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Greeny

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Now with all this being said. I think the biggest problem with us is that we can talk up a big storm about what we want to do eventually, but it usually never happens. I understand we all have jobs and personal lives that conflict with the time being made into making a good solid league. But if we really wanted to go forward with it we have to eventually say f**k it and go for it. I'm still considering whether it would be a good idea to do a league, and if I would be around enough to keep pace with it.

Bingo. Lump me into that fold too. I've popped in and out of this forum since it's inception tooting my own horn only to disappear for years at a time. Then, I come back and ridicule everyone. :P

RoR is just a platform. Look beyond what the latest physics are, the latest updates can be to enhance the experience and just enjoy the experience that is there. We had this issue on a much smaller scale with MTM2 for the years we were popular. Forget about what you can do to improve the experience as much and go with what is there. MTM2 had a few smart coders and people who could play around with the physics. Jon Brosack, METH, and Prowler had tons of tweaks to the game to make it behave like RoR in the middle 2000's. It wasn't fluid and lacked a lot of polishing so it never left the ground the way RoR did in 2010. The wish list posts were made on a monthly basis by people who had played for years (myself included) and new comers to the genre. Finally the right combination was came upon and people migrated. It was long over due and really needed. 

Within the now five years that RoR has been the platform of choice to "play monster trucks" on the computer it has seen countless software versions, package updates, and what appears to me anyway a revolving door of people who come in and leave due to lack of interest or patience to keep up. Before I built my new PC I had two versions installed and never could figure out why people would make awesome add ons only to have them NOT work with ALL versions of the game. Multiplayer only works with one version? Yikes. Higher detail vehicles with better physics? Well you want this version. I at this point still have no idea if running the .37 version is what everyone uses to race online. And believe me I would LIKE to race online again. It needs to be made clear on a forum topic posted at the top of this site what are the absolute basics you need to compete with others. Otherwise all you have is a very entertaining for an hour or so single player game. Also, if the content that is here on this site isn't easily transferable to a new version of software then the project of "migration" needs to be put on the back burner. There's no reason to start over from square one again every other year. I've posted that before on here somewhere before too.

The product here is phenomenal. I can download a specific Grave Digger and have it handle like the one I see out on the arena floor. I just downloaded the Monster Energy Pack that has Coty and Damon's trucks in it. And I'll be damned it handles just like there's. That's spectacular and I think under appreciated. The problem is the over complication of needing to unzip and rezip into the smv4 pack in order for the download content to work. That's been LAZINESS from the beginning and one of the biggest mistakes that has been made by this community. If you want to race online, unlike MTM2 there is no "Bearfoot" that would populate the undownloaded content another person is using, just emptiness. So one must get the content in order to experience having any other person in the room with them. So, not only is the process longer because one needs to obtain all the content, but then you need to unzip and rezip it into a larger than life package? That's deplorable. The simplification of just needing to download everyone's stuff from the download section needs to happen. John Dough does it with his leafer addon packages and I can't see it taking anyone who took the time to model or reskin a vehicle the extra ten minutes to give it standalone status. What is the largest reason this community doesn't grow again?

To get back on the league topics again, MTM2 ushered in the era of realism in its waning stages. Everyone clamored for a better game but it wasn't happening so we made due with what we had. Kevin Payne started that with Monster Jam Tour. Instead of the big multi game rooms converging at the end to a room of just the final four racers, he made each game room run at a different Monster Jam track in different trucks. It was hugely successful. It spawned Steve Parry to do it with custom trucks and add in budgeting for an even larger touch of "simulation". Instead of just showing up to race we were running realistically, doing intros, having intermission, side acts and then afterwards "paying the bills". But it got to big in my eyes. People were more focused on the realism then having fun. It diminished the fun factor greatly over time. Everyone wants to be in charge instead of just competing. Thankfully because of that it allowed a few senior MTM2 players to get the air underneath the wings of RoR. Otherwise we might be without any platform at all. 

