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

GRG89
June 20, 2010 at 7:42 pm PDT

Not sure if mention or resloved but…is the game still region locked?
- William Ho
  June 21, 2010 at 12:32 pm PDT
  
  Most of the game is not region-locked. You can publish and download creations across regions without any problems. With racing with twelve players and weapons and dynamic props on dynamic tracks, we could guarantee only play within regions. It is our goal to enable you to play against friends in other regions. When that’s rock solid and we can enable it, we’ll let you know.
sykojoe
June 21, 2010 at 1:11 am PDT

Mario Kart was a huge game for kart racing and basically helped make this game as popular as it’s become. The most wonderful mode in Mario Kart was the battle mode. Is there a chance that we may see that added as a future update or DLC cause that would totally make my day and I’m sure I am not the only one. I suppose we would have to see a few new weapons added but there’s nothing like just full blown kart battles.
Elvick_
June 21, 2010 at 1:28 am PDT

Please fix the unbalanced enemy AI in the story mode. There’s almost never a legitimate challenge in the game, it’s almost always just a cheap challenge being bombarded over and over with level 3 weapons 6 times, you can’t block all that. You can’t do much about any of it.
pocon28
June 21, 2010 at 4:12 am PDT

@201

Everthing is still the same. UFG suck.
Xanthus83
June 21, 2010 at 10:27 am PDT

Is there any plans to take out the fact that your skill rating is affected by casual/offline races?

It’s a little annoying for players who want to maintain a high ranking online, but also be able to have silly casual matches or offline matches with friends, without their skill rating plummeting 100 points in a few races.
moriarty1975
June 21, 2010 at 10:46 am PDT

Servers are down again.

How long do we have to wait to hear something from UFG this time?
- William Ho
  June 21, 2010 at 12:30 pm PDT
  
  We are aware of the server problems. The problem seems to be external to UFG, but our online group is definitely looking into it.
moriarty1975
June 21, 2010 at 1:07 pm PDT

Thanks for the reply about the patch and i understand that you dont want to release without more testing in case it makes things worst but…if you released it “as is” i dont think it’d get any worse! ;)

Anyway the game is going back on my shelf until i hear of a patch!
HarigeVINCE
June 21, 2010 at 1:12 pm PDT

Hi William,

First of all, thanks for answering my question, I really hope you will do something about the controls in the future, because I’ve read that soms people aren’t buying the game because they simply don’t like the controls. I’m one of them though..

Maybe I understand controls customization is difficult, but at least give us the option to shoose between a few different control sheme’s. (I would really like to give some advise how I would make the controls, and how other people would like it)
I think a game that costs me €70 (85$) should be perfect. I know, perfect is not easy to realize, but than you shouldn’t make a game that expensive!

If the game was like €60, I’ve bought it days ago, even though I don’t really like the controls, but €70? That’s a bit too much for a game with that many problems..
Or the game should be without problems, or the game should be a little less expensive, that’s my opinion.

Don’t you think I’m right, Mr. Ho?
UNIT-TRB
June 21, 2010 at 1:57 pm PDT

I would like to thank UFG for the feeback…on the current issues.

Real humans normally unload on me just like the AI…. being in first is still a giant target on your helmet. I can get a huge lead in races only to get hammers hard in really bad spots..

Once they are nailed down you guys can work on a nice third person modnation shooter lol…
lostinc
June 21, 2010 at 4:40 pm PDT

so when are we going to see all the mods, karts, and track that we all seen in the Artist Spotlight vids? and also when are we going to see all the pre-order DLC in the PS store? cus it would be sweet to get our hands on them :)
moriarty1975
June 21, 2010 at 5:14 pm PDT

@

I think they should fix the problems before they start working on that.
GC-Ninja6
June 21, 2010 at 7:46 pm PDT

Ok, I’ve gone through most of the comments here regarding issues you can improve on, but from all the ones I have read so far, I have seen nothing regarding the SMALL TEXT. This has become an issue for not only me, but other players as well. I can’t talk to someone without worrying which words I should use because they might not be able to tell one letter from another. I would just like to remind you that not all gamers have big flat screen TV’s(myself included), so here’s an idea I’d like to share with you to help make this great game even better.

