Private rooms discussion

BreakerOhio

BreakerOhio

1,794
BreakerOhio
The thought of having private rooms sounds good and all, but when racing online now, it's a lot easier and quicker to start a game. It takes a lot of time and patience to get online games going with online friends. How many times have you tried to play online with a friend in any game that went smooth at setup. Every online game I've played with a friend took effort to coordinate. This ment less time playing, more time setting it up.

I've done my share of xlink gaming, tunnelling the network so that I could race online in GT4. That was a lot of work and required lots of patience when trying to add strangers to our group. Network issues, retrying and retrying. Takes planning and coordination. Waiting on everyone to be ready to join and race. In my opinion lots of time waiting and troubleshooting issues. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all of the times I've raced with friends, but sometimes I could careless about setting up a friends race and just go out there when I have time to play and test/tune my car and see how fast it is against other online racers. Now I can. I don't have to wait on anyone or organize an online meet. If they want to join in, then do it.

The point is, I think the current setup is still very good, dispite the idiots that potentially ruin the race, but if you are a fast driver, idiots and newbs shouldn't catch you. I go online now and the grid is barely full. What does that mean? could mean that only so few are actually playing. I don't want to fuss with a private room to ask for permission to race with someone and sit there waiting for the race to begin because they are all waiting for their friends to join. This happens in Forza and Project Gotham. Wait and wait...think about it.

When grids online aren't even full, and if they introduce private rooms, they will be even worst. The fun of online racing now is not knowing if you will see someone on that grid with you. Joining an event and seeing GTP_001 there...ooohh get the idea?

Private rooms sound nice. Not saying they aren't, just rethinking the outcome.

Give me your thoughts on how you think private rooms will be or how they should be.
 
However, private rooms would be far more effective for pre-organised events such as the ones held here at GTP. It would make it much easier for us all to get into games, and as such, ensure we have clean races.
Private rooms also should mean we get to change settings for the races online, and so we are not restricted by what PD have set on the server. So we can play 800PP London Circuit or 650PP Daytona Road, etc. We could finally start having some proper endurance races too, and maybe get rid of the rubber-band boost system.

It would help get rid of the idiots online, because they wouldnt be able to join any of our games and many will give up trying. I'm not saying all the idiots will leave, but there will be significantly less, especially when all the GT fan forums are having private races with passwords, etc.

Although, I have always been in favour of keeping the "Quick race" style joining system we have now in conjunction with private rooms.
 
I see your point. Having options for "instant racing" or coordinating a online event through private rooms, as well as being able to invite buddies to your current race would be great. It could suit everyone.
 
Look at the name of this site. Now, see how many members from here are on your friends list (if not many then you need to take care of that). Now look at how many (particularly in your region) are often playing GT5P.

Do you really think you will do a lot of waiting?

I know in Warhawk I have had to do some waiting for more than just a couple of us to join, but then we just chat while we wait.

And in all honesty, if I have to wait a few minutes to get in on a GTP only race I think it would be worth it.

Plus, we already have scheduled times to attempt meeting each other. I have a feeling any official GTP meetings will be similarly scheduled, only now you are guaranteed to meet up with GTP people.

I think you are thinking about this too much.
 
Here's how I see private rooms working best (only slightly modelled around OSP Quake3)

You start a room and set up a password and it puts you straight onto the track in freerun mode.

You should be able to name your server to make it easy to find in a "server browser" but integration with PSN should also make you findable to your friends with a one-click join then they enter the password.

Once you have a couple of peeps you will all "ready up" and, at that point the race kicks off with the preset number of laps. If, during this race, some other(s) join the server - they will be placed into "spectate" mode until the race is over, at which point there may or may not be a "vote" for the next track, pp limits.. etc and then the latecomers will be plonked onto the track in freerun until, once again, everyone has readied up.

This in my opinion is the proper way to have ANY game played online. Warm up periods are essential - this whole idea of - everybody has to press the start button at the exact same millisecond - is patently ridiculous. Also who in their right mind would want to join an online server for just one race, in one car, on one track? If I find a good server I'm there all day!
 
FoolKiller
I know in Warhawk I have had to do some waiting for more than just a couple of us to join, but then we just chat while we wait.

And in all honesty, if I have to wait a few minutes to get in on a GTP only race I think it would be worth it.

I think you are thinking about this too much.
Click to expand...

