Is GTA IV MP for PC dying?

[CharmingCharlie]

TruXter I think you are being a bit unrealistic here, there are clear problems with the multiplayer aspect. Now I am not blaming Rockstar for this, nope the blame lies squarely with Microsoft after all they are the ones providing the service. It is MS's fault that they released an online service with absolutely NO cheat protection whatsoever and it is MS's fault for not policing the system.

 

I love GTA 4 and I loved ranked racing, now fortunately I haven't come across much cheating (or so I think). However when you do come across a cheater they are next to impossible to get rid off. Let me see if I can explain what these morons are up to. The other day we had a fair few gathered in the racing lobby for a race when a known cheater turned up. Naturally we all started voting to have him kicked from the race, however due to the cumbersome nature of the interface it takes a bit of time to get everyone kicking him. Then right before we had enough votes to kick him guess what he did ? that's right he left and then rejoined straight away. Now guess what happens ? Yep all the votes to have him kicked got reset the minute he left so we had to do it all over again. This carried on happening till eventually most of the racers just left, I myself said "f*ck it" and went to play fallout 3.

 

Naturally there have been instances when we have been successful in kicking a cheater and we manage to get ONE race out of it before the cheater rejoins again and the whole retarded process starts all over again. Now the standard advice is to report these cheaters and they will get their comeuppance !!!!!!!!!!!!! erm when ? I am seeing people I reported 2 months ago still online and they are WELL known cheaters. So just how long does it take to get these guys removed from the service ? There are very clear problems with both the kicking system and the reporting system on games for windows live that must be addressed by Microsoft.

 

I know you are a fan of GTA 4 TruXter and I think you will acknowledge that I am a big fan of GTA 4 as well. I imagine you don't see me as a "noob" or that I need to "RTFM" yet here I am saying that online is being ruined by cheaters and the tools we have been given to combat them are grossly inadequate. I don't really understand where you are coming from with this "we should deal with cheaters" we haven't got the tools to do it and the tools we have are pretty much useless anyway.

 

I hope Rockstar picks the ball up that MS dropped, in the beginning GTA 4 online was great and it can be great again if we can just get some tools to deal with these cheaters.

 

 

[Waynio]

and what does rtfm stand for? is it report them f'ing maggots

 

 

RTFM = Read The Fking Manual

Ahh, of course hehe

i don't know why i did not think of that

 

 

charming charlie i think you are spot on about it being ms fault and not really rockstars, but it still would be very nice if rockstar can fix it all the same, should be ms,s job to fix it really thou, i have to run the game at really low settings in mp for when a cheat dumps a load of stuff into the game else it crashes the game and even with low settings it can crash the game occasionally.

 

it just would be nice to know that if i wanted to play online for a few hours whenever, i could play with ok settings and have no wtf moments

[nitro_hedgehog]

personally i bought it for the singleplayer aspect with intent to HEAVILY modify the game. i never go online anymore due to my interest in tf2 and l4d as well as cheaters and forgetfulness to create backups for modded files. great game, but as charlie said: a sh*tty service. microsoft is certainly more concerned about money than anything else. but hey, what do you expect from a company that put bad cooling in the 360 on purpose?

[Subversion1337]

 

I prefer the choice of kick.

It's far better than another software bloated on my system that automates that.

for some strange reason, punk buster never lets me join  games. I would say

after 20 attempts to join battle field, only 2 games let me on.

 

I think someone has cheats on their system

 

 

The whole option to kick them is the best freedom from any buggy A.I kick.

That way if we want to play a game with cheats, we can.

I do not cheat, but I don't think it should be forced away from the game.

I mean if you can tolerate cheating then don't kick a person.

I think it's the most liberating method ever created.

 

Someone flaming about this so hard because he desperately wants to keep using them in gta iv.

 

 

 

TruXter I think you are being a bit unrealistic here, there are clear problems with the multiplayer aspect.  Now I am not blaming Rockstar for this, nope the blame lies squarely with Microsoft after all they are the ones providing the service.  It is MS's fault that they released an online service with absolutely NO cheat protection whatsoever and it is MS's fault for not policing the system.

