Q&A Multiplayer

[Loore]

We recently asked you for your questions based around Multiplayer, have a question that didn't get answered? Let us know in the comments below.

We caught up with Executive Producer Clive Moody who answers your questions below.

Q) I read that the maximum laps online is 5, then it goes to endurance, which goes up to about 40 minutes? Is endurance done just on time, or can you choose number of laps too?

A) Endurance races are time-based. It’s all about covering the maximum distance over a given time.

Q) Will there be any drift events around tracks?

A) There will. The career mode focuses on Drift events on short sections of our open road locations such as Okutama and an as yet to be announced location, however, custom events and online let you compete in Drift event on sections of circuits as well.

Q) Can you set up drift on LiveRoutes?

A) All Drift events are held on short sections of track, packed with very best corners and combinations of corners. It’s all about controlling your speed, angle and proximity to drift markers over an intense burst of action. Liveroutes are much better suited to long distances events, so we don’t support using them for Drift events.

Q) Can you have endurance drift events?

A) As per the previous question, Drift is all about quick bursts of action, quick restarts and trying to attain the perfect score.

Q) Will there be an Experience Leaderboard and a TrueSkill Rank Leaderboard? Like in GRID, or what sort of Leaderboards will there be? Or will it all be thrown on to RaceNet?

A) There are leaderboards for each of the career events, as well as leaderboards in-game and on RaceNet to support the weekly Global Challenge events.

Q) Can we have some info about best lap times? We hope you plan to implement it in final product. It is really a big deal.

A) In career mode your personal bests are tracked on every track and in most cases, the engineer will advise you based on which sectors you can improve your performance. Online you’ll be able to view the weekly Global Challenge leaderboards and download ghost data to benchmark yourself against.

Q) Will host of custom lobby have an ability to choose to disable upgrades and use non-upgraded cars only?

A) No, this isn’t an option we provide. You can of course remove upgrades yourself if you want to set up a community race where everyone’s on a level playing field, and you’ll see if someone’s racing an upgraded car because there’s an icon next to the name of their vehicle. Also bear in mind that upgrades are not super powers in GRID2, they subtly improve the characteristics to shave vital split seconds off, rather than massively boosting the car.

Q) What options do we have between 5 laps and 40 mins? Does endurance series apply to any car and any track?

A) Race events are configurable up to 5 laps in 1 lap increments. Endurance events race can be 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 or 40 minutes, selectable per track.

Q) Will we be able to disable AI drivers from backfilling the servers?

A) Yes, this is completely optional.

Q) Somewhere I read that you can drive any car on any circuit, can you do this online? As I would like to be able to have big championships, but not restricted by tracks and cars.

A) You can. Giving this level of flexibility was a primary goal for the game right from the outset. It does mean you can set up some ‘interesting’ and particularly challenging races, especially when taking cars that you would normally only ever see on motorsport circuits onto city streets or open roads.

Q) If we do a GT1 style league for example, will everyone be able to race in the same car, or is it restricted by only 2 or 3 for each?

A) Everyone’s free to use the same car in the event, we don’t force people to use a variety.

Q) Will the host be able to kick drivers out of the Lobby?

A) Yes!

Q) Will we be earning cash not only for win but at least a podium?

A) Yes – cash is awarded based on how many players are in the session and where you finish, so you can always make forward progress. XP is restricted more than cash based on your finishing position – you’re XP will move forward slowly if you’re not winning races.

Q) When setting up rounds can we choose which tracks we race and can they set a different number of laps for each track? i.e. shorter tracks can have more laps etc.

A) Yes and yes

Q) Will GRID 2 use a better kick vote system than what was use in GRID 1? Like the kick vote system that is use in Flatout 2. It the fairest way I have seen to handle players that just join a lobby to cause trouble. Host decide who to kick, then all players in the lobby are ask to vote, if majority vote yes, player is kicked. Also need a chat window that is seen by all while in the lobby, without hitting a key, so all players can see discussion about kicking a player.

A) The host controls the kicking in GRID2, there isn’t a kick-vote system.

Q) Will GRID 2 have the collision ON, Forward and Off host options we got in a patch for GRID 1. These options workout well enough in GRID 1. We need all 3 options.

A) GRID2 allows you to enable or disable collisions. When enabled, players who are static or driving backwards are ghosted to stop them from griefing other players.

Q) Are some of the testers racing the tracks looking for ways to cheat the track, so Codies can put things in to stop this from happen? In GRID 1, on some the tracks, players could go cross country big time or cheat and go around some barriers. Please do not use a penalty system to stop this. I did not like getting a 5 second penalty in Shift demo if I went on the grass to get around a player stop on the track. Going on the grass was penalty enough. Just need to roughen the terrain so there no advantage to going cross country and don't leave big enough gaps between barriers and walls so player can't take a shortcut.

A) In response to issues of people getting around barrier blockades in GRID1, and having observed similar issues in our other racing titles, we’ve introduced our new corner cutting system. It’s a pretty complex system, completely new for GRID2, which calculates whether you’ve gained an advantage by running off track, and then penalises you by slowing you down until you’ve lost as much time as you gained by going off track. What’s cool is, if you run off and rejoin and haven’t gained an advantage, you carry on as before, making it feel really natural. It’s only if you’ve boosted your time by cutting that you’ll incur a slow down.

Q) Will there be an any car, any track mode? This feature was missing from GRID 1.

A) This was something we knew we wanted to fix for GRID2, so yes, any car on any track is supported.

