Says “It’s Unlikely” to be Implemented
Fan concerns over the inability to use All-Star Moves online in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing were important enough for Sumo Digital’s Steve Lycett to address it today.
“As with all decisions,” Lycett said. “Don’t think we made this one lightly.”
From there, he explained the technical ins and outs of why it was cut. Ultimately, the two sticking points were latency and the amount of data already being sent online:
When it comes to network games, you have to be sure that all the systems are deterministic. Basically that if you fire a weapon on one machine, it will fire the same way on another. If this isn’t the case you wind up with synchronisation issues, quite simply what you see on your screen, won’t be what other player see on theres. Not all the ASM are deteministic as they’re all different, the best example is length of use. Depending on where you are in the pack, they last for varying amounts of time. So if we’ve got any latency causing the positions to be out of sync – even for a millisecond – on one machine it may last for 4 seconds, on the other 10. That happens, and oh oh, we’re really out of sync. Cue everyone gets booted back to the lobby.
So with much reluctance, we conceeded that rather than ship it with things that could go wrong down to latency, especially with cross continent play, it would be a better experience to ship it with the ASM disabled during on-line play.
So that is why it’s not available, as we didn’t want to ruin the online experience with All-Star moves that didn’t work consistantly and fairly. I think when you understand this – the decision makes a lot more sense.
Lycett added that it’s unlikely the feature will be added to online play anytime soon.
“In the future when everyone has an internet connection that runs at LAN speeds, it’ll be doable,” he said, “But not for a few years.”
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Online is lag-free (at least on the 360 version) because of this decision. I like that they did this, because at least it makes people want to use skill over pathetic broken ways to win.
Even though All-Stars are far from being as horrendous and ridiculous as Mario Kart items?
What is this, a gang of scrubs?
I call bullshite. They could have just had it turned off by default and had it disabled for ranked matches, but let players choose when doing unranked matches at their own risk.
They could have kept this in mind when designing the moves in the first place… ugh, it still pisses me off.
I wonder how many times “Lycett” has been in the headline here. xD
You might think they could’ve included it as an option to use “at your own risk,” but it’s possible that it was unstable enough to simply not be worth the bother. I, for one, applaud developers that are willing to make hard cuts in the name of smooth online multiplayer.
On the other hand, you could draw comparisons to Mario Kart Wii’s online, which runs surprisingly well with TWELVE racers at a time instead of just eight. Of course, there’s no good way to know all the variables between the programming of the two games. What works in one may not work in the other. Or it could just be Nintendo putting their ability to pour tons of time and cash into development of a game that makes MKW work so well. Sumo obviously can’t do that.
Overall, I have no problem with how things turned out. All I’m doing now is enjoying the game and eagerly awaiting news of DLC.
Not to be offensive, but Mario Kart Wii runs like shit online. I’ve moved to several locations, different connections, different providers, different types of high-speed internet, and the connection is always spotty. Karts are teleporting all the time. I can’t aim the green shells properly with this problem.Hell, the red shells act like they don’t know where to go and crash into the fuckin’ walls alot of the time! Not to say ASR never ever has a problem like this, of course. Online gaming is still far from perfect. Making progress, definitely, though.