Well, here we are with another update, and here I am again addressing all the insults, the hate, and complaints that come with every single update we’ve done. So let me go ahead and address some things.
“Everything sucks!”
Look. It’s never our intention to “ruin the game” at honestly, we still believe we haven’t. There are issues. There are always issues. I’ve said time and time again, there are 1000s of different devices in 1000s of different circumstances that no company, no matter how big they are, can successfully test. All we can do is try our best with what we have. It’s the same song and dance we go through every update. Every update is the “worst update ever”. Why? Because once you go from a handful of test devices, testing all they can for months, then the game goes to 100,000s of players in all those circumstances, that’s when things happen.
So lets look at some things…
1. Lag. Always happens when we update. Why? Because everyone is downloading the game and in the beginning, everyone has to also download assets. It causes a lot of stress on the servers, and also uses resources on your device.
Outside of the normal “New Update” latency we’re still assessing the performance of all the different devices out there. As time goes on and we gather more data on the various devices players use, we will be able to determine just what each device is capable of and
2. Issues – We’ve always addressed the major issues. Not always the day of launch. In fact rarely is it day of launch. We spend the first few days gathering info about what’s happening. Then we get to work. After a while things normalize and everything is honky dory.. .every single time. That isn’t about to change.
3. Moving Forward – We’ll always move forward. We’ll always try to improve the game. That’s what we’ve done since day one. Turf Wars, Racer Showdowns, Tournaments, Mystery Crates, WWE integration, BMW events, Halloween events, April Fool’s Cars, better single payer experiences, partnerships and now graphic and tonal improvements. Some are hit, some are miss. Some things we keep tweaking, and through it all, we’ve made the changes we’ve needed to, we’ve fixed what needed fixing and we’ve removed things that weren’t working. We’ve also added improvements to fight against cheaters and exploiters. All for little or no fanfare, even after being bashed verbally for months. It’s fine, we understand, and yet ,we keep doing what we do.
4. Cars look worse - On our newer devices, they don’t. We achieved what we wanted. That being said, we’ve also scaled things. That means we’ve tried to optimize the game for most devices. In some cases, we’ve had to “turn down” the graphics some users on older devices, and devices that don’t support our newer graphic programs. Each Android device is NOT the same. Capabilities vary from device type to device type and there are 1000s of them. We’ve looked at the most popular devices and automatically set your graphic settings accordingly. However, we’re not perfect and we don’t have profiles for all the devices out there. So maybe your device IS capable of handling the newer graphics and special effects but we’ve set your device to a lower setting. We can see about helping. You just need to let us know via a ticket in game so we can see what device you are using and assess it’s capabilities.
For those on older devices, unfortunately, to play the game, you may experience less than optimized looking graphics. That’s the nature of technology and video games. At some point, the games advance as tech allows and older machines get left in the dust, with Racing Rivals, we’ve tried our best to still give players on such devices, the game play they know, while sacrificing graphics.
We’ve added Graphics options. You want to improve performance? You can turn off the shaders and special effects. (Those on iPhone 6s and up, that option isn’t there, but will be added shortly)
We’re still sorting through all the devices we don’t have info on. In the future, we’ll also allow you to scale the graphics on your own. Kinda like with PC games, it usually picks the best settings for your hardware, but you can manually override that and choose higher graphics setting or lower graphic settings.
5. Some paint and wheels and (whatever else) look weird - We’re working on that. We’re looking into the fleck and matte paints, we’re looking at metallic cars, we’re looking into wheels, we’re looking into car wraps. We’ll get that sorted out. We always do. No need to think we won’t now.
6. Chat - Like I’ve said. It’s easy to test global chat between a handful of people, it’s quite different when 100,000s of players join in. We’re already working on optimizing it. We’ve seen the feedback. You guys would like the opportunity to ignore it or turn it off. We’ll look into that for the future
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7. Other Issues - Other things may pop up, especially between players that are on two different versions of the game. As they are reported, we’ll look into them.
8. Light Laggers - We’ve done what we can. At this point, it’s not really affecting races. You can still effectively race. You can still get the same low RTs. Its been done. I’ve seen it done, I’ve done it myself.
As long as YOU are paying attention, the game gives you ample warning when a race is about to begin, and you have enough time to prepare for it.
Doesn’t mean we quit trying to find ways to alleviate the issue. Problem is, there are too many false positives. Punishing every instance will bring us back to the days where players brought out the pitchforks because of these false positives.
9. Ghost Shifting - We don’t have an official stance yet, but we are looking into the whole issue.
So yeah, I get it. Things have changed. The update didn’t go as smoothly as it could have, but this one was harder to do. Updating the graphics of a game is easy… ish. Updating the graphics of a mobile game to take advantage of newer modern devices while trying to cater to older devices and make that all work on 1000s of different kinds of devices, a bit more difficult.
At the end of the day, the core game is still there. We’ll work through the major issues and everything will be okay again, we just need to get through these hurdles. We’ve been there before. This is our 6th update, we hope to have many more. In the meantime, report your issues, be polite, we’re all human beings, there is no point to being insulting or being just plain mean. We are people just like you, there is no need to forget that. We’ll work with you guys to fix things, Maybe it won’t be instantaneous, but after 6 updates now, we’ve always pulled through, we will again.
