why is there no one online?

IMO it's just a matter of the still low amount of people playing the sim in general, see here Comparing 3 apps

When AMS2 gets a bigger player base, online numbers will raise as well. It's just a matter of time, the game still needs a lot of quality of life improvements and fixes and as more and more of those appear, the numbers will be increasing.

 

By that day, the game wil be hopelessly outdated like a Lada Samara in 2004. I tried to promote AMS2 during the last Sale to my e-racing league , with no success. One problem is, the changes between builds are to drastic to start a league, second was problems with VR ans abstuctive Views in a lot of Cars....and the last nail to the coffin was the "where are the Audis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Nissans and where is Le Mans.....and the DLC policy. Im beginning to ask me myself why I sunk 89€ into this. Where is my "premium" content, apart from some tracks that come standard in most sims.

It is not like there is no competition out there!

 

Indeed, the game is not ready yet for serious league racing, unless you are prepared to deal with lots of annoyances and bigger problems (most of them have existed since PCARS2 mainly - for those of us who had already been league racing in PCARS2, it's not that much of a deal )

I disagree that the game will be outdated by the time it will be improved. It's using today's best option for an engine, which already shines in the hands of Reiza, for a large part of the content in this game. And it will not take 10 years for AMS2 to be in good enough shape and without major changes from build to build. Based on the current rate of progress, don't you think it will be A LOT more polished in all areas in around 6 months?

Remember, as shown in the graph I posted earlier, for the first year also ACC had a similar amount of players as AMS2 has now, even less actually. But then it was vastly improved and it took off. Despite having just 2 car classes and a very small amount of tracks, so imagine what the potential for AMS2 is, even if it does not have Ferraris and Lambos which is indeed a big selling point.

I completely understand about failing to promote leagues to AMS2 right now. Actually 6 months ago it would be almost unheard off, to have such a league, the game was clearly not suitable at all for that. Today things are already very different, there are plenty leagues going on already, albeit facing troubles. In 6 months, I am absolutely sure there will be dozens of leagues available and it will only get better.

With our 89€ we helped the devs have a good kick start, finance some more licenses, probably hire a couple more people, had early access for the game in the making etc. And on top of that, we get all the future content for free for the lifetime of the product. 5-6 tracks every year for free forever doe snot sound too bad to me.

 

I think the devs should open a topic for Multiplayer. Issues reports, features wishlist, and overall ideias to improve it, especially now that the ranking system is still under development.

I like AMS2 a lot, but without a more populated multiplayer, probably AMS2 will never be my main sim.

 

They could improve the population of the multiplayer races by scheduling races for various types of cars and tracks. This way we know when to be online to do a mp-race.

 

I think if Reiza does the following, the players will come and the multiplayers lobby will thrive.
1. Fix/improve/polish the options in multiplayer lobbies:
a) For the DS, make all the control options GUI based. The server.cfg file never does what you want it to do, or think it should do, are maybe I'm just too stupid. Make it easy for folks to setup.
b) For peer to peer lobbies, stability improvements and fix the the results at the end.
c) Allow overiding the 4min before the Quali ends option that stops people from joining a Race. That way people can reconnect and join if they get dropped during Quali but before the race. This will solve a lot of heartache.
d) Allow overiding people aren't allowed to join just before the race, if they get dropped from the transition of Quali to Race. It always happens to someone during our league races. That way people can join the lobby again and if they join again, they start at the back of the pack. This will solve another source of heartache.
e) Add more options than PCars2 in multiplayer, eg: Add a Race 2 option. So you can have Practice, Quali, Race 1 and Race 2. Then you could have a reverse grid option or normal grid option based on the results of Race 1. Eg: Race 1 could be 20mins, then Race 2 could be a reverse grid 40mins race in different weather conditions.
f) Allow manual adjustment of end Race timer and Start Race timer (basically the Ready input screen) so people have enough time to join back in if they get dropped for whatever reason. This way the lobby host has more control over when the Race ends and how much time people have to make changes.

2. Fix/polish some of the cars and stop messing with cars that are already decent. I feel like AMS2 is sort of like iRacing in some respects, some of the cars feel pretty good and realistic, others are complete trash and don't resemble any car that I have driven IRL. Some of those cars even have busted animations like gauges not working, driver's legs pointing towards the center of the car away from the pedals (very disorienting if you look at the foot well).

