Yesterday, I ran a post on here about Kunos releasing the highly anticipated Version 1.1 patch for Assetto Corsa. In the post, which criticized Kunos for the way they handled the subsequent clusterfuck that followed when everyone had accidentally been given a beta build of Version 1.1, I failed to both check my facts and factor in what may have been lost in translation when Kunos attempted to address the English speaking fans of their racing simulation. In the end, I made myself look like a giant retard.

I pride myself on being both arrogant as well as factual, and yesterday I was simply arrogant, and that’s not good. 24 hours later, it’s time to take a proper look at the bizarre 90 minutes that unfolded on Steam yesterday.

Originally, I had reported that Kunos intended to surprise Assetto Corsa fans yesterday with the Version 1.1 update, and was forced to roll back to a hotfix when the aforementioned update did not work.

That is incorrect.

Kunos intended to roll out a hotfix all along, and somehow uploaded a Version 1.1 beta that was roughly ten days old. Adding to the confusion, VirtualR reported that this beta changelog was actually the Official Version 1.1 changelog. Although I strongly dislike the reasons behind what games receive the most coverage on VirtualR, I have never known them to run any kind of misleading article.

My own understanding of what was unfolding ended up being skewed even more by Kunos themselves; one specific tweet making me believe that they had indeed intended to implement a rather large update yesterday (the downloads totaled 1.2 GB, hardly a small update), became confused as to why certain features they tried to implement didn’t work, and were forced to roll back until they found out what the issue was.

Considering there indeed have been updates I haven’t been satisfied with, such as the initial implementation of AI into Assetto Corsa, I didn’t put it past them to release features in a WIP state. Anyone who has been following Assetto Corsa since the Early Access program opened in late 2013 knows that Kunos occasionally adds features that don’t entirely work as they’re supposed to. Reports of black flags warping cars back to the pits were no different than how in early versions, tires heated up to optimal operating temperature within three or four corners.

Adding to the confusion were widespread reports of the forums going down, as seen in this capture:

Given the excessive damage control sometimes displayed by other developers in the genre, the entire situation unfolded in a way that could easily look as if Kunos were attempting to mask a serious error.

That, however, was not the case. Kunos has confirmed that a large update was not on deck for yesterday and is looking into why a completely random version of the 1.1 beta was uploaded onto Steam’s servers.