We’ve just received word from Sony America that the Fat Princess connection and lag patch for North America will go live tonight, Friday August 7th!!  Woo hoo!  Now let’s hope it works.

According to Sony Europe, the patch for European territories will be up next week.  Sony Europe has to test for more territories, so it is taking a little longer to get it done.  Before anyone flames us with 56,017 angry emails about Europe abuse, please note: Titan Studios has nothing to do with this decision or process! We submitted the patch for all territories to Sony last Monday.  If we could get it to you today – we would!

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Matt Morton, Deborah Mars and the fine folks in Sony QA who made this happen in record time.  We submitted the fixes to them on Monday afternoon.  Normally, the testing process takes about two weeks, but they pushed it through in a scant four days.  On behalf of Titan Studios, we thank you.

We will release detailed patch notes and a few other specifics when the patch actually goes up.

blog.titanstudios.com

Just a quick update to let  you know we have uploaded some template files for making your own Fat Princess Themes for the PS3. Click here for the Zip archive.

We’ve seen some great stuff put out by the community already–keep up the great work guys!

For those of you making fan art, signatures, and clan banners, we’ve added new graphic components.  Go to the blog and click the Media tab.

The Cake is Not a Lie!

We recently received two interesting emails from people defending cake!!  Who would have thought cake needs defending?  It seems pretty well loved, in my experience.  Both people also seem to think we suck.  Okay here goes:

“If the game rating system included an “I” for Irresponsible, Fat Princess would earn it. How does something like this get by your company’s leadership? Are you so blinded by weightism and food-fear that you can’t see the absurdity of this game and the potential hurtful implications? I can just hear the kids on the playground now…you better just hope it isn’t your daughter or your niece.” – M.M.

“I am writing to protest your creation and selling of the Fat Princesses video game for Play Station…this video game is irresponsible and gives the incorrect assumption that eating a piece of cake leads to considerable weight gain.

For the sake of our younger generation, please remove this video game from the market- our daughters and sons need not suffer the mental anguish over cake that previous generations have.” – L.N.

Okay – for the record, both of these people were very nice and polite, and both seem well intentioned.  To set the record straight:

We are not promoting food fear and certainly not fear of cake.  We had cake yesterday.  It was good.  I am sure we are not promoting weightism.  I could see how one could argue the opposite, though.  And what exactly are the kids on the playground saying?  “I played Fat Princess!  Cake is bad, FEEAAR it!” or “If you eat cake and become fat, it will be harder to rescue you!”  Anyway, cake doesn’t need defending. And yes, our game is absurd.

More importantly, we are also not claiming that if you eat a piece of cake you will become fat.  For our fans and friends, M.M. and L.N. included – allow us elaborate:

Each piece of cake in Fat Princess has 150 calories.  The Princess has four weight stages.

• 0 – 300          Stage 1  (Smallest)
• 301 – 600     Stage 2
• 601 – 900     Stage 3
• 901 – 1200   Stage 4  (Largest)

The princess also burns calories at the rate of 2 per second (look for this rate to change, by the way… nudge, nudge, wink, wink).  Thus, in order for the Princess to gain weight, she would need to eat 3 pieces of cake in 74 seconds.  To become a truly Fat Princess requires the consumption of 9 pieces of cake in under four minutes.  And to keep the scales pegged would then require an additional piece of cake every 1:15 seconds – that’s a staggering 48 pieces of cake an hour!

So will eating a piece of cake make you fat?  NOPE.  Forty-eight pieces an hour?  Why yes, M.M. and L.N., it will.  We shall however, rescue you nonetheless.

Good evening all.  This one comes later in the day than usual, but hopefully the weight(!) is worth it.  The strategy guide is online at:

http://titanstudios.com/blog/strategies/

Just click on the Strategy tab for all of the goodness.  This is only a start!  More strategies, tactics, and tips – both by design and home brewed by the community will be posted here over time.  Enjoy!

Good afternoon all!  The Fat Princess FAQ is now live.  It addresses all manner of issues from snail icons to rank thresholds to more information about the upcoming patch, and many things in between.  To visit the FAQ, click here or manually go to:

http://titanstudios.com/blog/fat-princess-faq/

Patch Clarification

Contrary to some misconceptions rapidly circulating on the web, the upcoming patch only addresses critical connection and lag issues.  We are aware of other bugs and imbalances, and thanks to your feedback have a ton of requests for other features that will be considered for a future update.

Please Help Us Get the Word Out

Thanks again to all of you participating in the community.  We’re seeing more and more fan support, more players having great, stalemate free games online, and are continuing to receive hundreds of emails.  Please help us spread the word about Fat Princess to the forums you frequent.

- Titan Dev

We’ve received a flood of emails in the last 36 hours.  We’re humbled by the incredible outpouring of appreciation and support from the community, and by the number of fans who have invested staggering amounts of time and effort in writing thoughtfully about their experiences and offering suggestions.  Many of you are also actively contributing to forums all over the web.

Ninety-five out of a hundred emails are from gamers loving the game, even though some of them are experiencing varying degrees of networking  problems and other bugs.  Some of you have have serious troubles and are rightfully frustrated.  We’re frustrated too, and we’re on it.  Regardless, we thank you all.  Titan loves you back.

Patch in Testing

We have implemented fixes that should substantially improve critical connection and lag issues.  A patch has now entered testing.  No ETA yet.  When we have information to share, you’ll get it.

