Patches in the works for MLB 2K8
March 14, 2008 by pastapadre
Game Informer has gotten official word from Take Two/2K Sports regarding several patches that are currently being worked on for the 360 and PS3 versions of MLB 2K8. Specifically mentioned are the framerate and the Padres’ roster glitch. Lets look at a few parts of the statement that was made with my translation following.
It has come our attention that there are a few technical issues within Major League Baseball 2K8 that may effect gameplay enjoyment for some players.
We shipped a game with full knowledge of serious problems that affect all players.
Specifically, the Xbox 360 update will alleviate reported concerns with the framerate to greatly improve the in-game playability
We know that The Show owns the PS3 so no point in bothering there right?
While a patch for both the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 will correct an error in Franchise mode when playing as the San Diego Padres and attempting to move players to and from their minor league rosters.
These updates are currently undergoing technical review, and will be available to download shortly, free of charge.
Two weeks would be a good estimate. Sorry to anyone who doesn’t have their consoles hooked up to the internet.
It’s good news that patches are coming but still disappointing that the game was released with an immediate need just to get it playing to a satisfactory level. There are probably even more things that will be addressed in the patches that they did not want to list out, but sadly no mention was made concerning the disastrous online play performance or lobby challenges freezing consoles.
isn’t the framerate just as bad or even worse on the ps3? why would they only try a fix for the 360?
I wonder if the patch will also fix framerate 4 online? I know lag is different, but I play mostly online and want the framerate fixed there as well…
Fixing games after they have been released is becoming a bad trend in the video game market. At what point did we start paying $60 to become beta testers for the industry. You can’t tell me that 2k sports did not know about the framerate issue before they released the game. I understand that games have schedules they have to meet, but yearly sport game releases are pretty clear. Baseball comes out in late February or Early march every year. There are no surprises. It was pretty obvious that 2k sports was not ready to release MLB 2k8 in January. We didn’t see any video until a month before it was released. We didn’t see a demo in early February. Would it have killed 2k to release the game in late March? At least the rosters would have been right and the game would have been fun to play out of the box.
And while I’m on this rant, why can’t they get difficult right for sport games. How hard is it to tune a game correctly from pro to all-star so that you win 4-3 instead of 12-1. I get killed on all-star 8 or 9 to 1 but I destroy them on pro. It’s really easy actually. Don’t give them a homerun or double on every meatball I through when I’m pitching and make the pitchers make mistakes in the middle of the plate when I’m batting. It’s abosolutely amazing that the testers don’t notice this. I understand that there are sliders, but I want to be able to play a game out of the box that makes sense. I understand that there are sliders for adjustment, but without a numbering scheme it makes it difficult to adjust year to year. Madden seems to get difficulty right out of the box and if you don’t like it, you can find a forum with some slider numbers that work pretty darn good.
The “why” is easy - Take Two is a public company and their product HAS to ship on time, whether it’s working or not. Same is true for EA which has had more than it’s fair share of half baked products ship as well ..
IMHO the whole model for sports games is broken. The “new” game release every year may have worked back in the day, but with every rachet up in complexity of hardware, which allow for dozens of new features and nuances, which allow for more and more opportunity for mistakes … well, it’s not a good design as a business model
So what we get are buggy products, that are often rehashs of existing games with a new “feature” tacked on rather awkwardly to an old engine
Reading Brinkman’s interviews last year you could tell he was shocked at how bad the situation was with 2K6, I’m sure he would have liked to junk the whole thing and start from stratch, but there are budgets and shareholders to consider and in sports gaming it’s just not feasible anymore
I’d much prefer a radically updated, smoothly running, new engine every 2-3 years with (for pay) updates in the off years. But as long as people are shelling out $60 for last year’s game repackaged there’s no way it’ll come to pass
2nd unplayable game (2k6,2k8) that 2k has released. Just delay the game til its ready. With the Show a PS3 exclusive, 360 owner have no choice but to wait. Delaying a game is not a sin.