-Make text bigger, or give an option that lets you choose how big the text is in your screen. (maybe even color) This would make things much easier and would help communication flow a little faster.

That’s the one thing I’ll say, no point in repeating anything that was already brought up. It sure is great to know you guys are hard at work to make this amazing game even better for all of us who love playing it, so THANK YOU ALL who were involved in the creation of this game.

One more thing. Will I see any loops in the near future? xD
ryanator2000
June 21, 2010 at 8:02 pm PDT

I really love this game and all its creative options but there are three problems that really limit the fun I experience from playing this game.

1)I really wish I could look forward to playing the hotlap, but the fact that I can’t restart in the middle of a lap makes it drag because if I make a minor mistake in the very beginning of the lap, I have to finish the entire lap instead of being able to simply restart. My idea for a solution is to force the player to complete the first lap on the hotlap and then once they have completed the first and had a good feel for the track, they can restart as many times as they want on all the other laps.

2)I feel very limited about creating tracks because the limit is tiny and several times I had to abandon tracks on which I’ve worked really hard on because I couldn’t add any more track.
I would be happy if you reduced the number of tracks that you can make in total if you could just double the limit track space…
ryanator2000
June 21, 2010 at 8:03 pm PDT

3)This is by FAR the largest problem and I don’t believe anyone else here reported it, or even if anyone had it, but it could be a problem for others in the future. So, long story short, I made a track in the demo, published it on the day of release, then felt the need to change it about a week later, so I deleted the original, created a new better version only to find out that it would continuously load at 90% even after I left the room for ten minutes. I really worked hard on this track (for at least six hours) and I was shocked that this happened. If you want to see it, it’s entitled “Spiral Mountain V2.” Trying to play it will force you to quit game and then go through those annoying load screens again.

Besides those things and the loading (need I discuss that?) this game is awesome and I would love to see new items such as one that could steal boost from others, new themes such as snowscape and cosmos, and the ability to free-draw and place stickers in actual tracks (eg. a building with graffiti) rather than just on mods and karts. You guys did a great job!
Vinhasskillz
June 22, 2010 at 3:16 am PDT

I think these should be changed:

1.The 250 000 xp race because it is impossible to get unless in the top mods and/or top karts.

2.Random Top Karts and Top Mods because we see it every day the see mods and karts

3.Load times

4.Friends in xp races
Vinhasskillz
June 22, 2010 at 3:18 am PDT

I forgot sorry for the double post but I also love Mod nation but can you make the words a bit bigger?
marvel4714
June 22, 2010 at 9:16 am PDT

When will there be ModNation DLC? I think you should do an Uncharted pack with a map and characters, including Elena, Chloe, and Flynn. I cant wait to see what you guys are gonna be presenting at E3.
EMP-Bomber
June 22, 2010 at 9:36 am PDT

500,000 create XP in the whole world, but the individuals who made the top mods/karts make up the most of it. And, the top mods will never change now that everyone sees them. Just look at how many downloads the 3rd top mod has compared to the 4th top. If anything has to be patched, its the way the top mods/karts/tracks are shown to the rest of the world to give the other players more opportunity. How about picking descent mods/karts at random throughout the community and change them every day based on a theme. If you fix this, many of us who play will enjoy online play more.
GGod0
June 22, 2010 at 9:56 am PDT

This game is great the load times are just a mild annoyance.
It does irk me that i cant get the hot lap trophy though, especially after i read about the under a minute glithces, thats no way to win.