Known Issues, Bugs, Imbalances

The following bugs and imbalances have been well reported and documented.  In general, there is no need to send additional information.  If you come across something new – please send it on.

• Failed Game Connections
• Lag
• Hosting Problems
• AoE Scoring Exploits
• Stalemates
• Missing Princess (on certain levels)
• Dead Hat Machines
• Scoreboard Issues (only top 1000 scores shown)
• Ranking System Problems

Balancing, Feature Requests, Other Comments

We have also received hundreds of great suggestions, some of which will directly result in changes to the game at some point down the road.  Among those that have been well documented:

• Changes to Ranking System
• Changes to Scoring System
• Stalemate Breakers (e.g. – Finite Cake, Slim Fast Princess)
• Server Lists
• Clan Management
• Hosted Servers
• Class Balance
• More Classes
• More Class Upgrades
• More Maps
• More Modes
• More Sports
• Even Fatter Princesses
• Unbelievably Fat Gargantuan Princesses

Please note: we have so many emails coming in that though we’ll read it all, we will not be able to respond to everything.  We only have so many hours in the day, and I am sure you’ll all agree that work on the game takes priority.  Thanks for your understanding.

FAQ Coming

We’ll be working on a FAQ in the coming days.  The FAQ will address the game, technical problems, systems, etc.  Stay tuned.

Strategy / Tips

Titan Studios is also working on a Fat Princess strategies and tips page.  Some of them were by design, and some have emerged from live play.  Until then, play as a team, use voice chat, and know that a piece of virtual cake has 150 calories.

Thanks for the continuing flood of suggestions/complaints/praise/bug-reports.  To make it easier to collect everything in one place, we’ve created a new email address to which you can send everything Fat Princess:

FatPrincess@TitanStudios.com

Among the interface, design and balance issues and ideas that have been raised by many of you:

• Scoring System
• Ranking System
• Server List
• Stalemates / Balance

We’ll be considering all of these things in the coming weeks and, as always, keep you posted.  Thanks again to all of you!  We appreciate that we already have such a strong and active community of players.

- Titan Dev

The legal bit: We cannot accept and will not read unsolicited game concepts.  So please don’t send them!

UPDATE:

Thanks for all the feedback, there a few known issues that we know about and are working on:

• Ice Mage abuse
• Difficulty joining games
• Rank and Point balance issues

Thanks to all of the folks who continue to send in comments on the game.  We’re thrilled to say that a huge number of people are having a great time with the game.  We’ve also continued to receive some complaints about ongoing connection problems and lag.  In effort to keep you informed:

Lag

Players are sometimes experiencing significant lag in some games.  Thanks to your feedback, we’ve identified a specific problem and already have a fix in testing.  The matchmaking system will randomly pick potential servers bases on a number of criteria.  As implemented, the results that are returned are fit in some regards, but sometimes have a high ping for your location.  As a result, some players may be having a great experience, and others dealing with substantial lag.  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.

For those of you having trouble – thanks again for your patience.  Fat Princess went through comprehensive testing with Sony in the US and Europe, and a beta, but these issues did not manifest until the game went live at scale.  Rest assured, we’re working on it, and think we have it largely addressed.

Titan Studios Dev Team

Thanks to all of you who have downloaded the game, and for the great emails, forum posts and tweets. We’re hearing and seeing a lot of amazing feedback and are happy to report that people are having fun. As is often the case with new online games, a few problems have cropped up. We’re working to address them, and want to keep all of you informed of our progress:

Connection Issues

Connecting to games can take a little longer than we planned, and attempts to join games are sometimes failing. Some players report having to attempt to join 2 or 3 times before getting into a game. Once you’re in a game, though, things are smooth and people are having a great time. We’re aware of this problem and working on it. Part of it stems from a lot of players hammering the system all at once, and part of it comes from matchmaking logic. Until we have things fixed and optimized, thanks for your patience. Try joining a few times and you should be good to go.

Hosting a Game

When you create a new game, it can take a while for other players to join your game. Once they do start joining, though, and the population of real (human) players hits a threshold, your server will begin to fill up. This delay is caused by the logic that suggests servers to players looking for a game – it prefers higher population servers. The upside of the way this logic works is that most players will be concentrated in games that are relatively full. If you have a good connection, and you want to host a game – go for it. You may have to be patient for others to join, though. If you have a poor connection, your server may be ignored. Blinking player icons on the scoreboard indicates this might be the case. We’re going to work on tuning this logic so we still get the benefits, but others join games more quickly.

NAT 3

We’re aware that players who have a NAT Type 3 connection, in some circumstances, cannot join games. This problem, caused by certain combinations of router settings, is common to many games on PSN. It is possible to change your network setting from a NAT Type 3 to NAT Type 2 connection, and that should solve your problems. It requires some effort, but if you want specific information, search the web or Youtube for “PS3 NAT Type 2.” There is a lot of information out there.

Other Comments

• We’ve gotten some comments regarding pricing for the game in different territories. Titan Studios did not have any role in setting prices outside the United States. We’re passing your comments along to Sony.

• Use your Bluetooth headsets! We’ve seen and been part of some awesome games where people are communicating and coordinating. Teamwork is critical.

Stay tuned for updates. Thanks again to all of you. We appreciate the feedback. Enjoy!