do you really want to be friend with somebody called Rummelstein, holding hands in his yellow Enzo :D

...also includes the chronometer function for performance-tests
What is that and how does this work?

I also did find the clubhouse, but nobody was home.
So I took a few beer out of the fridge and sat there in the sun waiting. After waiting for several minutes I pee'd in the pool and left )=)

[KyzrSoze]

Do you really want to be friend with somebody called Rummelstein, holding hands in his yellow Enzo :D

Yes that did concern me. :)

In real life, a stranger approaching you in a car and asking you to be his friend means something very different.:eek:

[Frank N. O.]

After thousands of km's of gripping that thin, sharp G25 wheel I've had to take some breaks due to severe constant finger-pains so Mysh and Co. might get a chance to beat me now I'm just using the keyboard and automatic shift :D

Anyone planning on some online races in the near future?

Frank

[KyzrSoze]

@Frank

I hope to be ready for some online races soon. I have spent most of my time touring the island and building up my assets. I am still only at the second rank, amateur I think, so I have only unlocked the first challenges that really prepare you for racing. Once I get a grasp on how to best drive this Z06 I'll feel more confident.:)

I saw you online last nite, but you disappeared before I could get to you.

[Frank N. O.]

Okie dokie, I'll probably be driving some more tonight. When you want to try and meet then post here and I'll see what I can do. I'll keep an eye on this thread. In the meantime have some fun, and remember to test-drive cars before buying since as you can read from the car-list thread then the stat-numbers are deceptive.

Btw, how did you see me? On the map or while driving? If you see me on the map you can left-click to teleport there. Then press the chat-key and type hey, I usually look what people write so I can recognize your name then.

Frank

[Myshkin]

I have been busy the last couple of days, and the next two weeks starting Monday I will probably not be racing at all, as I will be on the road. Between work this week I have been knocking off the single player challenges, and building my garage a bit (like buying the Ford GT for the Ford race, the Corvette for the Chevy race, etc.). It is also good practice.

[Frank N. O.]

Okie dokie, I'll just drive around and keep an eye for familiar names like Kyzr, FeZ etc. And just now I see Justin is online doing some missions.

Frank

[Frank N. O.]

Ok, I finally found Justin, it seems that clicking on player to start the teleport may help you connect with the other player. We got some speed races done but Top Cat (my level-3 XJ220 that somehow is only class B) easily beat Justin's ditto level-3 Murcielago, in fact it accelerated really slow and there was some heavy lagging giving some quite funny driving views :D Some other came along and dusted both of us like nothing! Some dude(?) in a pink Saleen S7 Twin Turbo level-3 blasted the doors of us both time after time again but then I had to leave my computer for a while anyway but I'll just post this before trying to rest for tomorrow's drive (and it's already late in the night here, almost early morning).

I got a S7 and tuned it to level-3 and I can just say that if the game is sort-of realistic with the low-power cars then it's pure top-tuned NFS5-arcade with a S7 Level-3. 0-300 in a few seconds (once it stops spinning the wheels in first and second gear but even with wheelspin it still accelerated pretty quickly). Btw, with level-3 tuning it's listed as 1000 hp and a 401 kph (249 mph) top-speed. I've gotten top-cat up to 384 kph myself.

Frank

[FeZ]

Wooohooo Frank added me to the RP Club.

We had some hilarious races just now with some mad car combos, was good fun and worked rather well once we figured out how ^_^