As you probably know, Fat Princess hit the PlayStation Network last Thursday. And as you've probably guessed if you've been keeping up with multiplayer releases on PSN the last few months, the game is having a few issues with laggy online play and difficulty connecting to games so far.
Anecdotally, I didn't have too much trouble getting into games over the weekend, usually having to search only three or four times before joining an active game, and once I got in, the gameplay was smooth enough, if a tad laggy at times. Today I've strangely had a harder time getting into games, and most of them are primarily populated with bots at the moment, which is no good for anyone (except the bots). Hopefully things will pick up this evening and on into the week, since we'll certainly want to give the game a thorough testing with all maps and modes before dropping a review.
Anyway, Titan Studios has at least been vigilant about keeping the community abreast of its ongoing work on the company's official blog. There's news that a patch is in the works to address the lag and connection issues; let's hope Sony makes it a priority to get it up on PSN as soon as possible.
Lag
Players are sometimes experiencing significant lag in some games... Leaving a particularly laggy game and joining a new one may result in a better experience. Unfortunately, it can be luck of the draw. The fix we have in testing returns a list of potential servers in such a way that it always favors the lowest available pings.
Connection Fixes
We have implemented a number of fixes for previously identified problems, focusing most of our efforts on connection failures. We have already tested this patch on our own client machines, and performance appears to be dramatically improved. We are working with Sony now to get the patch into the Sony testing process as soon as possible.
With any luck, that patch will get fast-tracked straight through to players; Fat Princess otherwise seems like a really cool team-based game, when it's working right. I've found it a tad chaotic so far, but I'm hoping that's due to players still learning the ropes of what's honestly a pretty complex game, rather than just a general unwillingness to work together.
We'll be back with firmer thoughts about Fat Princess later this week. In the meantime, the completely uninitiated among you can watch this Quick Look to at least find out what the game is all about.
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