3. Fix/polish some of the tracks, so there aren't any bugs on the circuit.

Focus on fixing bugs and polishing the content that is already there vs adding new content. The content in AMS2 is already very unique. If the product is good, the word will spread and people will come. Quality over quantity, IMHO.

 

In regards to e)

From the January Dev Blog

In regards to 2. Renato has stated several times that the "messing" of the cars as you put it came from improving the driveline which made some better, some worse, needing further adjustments. It isn't reasonable to demand to stop improving cars independently of them already feeling good or not if the underlying system is being adjusted.

 

Is this only for single player or also for multiplayer?

 

That was a tease. Time will tell. But I do remember seeing something in the pC2 DS code about a race2 option that was never enabled since it was never added, so I am quite sure it will also be available online. If not at launch, later. The next 2-3 months will be interesting in regards to the Custom Championship tool and the MP system.

 

for a. .....
If you add -selectds as start parameter the all options are GUI based.
Unfortunatelly after the race all have to leave the server and then the host can create a new session with all options again. Otherwise you can only change track/cars

 

Apropos, Sim Racing System (www.simracingsystem.com) are launching a number of new AMS2 series in the coming weeks. This would be a good chance for all those people who want more serious online multiplayer racing in AMS2 to participate.

A word of caution: to participate you need to register to SMS, then contact their support by email and provide photo ID (with everything but name and picture blacked out for privacy) to confirm your identity.

 

Good news!

I thought they had given up on AMS2. If I'm not mistaken I did two AMS2 races in the beginning, netcode was terrible.

 

totally aggree. They wanted me to send a photo of passport or driving license to be in.
Thats far away from any normal behaviour. Even the Master Card company doesn't have that from me.
So i refused and was kicked immediatly.
Big NO,NO

 

Regarding SimRacingSystem... just to be clear so that anyone who isn't familiar with it knows the sign up requirement:

SRS require you to email a photo of an official document (drivers licence / passport / ID card) that shows your photo and your full name. Any other details can be hidden / blanked out. This is a one time procedure that is done when you register. The only other requirement is that your Steam name matches your real name when you participate in races (you can change it back to a nickname when the race is over). SRS state that once they've verified your ID, they destroy the photo.

I don't want to get into a discussion about online safety and identity theft, but personally I was comfortable with someone having a photo of my photo and my name. (People on social media are happy to share photos of themselves along with their name etc, and that is out in the public domain). If the idea of verifying your identity is a problem, then SRS is not for you I guess).

Again, I don't want to open up a discussion about online safety, that would be pointless and off topic, I just wanted to post in the interest of balance.

BTW, I believe @Henrique Alves who is a Reiza backer is one of the people behind SRS.

EDIT: Personally I had a blast with the recently completed SRS leagues and can't wait to race in the upcoming events.

 

I do understand people's reservations and don't particularly like the SRS registration system either, nor the requirement to change your Steam name to your real name during races. But it is what it is and if the only alternative right now is open lobbies of GT3/GT1 at Spa with 5 people in them, I'm willing to jump through some hoops.

 

On the subject of SRS again, some information that may be helpful to any new participants:

It is only possible to be registered for one future event. I have just signed up to the Carrera Cup league (race 1). I also intend to do the Copa Fusca series, but I cannot register for the first race until the Carrera Cup race is finished. Same for the F3 series.

I just thought I'd mention this, as I was a little confused by that system when I first joined.

 

i think then they definitely should add an example, e.g. like this below, how a identity scan should/could look like. More is to much

 

I've been racing for a while in SRS AC open wheel events and it is a blast.

Full grid and clean racing, especially in european friendly hours (also the toughest grid). In american friendly hours you can also find a good grid and overall clean racing (definitely not as tough as the grids formed in european friendly hours).

This is very important. Took me quite a while to understand why the fk I could not race. I believe I tried to join races for days before someone actually told me this detail.

About the registration process, as Ray said, no point in discussing it. It is what it is. If you are not comfortable, just don't do it and move on.

Edit: SRS is very well integrated with AC & Content Manager, so the experience is truly smooth. For AMS2 I believe it won't be as smooth, since the game is kind of a closed box and its multiplayer feature & experience is definitely not good.