 

I love GTA 4 and I loved ranked racing, now fortunately I haven't come across much cheating (or so I think).  However when you do come across a cheater they are next to impossible to get rid off.  Let me see if I can explain what these morons are up to.  The other day we had a fair few gathered in the racing lobby for a race when a known cheater turned up.  Naturally we all started voting to have him kicked from the race, however due to the cumbersome nature of the interface it takes a bit of time to get everyone kicking him.  Then right before we had enough votes to kick him guess what he did ?  that's right he left and then rejoined straight away.  Now guess what happens ?  Yep all the votes to have him kicked got reset the minute he left so we had to do it all over again.  This carried on happening till eventually most of the racers just left, I myself said "f*ck it" and went to play fallout 3.

 

Naturally there have been instances when we have been successful in kicking a cheater and we manage to get ONE race out of it before the cheater rejoins again and the whole retarded process starts all over again.  Now the standard advice is to report these cheaters and they will get their comeuppance !!!!!!!!!!!!! erm when ?  I am seeing people I reported 2 months ago still online and they are WELL known cheaters.  So just how long does it take to get these guys removed from the service ?  There are very clear problems with both the kicking system and the reporting system on games for windows live that must be addressed by Microsoft.

 

I know you are a fan of GTA 4 TruXter and I think you will acknowledge that I am a big fan of GTA 4 as well.  I imagine you don't see me as a "noob" or that I need to "RTFM" yet here I am saying that online is being ruined by cheaters and the tools we have been given to combat them are grossly inadequate.  I don't really understand where you are coming from with this "we should deal with cheaters" we haven't got the tools to do it and the tools we have are pretty much useless anyway.

 

I hope Rockstar picks the ball up that MS dropped, in the beginning GTA 4 online was great and it can be great again if we can just get some tools to deal with these cheaters.

 

+10

[Nietzsche's God]

http://forums.gamesforwindows.com/

 

Tried to post a grievance about my problem with GFWL system. The one I am recently having trouble is that I am being arranged with players that I've had choosen to not want to play with again. Kinda weird that I believe that they only got one moderator. I could be wrong about that.

 

So I suggest that you guys (the ones who hate the cheaters or the people who interfere our gaming experiences) go to this site since they are the representatives of the sh*tty system that is causing all this bullsh*t between us.

[PacMaan]

http://forums.gamesforwindows.com/

 

Tried to post a grievance about my problem with GFWL system. The one I am recently having trouble is that I am being arranged with players that I've had choosen to not want to play with again. Kinda weird that I believe that they only got one moderator. I could be wrong about that.

 

So I suggest that you guys (the ones who hate the cheaters or the people who interfere our gaming experiences) go to this site since they are the representatives of the sh*tty system that is causing all this bullsh*t between us.

I've had a look through a few of the GTA4 threads on there. lol.

 

Its the same old thing lots of people complaining about cheating, and the MS Live Team reps basically saying the system is fine no problems nothing wrong with it it must be you using it wrong.

 

 

As mentioned above there are a few ways that you can provide feedback when encountering these types of players.  You can access these options by viewing their gamer card (usually from a game lobby, scoreboard, or your recent players list).  Once you are viewing their card you can either choose Submit Player Review or File Complaint.

 

By selecting a Player Review you can choose to avoid that player or set a preference to play with them in the future.  If you choose to avoid them when the LIVE service is finding matches for you to play in it will try to choose games where you will not be playing in the same round.  This also affects their star rating when viewing their gamer card.  If they have a low number of stars then they have had a lot of people choose to avoid them.  If they have 5 stars or so then many people prefer to play with that person.

 

By selecting File Complaint you can choose to send a report about this player violating one of the items found in the LIVE Code of Conduct.  You can report on various things such as offensive voice communication, offensive text in their gamertag / gamer card, and tampering (cheating).  I assure you these complaints ARE reviewed by LIVE; however status and results of the complaints are not disclosed to the person who filed them.  If you run into a person who is obviously cheating, using offensive / harassing language, or otherwise violating the LIVE Code of Conduct report them through this method.  We all desire LIVE to be a welcome and safe place for all to come and enjoy great games and experiences, by reporting those who do not conform to these standards you will help make LIVE a better place for everyone.

