More images after the jump!

Golden Lotus Ninja Set

Includes: Mod & Kart
Creator: TankBaby

Video and statistics after the Jump!
PSB:

In less than three months, the ModNation Racers community has created and published over 1.1 million unique creations. This means there were roughly 633 karts, mods, and tracks published per hour, which equates to roughly 15,000 creations published per day. We are filing this one under “Awesome!” Congratulations, guys. The team at United Front Games and PlayStation are extremely impressed by your creativity.

Producer at United Front Games, Scott Nielsen, has explained Major features from 1.02 Update in detail after the Jump! For those that are saying no improvement for load times, check it out below.
PSB:

I’d also like to take a moment to try and provide some insight into our game and hopefully some clarity surrounding the load times in ModNation Racers. This is a subject that both our fans and the team are very sensitive about and we want to assure you that a lot of work has been done in order to address these issues. We have made some significant strides to improving the user experience in ModNation Racers with the release of the Title Update.

Custom Creations means A LOT of Data
As you know, ModNation Racers can’t be compared to most racing games as it lets you create your own experience. That means we have races where each Mod and Kart are all different. Each of these creations are made up of hundreds of individual textures that are fed into our compositing system to create the final creation. As there are up to 12 players in a race, each with a Mod and Kart, we need to do this 24 times for a single race. That’s a lot of data!

Making Tracks
In regular racing games, track data is packed onto the disc for loading, but ModNation is not a regular game. One of our focuses on ModNation Racers was to make it incredibly quick and easy to share your tracks online. To enable this, we store tracks as blueprints for rebuilding, which are very small on disc. To build a track in the code, we have to first load up this blueprint, then we need to generate all of the additional data for the track and then start compositing. Both these steps are not simple, but they are necessary to bring our tracks to life.

So as you can see, there were a lot of tradeoffs involved in creating a game that allows creating and sharing. We tried to strike the best balance we could between all of the competing priorities. Creativity is so important to us, and the ModNation community, that we didn’t want to sacrifice the amazing flexibility that we have made available.

Breaking Down Load Time Improvements
It’s important to note that we made a number of significant changes to the game flow in order to improve the user experience in ModNation Racers. We focused our efforts on making improvements to high-impact areas of the game; specifically when doing Career Races and Online Races. In fact, the biggest improvements you will see are when doing multiple Career Races or Online Races.

You should see a reduction in time when loading from Career Central into a Race, plus significant improvements when returning from a Career Race to Career Central. What used to be around 30 seconds now takes about 6 or 7 seconds. Online Racing sees very similar benefits when returning from a race to the Gameroom. Changes made to the flow of XP Races have significantly reduced load times when returning to the Gameroom from an XP Race. What makes this great now is that when you find a group of people that you are enjoying XP Racing with, you are able to stay matched with them as opposed to returning to the ModSpot and having to get matched into another XP Race with different people.

We’re confident these changes provide a more positive user experience for the ModNation community. With a game like ModNation Racers, we thrive on the strength of our community and we want to do everything to make sure you have a great time with our game.

A big thanks from all of us here at UFG for supporting our game!

Catch the Video after the break. Follow me !


Watch live video from ProClub Gaming HD Says Hi =) on Justin.tv

1.02 Update Weighs in at 131MB and took me about 3 minutes to download. Loading times seem to be about the same from what I could tell for the intro sequence and you are greeted with a new menu after you Press Any Button.

You will see Career Mode, ModSpot, and Creation Station after you continue when prompted. I believe this was not mentioned on Monday and if it was, thanks for not making it clear.

Even after the update, connecting to the servers were a no go. IDK if it’s due to server maintenance that I saw mentioned at the bottom of the screen from Monday through Friday at I believe the same time as the old maintenance days and times. I really don’t know till I look back at the archives of the Live Cast.

So for about an hour or less of trying to connect to the server. Off to Creation Station I go. Messed around in Mod Creation and back to the ModSpot for luck. Still, NOTHING. If I do not update this post with anything, I have given up for now and will resume once I get home.

If this is due to server maintenance, DON’T RELEASE A PATCH during that time! It’s annoying, whether how many people that are at the time of release and you think it’s not that big of a deal. Fact is, it’s annoying.

So much for getting a quick glimpse of the new Update for a while before I have extended time with it. Guess I’ll try later today when I get back to see how good this update is.

