June 14, 2010June 14, 2010

ModNation Monday: UFG is Listening

Hi, it’s William Ho here for the Pre-E3 ModNation Monday post. I’m excited to give you some updates about ModNation Racers and what’s been cookin’ at United Front Games.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since we announced ModNation on stage at E3, now it’s out in the world! It’s been exciting to see the massive amounts of Racing, Creating, and Sharing going on. Our dev team couldn’t be happier to see our supporters enjoying the product of two and a half years of love and labor. We enjoy playing ModNation Racers as much as you do.

Now while there a lot of people that love the game, we know there are some issues that are affecting the fun factor of ModNation, and we just want to say-

United Front Games is with you for the long haul.

I’m always asked, “what are you guys up to now?” The answer is always the same: job number one is actively monitoring and supporting the ModNation community.

We are amazed by your published creations every day. We’re enjoying online races with you. We read your forum postings and your tweets. We discuss all of your suggestions, no matter how big or small. We watch. We play. We listen.

We are working on multiple fronts to make your ModNation Racers experience even more fun. You’ve already seen some improvements in our online racing. Our friends at Sony San Diego Studio officially launched community.modnation.com so you can stay connected to the ModNation community from just about anywhere. And there’s much more to come.

With that said, I have something exciting stats to share with you. The ModNation community has exceeded the 500,000 creation mark! We worked hard to build the most accessible, freest, and deepest sandbox for you to play in. With a half million creations and counting, I think we achieved that goal. Here’s just a few of the half million awesome creations created by the ModNation community:

Mod: Glass-eye Phil, Creator: Reavyn1

Kart: Glass Eye Television Repair, Creator: Reavyn1

Track: Modcoaster, Creator Name: hellstorm0157

Also, you’ve played more than 1,000,000 ONLINE RACES. That’s an amazing milestone for a community that’s only a few weeks young.

We can’t thank our fans enough for your support. We’ve appreciated your enthusiasm since we revealed ModNation Racers at E3 one year ago. We’re thrilled with all of the e-mails, forum postings, tweets, and fan sites, so keep ’em coming! We are dedicated to make the best possible Race, Create, Share experience possible and know we’re working hard on some rock-solid upgrades to ModNation Racers.

Look out for more information after E3, you’ll hear about it first on the PlayStation.Blog!

Comments are closed.

255 Comments

44 Author Replies

GoonieG
June 16, 2010 at 12:42 pm PDT

Weekly winners could win 500 Create XP awards and the grand prize for winning for the month could be 1k
HarigeVINCE
June 16, 2010 at 12:49 pm PDT

Thanks guys for the fast anwsers :)
but I still have a question that can only be anwsered by the game developers: Is there going to be a patch that allows controls customization? ^^

Oh, and I do have a question for the gamers here, because I see everyone talking about create XP, what is it for and what can you do with it? :)
- William Ho
  June 16, 2010 at 2:07 pm PDT
  
  Create XP is our way of rewarding creators for publishing cool Mods, Karts, and Tracks. You earn Create XP based on how popular and how widely used your creations are. And we rank creations and creators on leaderboards, so you can compare creators against each other. Furthermore, we show the best all-time, this week and last week rankings.
STRIKE_405
June 16, 2010 at 3:37 pm PDT

Thank you UFG for making online work somewhat and i must say that this has to be an evolution of gaming w/ all the customization and sharing capabilities.

But my online is still not working half the time. I was just wondering if this would get even better.
dan_m11
June 16, 2010 at 3:57 pm PDT

i published my creations on monday 14th june and ever since they have been showing in grey saying pending publishing, however the are showing up in other peoples profile. So i am left with no creation slots available and no way of getting create xp. Just asking to see if this issue is being looked into as i see i’m not the only person affected, otherwise pretty nice game.
- William Ho
  June 18, 2010 at 4:11 pm PDT
  
  This is a known issue, and we’re definitely looking into it.
  
