the crew Get your questions in for the 'The Crew' crew - tduck Q&A

[Eudemon]

Yo! We have the outstanding opportunity of eating biscuits and toast in our underwear, but enough about that for a moment as we want to talk about the chance we have of being able to submit ours and yours and theirs and Jim's questions to the crew of 'The Crew'. So let's get into the dark room and get squeezing!!

 

 

Post your questions and thoughts below, please try and limit yourself to inifinity-1 as we don't want to ask them too much... as... well you know, they have a game to make.

 

So come on down to Chin Town (yeah not a typo) and submit commit yourself.

[TIMELESS]

Nevermind the cars... just how many ducks are in the game?

 

 

/willthinkofrealquestionlater

[Eudemon]

Important questions like that are always good to get out of the way first.

[iNotACactus]

About how many cars will be added as DLC after release?

[Eudemon]

Remember they won't be able to answer every and paul question so be reasonable with what you ask. Though how refreshing would it be if they answered everything straight up.

 

".... yeah 160"

"........... yep maybe later, in fact yeah later I've just decided the game needs Ice-Cream vans."

"...................... depending on how fast people drive every road, we would look into making an environment in space yes."

[TheXRacer]

What's the limit on the render distance, and will there be a significant amount of pop-in?

What platform(s) will be used to distribute the game?

A rough idea on how many DLC packs (if any) will be released?

Is there an opportunity for attaining extra content not paid for initially (such as DLC) without spending large quantities of moolah?

Will community opinions be taken on-board, and problems brought to your attention solved?

Can we get a rough idea of recommended PC specs before-hand?

How long is the games projected lifecycle?

Will you be providing bug fixes, support and updates during that entire time?

 

That is what I have for the moment. Some are more important than others.

[Ozzmcom]

will it blend?

[Ryzza5]

Need to think about this some more, but let's get some out of the way. Trying to ask questions that there is a chance of him actually answering :)

 

 

Can you tell us a bit more about what happened in 2007 when you left TDU1 and started this project? Where did the idea come from? Are the buggy rendered images we have in the TDU2 thread pointers to The Crew?

 

Besides DLC cars, are there any plans for DLC game-modes to play with friends, or will we just make our own game modes up like in TDU1 since the game is still essentially "Unlimited"

 

How long did it take how many people to build the environment (world/map) in The Crew?

 

What are your top 5 favourite places to visit in the game (best roads/scenery/monuments)? What are you most proud of in the game so far?

 

We've seen the snowy terrain on the map but not in gameplay yet, are some of the roads completely covered with snow or ice? Does this effect physics (extremely slippery)?

 

Are you able to demonstrate The Crew with a steering wheel and Hardcore mode in one of your upcoming video walkthroughs?

 

Presumably rear-view mirrors are disabled for performance reasons. Do you think this looks weird at all, and will PC players have the option to turn them on if their PC (now or in 5 years) is fast enough to do so?

 

Any word on whether we will have TrackIR and Oculus Rift compatibility? Have you experienced OR - what did you think of it?

[Eudemon]

Some good questions there Ry. Keep 'em coming peeple!

[iLLGT3]

Is there a clutch in game or can players map one to their controller/wheel?

[Eudemon]

Keep them coming guys, looking for a good breakdown between different areas that you know you want and would like to see and know about. You've played these sort of games as well as others that you would like to see features taken from and put into others, so the questions should be floating around that nogging of yours ready to be asked. :)

[The Compensator]

1. Even though it had some difficulties, TDU/2 could be pretty much modded - specially cars and sounds. Have you considered this when developing The Crew?

 

2. I checked the not-so-much-yet long car list and one thing caught my eyes. Three cars, Z4 35is, Mustang GT and the heavily promoted Camaro SS, are not the latest model year versions. Both Z4 and Camaro look exactly the same as in Forza Motorsport game. Is there any reason for that? Do game devs buy 3D models from a company, how does it even work?

 

3. 40 cars. Will we see more in the future? Are you going to milk your customers with paid DLC packages?

