ModNation Monday: UFG is Listening

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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:

ModNation Racers - Glass-eye Phil

Mod: Glass-eye Phil, Creator: Reavyn1

ModNation Racers -Glass Eye Television Repair

Kart: Glass Eye Television Repair, Creator: Reavyn1

ModNation Racers - Modcoaster ModNation Racers - Modcoaster 2

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!

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255 Comments

44 Author Replies

  • FiremanLouvier21

    I love the game. Buy a gift for EVERYONE who worked on this game and put it on my tab. I love that you can create your kart, mod, and track! You can even customize your kart’s performance a little.

    But could you add more performance choices for the kart, like stronger boost vs longer duration. Also could add the ability to do front and back flips in the air.

    But again it truly is a great game. Props to all of you.

  • @97

    Dumb question, but you got your router in DMZ?

    There seem to be lots of people who use Verizon that have big problems with online.

    If you go to the modnation forum, online section look for a thread named “Looking for info involving online connection issues some are experiencing”

  • I don’t think anybody’s mentioned this suggestion: sorting download screens.

    When we hit a page full of Mods, Karts or Tracks, it would be great to have a further option to sort by Newest, Highest Rated, Most Downloaded, Friends, or By Creator.

    I was just checking out the Charlie Browns, for instance, and had to wade through a lot of mediocrity (sorry, Mediocre Creators … if it helps, I’m one of you) to spot the good ones. And some items have many, many pages of available downloads – a sort at this point would be very handy.

    Thanks for staying in tune with users.

  • Lots of fun.

    Would LOVE to see option for making a “Playlist” or “Tournament” when playing offline splitscreen.

    In other words, need the option to load up 3 or more tracks and allow us to race one right after another without having to go back to the player screen.

  • Wanted to say fantastic game UFG! I have a small suggestion besides the other larger ones that I have already read. If in a future update it would be nice to change the color of the karts frame. My friend loves to race in his kart that doesn’t have a body, he loves the classic kart feeling. Just a small suggestion, you guys are doing great!

  • Great game, will play it allot! Well done United Fronts!

  • I find that when i create something and post it, no one plays it(because it gets lost in the sea of creations). How can that be fixed?

  • @98

    DMZ=yes; NAT Filtering=Open; still not connecting more than a couple of seconds.

    I am on 25Mb Cable internet through Charter. No luck on that post search you mentioned, must have been pulled.

    It seems like there are a small handful of people out there experiencing the same issue, but so far no developer insight or assistance. It’s too bad, UFG is not getting a good name on my site from all of this…

  • Great game other than load times i only have one gripe.

    Can you make it eaiser to mute people? You have to click through what 3 screens? By the time im trying to mute 1-12 people the game begins loading and you can no longer mute them. Then i have to play the entire race with loud music or something playing in the background lol…

  • How does one report an issue?

    Last night I was only able to “connect” to the servers twice in about four hours. I was in communication with a friend over Skype for some of that time, who could connect at times I couldn’t, and there were times it did work, so I know it wasn’t:
    – my internet connection configuration (NAT, routing, etc, since that’s all static)
    – the servers themselves (since my friend could connect at times when I couldn’t).

    My friend also had intermittent issues, but they didn’t coincide with mine at all.

    Also, once we both finally got into the same ModSpot at the same time, we tried to Challenge each other to a track that we’d each created. Each time we tried, there would be a failure to sync the tracks, and the other player would get “kicked”. Also, we noticed that the track name each time was strange – almost a random name of a track from someone else – never the actual track that we were trying to play.

    A very disappointing evening I have to say.

  • @105

    I posted a link to the thread but the blog police wont allow it to be shown for some reason!

  • Hey, I really love Modnation and the Modnation community site, but I feel like the Top Karts, Tracks, and Mods should be cycled every now and then, because everytime I go on the site it’s always Mario, Ironman, Drifting Superstar, and the A-Team Van. I feel like since the point of ModNation is to Create and Share, it’d be better to cycle the Top creations every now and then so that different tracks can get their own taste of the limelight and the community can try out new creations. Otherwise, really good creations usually get lost in the endless list of creations and are never experienced.

  • alot more masks and glasses/ accessories !

  • @108
    No prob, I have been on the US and EU official forums and it seems this is still an issue that the devs don’t want to talk about for some reason, probably because they have no idea what is really going on.

    I will give it some more time and if it’s not fixed in the next couple of weeks then I will just have to sell the game and cut my losses. Too bad, MNR had such promise but I am unwilling to deal with such gross technical errors and I don’t feel good about paying to be part of a post-release beta test.

  • how about in future dlc you guys add some parts so i/we can make something that looks like megatron in tank mode from transformers revenage of the fallen..that would be so sweet. also let us remix ufg created carts i so badly wish i could trick out my gow cart.

  • I hope they get more servers or something because I have never been able to get into an online race.