  Thanks for being a part of ModNation!
piwakawaka
June 16, 2010 at 6:12 pm PDT

Thanks for creating such an awesome game! Full credit to the developers and thanks William for answering all our questions!!112 Awesome. Yeah. \o/

Oh, and I do have a question for the gamers here, because I see a lot of people talking about it – how do you report a bug with the game? You see, like a lot of people, I have published creations stuck in the “pending publishing” state – for days now. And I can’t unpublish them. They are basically lost from the system. Also, I can’t seem to find a way to vote on a track I’ve downloaded *after* I’ve played the track, short of locating the original author in a random ModSpot and voting there (i.e. impossible).

Once again, awesome feedback and commenting and responses on this forum and stuff and whatnot!!eleven. Yeah.
phort
June 17, 2010 at 12:54 am PDT

I’d like the ability to add and remove segments in the track editor, so you can have more sections to tweak without needing to repave. This way you could have more fine management over your track budget.

It would also be useful to be able to rotate track segments around the vertical axis, so you could add smoother turns without repaving. You could add it as another advanced edit option.

Since the car textures appear to be 3D procedural textures, it would be nice to be able to rotate, move, and scale them so you could get different variations in the pattern.

I’d like to see a better system for managing large numbers of stickers. (Collapsible groups, perhaps?)

Also, the 250,000 create XP trophy is taunting me… Maybe you could try about a hundredth of that? I have 10 creations but only about 450 create points, but I know with lots of creating and promoting I could get a few thousand. It would still be a hard trophy to earn, just not impossibly hard.

Other than that, it’s been a great game. I’m glad to hear you’re listening to the community.

I hope playing on tracks that use DLC won’t require you to own that content. That would really fragment the community and make it impossible to show anyone your tracks.
HarigeVINCE
June 17, 2010 at 2:38 am PDT

William Ho,

Thanks for the explicit answers, but can you please help me with my last question?
I’ve played the demo now for a little week, and I still think I would change the controls for myself, I also think it isn’t so evident to accelerate with R2, I’m just used to the X button and R2 is killing my finger if I have to hold it down an entire race..

Maybe most of the people don’t think that way, but there are enough people who do. Just let the player shoose what button he wants to play with, if that’s possible. :)

Thanks for listening,
Vince
moriarty1975
June 17, 2010 at 6:54 am PDT

Attention Verizon users who cant play modnation online!!!

(From the modnation forum posted by onextreeme)

Go to Advanced and then VPN uncheck IPSECpassthrough

Go to Universal Plug and Play enable it

Now go to firewall and choose no security.

Now it will work
Lazy_Slacker
June 17, 2010 at 10:06 am PDT

still cant wait for a patch

Is there a date or period where we can expect a patch?? :o
piwakawaka
June 17, 2010 at 3:31 pm PDT

William – hey, AWESOME game. I’ve been playing the DEMO and it’s GREAT. I just want to KNOW something about the FULL game so I feel confident that my hard-earned money is going to a worthy development team.

When will the bug that leaves published tracks in a state of limbo – “pending publishing” – be fixed? It’s been a number of days now and I’m certainly not the only one with this problem. It needs to be acknowledged by the developers and a statement issued about whether it will be fixed, and what will happen to all the tracks stuck in limbo. I’m not even going to TRY creating a new track until I have assurance from the developers that it’s not going to get stuck in limbo again – it’s a massive waste of time to build a track and then have it essentially disappear from the game, yet still remain in view, taunting me.
- William Ho
  June 18, 2010 at 4:16 pm PDT
  
  The creation pending issue is new and known. We’ve got the right people on the case looking into it. Thanks for your patience and stay tuned.
dan_m11
June 17, 2010 at 5:09 pm PDT

Yes this bug really needs fixing. I have the full game and have finished single player and am enjoying online racing. However i feel with my creations stuck in pending publishing i am only playing half the game. Please can you just let us know whats going on
DarkstarNova007
June 17, 2010 at 6:20 pm PDT

where’d my other comment go?
moriarty1975
June 17, 2010 at 6:28 pm PDT

@162

A couple of mine were deleted too. Dont know why, they were just advice & links to the official modnation forum….!
piwakawaka
June 17, 2010 at 9:53 pm PDT

@163: you know, I would really, really like to know where the official modnation forum is, especially if I can report some bugs there…
- William Ho
  June 18, 2010 at 4:18 pm PDT
  
