If you payed for the game then it sucks. Still it offers the best racing experience imo. Multiplayer is fun now.
I honestly haven't seen the timers or the ads either. Then again, my game crashes all the time so who knows. I have all the cars so doubt I will ever see them. As for the game, it is part of the App Store game of the week promotion. Not sure if it will be free permanently or not. If it is, then so be it but if that is the case and they screw around with the payouts, then much like Asphalt, I'll be done with the game just out of principal. Asphalt dropped the participation credits which is why it appears you get less for winning that others outside of the few apologists have noted. Technically, everything Gameloft has said about not lowering the payouts for wins is actually true since the payout for 1st through 3rd still appear to be the same. They did lower the entry/participation credits, especially in some of the later races which makes the grind for credits just that. The payouts in Ridge Racer were already pretty low and while they aren't needed to proceed they do make it so that a maxed out car is a long grind away and I can totally get behind how boring that can get. You can beat everything in the game outside of the Battles with just a base vehicle but the upgrades do make it a lot easier. The Battles are not easy and even to me are not very fun due to the AI being a little too perfect in those series. I needed maxed maxed out cars for those and while I'm not the best RR player in the world I guess I'm better than most. I love Ridge Racer Slipstream and even with its initial flaws, this was one of the best Ridge Racer games in recent memory (since 2006's RR7 at least). After this last update though, even ignoring the freemium model that may now come into play, the stability of the game and the "multiplayer" which isn't really multiplayer being such a disappointment this game is turning into less of a game and more of a chore to play. I keep going back to Need for Speed Most Wanted as the current "it" racing games are all turning into disappointments. I was hoping for a new NFS game after Rivals and the movie released but I guess since RR3 is EA's mobile thing we won't see another NFS title.
Apologists? Wow you really take every opportunity to insult people. Well, here's news for ya, you're little baby here added timers and full screen ads every time a race finishes and every time one goes to menu. After 15 minutes play today, I had 5 full screen ads. And whatever other car I buy will come with delivery timers. I've seen ads for Clash of Clans so many times now that I'm sick of it. And yes, I did buy it before you go down that route, at launch for that matter. And if it continues after the sale, which I have no doubt it will as all its attributes are now firmly freemium, it will certainly be deleted and down starred. So despite being an Asphalt "apologist", as you so quaintly put it, at least Gameloft had the dignity to only have one pop up at launch of game that directly related to the game itself, be it a sale or a tournament in game, and they didn't add in delivery timers on cars. So before you start waving that apologist stick around the place, take in to account the actual changes that were made and without any doubt whatsoever, this game comes out worse in the freemium switch. Which was obviously going to happen from day one considering its payouts are so miserable and it was designed as freemium game anyway. Also consider that at least Gameloft only charged 99cent before the switch, these guys charged three times more than that, than switched, put in ads and timers. Whereas all Gameloft did is drop he price to zero, maintain the same payouts for a top three position while reducing the participation payout (why reward people for coming last anyway) and then add in tournaments that allow you to actually earn more and add rewards to multiplayer that make a substantial difference. They in fact made it easier to earn in the game. What has happened here is far worse and I have no problem being an "apologist" in this case because the facts of the case back up my stance. Apologists? Wow.
If I'd paid for a game that then went freemium I'd be tempted to ask Apple for a refund. This is no longer the game that people paid for.
I've just tried several multiplayer races and haven't had one that seemed right yet. One race all the opponents were extremely slow, as in a quarter of a lap ahead of second place part way through lap one. The next race was even weirder. All the opponents just stayed on the start/finish line for the whole first lap, and then a couple of them started going, but the rest stayed on the start line for the whole race. The only good thing about these was I made an easy 4000 CR on each race. The other 3 races I've tried I got a "Lost connection to server" error either while waiting to start the race or part way through the race. So for me online racing still isn't working. However for me at least nothing has gotten worse. I didn't have online racing before so no biggie, and I haven't had any of the crashes, freezes or poor performance others have had. I also haven't seen any ads or timers. I haven't bought a new car since the update though, so that's probably why I haven't seen a timer, but where are people seeing ads?