That's my point. I'm not saying this is a bad idea, I'm just bringing up a potential reason why the developers may not have considered private rooms yet. Yes I am over thinking it.

I don't have much time to play online. Some weekends and some nights after work I can get some time to play. I want to race all of you guys. I want to race the best out there. I don't want them hidden under a rock in a private room. :)

I welcome private rooms too. I will play it with friends on my list that I know are good drivers. I wanted to spark a discussion about the pros and cons of it and also see what people think about private rooms. The good or the bad and any ideas on how it should be implemented.
 
P3nT4gR4m
Here's how I see private rooms working best (only slightly modelled around OSP Quake3)

You start a room and set up a password and it puts you straight onto the track in freerun mode.

You should be able to name your server to make it easy to find in a "server browser" but integration with PSN should also make you findable to your friends with a one-click join then they enter the password.

Once you have a couple of peeps you will all "ready up" and, at that point the race kicks off with the preset number of laps. If, during this race, some other(s) join the server - they will be placed into "spectate" mode until the race is over, at which point there may or may not be a "vote" for the next track, pp limits.. etc and then the latecomers will be plonked onto the track in freerun until, once again, everyone has readied up.

This in my opinion is the proper way to have ANY game played online. Warm up periods are essential - this whole idea of - everybody has to press the start button at the exact same millisecond - is patently ridiculous. Also who in their right mind would want to join an online server for just one race, in one car, on one track? If I find a good server I'm there all day!
Click to expand...

I doubt it will be like that, it will probably preceded by the usual game lobby, where people can talk while the settings are chosen by the host and while they wait for people to join. Everyone (or 80% of the joinees) will have to press a button to say they are ready and then the game will start.
This is the way many online games over the past 10 years have done it, and it works great.

Some of the likely settings:
Lap number
Qualifying (yes/no) (with a time limit)
Weather (maybe)
Track
PP limit
Championship (yes/no)
Number of tracks

The way youre suggesting is like a battlefield server or something, which works fine for those games because the battle's are usually constantly going, whereas with a race, someone can't just join half way through, even as a spectator, I would imagine it would screw the connections badly if people kept joining and quiting, seeing as this game is likely to be run by clients rather than servers.
 
Dear Santa,

I think a fairly optimal system would be a combination of how NFS and F1:CE do it. You create a room and have a choice of it being password protected, invite only or free entry. One click access to your friends list for easy invites. Everything needs to be customizable, such as car/PP/tyre/driving aid/etc restrictions, number of laps, standard/pro physics etc. Not just one off races, but also "race days", tournaments or even championship seasons (F1, DTM, Indycar, Rally etc?). One interesting addition might be team races where the participants are divided into teams rather than individual racers. The more options the merrier.

Oh, and private rooms should by no means replace quick races, but be added as an additional feature, obviously.
 
Won't '' HOME '' :confused: be released by the time we have private rooms/races. This I hope, should be able to sort out all the problems meeting up with friends online.
 
I mentioned something similar as the OP in another thread. Private rooms will limit the growth of online racing in the GT community.
The best possible scenario is to have dedicated servers hosting a wide variety of tracks and race lengths. GT5 will have the numbers to keep the fields full and give everyone the choice to compete in whatever race interests them in a matter of minutes. Racing Nirvana.
Instead, with private rooms, choices for newcomers will be the full Daytona races (boring) or meagre attendance at the other tracks. You’ll be closing the doors on the potential for worldwide competition and discouraging the transition of new drivers into the community.
Even amongst forum friends you’ll be limited to majority rules on the race choice, then be racing the exact same people for the same few positions within your skill level.
It’ll be great fun at the beginning but the excitement will fade when the hype is over and you’re left trying to find people to join your group.
 
cdn57
I mentioned something similar as the OP in another thread. Private rooms will limit the growth of online racing in the GT community.
The best possible scenario is to have dedicated servers hosting a wide variety of tracks and race lengths. GT5 will have the numbers to keep the fields full and give everyone the choice to compete in whatever race interests them in a matter of minutes. Racing Nirvana.
Instead, with private rooms, choices for newcomers will be the full Daytona races (boring) or meagre attendance at the other tracks. You’ll be closing the doors on the potential for worldwide competition and discouraging the transition of new drivers into the community.
Even amongst forum friends you’ll be limited to majority rules on the race choice, then be racing the exact same people for the same few positions within your skill level.
It’ll be great fun at the beginning but the excitement will fade when the hype is over and you’re left trying to find people to join your group.
Click to expand...

