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What can we do to increase player base?

Started by GDUBMX, April 22, 2019, 03:42:23 PM

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GDUBMX

Id like you'd guys thoughts on how to increase MXB's playerbase.
<br />GDUBMX YouTube<br />

[GH]Cody

port over alot of tracks from sim. ive been bringing over tracks like dreamland, ride365, black mesa and a few of my own into MXB with just quick crappy textures drawn. a few small mini series races, maybe a race once a week for 3 weeks or so for fun, each on random tracks that get ported over or made for it.

stevo

more tracks for sure...and some races wouldnt go amiss either.....any links for these ported tracks Gokitty?

PizzaChet

Pibs hold the keys to that kingdom right now. More radical improvements more often will keep the players around.
Quote from: YodaIf no mistake have you made, yet losing you are ... a different game you should play.

rc4187

For me, I don't think it's actually content. I just think Online should be more accessible and quicker. Would be nice if I could join a server online and just race. Have it switch tracks when race is over in a rotation and then just race the next one. Practice and qualifying and what not is great and should definitely be kept as an option... but there's something to be said for just being able to get in and play a couple and get out. I think games like reflex or even mx sim did this fairly well. I remember many times in those games saying just one more race... and ended up doing 5 or 6 more. Just because of how easy it was to keep going.

I also think being able to switch bikes while having the track loaded and in game would be a nice feature, rather than having to leave to the menus, switch and load everything back up.

Lastly, as far as mod content goes... It's not too hard, however if you want to keep a player base... requiring effort to install mods that the servers are using and that everyone keeps up to date is going to turn people away. I know I've booted up the game several times to play online only to find out I didn't have the right content for what everyone was playing and just decided not to play instead. Didn't want to hunt down the content... just wanted to play. I know that sounds lazy, but when you only have so much time to play something... you don't want to spend that time searching, asking others where to get it, downloading and installing content.

This is a great sim, but people do have to put a lot of time in it to get the greatness out of it. And these days, personally, I just don't have that kind of time.

kickasspeanut

While i definitely  see the importance of improved online code i think the limited amount of tracks is still a massive limiting factor, especially for people like me who enjoy turning laps solo to improve at the game.

In situations like this with mx sim and mx bikes competing for peoples attention, the community made content is almost always what wins out at sustains the player-base, its why assetto corsa is the biggest non subscription based racing sim. the alternatives (project cars, rfactor 2) just lack the community made content to hold any-ones attention even if they do other things better.

I think a tool to port mxsim maps with the explicit permission of the original author would help a lot or a more streamlined track making process maybe an application that helps you generate all the configs and files you need outside of your height-map?. I also think that piboso juggling multiple games at one time is always going to be a limiting factor unfortunately, more frequent updates would also really help since it seems like people will come back when there's a new update but then put the game back down when there's nothing new after that for 3 months. I check the forums daily to see if a new update has been released of if someones made a new track because otherwise i don't have as much motivation to play the same old version and same old tracks.

Snappe

Quote from: kickasspeanut on April 23, 2019, 10:59:06 AMi think the limited amount of tracks is still a massive limiting factor, especially for people like me who enjoy turning laps solo to improve at the game.

How many tracks is enough? There are a lot of quality tracks made already. Too many to count!

Unfortunately a lot of the links in the Tracks section are broken, and mxb-mods.com is missing many of them  :(

Ruubs

Quote from: Snappe on April 23, 2019, 03:38:28 PM
Quote from: kickasspeanut on April 23, 2019, 10:59:06 AMi think the limited amount of tracks is still a massive limiting factor, especially for people like me who enjoy turning laps solo to improve at the game.

How many tracks is enough? There are a lot of quality tracks made already. Too many to count!

Unfortunately a lot of the links in the Tracks section are broken, and mxb-mods.com is missing many of them  :(
I don't think you should focus on more tracks at the moment. RC is spot-on with his opinion and ideas about multiplayer.

The current way of joining a server and instantly being able to practice is absolutely sick, I love the idea and it feels very realistic. BUT with the amount of players online at the moment it's no fun at all. I'm sure that once the player base is larger, it would work out, but at the moment, it does not.

