[PETITION] Make Gran Turismo 7 available to play offline.

[5thwheel]

I just lost a bit of progress when apparently I managed to wake up my PS4 within the GT server maintenance phase, played a bit, got showered with the not-connected nag screen and put the console to sleep again, assuming after the maintenance phase it would have no trouble hooking up with the network and saving my progress.

How wrong I was . Hours later it still did not recognize that the servers were back up and kept nagging. I had to restart the game to make it work again.

So put me into the pro-offline camp now. That nag screen is just salt on the wounds too. As if the red warning icon in the screen corner wasn't enough of a hint.

 

[Magog]

That's putting the cart before the horse. Why is only one save used? There's no requirement to have only one save for online and offline.

If having a different save system would allow online cheating to be prevented AND people to run single player content offline, then why wouldn't you want that?

That's not a trade-off that needs to be made though. It's based on an assumption that you can only have one save file that contains both online and offline data, and therefore if it must be offline accessible then it's available for people to cheat with.

I agree that there should be no reason to allow people to cheat online, particularly in competitive modes. It's very important for the integrity of online competition. But that doesn't need to come at the expense of single player offline content. You can have both a secure online mode AND a single player mode that doesn't require connectivity. The only reason these things appear to be in conflict is the "solutions" that Polyphony have chosen in the past. That's not the only way to do things.

They would either have to be the same save or write to each other as both modes share the same garage and other info like milage and other driver stats. Pretty hard to tear all that apart and writing to each other could also help the cheaters.

 

[Veinz]

I just lost a bit of progress when apparently I managed to wake up my PS4 within the GT server maintenance phase, played a bit, got showered with the not-connected nag screen and put the console to sleep again, assuming after the maintenance phase it would have no trouble hooking up with the network and saving my progress.

How wrong I was . Hours later it still did not recognize that the servers were back up and kept nagging. I had to restart the game to make it work again.

So put me into the pro-offline camp now. That nag screen is just salt on the wounds too. As if the red warning icon in the screen corner wasn't enough of a hint.

I’ve had this game since launch day and I’ve never lost progress.

 

[FPV MIC]

I’ve had this game since launch day and I’ve never lost progress.

I had nearly the same circumstances as @5thwheel once. I'd saved just before server maintenance and continued playing through it but I couldn't reconnect to the server when the maintenance period was over. The only way I could progress was to exit the game, then re-enter and lose the couple of hours play I'd done during that maintenance period. I do vaguely remember others having the same issue with that particular maintenance period so it could have also happened at other times as well.

It wasn't a big deal for me at the time but I can imagine it could've possibly caught some people out in far worse circumstances (eg. unlikely but someone could've finally platinumed a Lewis Hamilton Challenge or the like).

Personally I don't mind the online saves if it's the only/best way to keep cheats out. Edit: But I also don't care if people use offline mods as long as they are original creations and not direct copyright infringed rip-offs.

 

[ICEYOU3]

Only 374 signatures so far? Maybe try promoting this through youtube.

 

[Imari]

They would either have to be the same save or write to each other as both modes share the same garage and other info like milage and other driver stats. Pretty hard to tear all that apart and writing to each other could also help the cheaters.

Not really. Cloud saves are a pretty standard thing these days, Steam has cloud copies of saves for pretty much every game I play on it as far as I'm aware. If there's no connection it writes to the local save, and when there's a major discrepancy between the last local save and the last cloud save it asks me what I want to do. I'm sure there's off the shelf technology that Polyphony could use if they didn't want to do it themselves.

As far as cheating, the idea of having cheat prevention be simply restricting access to saves is pretty dumb, imo. The fact that hybriding has existed in the past is an argument for designing the save systems and online checks such that hybrids are identified and disallowed before race start. I can use a text editor to modify a setup in iRacing to have values outside of what is allowed by the race rules, and the game will pick that up and simply not allow me into the race. If you want to stop people cheating online, as is totally reasonable, then put the checks and barriers at the entry to the online race part of the game.

 

[PetarBlade]

Wish this was getting more steam. Sadly, it doesn't seem that most gaming news sites and Youtube channels care enough about racing games...

 

[CBH]

Not really. Cloud saves are a pretty standard thing these days, Steam has cloud copies of saves for pretty much every game I play on it as far as I'm aware. If there's no connection it writes to the local save, and when there's a major discrepancy between the last local save and the last cloud save it asks me what I want to do. I'm sure there's off the shelf technology that Polyphony could use if they didn't want to do it themselves.

As far as cheating, the idea of having cheat prevention be simply restricting access to saves is pretty dumb, imo. The fact that hybriding has existed in the past is an argument for designing the save systems and online checks such that hybrids are identified and disallowed before race start. I can use a text editor to modify a setup in iRacing to have values outside of what is allowed by the race rules, and the game will pick that up and simply not allow me into the race. If you want to stop people cheating online, as is totally reasonable, then put the checks and barriers at the entry to the online race part of the game.