Or it would be forcing them to come to forums like this one, learn some better rules for racing and then having some great clean races. This has already been happening anyway, quite a few people from the online races have come to this forum after racing some of us.
Anyway, I think the best thing is to have both running at the same time. It clearly has some big issues leaving it the way it is, but, like you say, private rooms would isolate too many people.

I think most of the worries people have brought up are a bit unfounded until we actually have private rooms, no-one really knows what will happen when they come.
 
I think most of the worries people have brought up are a bit unfounded until we actually have private rooms, no-one really knows what will happen when they come.
Click to expand...

That's true, although you can compare it to what we've experienced with the PC sim racing community. Most people race in leagues which are not easily discovered and most likely intimidating to those new to the hobby.

It’s not my intention to sound grim because I thoroughly enjoy racing online. But… Gran Turismo has the potential to be the largest online racing community in the world and I’m surprised that people seem eager to start segregating into groups.
I know that there are idiots online but most of them are oblivious to what is expected by others who want to race as they do in real life. I read a glowing review of GT5:P at Tomshardware today and the reviewer admitted that this was his first GT game. In expressing his excitement, he wrote “While racing alongside the AI is fun, there's nothing like running a real person off the road.”
Once voice chat arrives, we’ll be able to quickly educate these people.
 
cdn57
That's true, although you can compare it to what we've experienced with the PC sim racing community. Most people race in leagues which are not easily discovered and most likely intimidating to those new to the hobby.

It’s not my intention to sound grim because I thoroughly enjoy racing online. But… Gran Turismo has the potential to be the largest online racing community in the world and I’m surprised that people seem eager to start segregating into groups.
I know that there are idiots online but most of them are oblivious to what is expected by others who want to race as they do in real life. I read a glowing review of GT5:P at Tomshardware today and the reviewer admitted that this was his first GT game. In expressing his excitement, he wrote “While racing alongside the AI is fun, there's nothing like running a real person off the road.”
Once voice chat arrives, we’ll be able to quickly educate these people.
Click to expand...

That just shows a bigger point: Gran Turismo isnt a PC sim, it has quite a bit larger base of fans, and as such worries about the community getting smaller are kind of silly really. I'm not saying it won't get smaller, but it getting smaller will surely benefit us.
I'm not surprised people want private rooms more than anything. Which way would you rather have it? Public races with lots of idiots and rare clean races but with more people. Or Private races with no idiots, lots of clean races and less people? Its like the difference between playing a 5 year old game and a brand new game. Most of the serious gamers who are in it for community will play the older games, because the community is closer-knit and is better regulated. You know that all of the people playing are mostly in it for fun and are not there to cheat or annoy. Same can't be said for the newest games.
 
I can't comment on F1:CE online, since I don't have a PS3 yet. But ... if you still have a PS2, a broadband connection and you own the game TRD3, just check how online works in that game.

There are no public games as such. Anyone entering has two options: a) join someone else's session; b) create your own.

If you choose to create a session, that makes you the host and means that you can set almost anything, like these:
- password/no password
- the kind of cars/series you are going to race
- how many races in the championship you're creating
- what tracks to race
- how many laps per race
- free practice? y/n (how many laps)
- qualifying? y/n (how many laps)
- handling (sim or pro-sim)
- collisions on or off (off meaning the cars are allways ghosts, very useful when there is a lot of lag)
- damage on/off
...

And, if you check what sessions are available, and who's racing in them, and just decide, for whatever reason, to create your own, you also have a "friends list" and invite the ones that you see are online.

If you keep your session open for any newcomer, and if morons enter, you can allways kick/ban them (even during a race) and if you choose "ban" they will no longer be able to enter your session again.

(btw, there's voice chat also)

With these features, I don't think anything else is necessary to make a great online experience .
 
I'm surprised proper online setup hasn't happened already. I mean, it's not exactly a new phenomenon and every other game out there has full options as standard.
Basically, PD have so far, treated the online races like they're offline races,against the a.i.
The 10-car length gaps on the rolling starts render 'rubberbanding' as a needed thing(considering the current status of the online), because if, for example, every driver is of the same quality, in the same car with no rubberbanding, the ones at the back would have no chance of making up any ground.
What the game needs, is at least a single flying lap for qualifying
 
Gran Turismo isnt a PC sim, it has quite a bit larger base of fans, and as such worries about the community getting smaller are kind of silly really.
Click to expand...