 

4. Can the cars get dirty + working wipers, blinkers, manually turning on/off lights (not sure if this has been preciously answered).

[calster17]

1)Are different areas scaled down differently? Or all the same?

 

For example, A city may be huge, but will it be the same size as the countryside between them and such? Or will the countryside be much bigger? One of the map pic's I seen had NY taking up what looks like 1/4 of the 'East coast' area.

 

2) Dodge Omni GLHS or Rover 75 in game? ;)

 

3) Also, are there Salt flats in Utah in game? Random question but I love the salt flats and would love to see them in a game.('Fuel' had them I know)

[TheSeeker1982]

Questions about Netcode+ForceFeedback-Implementation+Anti-Cheat-stuff+Bugs by ITpro (Network-Admin)

 

honestly this is a repost of my post on the official TheCrew-Forum, but I think its also here of interest

original-post: forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/797721-Questions-Suggestion-by-an-ITpro-(Network-Admin-Engineer-MCITP-Enterprise-Admin)?

 

Considering my experience with TDU1 I have the following Questions for The Crew (skipped TDU2 due to poor driving-physics and ForceFeedback):

-then you configure a Multiplayer-Race, are the race-settings (like which track, collision on/off etc) transmitted to he other player by the reliable TransportProtocol TCP or UDP ("send and forget") - I ask because in TDU1 i often experienced a lot of nasty bugs (jumping cars, cars pushing other cars away since they had collisions off, but the player who's been pushed has collision on, etc..); a good chunk of them clearly caused due to players didn't recieve some of the race-settings (race MUST not to start until all players of the race-session received all possible race-settings; its at LEAST most frustrating TRYING to race when this is not implemented, even if it starts a bit faster then not implemented)

 

-If you gonna implement ForceFeedback for SteeringWheels on PC: you should use the "old" DirectInput - I allows precise Feedback, not the mushy/floaty feeling I experienced in recent racing-games/simulations (e.g. NFS Shift 2). As far as I read, Xinput is basically just for rumble on gamepads on and similar rather simple stuff, not for FF-Steering Wheels -> inprecise (also inprecise when simply ported from console to pc and controls not properly rewritten)

 

-is in The Crew an automatic Anti-Cheater-system integrated? In TDU1 Anti-Cheat was non-existant, which allowed the bs-situation that truly fast racers were called cheater, while in the the final TDU1-Stages on about every track the first 200-300 players in the ranking all were cheaters (sometimes they tried to hide it by not being much faster then the fastest real racers (know name of whose), but them being in a slower car then the fastest car on this specific track (track-specific performance vs nominal topspeed+real handling etc) exposed them).

This was the main reason I wrote my guide btw

 

if no proper ForceFeedback, no anti-cheat-method, and a reasonable mix between arcade to sim-physics gets implemented I won't buy Crew (like I did with TDU2)

btw: I'm also the same guy who wrote the rather extensive Performance-Guide for TDU1 (until v2.4b called Car-list for TDU)

 

experpt of my TDU1-Guide concerning Multiplayer Bugs:

§7 Multiplayerbugs based on connection-quality (latency, nominal data-rate, speed of router/server) and general MP-Bugs

 

This section is intended for those who claim someone is cheating. Some incidents in TDU might look like Cheat, but if they match to one of the following descriptions, they are nothing but bugs.

 

§7.1 Condition/Circumstances under which bugs based on connection-quality were determined:

All connections bugs which happen when you have a poor connection. I determined them as I had a 1mbit-connection, a average latency of about 35ms and a modem/router combination which processed the signal at really slow rate, which was partly caused by extreme poor cable-quality which caused a attenuation of 49dbA (~55dbA is the maximum at that a modem can process at all). Further I have mentioned connection-bugs that are nearly/complete independent from connection quality. Under this conditions I had to play until 2/2008 as I got a new modem/router combination, which improved the connection quality largely – with the exactly same connection/cable quality. In 3/2008 I got a 2,5Mbit-connection, which reduced the connection-quality related bugs a bit further. For the percentage of how often specific bugs/stages occur I imply on 4 Gamers per Race (including yourself; occures imo most often).