Imari what about your stats for example like getting all Gold using the editor while your save is offline, and how the online save knows if you hack your stats or not.

 

[Imari]

Imari what about your stats for example like getting all Gold using the editor while your save is offline, and how the online save knows if you hack your stats or not.

If someone wants to cheat in the offline portion of the game then that's on them as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't affect me at all what people choose to do in their own game. If someone wants to give themselves all Gold licences, or make it so that it looks like they've played a million hours then I honestly don't see the problem. It's caused me no problems in Gran Turismos 1 through 6.

The cheats that concern me are those that affect the performance of cars online, because that's a competitive environment and cheating there affects the game experience for people who don't necessarily want to play with cheats. Altering stats doesn't do that.

Even editing in something like access to all cars on a save doesn't give a player a competitive advantage over someone who just buys the meta car outright. It gives them a lot more freedom to enjoy all the cars, but someone with a Honda, a Nissan and a Mitsubishi doesn't necessarily have a competitive advantage over someone with just a Honda in a balanced environment.

 

[Samus]

It really can't be that hard for the game to verify that the parts fitted to a car and the tuning settings are all within the parameters hard coded into the original game.

 

[CBH]

Another way to stop hack cars from getting online, is to put BoP (Balance of Performance) on your settings and when you go offline, the settings revert back to the hack car settings or what settings that car had.

 

[HarVee]

This trend of PD concerns me a lot. Their reasoning is for the livery editor, but clearly they aren't trying hard enough or at all to find the solution which is really right in front of their face. You save it all locally, but if you play online then you'll have to upload the livery otherwise people will just see a car with white paint.

Although we all know the real reason behind this is to prevent hybriding/hacking and in that I say stop policing people and let them play the game the way they want. Allow them to make a local save for offline play where they can hack all they want and then have them make an online save for which hybriding cars are not allowed.

Having spent all morning trying to connect to GTS servers only to have no connection to them, I went back to GT6 and I'll say that it is heaven to have a game that requires no internet functionality to play.

 

[5thwheel]

Since posting in here I've had the game fail to connect at least in one more instance after waking from sleep. I now first thing do a little dance by going into 'My Garage' and right away cancel out to the main screen to force a connection. If it suceeds this way I'll play if not I have to quit and restart the game.

It's not the only online-dependant game failing to reconnect either - Elite Dangerous does it too but at least consistently so I know it is just not sleep mode compatible. (Also stopped playing it because of the inconvenience )

 

[FPV MIC]

Although we all know the real reason behind this is to prevent hybriding/hacking and in that I say stop policing people and let them play the game the way they want. Allow them to make a local save for offline play where they can hack all they want and then have them make an online save for which hybriding cars are not allowed.

I'm not against modding, and certainly not when it's an original creation, but Sony does have a clause prohibiting it written into their T & C's.

SOFTWARE PRODUCT LICENSE AGREEMENT

www.playstation.com

 

[HarVee]

That's an argument that has been made in several gaming communities in regards to game modifications and usually they're two sides of the same coin.

 

[MeechShrykull]

the fact that there still hasn't been any word of making GT Sport playable offline despite it being at the end of its life cycle is concerning to say the least.

 

[Magog]

the fact that there still hasn't been any word of making GT Sport playable offline despite it being at the end of its life cycle is concerning to say the least.

PSN isn't going anywhere though.

 

[SportCoaster]

I highly doubt that a change.org petition would change things, considering the accusations of espionage and surveillance.

Sadly, the best bet is waiting about 5 or 6 years when Online Service officially shuts down for GT7... meaning no more Custom Liveries by other Users until the Playstation 5 has a dedicated Hacking community.

 

[Kalder]

In GT Sport, I'm 1/4th of the way to lvl 48, just 48 and 49 to go for the platinum, I do hope that they won't bring down GT Sport any time soon, cause I'm dedicated to get that platinum, but it will take time as I can't do the afk money/exp glitch as my PS5 doesn't like PS4 games and crashes a lot with them, it won't last more than 5 hours without crashing. Not sure if that's an issue with my PS5 or with the backwards compatibility. So I'm pretty much forced to do the shorter pro league races.

 

[Samus]

In GT Sport, I'm 1/4th of the way to lvl 48, just 48 and 49 to go for the platinum, I do hope that they won't bring down GT Sport any time soon, cause I'm dedicated to get that platinum, but it will take time as I can't do the afk money/exp glitch as my PS5 doesn't like PS4 games and crashes a lot with them, it won't last more than 5 hours without crashing. Not sure if that's an issue with my PS5 or with the backwards compatibility. So I'm pretty much forced to do the shorter pro league races.