  The official ModNation Racers forums are at community.modnation.com.
Wardrummer18
June 17, 2010 at 10:25 pm PDT

Please respond if u truly care

I love modnation it is easily the best racing game ever. But there is one major issue that i am not the only one experiencing. 250,000 create exp is nearly impossible to achieve. I get a lot of downloads and i am not even a quarter of the way. Please make an update to help with this. Perhaps getting create exp for rating, downloading, or posting nice comments. Or a really good alternative which you could do, is sell create exp at large quantity on the psn. Please do something i only need this trophy to get platinum, then i can just play for fun and that’s it. LOVE THE GAME AND THIS IS THE ONE ISSUE.
Wardrummer18
June 17, 2010 at 10:27 pm PDT

can u please filter mods that are on the top of the week. Once fine. twice ok. but they are still there. And they are way to ahead to get new ones up there.

also fix the create exp its immpossible.
OakBiscuits
June 18, 2010 at 1:35 am PDT

I apologize if this has been mentioned already, but I’m wondering if there is some sort of negative repercussion (or will be) for people quitting series. I’ve seen too often people leave when they realize they can’t win a series, and it takes away from the racing experience when that happens. I don’t know if this can be addressed without creating future problems, but it is something that bothers me. Otherwise, I haven’t had any problems that would deter me from continuously playing the game. I find it nearly flawless. Kudos to you UFG!
lPHOENIXZEROl
June 18, 2010 at 2:33 am PDT

I think I asked this via Twitter but any chance for a expansion on bread crumbs, such as allowing them to be used with shortcuts? I had some issues with my second track because the launched jump diverted from the short cut, I fixed it but not after some headaches, bread crumbs would have helped immensely.

A couple other things I’ve come across when it comes to the community is people who give bad ratings to content, not just things they didn’t like but more like the competition of their own mods or out of malice. I’ve noticed people doing this with tracks either just going through the listings or after competing in a race on it. Not due to the poor quality of the track but because they didn’t win. I watched some of the players after finishing and noticed one couldn’t even drive straight. I know there’s not much that can be done which is a shame and at the moment I can’t think of a way to truly fix this sort of thing outside of a removing and republishing, being after 5am here doesn’t help.

I agree regarding the top mods/tracks/karts issue, they need a rotation to them. I stopped doing hot laps and I’m hoping for a more strict punishment for those exploiting the glitches.
lPHOENIXZEROl
June 18, 2010 at 2:42 am PDT

Oh yeah, I finished the career completely but I do have to say some of those goals were annoyingly frustrating, mainly the getting a opponent to get hit by a Devastator and the sideswipe challenge on Fracture. The former feels like it’s 90% luck and the sideswipe one felt the same to an extent since you have to be at the fight place at the right time and hope the AI doesn’t use their shield or get it on the second lap since at least with me when I got it on lap three I either had no chance of getting back into first or like one time, I get back into first in the very end of the stretch while boosting only to see the AI still pass me (while not boosting BTW) making for a close loss, I think I actually spent more time on that than the Devastator ones, just glad I don’t have to do them ever again. Overall though I didn’t have a ton of problems with career outside of the annoyance of the level three (or some twos) weapon barrages that you have zero chance of surviving since the shield doesn’t last long enough and the AI seemingly gaining so much speed that they can pass you even while you’re boosting.

I just really need to practice now against other players… Some are just frighteningly good at this already.
moriarty1975
June 18, 2010 at 4:27 am PDT

@164

i’ll try this…..

http : // tiny . cc / 8amxk

If that shows up here, use that link (without the spaces) & when your on that site search for a thread named “UFG do care!” for a round up of what the makers are doing to improve the game.
Zibob
June 18, 2010 at 11:11 am PDT

Ok. I like how you are only responding to the people who are flattering you and you are not paying not one bit of notice to all the sensible people who are trying to better their own and everybody else’s gaming experience. You must really like you community to be paying so much attention to their problems and their genuine concern for the game that needs help.

Thanks UFG for your continuing support and all the updates that we have gotten… oh wait that’s right you have not published an update. I was mistaking you for one of those companies who acts on their problems.