Well, I hope you're correct because for a game that sold over 2 million copies, the online participation is extremely low already. Nascar 2003 sold only 1/10 of those numbers but managed to have more racers online. Sadly, the public servers were dominated by Daytona races which seems to be the favorite of GT5:P fans too.

I usually race Suzuka which has decent participation. However, I should be able to race against more than one or two competitors when I join the F1 2007 Fuji race.

By the way, my absence of a GTP tag is not because of any reluctance to be associated with a group but because I have the downloaded version of the game.
 
cdn57
By the way, my absence of a GTP tag is not because of any reluctance to be associated with a group but because I have the downloaded version of the game.
Click to expand...

I never suggested I thought that, I didnt decide to add the GTP tag till lately because I didnt want the attention it gave me. I dont mind it now because the popularity of GT5P has died down a bit and there are less idiots out there to attack me.

Anyway, just because 2 million copies were sold, doesnt mean all of those people will first of all play online (maybe they dont have the ability) and secondly will continue to play the game after the initial hype has died down. Also, most probably played a few online beginner races in the game's release week and were possibly put off by the amount of bad behaviour at the time.
Another factor that makes the game seem less popular now is the different PP classes for Pro events, which have spread the number of players quite wide.
Perhaps also the way the online is setup makes it a bit hard to judge how popular it is because there could be many races happening at one time with full grids, but you can only see what you join, you may have missed a race with a full grid and thats why it seems there are less players.

Lastly, you do know there is a limit to the online F2007 races to only 8 players?
 
I don't think quick race works that well in online racing games. It doesn't work as well as it would in a game like Madden NFL where it is just 1vs1.

PD needs to fork over some money and buy servers for each track and pp, and then they need to add a 5 minute qualifying/practice session before each professional race. How much time is left in practice and the exact number of drivers in the race should be visible from a menu screen. You shouldn't have to join the race to see those stats.

Those will be your quick races, never ending looping servers of the same track and pp (pp may change once a month). Another benefit to offical fast servers is that international play should now be possible with minimal lag, which means it shouldn't be hard to find your favorite race full of drivers.

To me that's alot better then clicking on a race with a single human graphic and waiting 4 minutes to race one driver or worst yet wait even longer while the player matching keeps reseting to race 2 drivers. :tdown

So besides the official servers you should be given to the option to private rooms.

Both official and private rooms should count toward stats as long as the private rooms meet certain standards like race length.

Unlike BreakerOhio I find the randomness of the online events in GT5P meaningless and unhelpful. I remember racing on the offical NASCAR 2003 servers that were full of bad random drivers. Sure it was annoying at times when they took you out, but it was also fun because there was stat tracking and the ability to save replays. GT5P has neither so I now find no reason to play online. And I'm sure that's why the online participation is dropping, others find there is just no point. It's sad that a simple feature like save online replay would get me racing again, but even the simplest of features are missing from GT5P online and offline.

One of the best features of NASCAR 2003 was the LPI system. Laps Per Incident. Each spin or crash you were in counted as an incident. If you crashed once every 50 laps then your LPI would be 50. Drivers prided themselves with this stat and it made avoiding all the bad drivers that much funner so you could raise your LPI. And of course most servers had LPI limitations to keep the bad drivers out.

cdn57 do you have NASCAR 2003? Pm me if so
 
Gregz0r
no[/I] rubberbanding, the ones at the back would have no chance of making up any ground.
What the game needs, is at least a single flying lap for qualifying
Click to expand...

And invert the field!
 
@Earth:
Personally, I'd rather GT avoid stat-whoring. It promotes elitism and I don't think it has ever been needed. It stops more less-skilled-but-innocent-players from being able to play with everyone else than it stops idiots or cheaters.
At the very least, I dont think games should have restrictions like that on them.
 
I wish there was stats for GT4, since I'm actually doing quite well online. I used to love my UT2K3 stats - now PD would do well to learn from epic - they track every footfall, it's awesome

for example
 
Has anyone ever played Phatasy Star Online? The lobby & rooms setup there is pretty good. There aren't as many options as with a game such as GT, but the overall concept is good. You have a main lobby where you can meet, chat and goof off and then you can create and/or join a room. The rooms can either be open or password protected.