Also, how do you unlock the silly seat in the first column, third row? it is driving me insane trying to figure it out. is it a bug or something? cuz i did everything in career.
boutjuh
June 22, 2010 at 1:58 pm PDT

I’m really glad you guys are working on fixes and are listening to the players for their comments. I’m from Holland so excuse me for my English. Here’s something I really love to see in MNR:

I don’t know if this is already asked but, I’ve downloaded lot’s of famous characters and love to see them as bots in offline MNR matches instead of the 11 standard characters per race. Can you make that possible with an upcoming patch?
boutjuh
June 22, 2010 at 2:00 pm PDT

further I’d love to see a feature to arrange (drag) your downloaded characters in the way You like so you can put them together instead of deleting them and downloading them in a exact order.
gamepunk86
June 22, 2010 at 2:14 pm PDT

what happened to june 21st monday? it’s tuesday now so its too late. so um….i thought you were listening…
Icandy55
June 22, 2010 at 3:06 pm PDT

This is my starter list of ‘what I’d like to see’:

I would like to see blouses, skirts and dresses for mods. More ponytail lengths and styles, ringlet pieces, hair ornaments, boots and shoes with heels; you know, girly stuff.

I would like to see a way to import pictures from the photo album on the PS3 that can be made into stickers to put on karts and on the billboards on the tracks. That way you can advertise your other tracks, karts and mods that you have pictures of.

I would like to see more scenes, environments, props, for the tracks; glass enclosed tunnels, winter landscape, otherworldly, etc.

I would like to see several up-close pictures of the mods, karts, tracks before you download them. The pictures shown are not of the front of the karts where a lot of the artistry is. The pictures of the tracks are from the air. You can’t see any detail. I would like the creator’s info to have the option of having at least two or three pictures.

I would like to see creator packs for DL instead of premade characters and karts. More creator stuff in general please.

I would like to see a detailed, in depth, manual made of the creation tools; what’s possible and what’s not.
Midiguy
June 22, 2010 at 3:07 pm PDT

Hi there. How’s it going?

I was wondering if I could make a request for one of your next patches, if it would be possible.

I was wondering if an option could be added to allow you to pick what the AI could be for when you do a single race, or multi-player race (As in what mod, what kart and their name), as I’ve always liked to go up against my own creations. ^^

Well, that’s my request. Really great game, I’ve enjoyed the creation tools a lot (Though I haven’t unlocked everything yet, career mod is pretty tough. O.o).

Well, that’s pretty much it. Later guys. :)
BabyNeedShoes
June 22, 2010 at 4:12 pm PDT

I love this game! Adding the creation element to the kart racing genre is pure genius! I’m excited that UFG is continuing to support MNR, so I have some constructive criticism for you:

1. The creation tools are awesome! I don’t think I need a free-draw tool, but a tool that could blend same-color sticker seams would be nice. I could also use a “bigger” clipboard in the studio, or maybe a stand-alone “favorite items” menu.
2. The mail system is awesome! I like how you can check another player’s creation card thru the mail. I would like to see this feature incorporated into the “system” mail too though – as it stands, if someone comments on my creation, I am notified of the comment, and who sent it, but there’s no option to view their creation card – it would be nice to be able to “return the love” thru these notifications!

Thanks for the amazing game!
bowling_ninja
June 22, 2010 at 10:07 pm PDT

Hey Will,
Not many responses to PSP questions. Any plans to update track editor to allow figure 8 tracks and branching short cuts?
Wauggi
June 22, 2010 at 11:46 pm PDT

First of all, congratulation to this great game. My kids and I are loving it.
What bothers me is that I’m not able to buy any DLC. In the Ingame Store there are no items, at the PS Store there are the items but not with the right disc code for me.
I bought the UK version of Modnation but have an Austrian account.
Kindly have that fixed so we can choose in the store the version we need.
Thanks!
bob44903
June 23, 2010 at 12:10 am PDT

I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to address peoples questions and concerns. Keep up the good work!
WhiteF8ng
June 23, 2010 at 12:19 pm PDT

So what happened to these updates? Are the Modnation Mondays over?
onextreeme
June 23, 2010 at 1:46 pm PDT

I think modnation monday is every other monday. So it will be next week.
moriarty1975
June 23, 2010 at 2:47 pm PDT

@230

i dont think they are doing them anymore.