 

But yeah, the more people that post there instead of here the more chance of something being done about it, assuming the live team pull their head out their ass and take notice.

[Waynio]

i am going to compile as much info from here as i can about the cheating killing the mp part from here and paste it in the gfwl forum and hope that helps.

the feedback here is what ms needs to see to take notice, the posts on gfwl don't sum it up good enough, it is mostly people just saying bad port etc rather than being specific about actual experiences, i just wish i made some screenshots for absolute proof.

 

the worst port so far i have seen has got to be saints row 2, they did not enhance it and was unbeleivably buggy

 

on another note the command line -memrestrict 629145600 for high texture settings actually works for me, can play the single player with max settings except for view distance is at 25, detail distance at 70, shadows at 1 and the game never seems to get slowdowns and does not run out of video memory any more, glad i found that command line, but for mp i put everything to low for a good frame rate, i almost went without trying it after reading it did nothing for some, so i'm glad i give it a go .

 

update i cannot be bothered doing a big post on gfwl, not yet anyway

 

 

Its the same old thing lots of people complaining about cheating, and the MS Live Team reps basically saying the system is fine no problems nothing wrong with it it must be you using it wrong.

wow if that is true then gfwl could very well be doomed yet it will still be pushed onto people, that is so not right .

Edited March 15, 2009 by Waynio

[texan1985]

 

I prefer the choice of kick.

It's far better than another software bloated on my system that automates that.

for some strange reason, punk buster never lets me join  games. I would say

after 20 attempts to join battle field, only 2 games let me on.

 

Update punkbuster manually.

 

I bought this game for the multiplayer, because i played the SP on xbox and refused to pay to play online. So not being able to actually enjoy MP has been a drag. I try to connect to about 100 "lobbies" a day. Through that awful host cr*p, and finally connect to a free roam just to find people crashing my computer with 100 tugboats every where. So I'm pretty much done with MP. I'll just stick to FPS games that run servers from now on.

[Chris1508]

GTA IV MP is dying because of n00bs like this, obivously people are going to download more and more when people are advertising hacks even on this website

Take a look: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=402259&hl=

[diamins0]

GTA IV MP is dying because of n00bs like this, obivously people are going to download more and more when people are advertising hacks even on this website

Take a look: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=402259&hl=

sh*t like this results from sh*t like that.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPcAsZb7E2E

[sayodeep]

IF I SEE A HACKER AND A CHEATER IN REAL LIFE I WILL f*ckING SHOVE MY SWORD UP THERE ASS THEN I WILL f*ckING CUT OFF THERE DICKS AND SHOVE IT UP THERE MOUTH THEN I WILL f*ckING BURN THERE CORPS

[OverTheBelow]

IF I SEE A HACKER AND A CHEATER IN REAL LIFE I WILL f*ckING SHOVE MY SWORD UP THERE ASS THEN I WILL f*ckING CUT OFF THERE DICKS AND SHOVE IT UP THERE MOUTH THEN I WILL f*ckING BURN THERE CORPS

you have a sword in real life rofl what a nerdcakes

[Waynio]

 

IF I SEE A HACKER AND A CHEATER IN REAL LIFE I WILL f*ckING SHOVE MY SWORD UP THERE ASS THEN I WILL f*ckING CUT OFF THERE DICKS AND SHOVE IT UP THERE MOUTH THEN I WILL f*ckING BURN THERE CORPS        

Holy S**t, lmao.

 

here is what i logged in to share

i posted this on gfwl forum and waiting for a reply from a moderator or an official to respond.

the reason i commented on the single player is because there were some people complaining saying it is a terrible port which i disagree with, there hardware is just a bit naff.

 

Hi all, this is my 1st post here, people suggested posting here instead of on gtaforums all the time, great tips on how to optimize the game there.

 

here is my experience with gta iv with gfwl

multiplayer was awesome when there were no one cheating, possibly the most fun i have ever had on a multiplayer game, even when losing i was often lmao, but the cheaters have been ruining the mp for more than a month, maybe 2, most of the time you do not know who is dumping objects, solid roadblocks, big pile of vehicles especially in a race, i have to run the game at very low settings else my game or pc will crash and i have a pretty good rig.