  • Career mode needs to be fixed, and it should be a higher priority than the load times.
    I don’t mind a good challenge, but the AI is frustrating more because they play so cheap instead of them just being skilled. I would not even care if it wasn’t for the dumb decision to make us play Career mode to unlock new items instead of allowing us to unlock stuff by winning online races.

    It’s really a great game otherwise, the load times aren’t as big of a problem as that.

  • I really like this game, especially the track creator. I would play with it for hours, if I could. Which leads me to my question, has UFG heard anything about the game freezing? It doesn’t seem to be widespread but it’s completely crippling. I get lock ups, usually in the track editor. The game completely freezes. The XMB is still accessible, but it runs very slowly. Quitting the game causes the PS3 to shut down with three beeps.

    These lock ups occur completely randomly, and I’ve checked, by leaving the game running but not interacting with it, but it seems to be an inevitability. The game will hang after a random period of time, from 10 mins to 2 hours. I have tested other games, and am not having the same problem. I know this is a very vague problem report, but it is not isolated to just me, a google search brings up several others afflicted in the same way.

    It’s really crippling my enjoyment of the game, I have to save often and when I’m creating a track and forget to save, and lose an hours work, it’s just crushing. Without some sort of fix I’ll probably have to give up on the game. Which would be a shame because you’ve created a really great sandbox to play in.

  • so i have not noticed whether this has been previously stated, so if it has I apologize. first off I love the game! absolutely great and hats off to all of you at UFG! my question though is this I’ve been converted from mariokart to mod nation (i know i know, lets all hate me for mentioning it) one feature of big interest to me and friends is battle mode though. I’m curious can we look forward to seeing anything like that in mod nation?

  • I haven’t bought the game yet(I will soon tho!)…but, is there a past top creators section?

  • I know I’m only reiterating what others have already said, but if there was some subtle way to adjust the amount of Create XP earned, that would be amazing. Even doubling the amount earned would make things easier, in my honest opinion. Due to the current nature of Create XP, it’s really discouraging to have close to thirty downloads on a mod and yet only receive 150 experience from it. Create XP is not balanced at all with Race/Ranked XP, and as a result, the only way you can really earn from it is if your creation goes viral, or a remix of it goes viral. And that’s really discouraging to us guys that didn’t have the game day one, or don’t seem to get noticed all that often.

    Anyways, that’s just my two cents. A new weapon or two would be cool, too – if you find the time :)

  • I would like to congratulate you on an awesome game. One of the best PS3 titles out there. After reading through and listening to all the whineing I have a few suggestions for you. Everytime I log on it says maintenance is between 5&7 am. Make the top downloads change everyday at 7 based on all downloads between 7&5. Once you make the top download that item isn’t eligeable for 7 days. Load times would be a nice fix. A friend invite for xp races would be nice, but you don’t get anything for xp. Not like a shooter where all your guns come from leveling up. All you get from xp is a number and eventually a trophy. Add a casual series option for friends. Make a xp download series with the top 5 tracks for the day. To join this series you have to download all 5 tracks.aybe make it automatically download all 5 when you join. That could fix create xp issues for people. The game is amazeing. With just a few minor tweaks it has potential to be the last game anybody ever needs to buy. With all the track options you should never get bored with the game. Thank you for makeing such an awesome game.

  • First of all, I just want to thank you guys for making an awesome game. Its great to see you guys widening the range of games playable on the PS3. It makes me love playing it more and more with the idea of Creating Playing and Sharing really taking off. XP races with friends is all I ask to make this an 11/10 on my score boards. I love being able to create tracks in minutes and race my friends on them. Its also fun creating my friends and us laughing at how the other person interpreted the other. Great fun guys. We love what you’ve done and thanks for making it possible to enjoy yet another game on the PS3

  • @saintaqua You can totally skip the story scenes in career mode by pressing x twice. Biff gets on my nerves after awhile…

    I really love this game, I’m almost done career mode, I wanted to make stuff, but I needed some ideas first.

    Also, if anyone wants my extra “air raid” dlc code, send me a nice message in the game sometime.

  • as i said in the forums, “Will ps3 be getting some track editor DLC soon?(if so, PLEASE have some alternative tunnels like a glass tunnel or a tunnel that can be underwater (so i can FINALLY make the under water level I’ve had in my head ever since the i first saw modnation at e3 last year)). However, before you work on any major dlc, MAKE SURE YOU MAKE THAT UPDATE ASAP!! okay? okay. i promise to buy the MNR soundtrack, but ONLY AFTER you fix the large amount of problems with the game still hanging around from the beta. 1 more thing; i still miss that epic flaming doughnut glitch that you could make in the modspot if you kept drifting around the center for a bit. also you should have a score board of the longest continual drift in the modspot, that would be awesome since i (and from what i’ve seen a large minority of fellow MNR players) spend nearly as much time racing as we do drifting in the modspot with our fellow players just for the heck of it. remember, first update, then possible dlc thanks =D “

  • Awesome

  • Awesome work chaps. Really enjoying it so far.