If it was every other week then there would have been one last monday.
HarigeVINCE
June 24, 2010 at 9:45 am PDT

@231: if that’s the case, the title of this blog isn’t really good anymore, it should be “ufg don’t care and isn’t listening to it’s customers anymore”, and i hope this is not the case..

i think they’re qoing to answer sooner or later, they’re not letting us down, i think they are just very busy for the moment patching things (:

but what i thought in general for all games is coming truth, the whole patching system, game developers aren’t finishing their games anymore “they’ll just patch it later”.. i think a game should be finished before its release, like before on ps2 for example..
Reedy1990
June 24, 2010 at 10:40 am PDT

Hey Reedy here, Beautiful game you’ve got. But like most i do have some Criticism;

1) Obviously the loading times, but i imagine you’re working on it.

2) I’ll mention the 250k Create XP Trophy. Now i’m not dumb, so i know you can’t Patch a trophy too easily. So i suggest having a couple of weekends where you get 10x the amount of XP for your creations, so 50XP for a download. I imagine this would be alot simpler than patching a trophy, am i right?

3) I’d like to be able to zoom in on my Karts whilst sticking stickers to them.

4) This isn’t a problem, more of a suggestion, but one thing i would LOVE in Modnation Racers is the ability to put a Loop da Loop on your tracks.
Reedy1990
June 24, 2010 at 10:41 am PDT

Also Will. It would be a dream come true to race you online, you up for it?
dividsmythe
June 24, 2010 at 12:48 pm PDT

I’m just gutted as I have bought logitech driving force gt steering wheel for this game as I love it.I found out on wiki that its compatible with it.In which it is of sorts.My main gripe is that you cant use the accelerator pedal with it.It is impossible to use R2 button on the steering wheel while racing.Aswell your not allowed to configure buttons so it can be altered.
Obviously load times are my other gripe as everybody elses.
After these 2 gripes it is a perfect game in my eyes
HarigeVINCE
June 24, 2010 at 1:49 pm PDT

see? I told you button customization is a good idea for this game? Just look at the post above me, another reason why..
Perish_Song
June 24, 2010 at 6:33 pm PDT

I was going to ask if there will be an individual blog each Monday or just to watch this one, as it’s linked from the community.modnation.com forums, but I got the answer on the 21st.

So for this upcoming monday I would like to say kudos for adding a custom track to the hot lap. It was fun, and I’m sure the creator was thrilled in more ways than one.

Next I’d like to ask a question. I was browsing though the forums and blog, and one answer about the servers, were that they were external of UFG. In the future will UFG gain internal servers that can be better maintained, or is the present also the future of these servers?
Dirk_Diggler_BF2
June 25, 2010 at 9:56 am PDT

Please tell me there is a patch to fix the problem for all Verizon Internet users using Modem/Router Model #7500. None of us can play the game online. I was playing a month since launch, but had to upgrade from my old modem and Linksys router. I do not want to return this game, or sell it off, but if i cant play it…please help!
HarigeVINCE
June 25, 2010 at 12:38 pm PDT

Oh William, I have another question, but I think this is already asked… oh well

If I want to race with my brother on the same ps3, and he wants to race in his own car, is this possible?
It would be nice if you can race with the mods/karts you made yourself against your brother on the same ps3, is this possible or can you/will you patch this?..
saab01
June 25, 2010 at 12:47 pm PDT

Patch for the load times it takes too long to load.
ManSlove
June 25, 2010 at 1:53 pm PDT

Being an Old School gamer it’s great to finally FINALLY have a game come out that is about fun. So many games seem to be about making money and not giving the player value for the money they spent. I’ve met many great people from around the world in this game, spent many many many hours playing peoples tracks and just enjoying myself. I myself prefer the Casual Racing to anything else, the Career mode was fun (still not finished, damn AI) but I just love the Casual Racing, I’ve only met a couple of idiots in game and that itself is an achievement, nothing ruins a good game than a poor looser. But all up, Thanks UFG for creating a whole lot of fun on a shiny disc.
stargiss
June 25, 2010 at 10:12 pm PDT

This is in response to HarigeVince question on racing split screen with personal creations.