Unfortunately the realism mantra appears to be what is more popular here. I am shocked there hasn't been a very simple multi game room (can we even do that??) show up and leave until the next week league that had limited rules in the last five years. Would people even be interested in that? I know that is what I would prefer at this point. I don't quite understand the point of needing to make even a smaller event feel "big time". My suggestion would be meeting on TeamSpeak or AIM (that still the communicator of choice?) and trying a little less restriction. No live streams, commentators, etc. Just have fun. Structure is still required but there isn't a need for everyone to "RII" before lining up. Big bracket elite events shouldn't be conducted by inexperienced individuals. Period. Been saying that now for over a decade.

Finally, I'll be ballsy and put this out there. Maybe something will come from it. Maybe it won't, OK? I would do a PPRL season again if the interest was there from the community. Perhaps it would provide a decent example for others to come up with their own concepts. Unfortunately leaf sprung trucks every other week wouldn't exactly work at this point. Unless I am doing something wrong. The two packs with the vast majority of trucks are wonky and do not all work with the game (at least for me) and cause me a lot of glitching. Maybe over time this could get rectified? Would everyone be opposed to running just John Dough's trucks even though it would mean a lot of repeatable signups? I have no idea. What I do have is a lot of ideas floating around in my head as to what I would do. iRacing isn't cutting it and the winter is long... Maybe once the calendar turns we could all have a little fun together? Let me know, PM's work well FYI and if you're from the MTM2 era and friends with me on Facebook drop a line there and lets chat.

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Within the now five years that RoR has been the platform of choice to "play monster trucks" on the computer it has seen countless software versions, package updates, and what appears to me anyway a revolving door of people who come in and leave due to lack of interest or patience to keep up. Before I built my new PC I had two versions installed and never could figure out why people would make awesome add ons only to have them NOT work with ALL versions of the game. Multiplayer only works with one version? Yikes. Higher detail vehicles with better physics? Well you want this version. I at this point still have no idea if running the .37 version is what everyone uses to race online. And believe me I would LIKE to race online again. It needs to be made clear on a forum topic posted at the top of this site what are the absolute basics you need to compete with others. Otherwise all you have is a very entertaining for an hour or so single player game. Also, if the content that is here on this site isn't easily transferable to a new version of software then the project of "migration" needs to be put on the back burner. There's no reason to start over from square one again every other year. I've posted that before on here somewhere before too.

Simply put, almost all of the online racing takes part on 37, nobody really cares to make their trucks and tracks for 38 or newer because of it. There are some differences between in the truck and terrain files as you move along the newer builds but nothing from those releases ever came up as "gotta have this we need to move onto a newer version". Complacency is part of the issue, but this is mtm2 circa the last few years when it was only really me, Jet and PM making trucks. Almost nobody new here makes anything, with zero interest in learning unless you hold their hand to figure stuff out. I am not trying to be rude when I say that but when you try to help and all you get is a "lol this is hard can you just do it for me" what motive is there to help? The prospect of starting over from scratch onto a newer version is more appealing then trying to drag what we have with us because it is that bad (anyone who has gotten into the nitty gritty of it has realized this). Once version 4 has become more stable in a whole, I would be more then inclined to move on to it but it has to make sense in the long run.

 

. The problem is the over complication of needing to unzip and rezip into the smv4 pack in order for the download content to work. That's been LAZINESS from the beginning and one of the biggest mistakes that has been made by this community. If you want to race online, unlike MTM2 there is no "Bearfoot" that would populate the undownloaded content another person is using, just emptiness. So one must get the content in order to experience having any other person in the room with them. So, not only is the process longer because one needs to obtain all the content, but then you need to unzip and rezip it into a larger than life package? That's deplorable. The simplification of just needing to download everyone's stuff from the download section needs to happen. John Dough does it with his leafer addon packages and I can't see it taking anyone who took the time to model or reskin a vehicle the extra ten minutes to give it standalone status. What is the largest reason this community doesn't grow again?

