Evolution has posted a further update on the status on Driveclub, and the ongoing issues that have plagued the game’s online portion since it launched last week. In this update the studio states that a further server update will be rolling out within the next 24 hours, and once that is done more of the online portions of Driveclub will be switched on. It’s unclear what parts will become available. whether it’s the challenges or the online racing, or both.
There still is no update on the PlayStation Plus edition and when that will release though. Full Evolution statement is below.
Continual upgrades to the DRIVECLUB servers are building a steady increase in performance, meaning that we’re getting more and more players connected.
The next server update is coming within 24 hours and will mean we can start to switch on more of the online features, so that you will be able to play more of DRIVECLUB online.
We are sorry that we don’t have more concrete news to share right now, but please be patient. We will have more information for you tomorrow.
Source: Facebook
camdaz
Glad they’re getting on top of this.
I managed two online races this afternoon but in Tour mode it keeps connecting and dropping every few minutes.
Mr Blighty
Also glad to see common sense being applied. Quite clearly releasing the ps+ version now, before the servers have been hardened would be a big mistake, and a diservice to anyone that PAID for the game. The FREE version should be held back as long as needed.
three_leg_jake
Maybe they should’ve released the FREE version first to act as a beta for the PAID version?
dave87fez
What’re the odds on the update being delayed? :o)
Avenger
To be honest, the guys at Evolution sound like they’re doing everything they can to sort the issue out. What’s happened has happened, and sorting out the online issues this quick is admirable. Hopefully it won’t be long until the Online is now ship shape and proper.
Scum86
Honestly, it’s been almost a week since the game was released. And it’s still not stable. Pre-order bonuscars are still unavailable to download. I think it’s a mess and they should be ashamed. This is the reason you have beta’s.
Avenger
Well I did say what’s happened has happened. There’s no denying Evolution have made some mistakes, but it’s already done and they’re clearly doing the best they can. It probably doesn’t garner much faith from fans and expecting players, but the way forward with DC is cleaner than release mess. It has only been 4 full days here in the UK as well since release (though more for the US perhaps).
smoke14
Dynamic weather when is that coming.
TSBonyman
It’s amazing how many people seem to have become experts on game development since the launch.
Anyway, i took a break today to read the credit roll, almost everyone on the team had dedicated a message to their families and loved ones when they had completed development, a great number of the messages being along the lines of “Hey kids finally you get your daddy/mummy back!”. It struck a chord with me and reminded me how dedicated the Evolution team were to their job that they lost out spending time with their loved ones for up to months at a time.
And not just Evolution, but of course all game studios must have the same dedication and make the same sacrifices. I knew this already, we’ve all seen stories about this sort of sacrifice before , but somehow it is easily forgotten amongst all the moaning and whinging. And there has been plenty of that. Definitely people are entitled to be upset if they bought the game and it’s not working as promised but there is a significant portion of commentary on the web which is really misplaced and seemingly without any grasp of logic or comprehension of reality, expecting a magic wand to be waved so they can have their free plus version NOW DAMMIT! (no wait – it’s not free, it must amount to around 2% of the annual PS+ subscription, right? A simple check down the back of the sofa may recoup their ‘loss’)
Now. everyone including myself feels let down that the plus version didn’t arrive on time – and rightly so – but it’s that element of entitlement, and seeming inability to comprehend reality which sickens me and makes me empathise with Evolution all the more. It must be absolutely gut-wrenching for them to find themselves in this situation after all their dedication, hard work and sacrifices.
Right now, i’m thoroughly enjoying Driveclub and i look forward to when they can get everything working according to their original vision, not to mention all the additional content they have planned for the next twelve months.
And as i said above, it’s not just Evolution, i’ll be keeping this thought in mind for any developer who has teething problems with a new game launch in future.
So anyway, that’s my opinion, any thoughts from my fellow TSA’ians?
bunimomike
Staggeringly well put. Needs nailing to the front page of every gaming website.
freezebug2
I once spent a whole weekend typing in the code copied from a computer magazine for a simple game on either ZX81 or Vic 20 (don’t recall) and it failed to load…bastard!