IGN: The Real {RR} Ryyst
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
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Comments
For those of you that play games on the PC, know more often than not, the game will determine the graphic capabilities of your hardware and choose a "optimal" setting for you.
This usually consists of low, medium, high and ultra.
This is now similar to Racing Rivals, except we don't scan your device, we just know the specs of the devices used. So what we can do is determine what device you are using and set your graphics to the "optimum" based on the info we have. For devices we don't know, we default to a low setting.
This can cause a few things...
1. Everything is fine. The graphics are set to what your device can handle (fidelity may differ based on how the device can handle our newer shaders and effects) and game runs fine. Believe it or not... there are people who don't have issues.
2. Your setting is too low.. You will probably see the cars a little more blocky and pixelated. We would need to assess your device and determine if we need to change it's settings to something higher... without sacrificing performance.
3. Your settings are too high. If you are seeing cartoonish cars, that usually means the game is trying to render something it can't handle. Again, we would need to assess your device and see if we need to decrease it's settings to something your device can handle.
What you need to do is put a ticket in using the "?" in game. Then let us know what kind of graphics you are seeing. Blocky? Pickelated? Cartoony? Also if you are experiencing lag, please describe that lag. "It's slow when I...." is a good starting point.
As for paint, wheels and wraps, those are a different story. And we are looking into it. Same with global chat.
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
Well thats kind of selfish. And achieve what? To make it look alike like CSR 2?
That was the only reason i liked RR better but instead you guys made it look like that other crappy game. Might as well just quit this and jump on CSR.....
Yes, we've accomplished what we wanted to. We improved the graphics of the game. Now comes the growing pains of what that means to the players. Did I once say we weren't looking into it? Did I say, we were done? Did I say we weren't working to help everyone? No. I said, we're looking into everything. I said please ticket in with what you are experiencing so we can adjust what needs to be adjusted.
I know you really want to hate me and Glue right now, but don't assume for a minute we're sitting here laughing at the misfortunes of our players. If you really want to make money as a business, would it not be helpful to NOT piss off your customers? Why would you think that all we care about is money, but yet not practice the best ways to ensure our players keep playing and paying for things? Do you think that's how we've lasted for 3 years when a lot of mobile games last a mere few months?
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
For those devices that are unable to handle those graphics, we made it so you can still play the game with graphics that should still be on par with what Rivals was before the update. The fidelity of the game should not be much different and performance should still be the same or better.
In other words, the graphics will either stay the same as before or look better depending on your device.
What we have right now, is adjusting our game to accommodate all the devices out there. Some devices will need their graphics set higher, some lower.
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
Ok got it thought you were saying they were good.
I have a for sale thread with cars listed and you can see the paint on them now. And I mention what matte they used to be
555R | Nitto 1320 Challenge | Nitto Legends | Fueled Racing | Racing Rivals
2015 Players Council Member
2016 Players Council Member
2018 Players Summit Member
#VGUSesko
So... if you want to help. Put in a ticket and describe what you are experiencing.
If you want to continue to be passive aggressive in order to start arguments, feel free. I understand that some of you want to vent, and I'm an easy target..
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
My matte army green panda is now just green. 2016 re camaro is no longer matte red. Copo is no longer matte red. Rs01 is no longer matte yellow. And my 69 camaro re don't look matte black anymore just looks like a dark black charcoal stain
Svt cobra is no longer matte black instead looks shiny white. Syclone now looks gunmetal instead of matte black
Have you set your graphics options to "off"? You can find that option under Your Account info in game, just below volume I believe (The option may not be there if your device isn't able to handle the openGLES 3.0 shader set or special effects)
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
Also I'm here to be the go between between our Devs and you. I'm not the PC Customer Service team, I'm a gamer, talking to gamers. I'm the guy that takes the brunt of all the hate and insults, so I'll dish out and step to the level of tone when addressing myself. So that may mean I'm a little gruff, and a little snappy, and some may say thuggish, but I've always said, I'd never lie to you guys, and I'll try and be as transparent as I can, but that doesn't mean I'll always be super nice and politically correct. If you come at me, I can stand and come right back. That's the community.
I'm on your side, and I'm on the side of the devs. It's a fine balance. I go to bat for you guys more than you know and I'll defend our guys as much as I can.
I know this is a rough update. Been through them before with this game and others, so I know the dril and I know that emotions run high. I'm here to try and calm everyone down with facts and info. Maybe it's not what you want to hear, but its the truth.
So I do know how to treat and help Rivals players. That's why I'm here.. I'm just not a little kitty cat..
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
And yes I've turned both settings off day of release, my summary is with them off
Soon to be Ex-Carbonated Community Manager
CSR 2 wishes they were Racing Rivals, that's the absolute truth. Players there are stuck dealing with hacks on a daily basis, and lack the one thing that Rivals has over every other game....Pinks.
All these drag racing game companies are busy trying to achieve what Glu has managed to do for almost 4 years now. Them copy CSR 2? I think it's the other way around.