There is a bit more then to it then just sheer laziness and comparing it to mtm2 is unfair. In mtm2 trucks were a couple of Mb's (my Canadian Crippler was 1.12mb), in ROR a generic stand along truck is atleast 30-40Mb's (my SMRA truck which is a standalone is 45.8mbs, ZIPPED). 99% of the people on here use the same tires, 4 link bars, sway bar's and axle models (shockbody/shafts are the growing exception) as V4 or what is in the scrapyard, this alone can drop zip sizes in half. What I think needs to happen (and actually gives me an idea) is the most popular parts from newer trucks need to be added to the V4 base to help with those missing part errors people get. Again this is not mtm2 where it would default to a stock bearfoot truck that everyone would see, no ROR just straight crashes or the person is invisible for everyone in the server (but there is more to it then not having the truck zip which I will touch on in another response). I also miss having the pod mounting software of mtm2 where you could have all your pods in the mtm2 folder but you had to manually add them to the game vs ROR system of having to manually remove and add zips from the game folders. We (being the site staff) try not to limit peoples content upload on the restriction of not having their trucks as a stand alone, we used to try to but it was discourage people from uploading or even making stuff period because their stuff would not get approved. It was a lose/lose situation regardless of the stance we took.

 

I am shocked there hasn't been a very simple multi game room (can we even do that??) Would people even be interested in that? I know that is what I would prefer at this point. I don't quite understand the point of needing to make even a smaller event feel "big time". My suggestion would be meeting on TeamSpeak or AIM (that still the communicator of choice?) and trying a little less restriction. No live streams, commentators, etc. Just have fun. 

 MTM2 you could host servers with dial up connection, ROR you need atleast 3mb's of upload to host a proper server free of slow network download warnings. Even with that your limited to how many trucks you can have in a server. With how the softbody calculations are online, there are alot of people that cannot handle having another truck visible onscreen without it causing FPS dropping straight to the floor. This game might be ahead of mtm2 in terms of how the trucks handle and feel but MTM2 was far better in terms of online racing.
Yes I do think people would be interested though a bit hesitant to it at first seeing as it has never really been done (runt did try a few years back but disappeared off the face of the earth again). The perception of making events feel big time just goes with the territory I guess, none of the starting leagues on here were small affairs (even Dig's King of the Hill events were knuckle tossing affairs just to even sign up for). Teamspeak has been replaced with Discord recently and AIM is still used for race chats. I have been begging on deaf ears for no extra fluff for events for years, only league that follows the good ol' days of mtm2 is SMRA, I am biased when I say it (seeing as I am overseeing it completely next year and ran a tour last year) but it brought back what was fun for me racing again in ROR.

 

Finally, I'll be ballsy and put this out there. Maybe something will come from it. Maybe it won't, OK? I would do a PPRL season again if the interest was there from the community. Perhaps it would provide a decent example for others to come up with their own concepts. Unfortunately leaf sprung trucks every other week wouldn't exactly work at this point. Unless I am doing something wrong. The two packs with the vast majority of trucks are wonky and do not all work with the game (at least for me) and cause me a lot of glitching. Maybe over time this could get rectified? Would everyone be opposed to running just John Dough's trucks even though it would mean a lot of repeatable signups? I have no idea. What I do have is a lot of ideas floating around in my head as to what I would do. iRacing isn't cutting it and the winter is long... Maybe once the calendar turns we could all have a little fun together? Let me know, PM's work well FYI and if you're from the MTM2 era and friends with me on Facebook drop a line there and lets chat.

I would run a league you put on in a heatbeat, even the less then ideal send off that was last season of PPRL has not tarnished what made it great. I know Chadwick is planning on running a leafer league on here (getting some help from a few other members to tweak the current leafers into a more usable online racing pack). It is not entirely impossible just needs the commitment.

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Wait, are we.... are we actually having a peaceful informative discussion? What website am I on?