Ok, just tried a couple more online races, and they seemed real, since the opponents were a little more competitive at the start of the race and also behaved more randomly, including a couple driving the wrong way. However they still weren't very competitive. I finished over 20 seconds ahead of 2nd place in both races. I was using a class 2 car. I wonder if the server just throws all car classes together, and the other racers were using lower class cars. I did notice that the Time Attack races don't differentiate by car class, so maybe they're doing that here too. I'll try some races in a class 3 or 4 car and see if they're more competitive. EDIT: Yup, just did another race in a class 3 car, and still finished 34 seconds ahead of 2nd place. I checked the leaderboards after the race where it shows what cars everyone used, and everyone else had a class 4 car. So I guess I should race class 4 cars if I want competitive races. Though really I think they should group players by car class. Maybe they don't have enough online racers to fill lobbies if they did that though.
Just got a notification that an update came out which supposedly fixes the Facebook crash some people were having.
That's very strange. I'd be pissed too if that was happening to me, but it isn't. I played for a while today, and have played a few other times since the 2.0 update, and haven't seen an ad yet. I wonder why some people are getting ads and others aren't. Anyone else on this thread getting ads, or not getting ads?
I just did an online race using a class 4 car, and that was more fun. I still won but only by 1 second. One silly thing I noticed though is that the payout for winning an online race is higher the higher (faster) the class of car you drive. This would make sense if they actually divided racers up by car class, since presumably it's harder race the faster cars. However since they're just throwing everyone together, it's easier to win if you use a faster car, so they should actually pay out less for using a faster car. As it is you have to choose between Using a slower car so you have a fun competitive race, but get lower payouts, or Using a faster car and getting a better payout, but having a very uncompetitive race. If those are my choices I'd rather have fun races, but I hope they add some class-specific lobbies instead or just automatically put you in the appropriate lobby based on the car you choose. I enjoy the class 2 cars better, but for some reason no one else seems to be using them online.
I agree, it is strange because it is much more frequent than I expected or would expect. I'm generally okay with ads up to a certain point (and have had to support them even a few times) but so far, every time I finish a race, every time I go in to a sub menu (say settings or shop for example) and tap back arrow or every time I'm in the main menu and at launch, an ad pops up. It's just too high a frequency. Maybe a glitch, maybe its a region thing and maybe that new update you mention will fix it for a case like mine. It also indicates some kind of glitch that some have and some don't. And it's not down to purchasers and recent free downloads, I have it since day one. I dunno, if the frequency was a bit less it'd be fine as I understand that developers need to make revenue and I've no problem with that but after seeing so many ads for it, I'm almost tempted to download Clash of Clans and I'm just not gonna do that so I'll just delete it for the time being and see how it plays out. Anyway, it's no big deal really as I've gotten my value from the purchase anyway up to this point. There's still plenty for me left to do in the game so I'll just come back to it another time when whatever glitches are going on get sorted.
No add, no timers, but MP IS NOT working right. I had a match where I was literally overlapping people and the 2nd place person was literally a half lap behind me. It was awesome crossing the finish line in 2nd place....he magically popped up past the finish line once I crossed.....??? Lag issue, or just screwed up coding? Also, every other player - including player 2 who was a half lap behind and magically ended up in front of me after I "technically" won the race - was just running into walls....just grinding the walls as they went down the track.........here's a pic of my final lap (because I was going to jest how badly MP is with "time shifted" MP).....the red dot is player 2....literally a half lap back....and somehow wins.....
I'm not seeing any ads or timers. I've been playing for about 30-45 minutes on the latest update. I have also experienced the strange online mp behavior. I'm lapping people like crazy, holding onto 1st place like crazy, then when the results screen pops up I'm told I came in third. Looks like really sloppy net code. But it feels like I am racing humans though. People are already pulling shenanigans. Driving in reverse, not driving at all, etc.
I was a day one purchaser and have seen ads and have timers -- currently up to 30 minutes for car "delivery".
