N2 multiplayer start order bug...Help

So, my friend and I are playing N2 over our LAN. We go through the problems of having to have the right names in the right order for the car set ( I also like the fact that you can only choose MULTI from the multiplayer menu... If there is a space for a choice, let us make one Papy...). Anyway, whenever we qualify, it doesn't matter where he qualifies (1st or last), he is about 95% of the time put into the 14th, 15th, or 16th position. I start where I qualified. Anyone else experiencing this? Is there a way around it? Will it be fixed in the fabled "patch". Thanks for the input or help, Brian R. Lohiser

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> So, my friend and I are playing N2 over our LAN. We go through the > problems of having to have the right names in the right order for the > car set ( I also like the fact that you can only choose MULTI from the > multiplayer menu... If there is a space for a choice, let us make one > Papy...). Anyway, whenever we qualify, it doesn't matter where he > qualifies (1st or last), he is about 95% of the time put into the > 14th, 15th, or 16th position. I start where I qualified. Anyone else > experiencing this? Is there a way around it? Will it be fixed in the > fabled "patch". > Thanks for the input or help, > Brian R. Lohiser

My friend and I have also experienced this problem. We play through a direct connect serial connection with him as player one and the answerer and me as the dialer and player two. In the same way you did we put the names in the correct order to get the proper names in the proper places, but every time we race I end up in the 8th row or so virtually on top of another car no matter how I qualified. Both of us believe it's a glitch in which the program doesn't like having the same name in the number one and the number two slots of the multi list. So to fix this problem we went back to having both the dialing and answering computer have his name first and my name second. When we race my name is wrong (It's his) but the # of my car is the same and the qualifying position works correctly again. As long as you can handle racing with the answerers name but your correct car number it works. If anyone knows how to get around this glitch I'm all ears. Peter Staklis

My friend and I have also encountered these problems! They always have the wrong names for us, but the cars we want to drive are right, so we don't worry about that. We also have the qualifying problems you do. Whoever the dialer is will 99% of the time get put in the back of the field (no matter where he qualifies) on top of another car. To eliminate this problem we only put 12-14 cars in our Multi list, then just go straight to the race and start in the last row. It makes the race more fun and fair. We either use the IROC cars, the Busch cars, or a select few of the Winston Cup cars. Hope this post helps you out! Derek Pease

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>My friend and I have also encountered these problems! They always have >the wrong names for us, but the cars we want to drive are right, so we >don't worry about that. We also have the qualifying problems you do. >Whoever the dialer is will 99% of the time get put in the back of the >field (no matter where he qualifies) on top of another car. To >eliminate this problem we only put 12-14 cars in our Multi list, then >just go straight to the race and start in the last row. It makes the >race more fun and fair. We either use the IROC cars, the Busch cars, or >a select few of the Winston Cup cars. Hope this post helps you out! >Derek Pease

Yea, I notieced that also, that if you play with like <20 cars it seems to happen less. Another thing I noticed today when we were trying it more was that it seemed to happen on Bristol and Phoenix, but not on Taladega or C***te. I am not sure about the other tracks. I wonder if this is a track specific bug, and if it can be fixed by editing the track.txt file. If anyone knows, help would be appreciated. Thanks, Brian R. Lohiser

Qualifying: I've talked several times with Charlie Heath about this, he's the muiltiplayer programmer for Papy. Last time being about two weeks ago. For some reason he's stated on this particular situation that he has not been able to reproduce the problem to my knowledge. Now he may have since 2 weeks ago, the first time I talked with him about this problem was about 2-3 months ago. Now we all know the screwy things we have to do to get proper cars and names displayed properly in a multiplayer enviroment, it's possible that by us doing these things were causing the program to blunder our qualifying positions. So if Papy fixes all the setup bugs in multiplayer that alone may fix the qualifying problems at least I hope so. Since talking with Charlie he has hinted about what is gonna be in the patch. There will be several multiplayer fixes, the biggest fix ommited IMO was with the car lists screen, you know the one where you have to take every body out to put yourself in first screen. Well he stated that this probably wouldn't be fixed in the first patch and would come with the NRO patch. Now this could have been changed since it was sometime ago and hopefully so because that screen is a mess. He stated his patch is done and ready to roll and that he added some extra stuff that wasn't planned. Hopefully he gets in no trouble with this as he's been very straightforward with me. But yes to me there is a qualifying bug as you guys are stating and it's to the point we don't even qualify anymore over here. Hopefully he's either recreated the problem finally and fixed it orrrrr by correcting the setup bugs that itself fixed the qualifying bug without extra programming. Q.B.M.

>But yes to me there is a qualifying bug as you guys are stating and it's to >the point we don't even qualify anymore over here. Hopefully he's either >recreated the problem finally and fixed it orrrrr by correcting the setup >bugs that itself fixed the qualifying bug without extra programming. I believe we finally did figure the qualifying order problems in NASCAR II multiplayer out, though testing might prove me wrong on that. As I've hinted to you privately, Qaz, I've been happy with the list of things I've been able to work on for the N2 patch. However, I have to stress that I can't guess exactly what will make it into "the patch", or when it will be released, because I simply don't know, nor would I be at liberty to discuss it even if I did! So please, hang in there ... Papy has "top men" working on the patch, and I can personally attest to that much... Charlie Heath Papyrus

Charlie at Papy: REPLY: Really glad to hear that! Yes I understand and appreciate your position with the patch as well. Just trying to chill other users a bit. Thanks for the response. Q.B.M.