Furthermore the percentage is based only on those races where I could log-in successfully.

 

§7.2 Bugs which occur within a race (sorted by strength = stage) and how often:

 

1. Stage: small time-offset of maximal ~2sec due to synchronisation-problems without any further in the race itself noticeable consequences. Due to the fact that TDU determine the place you win with your really driven time and NOT with the place you was as you reached the finish you can be just in front of someone in a race but in the final ranking in lobby be behind him.

 

2. Stage: Specific players in a race nearly constantly produce long smoking clouds due to most probable minor synchronisation-problems. These clouds have nothing to with spinning wheels as they happen even on extreme long straights. They can become extreme annoying cos these clouds can overlap themself then you are at the racestart or somethere else behind a bunch of players. You practical can see nothing in such cases, so clean driving is nearly impossible. Under the poor conditions explained at the top this will happen then play with 4 or more players in a race.

 

3. Stage: One or more player move due to synchronisation-problems constantly at vast speed forward and backward while in AVERAGE they move forward at the speed which they drove in real. In each moving-process move about 20meters (20meters forward, when 20meters backward, while in average moving forward at the real driven speed. This bug will be mentioned in the further text as „worping“ (according to a effect in StarTrek). Due to the worping there is in most cases a smoking-cloud from the players that worp, which is caused either by the impossibly acceleration or the game „thinks“ that the player skids.

 

4. Stage: Massive time- and countdown-offset due to synchronisation-problems. Your countdown at racestart expires with a offset of about 4seconds, so you have to drive behind all other players, which doesn't happen at Stage 0. You can exactly see the offset when you pass a checkpoint and are just behind the „leader“, but the checkpoint says that you are in front by showing a positive number (of course only when you drove in real time faster then all others). But as ever, for the final ranking it only matters which time you drove in reality and not the place you was as you passed the finish. Dispite the massive synchronisation-problems, you can get hit by the other players if collision was activated when your countdown still expires. This bug will happen then the intro of the race, the time the camera slowly moves around before the countdown itself started, comes to an halt and the intro restartes. Then this bugs happen, it is usually combined with 2.Stage (worping players which additionally produce massive smoke).

 

5. Stage: The status-data of other players is transmitted to you so slowly or didn't even arrived at all, that the flag/Bit for „Collision activated/deactivated“ till the moment the race starts is not defined. Due to the fact that TDU has it's default-setting on „collision activated“ you – and only you – can't drive through these specific players. For the players which have for you „collision activated“ themself this problem can't be noticed by them. Especially they still can drive through others players. But because the gane „thinks“ for these drivers that collision is activated, it produces massive physical and graphical glitches when they are in another car. If the bug happens, the incorrect status-information and it's consequences remain in the whole race, so it's clear that these status information is only transmitted once at the racestart. This bug has one minor positive side: as collision is activated for specific cars you have draft of these players. But there is also major drowback: usually this bug is combined with worping of the players which have collision for you activated. And because of the vast speed at which worping players move forward and backward you will be shot elsewhere then you even touch a worping player (btw he touches you as he worp).

Also to overtake such players without touching them is extremly difficult, and in some situation just impossible. This bug is a a direct consequence that the game seem to use UDP instead of TCP as transmission-protocol for everything but the login to your online-account. Difference UDP to TCP: see §5.8 (Differences of transmission-protocolls UDP to TCP)

 

6. Stage: Because of synchronisation-bugs you can get stuck IN other player-cars while the start-countdown still expires; despite that collision was deactivated. Then you are stuck in a other player-car is for this car always collision activated. In the moment the countdown expired and the player you are stuck in starts you will somehow get dragged by this player for a few seconds. After a free seconds your car frees themself somehow, so now you finally have control of it. For the most part, this bug is combined with stage 3 (your starting countdown has an offset), so you can't even start the engine while you get dragged by the other player. And because you have to pass the starting-checkpoint after the moment YOUR countdown expired, you even have to drive back to the start after you finally have control over your car. But because the whole procedure did cost vast time, the try to continue the race is pointless.