 

I think Kozak covered a lot of it. One thing I want to point out with the re-zipping the pack and whatnot, you don't actually need to do that as I and several others just have an unzipped folder in our vehicles folder and most zips you download will read from that folder if they're placed in the packs folder. I've missed the MTM2 style events as they were always fun and amusing, even the chats were but if you're ever in one of the chats in an event as of late it's like no one wants to be there which takes the fun out of it entirely.

 

Another thing that seems to turn people away I feel is that in a way some people expect new members to just immediately know everything and how to do something and there usually isn't a lot of help without some form of ridiculing whether it be present on the site or hidden away elsewhere. Blender is really only as complicated as anyone trying to learn makes it but sadly a lot of people aren't capable of learning such a program on their own so perhaps someone could make a really really basic tutorial of how to use it? I do feel like we're lacking custom tracks lately though, almost everyone builds replica tracks anymore and while it's nice I'd love to see some completely crazy track designs.

 

The number one reason the multi room events hasn't taken off is the internet requirement to host a server and also the fact that the more trucks you have loaded in your game the more FPS you lose and some of us struggle to keep a 20fps average albeit I'm sure that's the minority group. I'd love to see a return of PPRL and I'd even offer to help with it even though my computer and internet are about as useful as a potato in a toaster sometimes. I've thought about running a league before but my computer situation is really holding me back from being able to do so. I quite enjoyed when I ran the first Fall Madness and I can only speak for myself but to date that has been the most fun I've had running and being in an RoR event.

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Great information. I see there are similarities between software then in regards to multi game rooms. If you all recall any more than 5 custom trucks in MTM2 had massive fps loss due to the complex modeling used. How does not having any trucks in game effect the experience for others? I would hate to race and not be able to see my opponent. Is there any possible workaround to map in a generic low poly / vert truck? I have a PC that just hits below 4K ready at benchmark tests so I can easily load in ten trucks without taking a hit depending on the track.

3mb speed certainly limits hosting to those that live in decent areas with a solid Internet connection. How does low end connections appear to everyone else if you are hosting or in a server? I'm scared it would be very warpy and have dropped connections. It sounds like big bracket style is what needs to be used and with a server not an individual host.

Kozak and Ryan is that idea of pack storing a common practice for many? I'll admit I'm not searching forums for techniques but should this / is this common knowledge in a tutorial? It would at that point become much simpler to download common items. Get the V4 pack unzip to the vehicles folder and then just put packs in the packs folder. Find appropriate common used models as required. That makes much more sense. 

Track making mimics what we see out on the floors of real events. I'm not entirely sold on the steep ramp multi step pyramids. A good flowing high smooth track still provides better action. The same holds true here. Custom tracks are all up to the modeler creative intuition. Some have it and some do not. Plus remember modeling tracks in blender isn't the same as using an actual track editor like Traxx. Tagging and moving verts isn't an enjoyable task. Especially for a lot of inexperienced players with little instruction / practice. Nobody will make Hotshoe or Coconutman level tracks off the start.

I appreciate the insight guys. I would enjoy bringing back something for others to race in. Ill have to put up a discussion thread in the coming days to go over ideas with the community for some winter heat type events.

 

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Well if your running an event, judging, live streaming, etc you kinda need to see everyone lol. Most of the people that have fps issues with multiple trucks know in advance to remove any trucks they might see, but connection speed also is a big factor aswell. The possible work around for this is to make dummy truck files (aslong as the truck file has the same name the truck will show up ingame) with lesser quality models (I made one for when I am hosting/running an event so the possibility of someone racing seeing me is zero (most people just use a stock v4 truck but everyone will see that).

You remember Jet when he used to race online? same deal, truck is jumpy, warps alot and slow to react to prompts such as go, RII or time is up.

I dunno about common practice it has just always been something I have done, basically when a really well done replica truck is released I extract it to my already unzipped V4 pack (since anything unzipped is used as a directory by ROR anyways). This plays on the fact that most people end up taking stuff off these newer trucks to use on their own. But a content update zip of commonly used "accessory" meshes and models would be a good idea since not everyone is going to download every single truck.