VooDoo… I am TOTALLY with you on the 3 year development cycle. Imagine the great games we’d get when they came out. Hopefully someone in one of these companies will eventually get the stones to show a business model like this to the brass at the top. I’m sure when you take out packaging, distribution and retail overhead, they’d still make a profit on a $15 download/update during the off-years.
That’s great that the framerate will be fixed. Now all the flyball doubles and HRs will look better.
Pasta, first thanks for the update. Great to have a reliable site like this. Second was there any mention about the patch regarding the franchise mode freezing? I read an article on Gamespot.com saying that “twice a person started a franchise, played a few games, and then wasn’t able to play past a certain date and had to start all over again.” Any mention of this because I am reluctant to start a franchise until this problem gets fixed.
“And while I’m on this rant, why can’t they get difficult right for sport games. How hard is it to tune a game correctly from pro to all-star so that you win 4-3 instead of 12-1. I get killed on all-star 8 or 9 to 1 but I destroy them on pro. It’s really easy actually. Don’t give them a homerun or double on every meatball I through when I’m pitching and make the pitchers make mistakes in the middle of the plate when I’m batting. It’s abosolutely amazing that the testers don’t notice this. I understand that there are sliders, but I want to be able to play a game out of the box that makes sense. I understand that there are sliders for adjustment, but without a numbering scheme it makes it difficult to adjust year to year.”
They did do a good job of this if you use the buttons to pitch. I play on legend and my games are 6-5,4-3, 2-0 all the time. There aren’t 6 home runs per game like in MLB2K7. If you are using the stick to pitch however, you are absolutely right, its way off. Try pitching down in the zone on almost every pitch too. If you pitch from the middle up that’s when you get the fly balls and home runs. Pitching down in the zone creates a lot of grounders and line drives for base hits, hardly any home runs unless you’re pitching to A-Rod. I was looking at my stats under my profile and more than 60% of balls hit into the field were on the ground.
The question that keeps running through my mind is, “Why in the world did they let this happen?” Meaning, were they seriously not aware that the game was not playing, “the way it was meant to be played?”
Something happened with this game. Either the team behind developing it simply gave up, they are just sloppy developers or they ran out of time. Also, is it a stretch that, in light of a possible buyout, team moral dropped?
I happen to really like this game. I have a set of sliders that’s working great, giving me very balanced results. I’m just surprised at how sloppy this game was at release.
We know that The Show owns the PS3 so no point in bothering there right?
^^^ Classic
so they’re not going to fix the framerate issue on the ps3 version?
This isn’t anything new…..2k sports posted this weeks ago.
Not news wrote:
Uh, no. 2K didn’t say that the PS3 was being ignored, or that the Padres franchise thing was going to be fixed, or that it was in technical review. All that was said was “there is currently an issue with framerate which is being worked on”. This is finally something reliable and not from a sketchy source.
Has anybody tried to throw a pitchout (x button) and had it tossed right down the middle? Gave up a HR online last night b/c of this and I’ve been wondering if it’ll happen again…BTW, great job Pasta once again!
sounds to me like 2k took a page out of EA SPORTS book on half assing a product better pick it up 2k. thats all im gonna say.
I played a game online lastnight and it seemed to play much better than before– I think something was fixed because a lot of the transition cut scenes aresmooth now–there are still issues but its at least playable now
2K has lost my business forever after this move. I will never buy another 2K game again.
Stride8 wrote:
I noticed this too but thought maybe I was seeing things. I logged onto Xbox Live for the first time since getting the game (I only have silver account) and was prompted to download an update. When I then went to play a game OFFLINE the game seemed to play smoother. There was still some slight framerate issues, but much better than before. I also was NOT using the VIP workaround.