Zibob €0.02
- William Ho
  June 18, 2010 at 4:22 pm PDT
  
  Thanks for speaking up, Zibob. We actually are actively processing all of the feedback we get.
  
  To be honest, putting out patches is not as simple as it seems. We need to test everything to make sure any fixes do not create any new issues (what we call “knock-on bugs”).
  
  Thanks for your patience. We really appreciate your support!
HarigeVINCE
June 18, 2010 at 1:03 pm PDT

@170, I think they want to release a patch that solves most of the problems, and not a patch every time they make something better. But, I do not say this is the best method because the game is almost in stores for a month now, and things may improve gradually..
I think they should do something between the two, not a patch for every problem but a patch that solves a few problems, so the players can be satisfied for a certain time. (If this is the case though)

And again, and please, PLEASE don’t ignore this question this time, will there come a patch that lets you shoose your button layout? I even saw a website of a gamer a few days ago, he is handicapped and can only play with one hand (he does this on a special way) and has difficulties with a few buttons. Button layout customization improves the gameplay for every gamer to almost the maximum, there’s nothing better than a game that controls PERFECTLY for everyone. An I not right?
Lazy_Slacker
June 18, 2010 at 1:03 pm PDT

How about adding Pure Race as an option for XP races.
moriarty1975
June 18, 2010 at 1:40 pm PDT

Dont think we’ll get anymore replys here people.
HarigeVINCE
June 18, 2010 at 1:56 pm PDT

*sigh* maybe next week, oh well…
moriarty1975
June 18, 2010 at 5:10 pm PDT

I think instead of saying “we are looking into it” or “we’re working on that” people would prefer some thing like “there’s a patch coming in week or two” or “that should be fixed in the next couple of days”.

I know you cant say this or that will be patched/changed/fixed on a certain date in case some last minute hitch pops up but even a vague date would be better the “we’re working on it”.
- William Ho
  June 21, 2010 at 12:50 pm PDT
  
  Hi, moriarty1975. First of all, thanks for your posting and your patience.
  
  Honestly, if I could give you a firm date, I would. You deserve to get a rock solid patch and not one that’s just thrown together and may cause new problems. Alas, that takes time even when we have multiple engineers devoting time and energy to it every day. In fact, we have new code that addresses multiple issues. But again, new code — especially in an online game — needs extensive testing to get the seal of approval. And once we get that seal, we can give you a date.
  
  If I had to guess, the time until the patch can be measured in days and weeks and not in months. That’s all I can say for sure for now!
SlyTails
June 18, 2010 at 9:26 pm PDT

I was fooling around with the Photo Mode and I got a great shot with the UFG Billboard and my Mod. I was wanting to know if you wanted to take a look at it, maybe use it for advertising? :P
HarigeVINCE
June 19, 2010 at 3:00 am PDT

Okay, it’s not funny anymore, I asked a question for 5 times now, and I still don’t get any answers!
In one of my last posts I literally said :”please don’t ignore this question this time” and yes, you did..

I don’t say you have to patch the controls so everyone can shoose how to play, but I’m just asking IF there’s coming a patch for it, and it would be a great idea for everyone.

So, I’m just asking, are you guys going to patch the controls yes or no?

And don’t you dare ignoring me for the sixth time, then I’m really going to be pissed-off! And it would prove you just don’t care like some people say..
- William Ho
  June 21, 2010 at 12:45 pm PDT
  
  Hi, HarigeVINCE. Nothing personal about not replying to you. I try to get to as many questions as possible.
  
  To be honest, I’m not allowed to say one way or another whether we’re adding this or that feature. We do honestly discuss everyday at UFG how we can best turn suggestions into reality. And it doesn’t stop with discussion; our engineers and QA work everyday on making sure any new code is rock solid before we’re allowed to release it into the wild.
Tecnoboy1
June 19, 2010 at 3:23 am PDT

Ah, modnation, my favourite game. AND NOW I’VE BEEN KICKED FROM IT FOR NO REASON AT ALL!
See this: http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/ModNation-Racers/A-bit-of-a-problem/td-p/10980244

Sorry for the rant, but I’d also love creation slots to be terminated, there is no need to restrict the amount of stuff we crate, look at those top creators, they’re gone, they’ll never fill those slots, leave as no limit, that way people like me can keep enjoying a brilliant creation engine.

