Yes you are correct. But make sure you rip your own game and apply the patch to the game. Don't use the auto patcher app. It significantly increases the loading times to almost unplayable.
After a lot of searching and posts I found 1 person to exchange friend codes with and we were successfully able to visit each others towns. I'm actually in the process of writing a guide to help people patch there games and connect online. It's not quite ready yet but if you need the help I can walk you through it.
Thanks man. Unfortunately, I don't own a hard copy of the game, so I think I'm out of luck.