    Might be echoing some other comments, but two things that would be awesome (well, one things and some wishful thinking).

    1) It would be awesome to be able to do split screen with other PSN accounts on my PS3. My lady loves creating her mod, but it’s a bit sad her mods and my mods can’t race together in split-screen.

    2) I was lucky enough to get all three pre-order bonus mods through my retailer (in Australia), but we weren’t offered the Sack Boy mod over here. Any chance it’ll be available later? (I know, now I’m just being greedy :) )

    Can’t wait to see what’s to come! Keep up the great work.

  • I just bought and absolutley love this game, but unfortunatley cant connect online at the mod spot. I really hope someone can help me out here, i can see top mods and karts/ download and share yet i cant play a single online race. All other games online work and i really want to enjoy online racing with my friends. hope someone can help and again i love this game. :)

  • PLEASE fix the online issues with region differences, disconnections and those load times!!

  • Hello!
    I really love ModNation Racers, finally a good creative race game out there that lets you basically do EVERYTHING!

    Also, I wanted to make a suggestion for a small feature:
    Let us choose our opponents Mods and Karts in Offline Quickraces, it would be so cool to race against YOUR mods you have created and downloaded.

  • A suggestion I’d like to make is, if trophies can be changed, consider changing the Flaming Hot trophy from 10% to 20-30%. The problem, as I see it, is that even if no one was cheating to get impossible times, if everyone plays Hot Lap everyday then theoretically only about 10% of players will be able to obtain the trophy.

    I’m actually not bothered by needing to accrue 250,000 Create XP to earn a trophy because it’s not really as difficult to earn Create XP as most seem to think. I guess many have not discovered that you earn Create XP every time your published Mods and Karts are used— even if you’re the one using them. Obviously, you don’t get much and it’d be preferable to have a top-downloaded creation but it builds up faster than you realise when you’re distracted by fun races.

  • People keep wanting the same things fixed, so i guess ill name a few that didn’t get mentioned and are important for me.

    -Button Configuration
    I had high hopes that it was the demo that didn’t have the extra option the official game had, the way the buttons are used makes my hands cramp up >.<

    -Create Grid
    Sometimes i want the lane to be as straight as possible and its hard to to it by hand, and with turns it'd be nice to make 90 degree turns easier. I'd love to start making simple but fun tracks a little easier.

    -Modspot Camera "Unlock"
    I dont like that it locks on to the cart, I'd like it more it it was free to move around where we wanted.

    -Gary as the Tutorial voice
    Don't get me wrong, i like Gary, I just don't want him as my teacher, hes the one that you fall asleep in class to. I can't get through the tutorials cause i just can't stand his voice that long. It's like choosing Ben Stein for your tutorials!

    • Thanks, Sharkonnen.

      About the ModSpot Camera “Unlock”: You can do this in the Photo Mode in ModSpot. Press the START button to bring up the menu, then select Extras and then Photo Mode. You can drive around and adjust the camera at the same time. You can even trigger various character gestures using the direction pad buttons! Then tap the L1 button take shots of your Mod hangin’ out in the ModSpot!

  • Sorry for posting again so soon but, if you’re still reading these, William, there are also glitches that occur regularly in XP Series that someone should probably look into.

    The series will often begin on the last track of the series (it even says 5/5) and the series will then start over at track 1/5 following this initial race. I have even seen a series start over after two races have been completed and once the track information during loading was completely off, displaying both the wrong track sequence and name/photo for the track that was loading. The weirdest thing is that it seems sometimes these tracks that are loaded prior to the actual series affect series standing and sometimes they don’t. Thanks in advance for your attention and hard work. This community loves you, so please love us back, UFG.

  • Hi there, I have a few suggestions to improve some stuffs and game experience in MNR.

    so far, the game’s great and awesome. Nothing major happened during my marathon of races.

    However, I feel that there is got to be a way to improve the starting grid experience.

    My suggestions to improve starting grid experience:
    – Drawing lots to determine who’s on pole position and the starting grid
    – Maybe a one lap qualifying session before the race (may cause long loading times)

    Another possibility is, could there be any possible weather effects in the game in the future? Like rain for wet surfaces or strong wind (that’s exaggerating) that can blow cars aside, etc.

    Another thing is, great job guys! I (or we) do hope to hear more great news from UFG! :)

  • Is there an official forum where we can report bugs? I’ve got a nice collection to report…

  • All I see is news about the PS3 version, what about those who play on PSP like me?