So I’m an expert dev, no? :P
Joking aside, great post Bony which I have agree with. A valid summary of the current and future state of play ;)
Mr Blighty
Far too many bedroom experts on the internet, their whole knowledge based on what they read online, without any real understanding or questioning sadly, desperately wishing their career choices hadn’t lead them to a job at McDonald’s.
hol
Great post, agree entirely
Carrot381
Driveclub – from 0 to Outrage in under 3 secs.
boeboe
I agree, there is a lack of compassion towards developers, I guess its easy to forget there are people making these things. That said I’ve read some very nice positive tweets and thank you’s to Rushy in reply to the work they’re doing to fix it.
TSBonyman
Thanks folks, it was a late night comment and i woke up this morning hoping i had been fair! :)
xIONx
The sickening reality is I paid £46 for a game that relies heavily on multiplayer that actually didn’t have multiplayer day one.
Sure you can use lots of fancy analogies and reference people with Ebola to put some moral juxtaposition on this but in the context of the gaming world, this is just a mess. I can’t think of other industries where you buy something and then open the box to find 50% of the product missing and you are berated for being angry about it. If you buy a packet of biscuits and half are missing you have numerous legal routes to seek rectification but in gaming we get tweet apologies because we should understand, “we’re community”.
Evolution better announce the compensation plans quite soon, not that it will affect my future decision to preordered or buy their games ever again. They join DICE in the “go fuck yourself you money-grabbing bastards” category.
Synthetic stress test? I say that the actual comment that they stress tested is synthetic. It is so implausible that they got this so wrong.
KAZ: “Ooh ooh Forza is out and getting favourable reviews, shit we don’t have a decent driving game to combat that quickly push driveclub out”
Evolution :” err but we haven’t stress tested the servers yes Kaz san”
Kaz: “sorry I couldn’t hear you I was too busy getting a driveclub promo picture with me holding a joypad to my chest, cuz ya know, I’m 4 the gamers”
bunimomike
After working with programmers the whole of my career so far, it’s definitely plausible for things like this to happen. The sad truth is that there are so many variables happening in software like this that things often go completely tits-up when launched. You fix it, learn from it and move on – hopefully with the knowledge that the same mistake won’t happen again with whatever you work on.
They stress tested the servers but Rushy (from Evolution) has been mentioning that the server load isn’t the problem, per se. It’s to do with the code that handles the game on the servers.
The last company I worked in had twelve or so programmers creating software that 250 IT staff couldn’t match (at a huge British company). The software was fantastic but still had teething troubles when launched.
Sadly, when Evolution get around to a thorough debrief, I reckon they’ll find 50% of things they could have avoided which would have made this whole fiasco a lot easier to swallow.
double-o-dave
Thats pretty much like what I’ve experienced through the years working with programmers, coders or techies whatever you call them. Sometimes the only way to test things was just to make it live and live in hope.
The biggest issue I used to see was the fact they all use to write and build their own code and scripts in their own way to the extent that only they could understand it and if they disappeared off on holiday and something went wrong it’d take a collaboration of about 5 of them to fix the issue by literally writing new code or scripts instead of correcting it.
I’m sure a lot of them did it purposely so they were almost indispensable. lol
TSBonyman
Thanks Mike and Dave for your insight from having worked alongside the industry to one degree or another.
Avenger
I tend to agree with you about the degree of moaning and whinging, which doesn’t really follow an attitude of forgiving and forgetting a mistake, especially because as you clearly illustrate, the Devs are human like the rest of us.
However, people have got the right to purchase and product and expect it to function as described. As far as I’m aware (this isn’t my speciality) a great many people can return their copies for a refund. It doesn’t matter that Evolution are sorting it out, it’s that the product released doesn’t function as intended at the current moment in time.
Looking at it from the consumer’s point of view, an individual has been really excited to invest their money in DC in anticipation for it’s release. They’ve had a massive let down.
I agree that some comments might be misplaced, but an awful lot of them seem founded upon the fact that they didn’t get what they should’ve got. To an extent, this is Sony all over at the moment.
TSBonyman
I hope people read my entire comment and realise that it was in no way directed at those who have a right to complain.