The nice part comes in the buddy system. So long as you've traded "cards" at some point you can locate the person of interest and then either send them a message (not a good idea in a game like GT), go to the lobby they are in, or join the room they are in (Again has to be thought out more for GT).

I can envision a similar system for GT where there are various lobbies (Dealerships, stadiums, parks, car shows, etc) where your car of choice is out on display. Then using something similar to what I posted you can locate fellow drivers for chats and races. Something like this could be integrated with HOME when it's released.

To expand on the whole affiliations thing, players should be allowed to include/display their affiliations and have the option of which one they are playing under. Affiliations should be by invitation only. The only person who can invite someone to an affiliation is the league owner and anyone he/she designates as being able to invite. Then there could be rooms that are restricted to affiliates only.

This could lead to growing the community since people with invite abilities could act as scouts and invite good drivers from public rooms to the league.

Has anyone taken all of these ideas posted on GTP and reached out to PD? I've seen several posts with good ideas. :)
 
In all this discussion of "private rooms", I don't see where there has been any indication that PD definitely will add this feature. Have PD actually issued any information about this & when it might occur.

It would be great to race against a somewhat more select group of drivers, choose the length of the race, specify the car class, have qualifying laps etc.
Longer races, or even a series of races, would reward more conservative, consistent, realistic driving (& of course, no rubber band).
 
Biggles
In all this discussion of "private rooms", I don't see where there has been any indication that PD definitely will add this feature. Have PD actually issued any information about this & when it might occur.

It would be great to race against a somewhat more select group of drivers, choose the length of the race, specify the car class, have qualifying laps etc.
Longer races, or even a series of races, would reward more conservative, consistent, realistic driving (& of course, no rubber band).
Click to expand...

Yes they have, they mentioned it a while back in a press release I believe. They are coming in autumn (fall). Hopefully, anyway.

https://www.gtplanet.net/private-online-races-chat-confirmed/
 
Hun200kmh
I can't comment on F1:CE online, since I don't have a PS3 yet. But ... if you still have a PS2, a broadband connection and you own the game TRD3, just check how online works in that game.

There are no public games as such. Anyone entering has two options: a) join someone else's session; b) create your own.

If you choose to create a session, that makes you the host and means that you can set almost anything, like these:
- password/no password
- the kind of cars/series you are going to race
- how many races in the championship you're creating
- what tracks to race
- how many laps per race
- free practice? y/n (how many laps)
- qualifying? y/n (how many laps)
- handling (sim or pro-sim)
- collisions on or off (off meaning the cars are allways ghosts, very useful when there is a lot of lag)
- damage on/off
...

And, if you check what sessions are available, and who's racing in them, and just decide, for whatever reason, to create your own, you also have a "friends list" and invite the ones that you see are online.

If you keep your session open for any newcomer, and if morons enter, you can allways kick/ban them (even during a race) and if you choose "ban" they will no longer be able to enter your session again.

(btw, there's voice chat also)

With these features, I don't think anything else is necessary to make a great online experience .
Click to expand...

Absolutely correct. There was no wait time once the room was set up. The other drivers joined and you raced. We had a really good points series on line using that game.

If PD gets it right on this, it will be the biggest single improvement to GT since on line.
 
I think they should KEEP the random rooms, but also INCLUDE private rooms, because private rooms would be much better for organized events (i.e. The NTSC tournaments, or Ferrari Festival, etc.) :)
 
Private rooms is a misleading term - I don't believe that user-made events (game servers) should be strictly private, otherwise we'll end up with a bunch of isolated events. Password protection or use of a PSN 'guest list' to decide who participates should be optional when creating a game server.

However, public servers would still allow punters to join. The server host / creator could be granted the authority to kick / ban users, or a public vote could be called, but these privildges would likely be abused by some individuals.

I really think a repuation system is the way to go. For example, I could create a public game server and set it so that only users with a decent repuation may join. How reputation is determined has been discussed before but it shouldn't be too hard to implement.

I think players should be able to join a public server at any point so we would need a spectate mode of some sort should a race be in progress.

I'd really like to see warmup and qualify sessions as options, where each player is given a garage in the pits and may watch the action from there and chose when they want to get out on the track for testing setups and putting in qualifying stints.

I'm really interested to see how PD go about this.
 

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