SMS says "what's coming in the first patch"

[TheTechnobear]

Ian and Martin from SMS have been posting over at nogripracing about patch contents:
http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=248847
(mods hope cross link is okay, but I think may will be interested)

lots of interesting comments for PC users about graphic fixes.
some very interesting comments from Ian, about the 'feeling' of the Lotus, and that they will take a look at it, but may not be in first patch.

date, some mention that the fixes are in dev, but might be another week... but then of course has to go via EA to MS/Sony for consoles.

great to see the devs really taking an interest in the community, looks like what is already a great game could be made outstanding!

 

[strtgng]

Hopefully a PS3 patch will follow!

 

[TheTechnobear]

yes, in the thread it does mention consoles, just more details about the PC, as its from the PC dev lead.

i think realistically though it could be perhaps 3 weeks aways, e.g. 1 week to finalise, then 2 weeks for ms/sony to certify (it took that long for tdu2 at least)
but who know, perhaps a nice surprise

 

[Pakt Sardine]

I love that they have community involvement. Sure, 2 years isn't a horribly long time, and they had a predecessor to work off of, but it's still a lot of hard work to put out a game. I'm glad that they are making an effort to respond to the community; not only in random patches and what not, but through communication as well.

 

[the_greeze]

Nice find Technobear 👍

 

[buziii]

Here's how that linked article read to me:

Hi,

My name is Martin Griffiths and I'm PC Lead on SHIFT 2 Unleashed. I'm going to use this post to give you some background on our engine and what's coming up in the first patch.

...blah, blah, blah...the upcoming patch...

Regards,
Griff

 

[Boyd12]

There is 1 place these people need to spend most of there time and that is the Official Forum, How dare these ***** go there and on Gt planet to realses info on a patch

There first place they should be letting people know of patches is the Official Forum

 

[Tagger]

It might be that Martin felt compelled to go somewhere besides an EA forum for an intelligent discussion with the community.

 

[Mulan]

Reply from Griff:

I can tell you that at least on Xbox 360 issues with Fanatec wheels are being addressed. (if you start the game with it plugged in, there is a bug in the driver that means FFB gets broken)

Regarding patchrelease:

The patch is nearly finished on the dev side in the next week. Then it'll go through EA QA. So, currently I would guess sometime between the 24th and 30th on past experience as a guide.

Wonder what this means?

Originally Posted by IanBell
I do recall the physics struggling with very short wheelbase cars actually. So there might be something low level going on that's barfing some numbers when the wheelbase is short. The S2000 is fine though IMO. We struggled to get the kart handling working well when we were doing Kart Attack so this could be related (although we blamed it on the lack of suspension at the time and fudged some chassis flex in).

We have a new from the ground up physics engine on the sidelines which we'll use for future products alongside an updated version of our current tyre model but in the meantime I'll have our guys look into this more.

 

[Boyd12]

It might be that Martin felt compelled to go somewhere besides an EA forum for an intelligent discussion with the community.

He does not need to have a discussion with the people over there does here, all he needs to do is post the patch fixes and close the thread and stick it.

People go to the OFFICIALForums for OFFICIALnews on patches and DLC

 

[TheTechnobear]

@Boyd12, its not official, EA are the only ones allowed to make offical annoucements (as publishers), this is just information direct from the developers - you may not like it, but its a big difference in the industry.

if youve ever worked for a large organisation, you will know that there are formal and informal channels, informal are faster but less accurate. e.g. we can see here there is a patch, but the devs cannot commit to a date, as it needs to go through EA.

thats why you have to find the informal channels

 

[TheTechnobear]

here, Griff has just posted the following

"A couple of people have asked why this discussion wasn't kicked off on the EA forums. The simple answer here is that 3rdparty developers need to go through EA to post on there, which is far from ideal. It's quite difficult to engage with your audience if everything has to be vetted.

So of course our dev-team have been following the feedback on the official forums - our silence there isn't a reflection that we don't care - it's just a product of that EA policy."

 

[Boyd12]

here, Griff has just posted the following

"A couple of people have asked why this discussion wasn't kicked off on the EA forums. The simple answer here is that 3rdparty developers need to go through EA to post on there, which is far from ideal. It's quite difficult to engage with your audience if everything has to be vetted.

So of course our dev-team have been following the feedback on the official forums - our silence there isn't a reflection that we don't care - it's just a product of that EA policy."

Cheers

 

[brambos]

here, Griff has just posted the following

"A couple of people have asked why this discussion wasn't kicked off on the EA forums. The simple answer here is that 3rdparty developers need to go through EA to post on there, which is far from ideal. It's quite difficult to engage with your audience if everything has to be vetted.

So of course our dev-team have been following the feedback on the official forums - our silence there isn't a reflection that we don't care - it's just a product of that EA policy."

Awesome! I love it when devs actively engage with the people who put trust in their products. 👍

 

[dice1998]

He does not need to have a discussion with the people over there does here, all he needs to do is post the patch fixes and close the thread and stick it.

People go to the OFFICIALForums for OFFICIALnews on patches and DLC

I'm not understanding why people make a big fuss with

devs actively engage with the people who put trust in their products.

. It's not like patch information won't be posted on their official forum. gawrsh man

 

[deftonesmx17]

More power to them! 👍👍👍👍👍

I love the fact that they are responding to the community and are so willing to do so that they avoid the political EA business side.