Avenger
Yeah I read it fully. I just didn’t think the Devs’ hard work and sacrifices excuses the mistakes made and people’s right to get annoyed by the issue. It’s an excellent point you made, and I sometimes get frustrated by people’s seemingly misplaced and harsh comments on the net.
The hard work is a factor which I think a lot of people underestimate with games in general. I did a couple of years of programming and it was extremely tough, and that was with a baseline engine to build upon. These guys in the industry are sometimes building from scratch, and with the complexity of next generation scale and design, getting where Evolution has got to is a real achievement. It’s just a shame that server load of all things hampered things a little bit.
TSBonyman
Ah, good stuff, that comment wasn’t specifically aimed at you btw but thanks for taking the time to reply.
Geffdof23
I’m picking up a ps4 today with drive club, knowing that the online mode won’t be working properly. I just figure I can get some practice in single player. It’s a shame games don’t seem to work on day one anymore, but that’s the unfortunate tend of recent years.
FluBBa
I really enjoyed the racing in Driveclub but the base of the game is a mess. I would be cool if the online servers were the only thing not working but the game more or less requires online servers to work. You have no local leaderboards, no local statistics of your favorite car/track. Segment records/ghosts in Drifting are broken when the servers doesn’t work.
I thought Sony had learned a thing or two after the debacle with the Xbone requiring always online, I wasn’t afraid that peoples connection would be down but more that the “game” servers would be down affecting millions of people at the same time.
And the pre-order bonus… that was useful, not.
Severn2j
I cracked and bought the game yesterday and even without the online option, I’m still having a lot of fun with it. It’ll be nice when they get the servers sorted out tho, I’m interested to see how the online side of it works.
Crazy_Del
@TSBonyman is spot on but you have got to remember that if they are working really hard and trying to resolve these issues and keep us informed about what is happening that is fine, I don’t mind as long as there is information for us to receive. Looking back Test Drive (connection/server issue and no Casino DLC) they gave up I sold the game but wanted a full refund, Fifa Vita (Platinum unobtainable) it is not an online trophy it’s the offline where you have to win all home stadium and no one can get the Platinum, mind this is 2 years ago, still waiting so I can trade this stupid broken trophy game. There is also SBK that I hear a single trophy won’t unlock. And lastly my huge disappointment game was Arkham Origins where the Multiplayer is unplayable and Warner Brothers stated that buying the recent DLC will resolve the Multiplayer issues, no chance luckily I got the Platinum by boosting after trying to connect for so many hours!!! These are the kind that does not deliver or keep us updated as they have moved on despite the fact that we paid for a fully working game!
It is not directly at you TSbonyman its at Devs as long as they are working around the clock and keeping us posted is what we all want and Evolution are doing that. I am loving Drive Club offline as I am learning the tracks and trying to unlock better cars for Multiplayer when it is up and running. I know they are working hard on it and in time it will be up and running soon ;) I just wish the games I have mentioned must be fixed especially Fifa Vita for me and Test Drive is long gone…… Also Arkham for all fans/trophy hunters.
TSBonyman
Thanks for your thoughts Del, wish i could respond more to everyone but i’m at work atm.
bunimomike
I have to give Rushy credit. He’s been tweeting quite a bit to make sure people understand what’s going on. God knows, some other devs would provide pure silence then something days later with some half-explained nonsense. Evolution definitely want two-way comms with the community. It’s just that people need to stay relatively calm.
subcat
As disappointed as I am that i can’t take full advantage of Driveclub’s features, these issues really need to be put in perspective. Undoubtedly mistakes were made, lessons should be learnt, wider beta testing and less dependency on the cloud for a start, and those effected should be compensated. Evolution and Sony never set out to sell a broken product, and are undoubtedly working round the clock to resolve this, and I have every confidence they will. Analogies with packets of “biscuits” are moot. The amount of biscuits in the pack aren’t determined by the number of people who buy them and decide to open them on the same day. In reality this problem isn’t unique to games. There are plenty of examples of products and services that don’t fully function from day one. The difference is the gaming community has one of the biggest sounding boxes on the net.