 

the worst one i have experienced was in a race, someone joined in whilst others were racing and rather than them waiting for the next round, they spawned themselves into the game on foot and with a machine gun rpg and started blowing up everyones vehicle up, it is just way out of control and it is clear this game is fully being exploited, yet nothing has been fixed still.

 

gfwl really need an additional anticheat app like punkbuster which could be tied to gfwl and if it picks up on a persistent cheater they get banned permanently, that i believe is exactly what it needs.

 

it would also be good to have dedicated servers to cut down the lag which spoils the experience, seeing cars teleport and do strange things makes for a bad race.

 

just a moment ago my brother was playing on death match, he is a newb, i admin his pc whenever it needs sorting out, pc's are just not his strong point, back to what i was saying he was on death match, cheaters were using spawned vehicles and had machine gun rpg's if it was me i would have just left the game as soon as i seen cheaters but he stayed on, his pc froze, he called for my help i managed to exit the game for him then i tried to run the game again and it gave an error message saying it was a copied disc, so i just rebooted his pc and it worked ok then, this is a huge security flaw as far as i can see, the game is being exploited big time and ms gfwl don't seem to be doing anything about it, kicking & reporting cheaters just does not cut it as they can simply come straight back and everyone has to vote kick again.

 

i did not post the above pic in my message of gfwl

 

since patch 1.0.2.0 single player has been perfectly fine with a very nice frame rate for me i use the -memrestrict 629145600 command line for high textures, i have everything on max except for view distance at 25 --- detail distance at 70 --- vehicle density at 40 --- shadows on 1 --- 1920x1200 res

 

 

 

this is my rig

custom high performance air cooled case by myself --- enermax galaxy 1000 --- asus rampage formular x48 motherboard --- q6600 @ 3.6ghz running very cool --- 4gb ddr2 @ 1000mhz --- auzentech prelude x-fi sound card --- nvidia bfg gtx285 ocx --- wd raptor 150gb hdd --- vista 64 sp1 with all updates and latest drivers and bitdefender total security 2009 --- gta iv with the command line -memrestrict 629145600 for high textures

 

i set it up for my brother also, his pc runs with a 700w hyper psu --- gigabyte p35-ds4 motherboard --- 4gb ddr2 800mhz --- auzentech x-plosion sound card --- 8800gtx --- standard hdd --- vista 32 sp1 all updates & latest drivers and bitdefender total security 2009. he is running it at 1080p and everything on max except for view distance at 1 --- detail distance at 40 --- vehicle density at 30 --- shadows on 1 and it runs perfectly fine with the command line -memrestrict 629145600

 

i really hope this gets fixed very soon else gfwl truly sucks

[Qumulys]

I stopped playing MP because of the cheats, I've pretty much stopped gta4 altogether (damn ati 4870x2 cards).

 

Anyway, I like what your trying to do there Waynio but if I were you I would be trying to make use of capitol letters and full-stops. I generally just skip of poor grammer posts, although yours is a good post. Just don't be annoyed if you don't get a response from GFWL as they may skim over it like I often do with this "style/trend" of text.

 

Whats with all these posts lately that have no capitols or full stops? Surely this is not how kids are being taught in school?

 

Anyway back on topic, we need to setup some sort of gaming government, where us gamers get to vote on stupid crap like GFWL to get rid of it. Would be good to get rid of securom while we're at it.

[Waynio]

Hi Qumulus, no offense taken and I'll try to keep it in mind when I post, I just rush my posts too often I guess hehe, also only got 80% in english, so I feel a lil bit embarrassed since I'm english.

 

 

Surely this is not how kids are being taught in school?

Trust me there are some kids which leave school where they don't know how to read and write because of undiagnosed disabilities, probably part of why crime is so high in the UK. Just glad I can read & write so others can understand me. Other than that I think kids get better education these days, I hope so anyway, been 15 years since my school days, been to college since thou and may go back as I'm quite interested in engineering.

[TruXter]

You must remember, Modded files in gta is at the least 20% of the fun in gta, so there has to be leniency for modders.

