Joystiq, “Grand Theft Auto 4 patch: multiplayer and freezing fixes promised”

Nearly two months after dragging reviewers out of their parent’s cars and beating perfect 10s out of them, Rockstar has released a patch for Grand Theft Auto 4 targeting both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms. This patch notably addresses the oft-heard early complaints of “multiplayer connectivity issues” and “freezes during certain modes.” There’s a full list of 11 total fixes so, if you’ve been having trouble getting things done in Liberty City, Rockstar wants to offer you an apology and recommends taking this patch out for a test drive.
Rockstar Games has released patches today for Grand Theft Auto IV for the PlayStation®3 and Xbox 360™. These patches fix the issues we have identified for each system, specifically multiplayer connectivity issues including freezes during certain modes, continuation when players leave matches, and bugs within races and race lobbies.
We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences and thank you for your continued support. For any consumer still experiencing issues, please contact support.
1. Fixed an issue where players were unable to enter or exit vehicles in GTA Race.
2. Fixed an issue where scripted vehicles were causing games to unexpectedly crash.
3. Improved reliability and frequency of PS3™ online leaderboard updates.
4. Fixed a rare hang some players encountered when moving from a Race or GTA Race lobby into gameplay.
5. Fixed a hang that would occur when players were switching teams during the countdown in the lobby.
6. Fixed an issue where players were able to get ridiculously high scores from Cops ‘n Crooks matches.
7. Changed GTA Race and Race so that the last player remaining always receives a reward of $250.
8. Fixed an issue where spectating players would prevent the game from finishing.
9. Fixed an issue where players were unable to spectate in Round 2 of Cops ‘n Crooks games.
10. Changed countdown timer in lobby so that it no longer resets when new players join a game.
11. Changed the kick option so that kicked players are no longer brought back to single player.
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We didn’t play much last night, but at least none of us dropped out haha.
I still don’t understand the spawning system for vehicles in that game - sometimes we’ll get every vehicle that respawns fine everytime, then last night we didn’t get anything at all!
I wish they would make it so that single player was seperate from the multiplayer. It’s kinda neat they have the whole thing integrated I suppose - but the loading times are slow, and it gets frustrating especially when you’re not in a party mode with friends to keep getting kicked back out to the single player with the long loading time.