Q) If online has tournament races ( 2, 3 race tournaments ) like GRID 1, will start order on 2nd and 3rd races be reverse order of how players finish the last race? I think this work well in GRID 1. The good players had to go to the back of the pack and show their skill and pass the other players and the other players got a shot at finishing in the top 3.

A) As with much of our online multiplayer, we wanted to put this into the hands of gamers, rather than imposing a grid order. This means that the starting order can be random, based on XP level, XP level reversed, the previous race result, the previous race result reversed, overall event standings or the overall event standing reversed.

Q) Will GRID 2 let us make custom tournaments online (like a 5 track tournament)? Let host pick the tracks and the class of car to use.

A) You can do exactly that. In a custom online event the host has control over race type, the number of rounds, the track for each round, tier of vehicles eligible to race, end of race timer length, grid order, collisions on/off, full or visual damage, number of flashbacks, force manual gears, whether impact ratings are enabled and whether the grid should be filled with AI when there are less than 12 players in the session.

Q) In a 2-3 lap race, 30 seconds was enough time for most players to finish race, but on 5 lap races, only about half the 12 players would finish race and the rest would get a DNF. I would like to see 60 seconds to finish a 5 lap race and 120 seconds to finish a 10 lap race or more. We use to do 30 min tournament races with GRID 1, so be nice if player could have 2 min\120 sec to finish the race.

A) The host has control over the end of race time for Online Custom Events and can set this to values between 15 seconds and 1 minute. For races longer than 5 laps we have endurance mode, which is all about distance covered over a set time rather than laps completed.

Q) Will spectate mode return in GRID 2? This was a very much like feature online with GRID 1!

A) Yes, there is a spectate mode from online. You can choose which car to spectate and also which camera what camera to view it from; either dynamic replay style of any of the player cameras.

Q) Is Endurance racing only available with LiveRoutes?

A) Not just LiveRoutes, but any circuit within the game, so for example Brands Hatch or Indianapolis.

[rizzee]

I would like 2 know about when u green up to start a race. will it be 1st come 1st served like the last grid.also we used this green up 4 league races in sequence 2 where we qualified so if i qf 5th i would green up as the 5th man.so how does the game decide where we qf for the race for league play.

[Loore]

Originally posted by ~~Cobra~~:

I would like 2 know about when u green up to start a race. will it be 1st come 1st served like the last grid.also we used this green up 4 league races in sequence 2 where we qualified so if i qf 5th i would green up as the 5th man.so how does the game decide where we qf for the race for league play.

You can change the starting order via the lobby settings:

• Previous race
  
• Event standings
  
• Event standings reversed
  
• Random
  
• XP

[rizzee]

so can i put a certain person say 5th on the grid if i want as thats where he qualified for the race.it doesnt look like i will be able to with these settings as the cpu decides everything 4u.

[rizzee]

so in order to get a grid of people where they qualified i would have to make a 1 lap race make them finish where they qualified then restart another race.plz bring back the green up option if this is the case.. nightmare 4 league racers.

[SynxUK]

Do you have any plans to implement local/offline split screen multiplayer?

[FabulousLama]

Do will be a ranks of players? Like in GRID1 between Rooky - Legend?
Do will be such great car control ability like in GRID1, in drift mode?
Do will be small transparent text chat in race? (when some player crashed and go to spectate some better racer/drifter - and able comment the race? and any racer can answer even in race? like in GRID1 was amaising!)
Thanks alot! We wait GRID 2 sooo long time %)

[Phantom Lord]

Originally posted by SynxUK:

Do you have any plans to implement local/offline split screen multiplayer?

Also wondering if there is a plan for PC split screen local multiplayer... And if yes, will it be possible from 1 keyboard or would it require 2 keyboards / 1 kb and a controller?

[MellowMange]

There will be splitscreen for pc, xbox and ps3 :) Dunno about the controllers tho.

[Phantom Lord]

Thanks MaNgE

[SynxUK]

Originally posted by MaNgE ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°):

There will be splitscreen for pc, xbox and ps3 :) Dunno about the controllers tho.

Information source?

I'll still wait for a response from an official representative before taking MaNgE's word. Unless he can provide a credible information source.

[MellowMange]

Originally posted by SynxUK:

Originally posted by MaNgE ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°):

There will be splitscreen for pc, xbox and ps3 :) Dunno about the controllers tho.

Information source?

I'll still wait for a response from an official representative before taking MaNgE's word. Unless he can provide a credible information source.

http://community.codemasters.com/t5/GRID-2-General-Discussion/Will-there-be-multyplayer-split-screen-for-PC/m-p/180766/highlight/true#M1993

[SynxUK]

Originally posted by MaNgE ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°):

Originally posted by SynxUK:

Information source?

I'll still wait for a response from an official representative before taking MaNgE's word. Unless he can provide a credible information source.

http://community.codemasters.com/t5/GRID-2-General-Discussion/Will-there-be-multyplayer-split-screen-for-PC/m-p/180766/highlight/true#M1993

Thank you kind sir. I shall now go and preorder with this information.

[zbobg]

In Windows you can have two keyboards, two mice and two xbox 360 controllers. Each one has its own ID and functions as an independent device. So there's every reason to expect GRID 2 in splitscreen to be able to use any combination of the above.

[lil pipsqueak]

What about total amount of players in one race?

[MellowMange]

Originally posted by Subaru:

What about total amount of players in one race?

12 players :)