Just an advance warning, don't try to get refunds on this. Apple instantly rejected mine. (Over £700 spent in App Store plus £749 for a new device 4 months ago - denied £1.99...)
I've just had a few very fun races. I've probably done about 20 online races today. I haven't had any yet where the race results differed from what my finishing position was. When I've had problems it's been getting a disconnect error during a race or while waiting for it to start. The last few races I've done all seemed to work well. It seems most people are racing class 4 cars, so that's what I've been doing too. I haven't seen a lot of good racers online, and I've won most of them, but I came in 3rd in a couple of the races and had to fight to win a couple of others. So for me the online racing has now breathed new life into the game. I'm not denying the problems others are having, just saying when it works it's pretty cool. Hopefully they'll iron out the server problems. And hopefully I won't start getting the ads others are getting, as that would be a big turn off for me.
Played for about an hour last night in both multi and career. No ads. I found one car that I hadn't purchased and bought it. No timer and I was instantly able to use it. Daily bonus appears to be back and functional at least for yesterday and today. The online also appears to somewhat work though it is different than say RR3 and Asphalt in terms of how it handles players. It looks like a mixture of real and TSM style players. There were definitely one or two racers in each race that were real as they drove super crazy and unlike anything the AI is or has been able to do. That and on the rare occasion there were glitches or ghosting it was only with those racers. The fight for first was usually me and them with the AI hitting the back of the pack and never coming close. Seemed to work pretty well with only the random minor issue like a disconnect (I had one) or warping (happened a couple of times). Looks like Invictus fixed up the game after their last patch and I must say that was quick. I was super skeptical as even big developers can't always get their crap together. For instance, Gameloft's Modern Combat 4 and EA's Bad Company 2 both had multiplayer experiences that never worked properly. EA's RR3's multiplayer is also an absolute joke as it doesn't seem to filter by locations and connections. I'm not even going to touch the absolutely stupid "adjustments" and "improvements" that were made to Asphalt's multiplayer. I'm kind of shocked that the multiplayer is actually real players let alone functional if somewhat gimped. I guess I would rather have a couple of real dudes with a smooth overall experience than a full lobby with a lackluster or non-functional experience. They still mislead people with their initial promise of 8 player multiplayer though and that isn't cool. I hope this game doesn't transition to free-to-play like its Android variant launched with. I'm sadly sure it will but I really hope it doesn't. I don't mind price drops or even the occasional free sale as that is the nature of the beast on the app store but typically when games go free-to-play it is for the worst. I haven't played a single game that went freemium that has retained enough of its paid version to still be considered fun to me. Launching freemium is one thing but converting is a totally different animal. I am curious how some folks are getting ads, timers, and tons of nonsense but others aren't. I had a ton of crashes in the last version but after the update, so far so good. Maybe it's a combination of devices, iOS versions (I just updated to iOS7.1 a few days ago), and app versions that are causing the glitches or inconsistent experiences. Honestly, I don't support that type of experience either as it just looks sloppy and indecisive but it could be a case of people exaggerating or misunderstanding what's on screen as that "more games button" that pops the only ads in the game that I have ever seen is at the bottom left corner and is super sensitive. In any case, the experience, for better or for worse, should be consistent across the board.
I bought a coin pack IAP a while ago, and I don't see the ads. I wonder if they turn off the ads and timers for anyone who's made an in-app-purchase. Does that fit with what others on this thread are seeing? Have those of you not seeing ads bought any coin packs? I bought a $5 coin pack, so if that's the answer, then it means that for $5 you can get rid of the ads and timers. It would be kind of strange though that they wouldn't advertise that if that was a benefit of buying something.
Well, the original game didn't have ads or timers and it was a paid game so it shouldn't have changed for ANYONE who paid for it. I don't get many ads, but the timers are absolutely present for me and it's BS. Next time I buy a car, I'll take a screenshot.
I agree those shouldn't be added in for people who bought the game without ads and timers. I'm just trying to find the explanation for why some are seeing them and others aren't.