UPDATE: If cast doesn’t start before or on 2AM, it should start shortly after the Update has been released.
UPDATE 2: Added Live Feed Embded in case you do not see the one in the Sidebar

Watch live video from ProClub Gaming HD Says Hi =) on Justin.tv

Kart: Cowboy
Price: $0.99
Features: Read Mod Info Above

Cowboy DLC Bundle

Mod & Kart: Cowboy
Price: $1.75 (SAVE MONIEZ!!!)
Features: Same as above but you get it as a bundle. In which saves you MONIEZ!!!

You can grab the update 1.02 at 2:00AM PST, don’t waste anytime.

In addition to the BIGGEST request everyone has been asking for since THE BETA…
Those who are single player junkies will love that difficulty has dropped a notch. UFG has added the Casual Difficulty Mode that was mentioned a few weeks ago on ModNation Mondays. You should have a easier time on getting those challenges and trophies done easier, I Hope.

In what I call the 2nd BIGGEST Feature added to the BEST Kart Racer on the market today, XP Races WITH Friends. You can invite your friends to single races or a complete series.

No More Connection Hangs with this feature. You are now able to get into races quicker because they removed the online game room from the ModSpot. I don’t know if that was necessary or not but I’ll update later on Wednesday if it was a wise decision.

Along with quicker connection to races, this is due to Improved Server Stability. Say goodbye to you shooting Level 3 Rockets and then see your self back at the ModSpot, for now.

Hot Lap Exploiters will now crumble! This bug allowed racers to cut the track and post unbeatable times in Hot Lap.

Those who are addicted to Challenge Hunting, you will love this. The Devastator takedown on Wild Run & Mobobahn, and the EVER so frustrating side swiping 3 Opponents on the cliff on Fracture.

Not all things you have to work for. The Tin Bucket is Unlocked and available to everyone by default.

Collector Card has seen an improvement, you can see all player creations in plain sight.

PSB:

This Wednesday, August 4th at 2:00am (Pacific Time), the ModNation Racers Title Update 1.02 goes live improving many of the issues the community has been concerned about. On behalf of UFG, we want to thank everyone for supporting ModNation and being patient as we’ve worked hard to make it the best experience possible. If you didn’t see the patch details on the IGN last Friday, here is a run down:

Load Time Improvements
While there are still loads, you will see decreases in load times throughout the game.

New “Casual” Difficulty Mode
We’ve added a “casual” difficulty setting in the options screen.

Challenge friends in XP Series
We’ve added the ability to invite your friends to XP Races & Series.

No more “Hot Lap” Cheaters
We fixed a bug that allowed players to cut the track and post unbeatable times in Hot Lap.

Get into Online Races Quicker
Along with improved load times, we’ve removed the online game room from the ModSpot so you can get into the race faster.

Improved Server Stability
We’ve addressed issues to improve intermittent disconnects that players were experiencing.

Three Challenges now more attainable
We wanted to provide you challenges, but didn’t want to sacrifice fun. We found 3 challenges that proved extremely difficult and changed the conditions to complete them. This includes:

• Devastator takedown on Wild Run
• Devastator takedown on Modobahn
• Sideswipe 3 opponents on the cliff side on Fracture

The Tin Bucket Unlocked!
Finally this is an item is unlocked and available to everyone by default.

Collector Card Improvement
Now see all player creations in their entirety.

Improvements to ModNation Racers don’t stop here, we are still constantly listening to the community and are committed to making ModNation Racers one of the most enjoyable experiences you’ll have on your PS3.

Another week has gone by and here comes another OFFICIAL ModNation Mondays update from UFG and SCEA San Diego Studios. Ramone Russell from SCEA San Diego has confirmed that the upcoming and not yet confirmed release date patch will have LOAD TIME OPTIMIZATION! That is only 1/3 of the key features that has been addressed.

The second is the ability to play with your Friends in XP Races, FINALLY. The third that many are wishing for is the ridiculous Matchmaking/Connect issues regardless of how good of a connection and/or hardware a user is using.

More Patch Details

On top of optimizing load times, one of the things a lot of you have asked for is the ability to play with your friends in XP races. Well, I am very pleased to share with you that UFG has added this feature and it will be available in the upcoming patch as well. The patch is nearing the final development stages with UFG working hard to iron out some bugs before it will be ready for release.

The reason why I said you probably won’t care for the next update is because of the said feature and…
because they have not guaranteed on what the other features that is in development right now. Myself and everyone else are praying that they drastically fixed the Online connect and loading time issues that plagued the game since the first ever Beta. Now, I do appreciate the Casual Career mode, but how good the AI is currently is what made playing Career mode fun. It may have been frustrating at times but it didn’t make me feel like what is the point of doing this objective, it kept me coming back for more.

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