 

Stage 0 can occur combined with all other Stages, except of whose who already have a time/countdown offset.

 

Percentage of how often the stages occur (conditions as mentioned in §7.1):

1. Stage (slight time-offset of max. 2sec): % not determineable, Stage 1 virtually only occur „clean“ when otherall only 2 (duel) or 3 players race

2. Stage (constantly smoke-production by specifc players, therefor sometimes track not to see at all): on about 10% off all races

3. Stage (specific players „worp“, usually combined with vast smoke of these players): on about 35% of all races (number of worping players is mostly relatated to overall number of players)

4. Stage (massive time-offset caused by countdown-offset, usually combined with stage 2 or 3): on about 34% off all races

5. Stage (collision activated for specific players; physical and graphical glitches; usually combined with stage 3 ("worping") of these players): on about 15% off all races

6. Stage (stuck within other player car at racestart, get dragged by this player for few seconds without any control, bug is in most cases combined with countdown-offset): on about 5% off all races

 

The % are strongly related to the number of players: with overall 2-3 players – including yourself – you either have no connection based bugs or only stage 0.

But with overall 8 players you will have stage 5 on about 95%, with the remaining % on stage 6.The value of percentage that is needed to yield to 100% is the value of races which have no bug at all then you have a overall number of 4 players (including yourself).

 

§7.3 Bugs which occur in game/race-lobby or in the moment a races starts (conditions as mentioned in §7.1):

 

-Only you can start (proofed to be no cheat whatsoever; happened to myself about 3-4 times) – possible that caused by incorrect data-transmission (UDP)

Bug is very rare (below 1%)

-You can't start at all because the countdown don't even start – either by very slow data-transmission to host or other plays OR an player has an chat-window from lobby still open

Bug is rare (about 4%)

- A player in a race vanishes just after the countdown expired - most possible caused by slow data-transmission

Bug occurs very often (about 40%)

- Host or the race at all is in the moment the race-intro should start not reachable – most possible caused by slow data-transmission

Bug occurs on about 10% of all races

- race not joinable or already started: In the main lobby a race is listed as "waiting" but if you want to join it the race already has started or it is impossible to join at all. This is most probably either caused by slow TDU-servers (then they are overloaded) or you have a very slow internet-connection. This bug occurs in about 50% of all login-tries (possible even more, on some days even under nowadays condition (new router+internet-connection as mentioned under §7.1)

 

§7.4 „Lobby-Bug“ (with solution):

If the host choose in non-ranked multiplayer-races a new track, you sometimes still start on the track you drove just before. I suspect this is caused by a missing data-transmission, that can happen if all the data is transmitted with the UDP-protocol. This protocoll is strongly optimized for low latency, and normally has no check for correct data transmission of whatever kind – only a optional checksum, which doesn't seem to be have included in TDU. Basically UDP is a „send and forget“ protocol.

Solution: Either you can „solve“ the problem by quitting the game and rejoining, so you loose all earned points...

OR the host must choose the track for racing you are stuck at, so can race against the other players. Then the race is finished, you are back to full connection with the other players, so if the host chooses a new track you are also at the new track at the racestart. To get this method 100% to work, NO ONE must chat until EVERYONE is back in the race-lobby (NOT the finish-screen from an specific race; this is to minimise the network-traffic). With this solution you won't loose your points.

 

§7.5 Club vs. Club-races and player-rank „Ace“ (with solution; not the club-internal races, these are working):

Except for one exception (described in solution) the Club vs. Club-races, because the players can't see another, so therefor can't race against other clubs. I suppose this is due to that the Netcode/Session Data can't traverse double NAT (Network Address Translation)

Solution: To avoid the bug from occuring, all players of an specific club must be in the same LocalAreaNetwork (LAN) aka Hardware/Physical-Network. Each club must have at least 2 members in the race. This means the all members of each of the 2 clubs which want to participant in an club vs. club race have to be in one Net-Area and have internet connection over the same switch respectively modem-router combination respectively router. One club can have his member in one Net-Area, the other club in another Net-Area.