Thanks for listening!
- William Ho
  June 21, 2010 at 12:40 pm PDT
  
  Glad you like ModNation Racers, Tecnoboy!
  
  You can create and save as many creations as your PS3 hard drive will hold — probably hundreds or even thousands of them. And you’ll unlock more creation publishing slots at several different Create XP milestones.
BIG_C_23
June 19, 2010 at 8:54 am PDT

Ok UFG, everyone here wants some answers. Please, what is going on with the servers,its taking the fun of this and just sucking it all up,yeah i can still play splitscreen with my friends but online is the best thing…when it works….which is the case here. Please we want answers, silent patch? full patch? anything????
- William Ho
  June 21, 2010 at 12:39 pm PDT
  
  We’re aware of the problems that you encountered this past weekend. As far as I know, they will probably be fixed with a silent patch. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Hobartbob
June 19, 2010 at 12:45 pm PDT

Whats up with the servers??? I can’t connect, WTF!!!!
ChocoboJoseph
June 19, 2010 at 2:34 pm PDT

Thanks UFG for making an awesome game. I really hope that Modnation ends up setting the standard for future kart racers because this has easily been one the most enjoyable online experiences I’ve had.

As far as suggestions for improvement go:

1) You need more female mod parts.
Where are the skirts and dresses? Every time I try to make a female mod she always ends up looking like a tomboy because there’s only one long hair style and nothing but pants or shorts.

2) 250,000k Create XP.
Come on, I know you’ve heard it alot but that is a ridiculous amount. There’s got to be some way you can do weekly contests or something to help us player get more create XP if it’s going to stay that high.

3) Custom controller layout.
Personally everything for me feels smooth up until I try to use my shield or activate a switch. ESPECIALLY when trying to shoot a switch. I have to try and contort my hand or stop accelerating to tap R1.

4) More track themes.
You’ve heard it before, don’t need to go into detail just want to say three words. Snow and rain.

Those are the things really bugging me. I think you’re doing a good job and I hope to see more tools and features soon.
markcusd
June 19, 2010 at 2:56 pm PDT

For the career difficulty issue, just give us the option to set the difficulty like you do for quick races. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to have that. People of all different skill levels will want to play a game like this so it seems like a no-brainer to me.
Vcheese
June 19, 2010 at 3:28 pm PDT

Hi, i just want to say i love your game, its awesome in almost every way and it will continue being if you manage to fix most of the problems. I can see myself playing this game for a long time. Thanks!
- William Ho
  June 21, 2010 at 12:51 pm PDT
  
  Thanks for your support, Vcheese!
Livingstoni813
June 19, 2010 at 5:26 pm PDT

Hi Will, can we get a little more definitive of a response as to what ways the 250,000 create xp trophy is being looked into? I’ve seen multiple posts mentioning this on here, and I only saw one you had responded to where the poster had listed about 5 other issues… Your response was we’re looking into all of these. I’d just like to know in what way you’re looking into the obtainability of this trophy specifically, for the masses of people that it seems almost impossible to ever acheive. Thanks so much. -Livingstoni
Enslavior
June 19, 2010 at 5:29 pm PDT

I love the game and have been working for over a week on a custom track but have just encountered a huge problem for myself. I leave my system on overnight and when I go to work and have my mod sitting in the mod spot so that other racers can see me and hopefully are inclined to check out and download my creations. This morning when I went to check my download numbers, the game said “You have been unauthenticated and/or kicked from the server” I have done nothing that should warrant such actions against me. I truly hope that this is just an error. I turned off my system when I went to work and when I got home I turned it back on to check and see if the whole thing was just a fluke, but sadly it was not. Still “You have been unauthenticated and/or kicked from the server” I’m super pissed.
piwakawaka
June 19, 2010 at 5:46 pm PDT

William – thank you for responding to my previous comment.
moriarty1975
June 19, 2010 at 6:14 pm PDT

Over 24 hours after the servers go down….