Yes your brother can play split screen with you on your account and use his mods. The only way I know to do it is for you to get online with your account and download his creations. Then when playing split screen offline his mods will be under your downloaded mods and he can race with his own creations.

This is how I did it for my kids so that my son can race with his mod and kart while signed in on his sisters account. If you have no internet connection for your PS3 then I know of no way for you to do it. If someone else has info on how this can be done or if it can be done with no net connection please help this guy out.
stargiss
June 25, 2010 at 10:18 pm PDT

Now for my small gripe with the current situation.

First thing is the download times…they’re unacceptable. I really can’t believe this game was released with the thinking that the current way races are loaded would be acceptable. Honestly, 4 loading screens plus a 40 second lobby intermission plus a 30 second cutscene for one race. Then when the race ends you have to do it all again? We spend twice the time in loading and lobby screens waiting as actually racing. Unacceptable!

Second…why is it that we can’t join an invite from friends while playing split screen? My son and I can join a random casual game while in split screen but it’s not possible to join on a friends casual lobby via invite while in split. I hope this was just an oversight (Should have been caught in beta) and will be fixed soon.
wolfzero1
June 27, 2010 at 9:21 am PDT

I don’t know if this has been asked or if I’m the only one with this problem but why don’t the ModNation trophies show up on Playstation.com when I go to check them. They show up on my console & I’ve synced them with the server, but my trophy list doesn’t show them, it show other games I’ve played.

Other than that, the annoying load times & the cheap AI I’ve really enjoyed this game
JJacobb
June 27, 2010 at 2:27 pm PDT

Hi! I love this game it is so amazing. I beat career and have gone back to try and get all the grudge matches. I’m trying to get the most out of the game… but i CAN NOT play online. This is such a downer because it I have played it before and it is extremely fun. Sometimes I can’t get online at all and other times I can only stay in the mod spot and when I try and play a real race I get disconnected. I changed my NAT to open and still had problems I just really want to play online. I would love to know when or if this issue will ever be fixed. Thank you so much and keep up the outrageous, fun, and hard work!
boutjuh
June 28, 2010 at 3:15 am PDT

I’m really glad you guys are working on fixes and are listening to the players for their comments. I’m from Holland so excuse me for my English. Here’s something I really love to see in MNR:

I don’t know if this is already asked but, I’ve downloaded lot’s of famous characters and love to see them as bots in offline MNR matches instead of the 11 standard characters per race. Can you make that possible with an upcoming patch?
King_StarFish
June 28, 2010 at 8:49 am PDT

I love this game.But still get booted from server alot.And that makes the game very frustrating.When trying to download or upload or just check my stats.I rate this game a 10 out of 10 when working right,then when not it’s a 5.Please fix this.
crazyfooINC
June 28, 2010 at 2:39 pm PDT

Not sure if this is already implemented, but I’d like to see splitscreen online friend races, where both friends can have splitscreen active.
Katoh21
June 28, 2010 at 11:48 pm PDT

#1 feature I want to see is to allow for multiple user accounts in local multiplayer.

It’d be great for accessing mods that are on other user accounts (plus stats, trophies, etc).

Little Big Planet allowed for this, so why not?
Tecnoboy1
July 1, 2010 at 11:55 am PDT

When I was saying creation slots I meant it’s almost impossible to get some of the XP because of top mods, karts ect. so maybe you could abolish the whole idea of it, because I WANT to publish all my stuff :)

As a bit of advice, for XP series maybe just do random mixed race tracks instead of fixed series?