No, not that you have to add friends to your friends list. I mean no friends list period.
The only options onlien are:
Get online.
Create Game.
Join Game.
You eithe create it in a server and people you know can join (which would have to be coordinated before hand) or you have to join an existing game. That's it. No friends at all.
I agree, while Motorstorm's online gameplay is admittedly really fun, the online networking features are absolutely horrible!
It is next to impossible to see where your friends are playing, which means your only hope is to call them on the phone to let them know you are there.
The only way to know if they are playing Motorstorm at that time is to check the Friends menu in the XMB, but this wont tell you if they are playing online or not.
While you can send them a message through the PS3 letting them know you are online and try and coordinated playing online, they wont get it if they are already playing.
Your only choice is to search every server, and even that is a serious pain, as they only sort the list of players by Fame... which is ridiculous!
To make matters worse, when you create a game, it doesn't allow you to invite friends, or to make a game invitational only. This means everyone that you arrange to play online together must quickly join the game before strangers take up those spots. 👎
Evolution really dropped the ball here, and should have followed Sony's lead in how they managed online features with Formula One: Championship Edition.
In F1CE, you not only have a much larger selection of servers
(in F1CE they call them "channels", in Motorstorm they call them "lobbies") to choose from, making it very easy to host an online game in relative privacy, but finding friends, or even specific types of players is VERY easy!
Right off the bat, you can go to the "FRIENDS LIST" in the "COMMUNITY" menu, and it will list all the people on your friends list, and let you know if they are currently logged onto an F1CE channel.
If they are, you can select "JOIN FRIEND", to join them in a game. You can also add friends from here, as well as check out their detailed stats in F1CE. You can also send them text messages from the Community menu as well.
If you join an existing game, there is also an option for inviting a friend to join you in that game.
You can also create a game and set the "GAME ENTRY" to "Open Access", "Password Protected", or "Invitation Only". Thus giving you plenty of control on who you want in your game.
Also, F1CE allows you to not only view everyone's ranking, but to sort it by Overall Points, Best Lap Times, and Average Lap Times for each and/or all tracks.
Another added feature with F1CE's online play is the ability to join a race that is currently under way and watch it as a spectator, or if you like, join the race by replacing one of the AI cars.
None of these useful online options from F1CE are available in Motorstorm's online features. Which is all the more disappointing, as the online gameplay in Motorstorm is what will extend the replay value of this game, as the regular game takes very little time to reach 100% completion, and the ending BTW is a real let down. 👎
The only hope is that Evolution will be able to add some of these features with future software updates.
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