I still love my NHL 2K8 =)
Im hoping they’ll put Pence, Braun, and all the guys that should have portraits in the update.
there is no reason for them to have generic faces… its just a pet peeve of mine for some reason
GoASUDevils wrote:
well you better put EA on the list as well cause they are gonna do the same this year with 09 titles.
It’s gonna take one hell of a patch to get me to dust this game off!
Pasta if you can eloborate…
Are we to believe that 2k will NOT patch and address the HORRIBLE framerate issues for us PS3 users?
if i didnt have a ps3 and the show, i would probably be dusting off the nintendo and firing up baseball stars right about now. hahaha
tomba321 wrote:
I only know what they’re statement was, which specifically says the 360 will be getting the framerate, while the PS3/360 will get the Padres glitch fixed. Sure seems like they would’ve stated that both were getting the framerate patch if that was the plan (or would’ve gotten Game Informer to post a correction).
2K is turning into crap….
pastapadre wrote:
Not fixing the ps3 version is slap in the face of the ps3 user
2K8 animations and visuals are terrible and the game itself looks awful, and will so do even with a patch. It is a joke that they ever released 2K6, 2K7 and now the crappy 2K8, but is even more joke that in 3 years they have not been able to put things right to have at least current-gen animations. Sure the game is playable, but no much more than that.
no team play tonight?
dbb wrote:
there is .
Again, I have no idea why 2K rushed this game out if it wasn’t done. There is no need to release a sports game an entire month before the season starts if it means that the developers have more time to fix obvious issues.
No one can say they were racing the release of The Show since that is a one console horse….
As amazing as the football and baseketball games are from 2K, baseball is not….
Is there anyway to get the patch without life like with the xchange or something because I don’t have live and am kind of screwed here it seems.
Eski wrote:
Its possible that 2K was mandated by their licensing agreement to release by or on a specific date. That doesn’t excuse problems like the framerate though which was clear months in advance.
I truly wish 2k is no more…
I dont know about you guys, but Im having a boat load of fun with this game. Im taking the opportunity (while online is unbearable) to amass a nice card team. Im confident they will address the server woes.
As for all-star difficulty being too hard. I once had this oppinion, but then I gradually got better at pitching. It has taken some time to get used to, but I I have since pitched shutouts and finally got my nohitter (w/ Chris Carpenter.) I still throw my share of meatballs, especially when trying the verious curveball motions (there are 3 different ones Ive come across.) This is all on all-star. I do a fantasy draft, not the first 25 picks either. Im still working on egtting the cycle, the throw out someone stealing, and block the plate from getting bowled over achievments.
I like 2k8 much better than 2k7.
I agree Honkimon - this is a faraway better game than 2K7 and I too am enjoying it. Am about 20 games into my franchise mode, while also a couple relivers away from having a Card Team ready to go
My guess is most of the people “slamming” the game either:
A) Never played it
B) Played about 5 games and gave up due to choppy presentation and difficulty with new controls
C) Just like piling on
There is no excuse for releasing a game that’s in the state it’s in with online play (not that that’s ever stopped other companies from doing it routinely)
I find the choppy frame rate beef complaints a little over-the-top. Honestly I’ve never had it affect gameplay issues, and I just don’t watch the end game highlight reel
Still - nothing feeds an Internet message board better than inflammatory exaggeration
CrimsonVoodoo
“I’d give the game a B-, fix the chop and online, an A”
When I first bought 2k8, I found myself hitting way to many homeruns just like last year. Once I switched the batting controls back to classic however, I found it to be much more realistic with a greater variety of hits. Most of the games that I’ve been playing now have actually been low scoring with only two or three homeruns by both teams combined.
hey while at it patch the crowd as well cause thats bananas and fix the white face pictures as well..leave the screwin up to EA SPORTS which they do so well..2k your better than that you know it
Nice work Pasta. I’d ask you to put your translation spin on each press release from EA regarding the issues with their yearly sports titles, but then, EA don’t even acknowledge them, let alone release a statement.