I do not cheat or use an advantage of a glitch on people who do not use them. In fact I have yet to have my online version modded.

The one I mod is the one in my mydocs folder and it has patch one installed, with the gfwl turned off and rssocial turned off. So it could never connect anyway.

I own and Run GTACLans.Com It would be really retarded of me if I got busted cheating........ Heck I am still trying to get that place noticed. it's hard and would be a whole lot harder if I was labeled a douche bag with no skills.

I think that what ever you like the game to be , is exactly what it should be. If you join people's games who do not want you to cheat, they should be able to kick you out of the game. Same as if you joined a server full of people using cheats and started crying that you don't want the cheat, then they should kick you out of the game. Because you are ruining their fun.

If what charlie says is true about the people rejoining after a ban, then yeah, that does need to be fixed. That would mean that R* doesn't know the difference between ban and kick. (it might actually just say kick). I have yet to encounter the issue, that does not mean I am right, just I have not experienced it. So I give 60% trust to Charlie's statement over my own experience. I know he is a fan of GTA and I trust he is fair about a lot of things.

On the idea that what he says is true about the rejoining, then that needs to be changed to a ban not a boot, would solve the issue, as long as clans don't join in and start banning people left and right with majority votes. Some clans can be pretty damn dirty.

I hate buggy software and extended bloatware. I like the idea of the freedom to control my surroundings, I love the idea of voting. So you can see why I like the whole idea of the phone vote ban/kick.

 

You see it's the modders who make gta worth playing when the next game is released. To eliminate them from the whole online would eliminate the chance of them creating whole new cars and weapons and cities that we could download from their site, then join modded servers and get extended game play out of gtaiv. You guys are thinking to close to the current timeline. we have to look further ahead, and hope there will be a memorial for odie in gtaiv simply because he was liberty city's mod. I don't want to know that we can not expand the online realm gameplay because some people are punks who nuke everyone, and no one is fast enough to ban them, or the ban is just a boot kick not an ip ban.

I would love it if Roickstar got hole of the good mods and put them in the dlc for pc and gave respect to people like odie, freak, and other long time gta modders.

And yes I was one of the first full nude candy sux patchers.(tommy V skin).. mine just had a crusty butthole and people loved it, till she wrecked her motorcycle.

Edited March 16, 2009 by TruXter

[Nietzsche's God]

I can't post anymore topics in GFWL forum so I will do it here. Recently I have been playing with 4 other guys on a team deathmatch mode and this individual named FerrariPT has been harassing us by dropping tugboats which result in the game being crashed. Now, I have managed to rally other people twice in kicking him out of the game, but he keep coming back and do the same sh*t. Now, I know for sure that the GFWL "avoid player" option just doesn't work, and that there is no tools for people to permanantly ban other players who we do not want to play again for legitimate reason.

 

Waynio, how long had they (moderators) not response in that forum? I wager that they will never answer your question. I have not got a single response in 2 days.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Nietzsche's God

[Waynio]

Yeah, I know Nietzsche's God, I doubt they will respond, maybe another user but not MS.

It is like they want us all to buy an xbox 360.

[Murcchachosa]

Did you knew cheaters and hackers on MP are also f*cking gays?

They decorate people like "Hi guys, Im so smart as Bill gates, wanna go out for a date?"

Tom French xD

[Waynio]

Since I completed the single player game already about 6 or 7 times now, the single player game has nothing to offer for me now since MP sucks.

 

It seems lag is giving people an excuse for cheating or messing with the game.

 

I'm glad rockstar fixed the cheating issue even if it did only last a few days, I have seen people driving faster on straights and on corners and have heard of cheating in death matches, I was driving perfect in same car model and no way could I catch up was like he had turbo boost, everyone else noticed it too so I can only say there is still cheating and when there is no cheating I see terrible sportsmanship the type I would expect from a immature anoying idiot, I really don't understand why someone would waste their time just joining races to aggravate others, what sad beings they truly are.

I have uninstalled my gta4 and I'm selling the game, I've absolutely had enough, the MP had a ton of potential so its sad, the game is simply no fun at all any more.