    There are several issues with the game like drifting and selecting your mod and kart each race isn’t really pleasant.
    I also want to stay in the room I just won my race in but you always get back in the lobby.
    Other problem is when you boost the whole screen gets kinda blurry making it harder to see where you are actually going.
    It would be also nice to see that the PSP would get the same options as the PS3 version like ModSpot for example with a small menu of macros like Good Race, Let’s Go and things like that so you have a little interaction on the PSP as well.
    Loading times are way too long which could be fixed by installing the game on the memory stick like Monster Hunter Freedom Unite does.
    Downloading ghosts and rankings for single tracks would be awesome too.

    If the above things can be fixed and added, this game is gonna be more awesome then it already is.

    Thanks for reading my post and I hope you (UFG) takes this into consideration.

    Our playerbase on PSP might not be as big as on the PS3 but please, do not forget us.

    Kind regards,

    KillerStefan15

    PS: This game shows how community content is done, great job!

  • “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.”

    Media Molecule said this, then went on to make LBP 2 without fixing their game (in the share section). Not to mention the copious amounts of useless DLC.

  • @William Ho: Ok, cool, you’re still reading this thread and answering some questions – so, please, what’s the official channel for reporting game issues?

    Would it be OK if I email the execs at UFG directly?

  • ok I have loads of levels that when we play them
    it kicks everyone in the room will this be fixed?

  • PROBLEM/BUG/GLITCH:
    I seem to have this really weird problem with publishing creations into the creation browser. I have uploaded about 8 mods about 1 day ago and they never got out of their PENDING state. They’ve been this way ever since. I cannot unpublish or remove them at all. They each also use up one creation slot in the “Currently Published” screen. I cannot look up their creation detail in “Manage Creations”, but I can see the info if I search up the creations. For some reason it will have creation info of a random, already-published mod. I have lost 8 creation slots for nothing.

  • 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.

  • @ Scabdidly: You had a problem with getting extra races, and xp in a series, no questions asked. You must have a lot of XP to ask that they remove this bug.

  • I posted links for bug reports & feedback but the blog police aint letting them show….again!

  • Can you patch:
    – the controls so you can shoose what button does what?
    – the camera so you can shoose how far it is from your car?

    And I read that you can’t play with your mods from the demo in the full version, is this true??
    In that case, I’m very disappointed, the demo said I could race whith them in the full version.. :(

    (yes, I’ve only played the demo, but I want awnsers first before I buy it, I also mailed UFC yesterday and send a message to a certain Russel on the modnation cammunity on playstation network, but I haven’t got an awnser yet)

    • Hi, HarigeVINCE.

      You should be able to use your Mods, Karts, and Tracks from the ModNation Racers Demo in the full game. What we’ve had trouble with is importing creations from the public beta version from several months ago.

      Also, we have a slider that lets you tweak the camera distance from your car, and you can adjust this distance per player in splitscreen.

      I hope you’ll pick up and enjoy ModNation Racers soon!

  • I hope we get a patch soon with new features.
    Like my idea as well. ^^

  • @144 you can already change the camera distance under start>extras>options

  • @146
    Oh thanks! :)

    And do you know something of the use of demo creations in the full game and customization of the controls too? :)

  • @146

    Demo creations can be used in the full version.

    The controls cant be customized…yet.

  • Loving the game so far and the sp is brilliant most of the things. I think most points have all been raised before but for me inviting friends and letting them join on a split screen is a must. I regularly host nights with friends who want to play split screen and can`t to find randoms joining the game can.

    Also on random people joining, when I set up a private event and invite my friends none of them could join, then I gave up and tried to host a normal casual, I could only get one in then randoms would kick me as the host, I`d quit and it would tell me none of my friends were playing. So ended up took us over 30mins to get started. So please look at the private matches.

    Really glad to hear your looking at some of the issues people are having and trying to make the ModNation experience even better! You`ve made an awsome game!

  • well my first comment got screwed over because it said it was too long, so now i must retype it.

    Will,

    2 things I would love to see

    -UFG contests where the people at UFG choose the top listers. the old champs could have their own smaller shrine to their achievement, and then wipe this out yearly. There could be weekly winners and an overall monthly winner. The winner would or could win 1,000 CREATE XP and a free coupon to a DLC item.

    -The other thing is a fix. I have problems hitching on peices of landscape or things like bridges and or inactive traps (on hot lap) and the like. It doesn’t happen very often but every time it does I come to a complete stop.

    Just curious before I go, how many of you up there love Mario Kart? And how much inspiration would you say came from it?

    Thanks Will

    GoonieG

    • ModNation Racers was made by a team full of people who have played and made many different racing games (and action games and sports games and online games) over the years. When we started on UFG’s first game over two and a half years ago, we had the luxury of a clean sheet to make a new original game with a new team on a new game engine. There was no looking back, only looking forward to making something fresh.

      So the game that’s in your hands now really is the result of our collective experience and not just being inspired by this game or that game from the past.

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