Servers should have the option for race only. Once a race is done, the server 'restarts' with a new track, and if players chose, their bike will be changed after the restart as well. Player's shouldn't have to connect to the server on their own after a race restart, that should be done automatically.

Racing is currently too difficult to do, and too hard to understand. Yet racing is what draws people in, even if the netcode is bad.

TLDR;
1. There is enough content.
2. New 'game mode' race only. Server restarts after each race and connects the players from before automatically.
3. A way to change the bike for the next race.

Ps.
The rider model still looks weird which probably draws people off as well. If you don't understand what makes it look weird, hit me up and I'm willing explain it.

GDUBMX

April 25, 2019, 12:27:02 PM #8 Last Edit: April 25, 2019, 12:31:38 PM by GDUBMX
I think its perhaps a mixture of all the above,

The auto server stuff is a must.
Rider model still looks like a ps2 model (no offensive)
a truly sensational netcode which is 1:1 smooth and seamless, that would be very useful.

*now the crazy ideas*

A custom Piboso made all-in-one track editor, which includes all piboso stock objects ( and the ability to drag n drop other objects into the root folder)texturing, race data, object placement etc.
I know this is a stupid idea and would take at least 2 years to make. I think the ability for a user to buy the game and not have any offline racing vs ai options would be more inclined to buy mx bikes if that had a simple way to make content. Thats just an idea i had.

full controller support (for the pure couch player)

also from what i have experienced with MX Sim is that people love a full roster of championship tracks, not just 5 or 6 of a 12 round series.
My biggest draw to buy mx sim back in 2012 was because i could play from rounds 1 to 17 of the latest sx series and 1 to 12 of the latest outdoor ama series, not to mention the hundreds of tracks in between.


<br />GDUBMX YouTube<br />

Snappe


Ruubs

Quote from: Snappe on April 25, 2019, 01:43:00 PM
Quote from: Sandbiter on April 23, 2019, 05:08:05 PMServers should have the option for race only

You mean like Quick Race mode?
Yes, but with the option to change your bike, bike livery, rider and suspension / bike setup. Once a race is over, the server would 'restart' letting everyone in spectate mode race, and changes people's bike and rider. Constant racing is what people want.

Snappe

I agree, and we're making changes to quick race mode. Hopefully combined with the the voting system tweak + spectator mode, it should be far better.

Ruubs

May 05, 2019, 04:16:40 PM #12 Last Edit: May 06, 2019, 04:31:24 PM by Sandbiter
Little more on why the player base is so small after hosting a race yesterday.

This is a rough overview of how hosting a race currently goes:
New community members don't know how online works / haven't registered / don't have proper mods.
You help the new community members figure out what's wrong.
You help them register.
You help them download and install mods properly.
You help them TRY to join a server.
Once they're finally in a server, you try to tell them to stay off the fences, because they'll crash your game.
You tell them not to do anything that might cause any game crashes.
If they their game crashes, you try to help them join the server again and figure out why their game crashed so it won't happen again.
You try to start a race but don't have any pre-race timer, 30 sec board or anything so you've no idea what's going on.
New members are very prone to false starts due to their bike rolling backwards or forwards at the start due to uneven terrain and not knowing it.
You try to restart the race a couple of times by going back to practice and back to race 1.
Finally racing you've no idea what is going on because your pitboard doesn't show up.
After riding 7 laps the finish flag comes out but it ain't very clear where the finish line is or if the race is really over or not (showing a list of finished riders somewhere on the screen would be nice).

All of the above is without collisions because it is impossible to race with collisions on due to the lack of accuracy between clients.

These are just a few things which occur when trying to host a race at the moment. It took us almost 30 minutes to finally be on our way on race 1 after a couple of restarts, game crashes and what not.

7aroca gil

The simulator is excellent, very good and very good, but it is necessary to solve the problem online, more variety of circuits and make the races more professional. And another question, for when beta 11?

PizzaChet

Good job at encapsulating the MX Bikes online experience! Very accurate. I still love it when there's more than three people on a server, no matter how smooth or rough it goes! Keep working away at those bugs Pibs team and Sandbiter can start crossing off the items he listed.
Quote from: YodaIf no mistake have you made, yet losing you are ... a different game you should play.