SimBin Dev-Blog 01 - 05

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http://insider.simbin.com/simbin-dev-blog-8/

 

 

It’s time for another dev blog. As we are preparing for the Multiplayer Alpha patch, I’ll give you some insight on where we are with MP Alpha and provide some basic information on what the MP Alpha will include.

Corner Marker Update

All R3E tracks have now been updated for the corner marker toggle. Only the 9 DTM Experience tracks remain. We will have a few weeks of delay with rolling out these DTM Experience tracks to optimize them a bit better.

Because there are no track updates, the patch next week will be a small one. It will include some fixes and changes from the portal and will include some files for a content that will be available in store soon.

Current Focus in the Studio

Our first priority right now is wrapping up Multiplayer Alpha which will be available to DTM Experience season pass holders in just a few weeks.

We are done with all the needed implementations and the servers are now running fully compatible with our Online Protocol system. The stability is getting there and we are now ironing out a few things mainly in the collisions and position bar areas.

Next, which some of us are working hard on is finishing up the R3E Experience temporary menu that will enable Multiplayer and possibly Single Race with completely refactored AI for R3E.

 

Multiplayer Alpha Update

Because it’s an Alpha, some of you asked about what limitations it will have. Let me explain what the Multiplayer Alpha version will include. This is of course only for the DTM Experience version. Some of these will not apply to the R3E MP.

• Multiplayer Alpha in DTM Experience will include full grid races in DTM tracks.

• It will have the DTM overlays and Timing menu you are used to seeing in the Single Race mode. Overlays can of course be toggled off via options.

• For Alpha, Black flag rules (same as in current Single Race) can be enabled/disabled by the server.

• Mechanical Damage can be enabled/disabled by the server and servers with both options will be available for testing purposes.

• DRS can be enabled/disabled by the server and  servers with both options will be available.

• Car Setup will be available in Get Real difficulty.

• All 3 difficulties Novice, Amateur and Get Real will be available and we will have servers running with all of them all the time.

• All Sessions are included. However we will mainly enable Practice, Qualify and Race. Warm up and multiple Qualifying sessions will not be enabled most of the time.

• Session times will vary. We will have a variety of session lengths for testing purposes. From 5 minutes to 60 minutes, anything goes.

• On Alpha, there will be no championship. Once you complete the race on a track you will return to the Server Browser screen after the race results.

• On Alpha, there will be no teams, leagues, points system or leaderboards.

• Initial test servers will be located in Germany. We will not have servers in different continents on the initial alpha stage. A more global solution is being investigated of course, but so far our tests show that the latency between European players and players from other continents while racing is much better than expected.

As you can see it’s pretty basic hence the Alpha tag . The main purpose of the Alpha version is to stress test the infrastructure and optimize the server and network code and bandwidth based on the results.

The patch that will include Multiplayer Alpha will be a big patch. You probably noticed that we did not patch much other than the tracks for a while. With Multiplayer Alpha patch we will include a lot of fixes and improvements which I will talk more about in the next dev-blog.

I hope you are looking forward to Multiplayer as much as we do. We can’t wait to share it with you all and improve it based on test results and of course your feedback.

 

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Last Tests Before Multiplayer Alpha Release

http://insider.simbin.com/simbin-dev-blog-9/

 

Multiplayer Alpha is around the corner. Apart from patching some things for the ADAC GT Masters competition, our full focus is Multiplayer so in this blog, I’ll take the opportunity to call for help before we go live with MP Alpha.

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SimBin Closed Beta Update

 

The MP ALPHA is now ready to download for the old Closed Beta Testers who have the R3E WIP Application in their Steam Library.

As I mentioned yesterday, this is for the Closed Beta Testers who helped us test things over one and a half years ago before we launched R3E.

Please note that WIP runs on a different infrastructure. In case you can’t remember your old Closed Beta account, to participate in the MP ALPHA you will need to re-register once you have R3E WIP installed and running.

There may be stability issues, things might go down and there may be numerous bugs which is why this is not exactly for everyone but for you that really want to join back and help us prepare MP Alpha for public. After these tests, MP Alpha will be made available in public for DTM Experience Season Pass Holders, then all DTM Experience owners and finally everyone who plays R3E.

This post has been promoted to an article