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ROR is one of the most unstable games that I have ever played, and there is just not enough people to keep it going the way we want it to go. Whether it's lack of interest, lack of priority, or just sheer laziness. There is too much to be done all at once to get this game going in the direction we want it to go. Another thing is that we just don't have enough people to contribute as much as people in MTM2 did. There were so many people that contributed WEEKLY to the game (addons). Plus the time and effort to put into a really good looking truck on here is INCREDIBLY more complicated than MTM2 ever was. Some trucks on here can take up to 1-2 weeks to be fully done. That's the most difficult part of creating anything here.

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Great information. I see there are similarities between software then in regards to multi game rooms. If you all recall any more than 5 custom trucks in MTM2 had massive fps loss due to the complex modeling used. How does not having any trucks in game effect the experience for others? I would hate to race and not be able to see my opponent. Is there any possible workaround to map in a generic low poly / vert truck? I have a PC that just hits below 4K ready at benchmark tests so I can easily load in ten trucks without taking a hit depending on the track.

3mb speed certainly limits hosting to those that live in decent areas with a solid Internet connection. How does low end connections appear to everyone else if you are hosting or in a server? I'm scared it would be very warpy and have dropped connections. It sounds like big bracket style is what needs to be used and with a server not an individual host.

Kozak and Ryan is that idea of pack storing a common practice for many? I'll admit I'm not searching forums for techniques but should this / is this common knowledge in a tutorial? It would at that point become much simpler to download common items. Get the V4 pack unzip to the vehicles folder and then just put packs in the packs folder. Find appropriate common used models as required. That makes much more sense. 

Track making mimics what we see out on the floors of real events. I'm not entirely sold on the steep ramp multi step pyramids. A good flowing high smooth track still provides better action. The same holds true here. Custom tracks are all up to the modeler creative intuition. Some have it and some do not. Plus remember modeling tracks in blender isn't the same as using an actual track editor like Traxx. Tagging and moving verts isn't an enjoyable task. Especially for a lot of inexperienced players with little instruction / practice. Nobody will make Hotshoe or Coconutman level tracks off the start.

I appreciate the insight guys. I would enjoy bringing back something for others to race in. Ill have to put up a discussion thread in the coming days to go over ideas with the community for some winter heat type events.

 

I've honestly thought about trying to make a stock Bearfoot like truck before, maybe I'll have to look into it a bit more but the only downside is having to make sure the file name is the same as the more detailed trucks so you can see it online.

I think you can get away with a 1mb upload speed for hosting as long as you don't try to put in more than 4-5 people and don't really do much else while hosting but obviously the faster upload the better. I've tried hosting with my 0.5mb upload with a few people and it seemed okay for the most part but I'd never use it for a major event.

I know I and some others started doing it that way after having so many trucks the game would no longer read all of them correctly from the zipped format. Kozak's posted pictures of it in a few help threads recently the way he has it set up and it's essentially the same way everyone does it I believe. The best thing we could discover would be a way to have the game read from the users joined and load a very simplistic stock MTM2 style truck but I don't think that can be done without modifying the code of the game itself.

That is true, sometimes it can be a lot of work to come up with a good layout for a custom track and something I've noticed lately and haven't really said much about except to a select few people are how detailed the tracks are and I don't mean the actual track but the arena/stadium. Does it look pretty? Of course but there comes a point where all that detail takes away from the track being enjoyable and I can't speak for anyone but myself on this but I'll take a fun challenging course with a simplistic/basic arena/stadium over a very high detailed arena/stadium model with a basic track any day. Sure it looks pretty but does it function? Not always. Custom track wise there are a TON of great MTM2 custom tracks that could be remade in RoR that I'm sure would do excellent.