“RUSSELL_05
ModNation Community Developer

We’re aware of the problem and are working on a fix”
moriarty1975
June 19, 2010 at 6:34 pm PDT

@185

UFG are “LOOKING INTO” answering your question.
Vcheese
June 19, 2010 at 10:26 pm PDT

It’s been all day without online and now that is back it’s going la S.hit!! I’m very pissed. I love this game but i really feel cheated with all this flaws… Still waiting for a fix.
pinero24
June 20, 2010 at 1:10 am PDT

has the online really been updated? im not playing this game until i can get online
HarigeVINCE
June 20, 2010 at 4:10 am PDT

And I’m not buying the game until I get some answers about the patches.
The game costs €70! (maximum price for a ps3 title) That’s 86.6$!
I think that’s too much for a game that doesn’t work online and a game that I can’t control the way I want to.

I was very enthousiast about the game in the beginning, but I’m considering to leave this game in stores now.. I really hope you can convince me to buy it! Please make the game worth its money!
evrythngivknwn
June 20, 2010 at 7:38 am PDT

I still cant stay online, this is a HUGE issue. I paid 60$ for this game so I could play online with my friends and I cant, one of my friends already traded the game back in because of this.

Ive been patient for a month and there is still no sign of a patch, I didnt get this game so I could wait a month to play it. You need to figure out what this issue with online is because no other game gives me this issue.
- William Ho
  June 21, 2010 at 12:37 pm PDT
  
  Some new issues cropped up external to UFG recently. We hope these new issues will be fixed soon, and are cooperating with others to make sure it happens.
  
  As for a patch, we have already fixed many issues, but they also need to be tested extensively before we release them into the wild. As I’ve mentioned previously, we absolutely don’t want our fixes to turn out to be non-fixes or new problems!
Whitemon
June 20, 2010 at 7:42 am PDT

It’s really great to know that you guys are working on a fix for all the problems.

As for the top mods, those mods were not put in there due to community consensus (of today). They were put in there because they were the very first mods to be made and published when the game very first came out.

It doesn’t help either that the first thing every new comer sees are those top 3 when they first log in and think they were the best and downloads them without looking at the other more worthy ones.

One suggestion may be to have another option for players to vote in game on which creations they think needs to be on the top podiums. Each player can vote infinitely on which creations they think needs to be on top (once per creation per week or month). These votes resets either weekly or monthly so newer much better creations have a better chance of getting on the top.

As of now, the top 1st mod has 66k+ downloads, the 2nd one has 62k+ downloads and the 3rd is at 45k+ downloads while the 4th one is at a mere 27k+ downloads. That’s a lot of downloads that the 4th one needs in order to step to at least Top 3.

Again, awesome game. I have no doubt it will become an even more awesome game once the problems gets fixed.
evrythngivknwn
June 20, 2010 at 7:53 am PDT

for the record you say that the servers are more stable now yet ive been playing since launch and there has been no changes at all in how fast i disconnect from the server. Obviously something is wrong when I cant even finish publishing a mod before it disconnects me, especially if it disconnects me 3 times in a row before I could actually publish it. I sit in mod spot for maybe 5 mins tops before disconnecting, and I havent even been able to finish a race. Needless to say, im pretty fed up.
psfan999
June 20, 2010 at 10:51 am PDT

The top 3 mods section needs to be fixed, I’m tired of seeing the same mods all the time. Maybe you should add a section where you guys choose your favorite ORIGINAL mod.
pocon28
June 20, 2010 at 11:24 am PDT

Traded in my copy of the game yesterday. There were lots of used copies on the shelves already. I suggest other people should do the same before it starts losing its trade-in value.

This game will NEVER be fixed.
OneTee
June 20, 2010 at 11:25 am PDT

Wow. I work all week. Try to play a little ModNation Racers on Saturday and the network is down all day. This morning I got on. Played a few races with a buddy, and the network goes down again.
pocon28
June 20, 2010 at 1:06 pm PDT

What annoyed me the most (before i sold the game) is UFG lack of interest in fixing the problems.

“we are aware of the problem and are working on a …..blah blah blah”
Hwashere
June 20, 2010 at 3:59 pm PDT

I hope that you can add more features from the PS3 version to the PSP version so that it can make creating and racing better. Anyways the game is great!