 

[brambos]

I'm not understanding why people make a big fuss with . It's not like patch information won't be posted on their official forum. gawrsh man

I'm also talking about Ian showing up in this very forum and responding to posts like a human being, rather than a PR-droid. 👍

 

[Tagger]

I don't own the game yet.....I went the NTG route with the intent to purchase this one later. Well, "later" has arrived after reading the discussion the devs are in at Nogrip.

 

[_Griff_]

here, Griff has just posted the following

"A couple of people have asked why this discussion wasn't kicked off on the EA forums. The simple answer here is that 3rdparty developers need to go through EA to post on there, which is far from ideal. It's quite difficult to engage with your audience if everything has to be vetted.

So of course our dev-team have been following the feedback on the official forums - our silence there isn't a reflection that we don't care - it's just a product of that EA policy."

Thanks Technobear for forwarding my post here I hope I don't get trolled as not being the real 'Griff' ...

 

[SalvadorDagi]

I don't own the game yet.....I went the NTG route with the intent to purchase this one later. Well, "later" has arrived after reading the discussion the devs are in at Nogrip.

I'll shoot you a friend request on PSN Tagger. I too bought NTG, but cant play it because of the caution/pitting under green bugs.

Until then you'll have a blast with autolog. Addictive.

PSN: Crijon

 

[tribolik]

We (here in Gtplanet) would also probably get more direct info from the devs if it wasnt for some smart #### users that opened threads bringing down the only dev (Ian Bell)that brough us some news about the upcoming patch...
Well, Im going to get this game on monday but Ill wait until the patch is out to start playing it

 

[FuriousDemon]

We (here in Gtplanet) would also probably get more direct info from the devs if it wasnt for some smart #### users that opened threads bringing down the only dev (Ian Bell)that brough us some news about the upcoming patch...
Well, Im going to get this game on monday but Ill wait until the patch is out to start playing it

Are you on the consoles? If so then yeah, probably better to wait for the patch. If you are on a high end PC I think you can start to play right away. I have very few issues with the game the way it is now and the upcoming patch will hopefully fix most of those, but the game is very playable right now.

 

[OLDSKOOLACURA]

I can't freaking wait

 

[tribolik]

Are you on the consoles? If so then yeah, probably better to wait for the patch. If you are on a high end PC I think you can start to play right away. I have very few issues with the game the way it is now and the upcoming patch will hopefully fix most of those, but the game is very playable right now.

Yes Im on the PS3 and Ive been waiting, first for the users reviews and after all the good and bad, Ive been waiting for a patch news (especialy because of the imput lag and FFB issues)
Now Ive decided to take the risk and buy the game (I enjoyed the first alot - except the dodgy physics and a few other issues)
Its just a shame that we (console users) cant get more info about the patch here and Im sure we would have if it wasnt for some users threads directedat Ian Bell, because we where in fact the first forum to get news about a patch from a SMS dev.

 

[TheTechnobear]

Thanks Technobear for forwarding my post here I hope I don't get trolled as not being the real 'Griff' ...

Yeah, I do find the aggressive nature of some forums a tad worrying.

Btw, loved how you dealt with it on the nogrip forum, seemed a few wouldn't put their money where there mouth was

 

[dice1998]

I'm also talking about Ian showing up in this very forum and responding to posts like a human being, rather than a PR-droid. 👍

Honestly, I'm glad the SMS team isn't just taking constructive feedback from solely their official forum.

Now if other developers (*cough*) would take their (SMS's) example, maybe some games would turn out better (less bugs, more content, etc.)

Not that no other developers do that, just not all developers do..or something

 

[jamiebird]

I've had Shift 2 on PS3 now for two weeks and yes I am sure it would benefit from a patch (but what game wouldn't). But it is very far from unplayable on a pad or a wheel. It handles differently to GT5 and strange as this may sound I think it just takes a while for your hand muscles to adjust and aquire a memory for this game - you have to be finer with your movements. You aslo need to be prepared to spend time tuning the car - which as a Need for Speed game makes perfect sense. This is a game that you need to spend time with to get the most out of.

 

[HKS racer]

My 2 priorities for the PS3 patch:
- A more stable frame rate.
- solve the issue with freezes.

 

[JackC8]

here, Griff has just posted the following

"A couple of people have asked why this discussion wasn't kicked off on the EA forums. The simple answer here is that 3rdparty developers need to go through EA to post on there, which is far from ideal. It's quite difficult to engage with your audience if everything has to be vetted.

So of course our dev-team have been following the feedback on the official forums - our silence there isn't a reflection that we don't care - it's just a product of that EA policy."

That may prevent them from having an ongoing discussion with people, but it's absolutely no excuse for not posting an announcement about the patch.

I just hope they fix the arcadey oversteer on the cars. But I'm sure they won't.

And what's this about a "new from the ground up physics engine on the sidelines"? They claimed this game had an entirely new physics engine (which was going to provide us with the most realistic driving simulation experience ever), but now they're saying they've created a second physics engine already? WTF?!?!

 

[BryantFC]

"Originally Posted by Griff
It's clear from some of the posts here, that after input lag which should be resolved in the upcoming patch, that the FFB issues should be high-up in the priorities. I'm going to bump this internally - ultimately though the process is that EA requests we address bugs that have been entered by them in their database as the highest priority : which means it's worth making some noise on the EA forums, to ensure they get the time they deserve."

👍