 

Well if your running an event, judging, live streaming, etc you kinda need to see everyone lol. Most of the people that have fps issues with multiple trucks know in advance to remove any trucks they might see, but connection speed also is a big factor aswell. The possible work around for this is to make dummy truck files (aslong as the truck file has the same name the truck will show up ingame) with lesser quality models (I made one for when I am hosting/running an event so the possibility of someone racing seeing me is zero (most people just use a stock v4 truck but everyone will see that).

You remember Jet when he used to race online? same deal, truck is jumpy, warps alot and slow to react to prompts such as go, RII or time is up.

I dunno about common practice it has just always been something I have done, basically when a really well done replica truck is released I extract it to my already unzipped V4 pack (since anything unzipped is used as a directory by ROR anyways). This plays on the fact that most people end up taking stuff off these newer trucks to use on their own. But a content update zip of commonly used "accessory" meshes and models would be a good idea since not everyone is going to download every single truck.

I think live streaming has sort of lost it's flair, it used to only be for major and special events but now everyone and their grandmother streams an event and for a lot of those it takes away from the events themselves because of the problems that it brings. One solution I've used similar to what Kozak mentions here is commenting out the chassis or entire truck if you're one of those lazy people that doesn't separate the two meshes (you know who you are :wub:) then you just wind up seeing the tires and a few parts but you can still see the other truck in some form.

Thankfully there's been a change from everyone making every texture 2048x2048 and it's made a lot of problems of the past not nearly as common which also helps with FPS. The commonly used zip would be good but it'd likely have to be updated weekly which isn't a huge downside but it is something to think about.

I mean the lost of interest was inevitable. In my opinion, it started with the cancelling of Sim-Monsters Season 3. A lot of frequenters of events really started to disappear after that.

I'm not sure if you were around during season 2 a lot but that almost didn't get finished several times. I don't even remember how many times we had to have someone make a track the day of the event because there wasn't one and that happened several times during season 1 as well. It was fun, yes but there was a lot of things that no one but the staff members at the time dealt with. One of the reasons the first Fall Madness was run so early in the year then was to regain interest in the league because if I recall correctly at that time there were no other leagues going on and everyone was doubting whether or not the season would even get finished. I also remember taking over doing points because they rarely got updated after that. If it were to happen you'd need at least 3 teams of people to run it. The main team, a backup and then a backup for the backup just to make sure you can have a full event/season completed with as little problems as possible by having everyone prepared well in advance.

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See the thing is, when sim monsters season was around, you guys would always upload it to youtube, and you basically advertised the site, and I know a lot of people watched them, I know I did. Leagues keep this site running, and we have been lacking big leagues like sm season, mror, ssrs, and more. without leagues there really is no point in making new trucks, or doing anything, I mean who just wants to go on ror and drive around, it gets boring. When you guys post videos of the leagues it keeps people coming to the site. I think if someone put the effort into doing a season, and uploading every weeks episode, like sim monsters season, it would make this site a lot more active, also if we move up to this new version of ror, we wouldn't have so many game crashes while running events, it wouldn't be as much of a pain. I really think this site is going through a slow stage at the moment, hopefully we can move on and dig our selves out of this ditch. 

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I'm not sure if you were around during season 2 a lot but that almost didn't get finished several times. I don't even remember how many times we had to have someone make a track the day of the event because there wasn't one and that happened several times during season 1 as well. It was fun, yes but there was a lot of things that no one but the staff members at the time dealt with. One of the reasons the first Fall Madness was run so early in the year then was to regain interest in the league because if I recall correctly at that time there were no other leagues going on and everyone was doubting whether or not the season would even get finished. I also remember taking over doing points because they rarely got updated after that. If it were to happen you'd need at least 3 teams of people to run it. The main team, a backup and then a backup for the backup just to make sure you can have a full event/season completed with as little problems as possible by having everyone prepared well in advance.

Yeah I ran all of Season 2. Ended up getting a flag for the WF the last event. I wasn't on the "inside" back then so I don't know much about what happened behind the scenes, but I had a great time.

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