Interesting Development in the "Cars" Genre

[Zorro]

EA's Motor City Online, a Massively Multiplayer car design, construction, and racing game is in open beta. I, for one, have been looking forward to this one since before the NFS:PU release. Take a look at the site, I think you'll be impressed... Could a return to the roots of AK be in our future?

http://www.motorcityonline.com

[[AK]Palooka]

The game is in open beta right now. I started playing it yesterday. It has tons of potential, but right now, it is almost unplayable due to lag and ridiculously low framerates, even though the graphics are not that good. If you can handle the 400+ MB download, give it a try. The racing might not be that great at this point, but making your character, buying your first car, and tweaking it out in the workshop is a lot of fun. The roleplaying aspect is quite compelling; you gain experience points (and cash for buying parts) and, therefore, levels through winning races. As your levels increase, so does your salary. I need more money desperately; my car is a '57 Chevy straight from the junkyard with stock everything and a bad spray painted paint job.

[JB_Tech]

I've been waiting for this forever. I'm downloading it as we speak. Actually I'm more like waiting in line for it. My first experience with Hot Rod 1 and 2 were great, and from what I've seen it seems to use a lot of it's ideas. I doubt there will be a King Shelby you gotta beat out there, but it looks similiar, only a ton better! Can't wait to play it online. I'm interested in helping set up AK with this.

[[AK]The Beast]

To quote South Park, et. al....

"Dude...sweet!"

I'll be d/ling this at work tomorrow...hopefully I can get online with you fellows soon.

[[AK]Squidly]

I know PA-Scott is big into auto sims... he'll probably have something to say on this game if he ever figures out our forums..

[[AK]Hylander]

I read that Squidly!

I've actually been a "closed" BETA member of MCO for a few months now. The actual concept for this is pretty cool, but if you are into "sim" racing, IE - highly realistic physics and driving model, as I am then at least from my impressions to date, this isn't the 'sim' for you. Then again, the Need for Speed series isn't really known, or meant to be, for being a hard core sim except for the possibly Porsche Unleashed which I thought was a very good title.

The economic components along with the "Hot Rodding" aspect is pretty cool and can be alot of fun. There is a variety of racing via drag races, street courses, and some ovals as well. This gives it a bit more depth. Buying parts, selling cars, auctioning of parts, tuning cars, etc.

BTW.. the download is 428mb. Hope you aren't attempting that on a 56K modem! LOL Better to pay the $5 to have them ship you the CD in that case.

Scott
PA-Scott

[Drewski]

Ive had it for a few days now, and I'm yet to see any framerate or lag problems. The menus are slow, but I sotra expected that.
As of right now, I've scrapped my '57 Nomad, because its just such a sled! I've been doing sponcer races since sunday and raised about 20k, I only need about 6k more for my new car.

Look me up, I'll be on all the time this week

[JB_Tech]

Hey guys. Do any of you know anything about that turf wars part of the game, or gang rivalries. I'm not exactly sure on how it works yet, since something seems to be worng with their servers and it won't allow me to create a new membership to EA. I'm serious about getting AK into this or some branch of AK....... is there any real interest here?

[Drewski]

I'm not sure how that works.
All I know is I'm already going to be in one when the game comes out.

[Badwill]

Wow. Thanks for the tip.
I downloaded last night (although it took a few hours) and was instantly hooked. I actually raced a few times (both losses, lol) and didn't have too much trouble with lag.
I guess I'll have to get some pedals and a steering wheel to go with this comp. hehe. Oh well, the girl already thinks I've lost my mind using this microphone.

[[AK]Hylander]

One of the problems I do have with MCO is with my Thomas SuperWheel TSW2 Modified. I can't get the split axis to work with it. If I switch back to combined pedals, I have no problems. When I try to calibrate, no matter how I set the settings in MCO, the brake is always on until I depress the pedal and that actually disengages it. I can configure it to use the clutch pedal as the brake and it works fine.. but that just doesn't feel right

I've also used my ACT-LABS Force RS and RS Shifter combo with no problems though.

Scott