SHIFT Patch Release Details

[Vancouver Blade]

Here are the details for the new patch. We're currently working through the testing process so don't have a confirmed date yet; as soon as we do we'll update the thread. Apologies for my recent silence; it's been very busy in the office but I just got these details so wanted to share.

NEW CONTENT/FUNCTIONALITY
- Increased the maximum number of online players from 8 to 12

BUG FIXES - CROSS-PLATFORM

- General game stability and performance improvements

- Improved car handling

- Fix for issue where some cars would bounce on their suspension during high load situations

- Fix for grass sometimes being displayed out of position

- Fix for intermittent incorrect driver duel results

- Fix for inverted balance slider operation

- Fix for online wins and losses occasionally being calculated incorrectly for drift races

- Fixed issue where loaned career car would inherit the player's career car tuning settings

- Fixed various usability issues with the advanced tuning screens

- Fixed lap timing for first lap of rolling start events

- Fixed car tuning settings sometimes not taking effect

- Fix to prevent rewinding past the start of instant replays

- Fixed car livery occasionally appearing all white during driver duel events

- Fixed incorrect screens being shown when player is disqualified

- Fix for occasional invisible opponents appearing during online drift events

- Fix for intermittent hang when skipping quickly through post-race screens

- Fix for intermittent hang when pressing X repeatedly in My Cars screen

- Fix for missing race groove on point-to-point tracks

- Prevented car livery resetting to default after an online race

- Fix for advanced tuning not staying unlocked on reload

- Fixed invitational event cars getting their setups corrupted and becoming undrivable (e.g. Veryon and Carrera GT)

- Fix for Lamborghini's having a low top speed when upgraded

- Fix for Corvette Z06 and Dodge Viper not able to move at the start of some events

- Fix for some upgraded AI cars bottoming out causing some instability over bumps

- Fix upgrade menu bug

- Fix for a force feedback strength settings save bug

- Fix multi-player settings for AI opponents and drift mode

- Fix for vinyls being incorrectly applied on rear wing

- Fix for a hang in lobby when accessing friend's list from car select

- Fix for profile load bug which skips save select menu when holding down Enter key

- Fix for jumping body parts when car resets

PC SPECIFIC
- Improved ATi graphics card support

- Improved dynamic vertex buffer usage (performance optimization on all PCs)

- Fixed crashes on certain PC configurations when changing shadow settings

- Fixed intermittent crash during first lap of races on certain PC configurations

- Disabled forced dampening for custom wheel presets on PC

- Optimized multi-GPU PC operation

- Fix for intermittent missing surface sounds on certain PC configurations

- Fix for intermittent black skies

- Fix for LAN menu hang for client when host quickly returns to main menu

 

[Biggles]

- Improved car handling

That wouldn't mean more sim car handling by any chance?!

 

[MannyMoenjack]

If I'm correctly interpreting the fixes you've listed above, this will go a long way toward helping this basically solid game to reach it's potential.

Of course people will always want more, but this is a great first step! I hope EA plans to continue adding and improving this game, because although it's not a "Sim" in the classic sense it's pretty close in many respects, and to me, more enjoyable.

Thanks for the update VB! 👍

 

[Worst_Driver]

That's a lot of fixed things.
I'm looking forward to play the game again. Thank you and I can't wait to see those upgrades. It should be awesome.

 

[kjb]

That all sounds good. I hope it comes out soon.

 

[Kar-reck]

Score! Thanks for the update.

 

[opendriver]

Bout damn time

 

[JonesyGT246]

Thanks for the update on the update, Blade.

 

[Stavingo]

Thanks for the info on the update 👍

 

[Dragonistic]

I don't mean to be sceptical, but what source is the information coming from, how do we know it's trustworthy information? The other, very similar thread which could have been used for this information, has no suggestion of accurate information or any kind of confirmation and it would appear (as someone who doesn't own the game) that the information was not entirely credible.

 

[CodeRedR51]

Does the fact that he works for the company that made the game mean anything?

I already traded my game in on something else. I figure when the price drops and I can afford a wheel, I'll pick it up again.

 

[Vancouver Blade]

Dragonistic - i can understand your skepticism. I'm the community lead for the Need for Speed franchise, if you want to check drop me a mail at Andrew@needforspeed.com.

Everyone else - i'll have details about the date soon and will post as soon as I hear.

 

[NLxAROSA]

Patch sounds great. I've been engaged with other things recently (like GT PSP ), but I'll definitely pick up Shift again when it's patched. 👍

 

[ultrataco]

sounds like a good patch, though I haven't really had any big problems with the game. (and I have an ATI card.)

 

[Blitz187]

Looks like Shift will find its way into my PS3 again when this patch comes out...

