Driveclub has experienced a disastrous launch, but at least the game’s director is trying to keep fans informed.
The PlayStation 4-exclusive racer released last week, but gamers have struggled to access the game’s online features, with most reduced to playing strictly offline. Game director Paul Rustchynsky, from developer Evolution Studios, took to Twitter this weekend, responding to player concerns and trying to explain what exactly what’s going on. It’s a notable step, but it might not save Sony’s entry from last place in this fall’s driving game showdown.
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He explained that they have started deploying a patch for the game, and it will be available region-by-region over the next few days once Sony has tested and approved it. This won’t fix the problems completely, which are mainly down to the game’s servers, but it will address them in part.
“We’ve got the team working extremely hard trying to address the problems,” said Rustchynsky. “We understand just how serious this is.”
He explained that 120 members of the game studio are working “around the clock,” but added: “We have been working all weekend, and we are making progress, but it’s proving to be a challenging issue to address.”
So it looks like the issues are not easy to fix, and it’s unclear when the game will be fully playable. There is also no word on when the cut-back PlayStation Plus edition of the game, free to anyone subscribing to Sony’s PlayStation Plus online service, will arrive.
You can read some of Rustchynsky’s most revealing tweets below:
@Miiyuu80 The main problem is a concurrency. The amount of activity per player means we're having to limit the number of online connections.
— Paul Rustchynsky (@Rushy33) October 11, 2014
@LuRey28 We've got the team working extremely hard trying to address the problems, we understand just how serious this is.
— Paul Rustchynsky (@Rushy33) October 12, 2014
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@KrisTheKritik @PanTheMan16 We have been working all weekend & we are making progress but its proving to be a challenging issue to address.
— Paul Rustchynsky (@Rushy33) October 12, 2014
@Rustinat0r We have almost 120 people working at Evolution, and they're working round the clock to fix things.
— Paul Rustchynsky (@Rushy33) October 11, 2014
#DRIVECLUB game update 1.03 is live. “Implements several game-side fixes to reduce server load” This will help us resolve the online issues.
— Paul Rustchynsky (@Rushy33) October 11, 2014
@PanTheMan16 It'll rolled out region by region, hopefully it'll be available worldwide soon.
— Paul Rustchynsky (@Rushy33) October 11, 2014
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@Nilliz85 The patch is to help us resolve the issues, it won't fix things immediately as the major fixes have to be done server side.
— Paul Rustchynsky (@Rushy33) October 11, 2014