 

I even noticed in my winlive messages the a hole who spawned into a race on foot with smg rpg a while ago said something along the lines of "I love reading your whining along with that german kid" "I am your father" trust me in reality I would like to grab the idiot by the neck and head butt the lil s*** a pile of times and that is coming from me, a reasonable person who respects others.

 

Anyway maybe the next GTA game the MP part would have had a chance to mature so it could run like a successful MP, or if rockstar decide to make a MP exe purely for MP like many other games do like cod and have punkbuster on it or something better, I would put it back on.

 

 

Did you knew cheaters and hackers on MP are also f*cking gays?

I think you are right, I guess they thrive off being disliked.

[mulder84]

It's because of fags like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPcAsZb7E2E

and what's worse Is when they think its funny.

WTF?! That's downright cheating... I'd admit that the results are kinda cool in a sense... but doing that in multiplayer is too much...

 

Perhaps R* should create a new MP game for cheaters only lol... Maybe that'll draw them away from entering and cheating in an HONEST game...

[sayodeep]

if i see a cheater in real life i will f*cking kill them.

[Proxan]

Although I haven't seen a cheater since the new update.

 

And is MP dying? I've seen many players joining again since new update were released.

[YoungGun]

being that i cant go online with my mod's that make the game look so good, i am going to finish my second time though the story mod and then maybe remove the mods so i can go online again someday.

[Waynio]

 

Perhaps R* should create a new MP game for cheaters only lol... Maybe that'll draw them away from entering and cheating in an HONEST game...

 

I totally believe there are some people who used vehicle spawning and ramp spawning to make the game more fun, but most of what I seen was simply to annoy other players because they are rubbish players themselves, so they must get a kick out of peeing off other players, it is just a shame the knowledge got to those irritating folk, I would imagine the person who came up with the tweaks would be annoyed also with it being abused in such a way on MP.

 

I am convinced some are using a speed boosting trick even if it gives them 1.1 speed just to have a good edge randomly so they don't get reported, either that or the MP part is incredibly buggy as hell combined with bad lag, also seen people crash into a wall with a sudden stop as it should but they reapear ahead doing top speed. Should be an option to only play with players of a low ping, then the MP should be great as its supposed to be.

 

Absolutely hate the kicking system, why not a ban system which keeps them out permanantly the kicking system does not work as they can have 5 votes against them and they can leave and come straight back and talk more garbage, I have used the avoid user system which did nothing for me.

 

I bet it is possible to use a trainer online because that does not require modified files and you could load the trainer when the game is already on.

 

I really wanted to get back into this game online but I can not stand some of the punk ass people who spew obscene garbage who go on it, so the game is dead to me, damn shame as it really had potential to be one of the best MP games.

[Waynio]

Damn it, rockstar you made an irresistable game, i'm reinstalling it right now.

From now on even if i'm enjoying a MP game if I smell foul stuff, I'll just join a different game, because the kicking system is hopeless, I think whoever is the admin of a MP game should have the ability to temperary ban idiots, problem solved.

[Highwayman72]

How hard is it to add host option to KICK without a vote midgame? especially on public games where the host should have full control whom they want in the game? I report every f*cking lamer that I see using hacks and it's probbly as effective as the asbos they got in real life.....pricks!!!!!

Edited March 25, 2009 by Highwayman72

[Jc84144]

a kick system like that will be abused... I don't like the thought of someone being able to kick me because I manage to get a kill on them. I'd like to think people were more mature than that, but it's pretty clear from all the modding that has gone on, that they aren't.

[Drunk Russian 9]

a kick system like that will be abused... I don't like the thought of someone being able to kick me because I manage to get a kill on them. I'd like to think people were more mature than that, but it's pretty clear from all the modding that has gone on, that they aren't.

It actually works quite well. When you play in small games you cannot afford to lose players, and most of them leave anyway.

 

[Highwayman72]

a kick system like that will be abused... I don't like the thought of someone being able to kick me because I manage to get a kill on them. I'd like to think people were more mature than that, but it's pretty clear from all the modding that has gone on, that they aren't.

At least it would help deter the morons from trying to rape through all the games online for laughs..... sure ppl could abuse it, but better that then the current no holds barred approach.