Saints Row patched

By Rob Fahey Published 1 September, 2006

Mostly multiplayer fixes

I'm going to try and write this news story without a single childish, puerile reference to "multiplayer gang-banging", a phrase which I believe our American brethren take to mean something entirely different to what it means among sniggering, smutty types up and down the land here in the British Isles. It's going to be hard. Wish me luck.

After all manner of reports about technical problems with the multiplayer mode in its next-generation GTA-'em-up title Saints Row, developer Volition has reassured fans that it's hard at work on a patch which will have them popping caps in recalcitrant asses all over Xbox Live in no time.

The patch, whose existence was revealed in a post on the studio's own website, will fix a number of single and multiplayer game issues, with the chief improvements to the multiplayer aspects being better network latency, fixing connection ratings so that more large-party games are possible, and sorting out the matchmaking system to get people into games faster.

"At this time, we have no ETA on when the update will be available," the post reads. "We want it to be available soon, but we also want to make sure it addresses as many issues as possible."

There you go! Didn't I do well! No? Oh.

Picture of Rob.

About Rob Fahey

Rob Fahey is a former editor of GamesIndustry.biz who spent several years living in Japan and probably still has a mint condition Dreamcast Samba de Amigo set.

Read more articles from Rob by visiting the Rob Fahey archive page.

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Comments (25) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • sharpfish #1 6 years ago

    oh dear, the demo sucked anyway so I'm well off out of it.

    However, what are things coming to when even consoles are no longer safe from "release now patch later" development. 90% of the time, companys know about bugs but ship anyway knowing they can patch later (PC, recent consoles). Suddenly the SNES seems like the future!

  • morriss #2 6 years ago

    No single player info? i.e. what will be fixed?

  • Hughes. #3 6 years ago

    @sharpfish

    That was my worry when the last generation of consoles touted their online connectivity. When Star Wars Battlefront refused to work online without having a 2.6 Meg patch taking over a third of a memory card I knew it had come true. And now Hard Drives are to be a console standard it can really only get worse.

    Console games are supposed to just work. If this becomes a regular feature of games I'll be waiting till they've been out at least a month, and anything that needs parching, I'll refuse to buy it. I can only hope consumer power might keep the practice to a minimum, but people always want to have the latest shiniest game on release day, so there's not much hope of it.

    Welcome to the future.

  • OnlyMe #4 6 years ago

    You know, I was nosing around for some clues on a certain bug I encountered. It's only showing 4:3 on my 16:9 Sony WEGA CRT SDTV. Anyway, here's a reply I found to someone who's mailed them. I particulary thought the last line was funny.

    "This is a known issue and will be patched via xbox live. You do not
    need to be an xbox live paying member to receive patches via live. I
    apologize, this should never have gotten through our QA, THQ's QA, and
    Microsoft's QA. Apparently it was a bug introduced because of a last
    minute fix required by Microsoft. We are very embarrassed about it."

  • jeff #5 6 years ago

    are they going to fix the screen tearing problem,seems pretty bad to me

  • alpha-0ne #6 6 years ago

    what a misleading title.. 'Sains Row Patch Planned' would of been better

  • morriss #7 6 years ago

    what a misleading title.. 'Sains Row Patch Planned' would of been better

    Just abut to type that. I re-read the title and had to re-read the article as I thought I might've missed the bit where it'd been released.

  • CrunchinJelly #8 6 years ago

    Good game, but I've sat there for 10 minutes waiting to get into a Live game and nothing's ever happened. :'(

  • Xerx3s #9 6 years ago

    Press 'start'?

  • Darren #10 6 years ago

    Saint's Row is a fantastic game (if a tad glitchy and unpolished at times) but, honestly, I'm fed up of buying Xbox 360 games, only to have issues with it and then have to wait upto two months for the developers to patch it. Why the feck can't they play test the bloody things BEFORE they ship the games?

  • Jonathan_Fakenham #11 6 years ago

    So it's out in Europe, then?
    I couldn't find it today.

  • alpha-0ne #12 6 years ago

    "Good game, but I've sat there for 10 minutes waiting to get into a Live game and nothing's ever happened. :'(

    Where you trying to play a player match or ranked match? there are lots of people playing ranked matches... i played 4 games of 12 player 'protect the pimp' and waited no longer than 1 min for the room to fill/start of game
    Edited by alpha-0ne at 02/09/06 @ 02:06

  • Calgon #13 6 years ago

    Well sandbox games have always been know for glitches, add online play and your looking at alot of possible bugs, they should have delayed it though(as should the examples from last gen) IMO, this was bein recieved really well by fans by the looks of things so its a shame if they ruined their chance by putting out a bugfest(although if the single player is solid enough they could be fine... theres no multiplayer without live so it shouldnt be too hard for those gamers to play the single player while waiting for this patch).