 

[Alen Ramic]

how about adding a save livery so it can be used on another car or add copy ability for vinyl used on both sides of a car. also fix for manufacturer decals which are showing incorrect or fade color when applied on car, and please fix the camera in edit costum menu because i can't see the whole car.

 

[andrewyhy]

Thanks for the info of the coming update patch. 👍
That would certainly bring me back to SHIFT again after the update.

 

[Frederik82]

Nice! Hopefully it will run better now on my Radeon HD 4850. I also have a i7 and 8gb RAM so I was really irritated by the game running so choppy on certain courses. This announcement comes at the right time as well since I was seriously considering selling this game again and maybe picking up a used copy when the games problems are fixed, but hopefully the patch does its magic 👍

Nice to see you keep us updated, btw.

EDIT: I would also love to see an added time trial function to the game that saves times for each track and car class. I was really surprised to see that this game doesn´t have this mode since I can´t think of another racing game that doesn´t have a time trial mode. I kept playing the time attack and wondered why it didn´t display my times from the last time I played... Or maybe I´m just missing something obvious here? Ghost car saving would be nice as well, but I don´t know how easy that would be to program. On the other hand, even Mario Kart on the GBA has a ghost car feature, it should be a racing game staple nowadays. (I don´t want to sound like a spoiled gamer demanding things here, but it´s just that I really enjoy this game otherwise and these missing features really pain me quite a bit.)

 

[jjaisli]

Great to hear Vancouver Blade! I'll be sure to give it a try when the patch goes live!

 

[Shadow Wulf 2k]

Very nice! I'll be glad to get back to this game once the patch is released.

 

[Delphic Reason]

Hmmmm.... I might have to pick this game up again (turned it in for Forza 3 after level 50). If they do fix all the problems, and release some DLC (cars/tracks), this may end up being the king of arcade racers.

 

[evilfoxhound]

Aww I've almost finished the career mode and NOW they decide to patch it?

Oh well. On a plus-side, I never encountered many problems anyway.

 

[ANFD]

I don't seem to find any info relative to fixing the frame rate issues. I also cannot understand how some have claimed that they have not had any of these issues. How can that be ???? Are the disks encoded differently ??? Could it be that some people are not entirely truthful ???

If in fact, these fixes are incorporated, I will certainly revisit my relationship with this game. Please keep us informed as to when we can expect these to take effect.

 

[Vancouver Blade]

The frame-rate issues have been addressed. I wanted to confirm this myself and the guys said it was part of the 'general performance' section.

 

[Sureboss]

Aww I've almost finished the career mode and NOW they decide to patch it?

Oh well. On a plus-side, I never encountered many problems anyway.

They'll have been working on it since release. 5 weeks or so for an extensive patch like this is pretty good going.

Nice work guys, I look forward to being able to play Shift again.

 

[opelgt1969]

I'm going out on a very small limb here and going to say I'll be playing GT5 before Shift gets fixed right. (Being able to program my wheel and being able to backup my "save game"). From that Crazy opelgt1969 guy

 

[5615mike]

sure would be nice if they would fix the fact you cant save tuning settings......multipule settings for same car. As well as being able to save a racing series before you finish it so you can come back to it. I dont always have 30 minutes to devote to racing

 

[Dragonistic]

Does the fact that he works for the company that made the game mean anything?

How was I supposed to know, and how did that even go anywhere to proving it? Thanks for the vote of patronisation though.

Dragonistic - i can understand your skepticism. I'm the community lead for the Need for Speed franchise, if you want to check drop me a mail at Andrew@needforspeed.com

Thanks for the actual useful reply, I just figured that something, just something would have happened and to address some of the problems, even though I don't own the game, there are still many issues being reported. I would have thought a smaller more gradual progress would have gone forward, rather then a one patch fixes all job I thought developers would fix a few things, the key things, patch it, then move on to the next problems. I think doing so would've helped make the seemingly reasonable sized group of people who got rid of the game, keep it in the knowledge that things were indeed getting better.

 

[Vancouver Blade]

Thanks for the actual useful reply, I just figured that something, just something would have happened and to address some of the problems, even though I don't own the game, there are still many issues being reported. I would have thought a smaller more gradual progress would have gone forward, rather then a one patch fixes all job I thought developers would fix a few things, the key things, patch it, then move on to the next problems. I think doing so would've helped make the seemingly reasonable sized group of people who got rid of the game, keep it in the knowledge that things were indeed getting better.

It's mainly a logistics issue and partly out of our hands. When we're dealing with updates that have to be released through Xbox Live and PlayStation Network they prefer that we keep the number of updates as low as possible so each patch has to have as much content as possible. There's a significant cost for each submission so mulitple releases make it very costly indeed.

 

[Jinx]

Good patch. I have searched the date. Anybody know when the release patch out?