GT5 online was turned off in May 2014, 5 months after GT6 released.
GT6 online was turned off in January 2018, 4 months after GTS released.

So if that trend continues then expect GTS to be shut down around July/August 2022.

 

[Magog]

GT5 online was turned off in May 2014, 5 months after GT6 released.
GT6 online was turned off in January 2018, 4 months after GTS released.

So if that trend continues then expect GTS to be shut down around July/August 2022.

Those were single player games with an online component. Sport is an online focused title. I expect it will be supported for at least 2 more years.

 

[HarVee]

I can only laugh at that. If you think GTS has 2 years of support still then I think you might want a reality check. We all know PD's history when it comes to new titles, and PD's history is the only definite thing to go on. In fact it's the sole reason this thread even exists.

 

[Famine]

Those were single player games with an online component. Sport is an online focused title. I expect it will be supported for at least 2 more years.

The main online focus of GT Sport - the FIA Certified Online Championship - is shifting to GT7 in March

You think that there's going to be two more years of weekly Daily Races in GTS, with rapidly dwindling player numbers as people jump ship to GT7? Seems... optimistic.

 

[Magog]

The main online focus of GT Sport - the FIA Certified Online Championship - is shifting to GT7 in March

You think that there's going to be two more years of weekly Daily Races in GTS, with rapidly dwindling player numbers as people jump ship to GT7? Seems... optimistic.

I'm full of optimism. As it has been pointed out given the saves are online shutting down the servers would basically be making the game unplayable. I don't see that happening in fewer than 2 years.

 

[Famine]

As it has been pointed out given the saves are online shutting down the servers would basically be making the game unplayable. I don't see that happening in fewer than 2 years.

What's going to be different in two years that will make PD put off closing the servers down until then?

Sport Mode, the raison d'etre of GT Sport, is being subsumed into GT7 and Sport will become obsolete. Once GT7 comes out, GT Sport will have no FIA championship, the Daily Races numbers will fall (they're currently at 100k weekly) to almost nothing, and Sony will be keeping the matchmaking servers turned on for a handful of people. All the big new events - Porsche, Red Bull, whatever - will be in GT7 going forward.

Either PD will expedite a "make it work offline" final update to allow it to turn GT Sport off while preserving it and devote resources to GT7, or it won't even bother with one and just turn it off to devote resources to GT7 instead. Whichever choice it makes, six months is a best-case scenario for GT Sport. Two years isn't just optimistic, it's insanity.

 

[Silver Arrows]

or it won't even bother with one and just turn it off to devote resources to GT7 instead.

And knowing Polyphony, I have a good feeling its this. Gonna be great when those collectors editions people bought at launch are effective paperweights!

Whichever choice it makes, six months is a best-case scenario for GT Sport. Two years isn't just optimistic, it's insanity.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Polyphony has a habit of shutting down their servers in record time. Not even yearly sports games get shut down in as fast a time as GT5 and 6's online services were shut down. So two years, when GT7 is coming on PS4? Absolutely ludicrous.

 

[Wolfe]

I'm full of optimism. As it has been pointed out given the saves are online shutting down the servers would basically be making the game unplayable.

I earnestly suggest you get a lot less optimistic about online-dependent gaming. Shutting down is a feature of the format. Always has been, always will be -- no service here today will be around forever.

 

[Magog]

I earnestly suggest you get a lot less optimistic about online-dependent gaming. Shutting down is a feature of the format. Always has been, always will be -- no service here today will be around forever.

I didn't say forever. I said 2 years. Sony recently extended the PS3 online store so I think they are becoming more aware of people's concerns in this regard.

 

[Silver Arrows]

I didn't say forever. I said 2 years.

And we're commenting on how dense you are to think that GTS is going to last that two years, especially considering that GT7 will also release on PS4, alongside...

Sony recently had extended the PS3 online store so I think they are becoming more aware of people's concerns in this regard.

This not even being close to what we were talking about. We were talking about Polyphony, not Sony. And Polyphony has a modern history of shutting down online services for older games in a record amount of time. Literally, the proof is up further the thread, on this page. Read it again.

 

[Imari]

I didn't say forever. I said 2 years. Sony recently extended the PS3 online store so I think they are becoming more aware of people's concerns in this regard.

Oh cool, so that would mean that the servers for GT5 and GT6 are still up, right? Yeah?

Wait, they're not? When did they get taken down?

That long ago? Huh.

And you think this game is going to last 2 years why? Because it will make the game unplayable?

Yeah mate. They know. That's exactly the point. They want people playing GT7, not GTS. Making the game unplayable isn't a bug, it's a feature. Polyphony greatly appreciates that in the online age they can turn an old game into a paperweight and force players onto their new game.