    Im not worried about the patching thing, atleast until reviewers begin to ignore them, even the casuals will catch onto it if it becomes as regular as some here have suggested(sales will drop, image and reputations damaged ect.).

  • texx #14 6 years ago

    what about when you try to crack a safe and some one starts to shoot you, you can not exit out of the safe cracking mode and just watch helplessly as you die

  • krudster #15 6 years ago

    Press down on the dpad to exit...

  • Beano #16 6 years ago

    "People on this site love to complain about anything. It's a good game end of story. "

    And some people will accept any bugs and glithces in games.

  • OnlyMe #17 6 years ago

    I'm not complaining much, though I havent' tried the online part yet. It's just that, when I buy a game for a next-gen console, I feel that I have the right to demand that the widescreen mode's working at least.

  • BBIAJ #18 6 years ago

    Widescreen works fine in standard definition, yay for me!

  • moggsy #19 6 years ago

    Online multiplayer games must be difficult to test fully before the game is released and thousands of people are playing it. This means patches are inevitable.

    This situation should however improve as game makers get more and more experience of what works and what doesn't work on Xbox Live.

  • steoc4 #20 6 years ago

    Ok, if it's as simple as people make out(and it's really not), they release the game now, and you have perfect single player and buggy multiplayer now, to be replaced by perfect single player and perfect multiplayer a month from now.

    Or, they release the game a month from now, and you have absolutely nothing now, and end up waiting an extra month and paying the same amount for the game with fixed multiplayer in a months time.

    So what's so bad about the patch? Not to mention that online features with many players and many different types of connections all over the world are very hard to rigorously test internally.

    I rather have a console that I know will download patches and fix games when bugs are found, than one that if the game has a bug, your stuck with it forever.

  • steoc4 #21 6 years ago

    What's so bad about having a 'near-perfect' game for a month and then have it patched?

    I've been playing single player to death in the last few days and I haven't come across any bugs. So clearly I'm enjoying the game far more right now than I would be if it was still unreleased.

  • Hughes. #22 6 years ago

    Once upon a time, in a magical Kingdom, a thing called "The Sale of Goods Act" came into being. Among other good things it said...

    "Wherever goods are bought they must "conform to contract". This means they must be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality (i.e. not inherently faulty at the time of sale)."

    "Aspects of quality include fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, appearance and finish, durability and safety."

    And lo! the epeople of the magical kingdom saw that it was a good thing, and protected them from being sold shoddy tat. But their happiness was not to last forever, for one day a thing called "The Internet" came along, and now things could be sold that didn't work properly, on the promise that they would be mended with "patches" later. And for some reason, people tolerated this shitehawk practice, and it was bad.

    People who played games on consoles went about their lives happily, unaware of the creep of this shameful practice. Then one day a company called Microsoft decided that consoles should be more like PCs, and thus it was. And many people bought these consoles that were more like PCs, and they were happy.

    Then the games on consoles stopped being delayed until they were actually finished, and the "patches" began to spread like a plague across the land, and the people saw that this was TAKING THE FUCKING PISS AND SHOULD FUCK RIGHT OFF!

    ...and that's the end of my story.

  • darkbhudda #23 6 years ago

    There is some pop up in the single game which is noticeable when a wall suddenly appears right in front of you while you are driving. And I have magically teleported to another part of the map before.

    But it is still fun and way better graphics and controls than GTA.

    Plus it is available in Oz.

    Edited by darkbhudda at 04/09/06 @ 00:48

  • kangarootoo #24 6 years ago

    @Tayl

    Its not so simple as just delaying release. Time costs money and a game that goes over schedule is a problem. Its rare that anyone would delay the release of a game over something so lightweight as lag on a network game.

    Plus a developer can't just delay release if the publisher says no. I am sure there are loads of people out there enjoying the game right now. So in this instance, it seems a patch is the right way to go.

    Also, the problem may not have even been visible until the game was released and thousands of people tried to play online. No QA department has the resources to test network game in a completely realistic environment. Thats why companies run public beta tests, to see how things behave when hundreds of gamers are online at once.

    If you want to boycott the game until the patch is available then that's your right of course. Just saying the reasons this sort of things happens is not so straight forward as you are assuming.
    Edited by kangarootoo at 04/09/06 @ 10:48

  • Mashum #25 6 years ago

    @Hughes

    That may be a bit of an over reaction - I've played the game for about 10hrs and have not found anything that could be described as a showstopper bug in the single player game.

    I'm a reasonable man and Saints Row is in my experience 'of satisfactory quality', it's certainly 'fit for purpose' and it is 'as described' in as much as marketing ever describe things truthfully.

    Not that I would want to deprive you of your ranting, it's what the Internet was made for!