Community Patch and the Return of Demo Derby
GRID Community,
Today we’ve got some news which we’ll hope you enjoy as much as we’ve enjoyed the enthusiasm you’ve shown for GRID 2.
We have two game updates coming soon which have both been driven by that feedback. One is an extensive Community Patch which we hope will go a long way to improving everyone’s experience in the game. The other is a returning game mode from the original GRID which we’ll be releasing for free – we’re excited to let you know that Demo Derby is on its way to GRID 2!
When we say that these are driven by your feedback, we mean it – we really do hear everything that you say and we value your feedback immensely. For instance, in the previous patch your car ghosting when you’re applied with a corner cutting penalty is something that stemmed directly from feedback from the community. The next patch is full of further examples of features you’ve been asking for. We expect it to be released sometime in August, dependent on Submission timings and we’ll let you know a more specific date the closer we get.
But first, let’s talk about some of what will be coming in the Community Patch.
Community Patch
Custom Playlist
We want to make the Custom Playlist a more worthwhile experience and as such we’ve made a change that increases the amount of experience and money you get for participating.
This will ensure that you are no longer penalised for wanting to opt out of the Online Playlists and you’ll now be able to race the way you want to race, with no hindrance to your online progression.
We'll be keeping an eye on how it goes and if needed we'll validate it with yourselves and adjust further should it be deemed necessary.
Hardcore Playlist
We’ve heard your feedback regarding the online playlists and once the patch hits there’ll be an additional playlist for you to select.
Called ‘Hardcore’, this playlist will remove the use of flashbacks and turn on full mechanical damage. It will also prioritise race events around circuits. Think you’re an elite racer? Go hardcore and prove it.
Level Cap
If you’ve hit level 30 online you’ll be pleased to know that we’re now giving you the ability to progress even further. The online level cap will be raised to 99...good luck!
Fastest Lap Times
The addition of fastest lap times is something we’ve heard come up again and again and as a result we’re pleased to confirm that they will now display at the end of an event on the race results screen while playing online.
New Liveries
We’ve loved seeing what you’ve created so far with your custom liveries and you’ll soon have access to a host of new designs, including some of the AI designs from single player.
Maximum Laps
We’ve heard a lot of feedback, especially from Clubs and Leagues, about the maximum number of laps you can set in a race. As a result we’ve increased the maximum from 5 up to 10. For those of you who want longer races we recommend using the Endurance game mode.
Veto Weighting
Previously if you wanted to veto an event type or location it turned out it was difficult to get a passing vote. We’ve made some changes to the system so that vetos are now much fairer and only require 51% of the lobby to make the vote for a change to occur.
Voice Option
As requested, you can now mute your own microphone.
Country Flags
We know many of you enjoyed this feature in the original GRID and we’re pleased to confirm it will make a return. A player’s country flag will now be displayed next to their name plate while racing and on the event results screen.
Clean Race Bonus
The amount of money rewarded for racing clean has been increased.
Skip the Level up Graphic
We understand that not everyone wants to watch the ‘level up box’ at the end of each race and you’ll now be able to skip this at the press of a button.
Anti-Cheat
We’ve also made some changes to our anti-cheat system and while we won’t go into detail about how we’ve approached these changes, what we will say is that we’re hopeful the leaderboards within the game will now be free of those who have to use illegitimate means to succeed.
These changes and updates really have been driven by your feedback and we hope will improve everyone’s experience playing the game. We’ll have more info on the Community Patch the closer we get to release, in the mean time we’d love to hear your feedback on it so please leave your comments below or on the forums.
In the coming days we’ll be issuing a cleanse of the Steam Leaderboards, this will clear all the erroneous times from being displayed and is in reaction to a bug / exploit we recently patched that allowed people to set abnormal times.
Demolition Derby – The Return (and it’s free!)
The focus with GRID 2 was all about racing in a new world of competitive motorsport, both on and offline. But it’s fair to say many of our ‘old-school’ GRID players were disappointed about the lack of a Demo Derby mode in GRID 2. Today we’re pleased to tell you that we are currently working on this mode for GRID 2 we’ll be making it available for free, across all platforms.
We’ve been quiet on this news because it genuinely wasn’t in the plan. In fact, it’s 100% driven by feedback from the Community. As such, we’ve no date for release yet unfortunately, but we want to get this out to you sooner rather than later so expect more news in the coming weeks.
New Tracks
Many of you have been requesting new tracks and we can confirm that in the months ahead we will be releasing two track packs that will feature two of the most requested circuits to date.
These packs will each contain a new circuit, some cars and also include new achievements and trophies for you to obtain. We’ll have all the info a bit closer to their release and we think you’ll like them.
Some things you may have missed lately:
Free Cars
We’ve made available the following three new cars for free:
5ZIGEN Honda Civic
Chevrolet "Tyler McQuarrie" Camaro”
Volkswagen Golf R “Tuned”
Note: all PC players receive the free cars via an automatic game patch and you should all now have them.
GRID Survey
We really do value your feedback and as part of this process we’ve created a GRID survey which we’d be extremely grateful if you could spend five minutes of your time completing, your thoughts really do matter to us, they shape the way we make the games and what we choose to do and your opinions are heard.
You can find the survey here.
The GRID 2 Soundtrack
Did you know you can download the GRID 2 Soundtrack for free? To download it simply click here.
Save Files Corrupt
Yesterday we released a patch onto Steam that should hopefully fix the issues some of you have been experiencing with save files corrupting. Early reports are very positive but we will continue to monitor this going forward
- Ben Walke / Loore
Community Manager