To become Ace / Ass you have to participate in 3 Club vs. Club races, and your own club had to win each one. This will give you 10Points on player-progress which are necessary for 100%, which is the condition for status Ace. In conclusion you only become Ace if you already achieved everything else, which is only possible if you got an multiplayer-account.

Due to the operating-expensive most players never can reach status „Ace“. However, some players had gained status „Ace“ because they have a in a specific kind corrupted savegame, which allowed them to get again points for player-progress objectives they already had achieved, and therefor get to 100%. Furthermore important is that there never was an confirmation that it is possible to do Club vs. Club races with other programs which simulate local Networks (e.g. Hamachi).

 

Non-Multiplayer-Bugs from TDU1 I remember:

 

FPS-related Bugs (particularly if FPS higher than ~30FPS; thought FPS/computing power-related bugs were outdated/impossible since Win95/DirectX):

-the more FPS you had the more abruptly the AI-Traffic changed lanes, the later AI-Cars popped up in front of you, and the more often invisible (Police?) cars appeared;

effect was noticeable up from 40FPS, so when GPU-Driver only allows to limit to 60FPS it already was quite strong

-the more FPS the lesser the TDU-Controls registered gearchanges from Steering Wheel;

effect started somewhere beyond 60FPS (imo at ~75FPS); happened with Fanatec Porsche GT3-RS-Wheel (unknown/untested if also on other wheels)

 

remaining Bugs of TDU1:

-the almost unknown "Replay-Bug" - on paddle-shift cars and sometimes also stick-shift cars the replay-data was corrupt, so e.g. gearchanges didn't take place when they were supposed to; see this detailed video since its hard to describe: youtube.com/watch?v=llzbYxoLQLc"

a long time ago I heard this happened due to TDU1 accessing memory where it isn't supposed to (unkown/forgot what exactly; but imo it was on-GPU-RAM vs the "real"/general RAM)

-the dashboard (imo the RPM-indicator) from all cars with electronic dashes never worked (bad port since whose dashboards worked on the consoles)

-wrong Tuning data on some cars (e.g. Corvette Z06 Stage2 was quite faster than a stage 3 Z06)

-the displayed statistics of the car never updated then you tuned the car (e.g. weight was always the same, despite car was tuned to be lighter)

-radial.cdb file from TDU1, which was used for ingame-advertising (imo for local caching of Ads) strongly dropped TDU-Performance/FPS when it got somewhere above 5Mbyte (when file not deleted it got larger and larger, seen ~20Mbyte+ File)

[TheSeeker1982]

I just saw the possible Q&A here after I just made a - rather technical - post (Question about Netcode+ForceFeedback-Implementation+Anti-Cheat-stuff+Bugs by ITpro) with would have better suited in this thread . Maybe some Mod could shift this post into this thread, since I don't want to repost again (don't want to spam)

[Eudemon]

Very detailed write-up, I'll be sure to pass this along but I can't guarantee any sort of response from them.

[Ryzza5]

Post moved

[Eudemon]

That '40 vehicles' thing is really getting to some people so I guess that is one question we will definitely ask about.

[Ryzza5]

I'm sure there will be more to come and there's no reason to panic :)

[ScoobSTi]

Will we have 40 cars?! :panic:

[Eudemon]

Will we have 40 cars?! :panic:

Well of course we will, after all it did say "with over 40 vehicles". ;)

[Kn0wldg3]

My question is for the pc version: Does it support extra external controllers i.e. pedals with the leo bodnar cable or a handbrake?

[Kn0wldg3]

Another question, dunno if it's been asked yet, but since maybe the Crew will support occulus rift, maybe it's a bit confusing to have the steering wheel just to turn 180 degrees in game and in the cockpit view. So my question is, is it possible to turn off the in game wheel or have it set to 720 or even 900 degrees?

[Eudemon]

I have a lot of questions I've gathered over the last few from what people have of course been asking, but also from what people have been saying in the chatbox and also in regards to other games. As they were quite similar they basically will have the same people wondering the same things after all. :)

[Ryzza5]

So when do we get the answers? :toetap: