It seems that 1. Polyphon is really listening to the game's players, and 2. Polyphony intends to continue making major improvements to the game post-release.
A short summary of what the patch entails:
- Seasonal Events - Random events throughout the year, hosted online by Polyphony
- Online races now effect your stats - experience is rewarded, distance traveled is added to total, etc.
- Proper integration with GranTurismo.com, allowing you to access everything from the Community page in the game from the website
- Mechanical damage option no longer limited to online mode
- Ability to restart ALL races immediately upon finishing
- Ability to restart replays
- Removable HUD
- Game saves are now unlocked, and able to be backed-up
- Missing spectators on some tracks/modes (To improve performance?)
- Tire grip reduction option no longer limited to online mode
- Export All Photos to XMB option
- Improved bumping "physics" (cars don't get stuck now) (unconfirmed)
- better shadows (unconfirmed)
- cars get damaged more easily (unconfirmed)
- Garage remembers your sorting options
Here's a list of the current Season Events hosted online by Polyphony:
Servers are up, seasonal events are:
Bonus Race no. 1
Fiat 500 Tsukuba 5 laps - total prize fund 200,000 / exp 15,000
Honda CR-Z Tokyo Route 246 5 laps - total prize fund 250,000 / exp 25,000
Mazda RX-7 Deep Forest 5 laps - total prize fund 300,000 / exp 40,000
Dodge Challenger RT Indy Road Course 5 laps - total prize fund 750,000 / exp 75,000
Nissan GT-R (493bhp limit) SSR5 5 laps - total prize fund 1,000,000 / exp 100,000
Time Trial no. 1
197 bhp FWD / Cape Ring Inside - sports medium tyres
246 bhp RWD / Rome City - sports medium tyres
Drift Trial no. 1
Tsukuba - comfort/soft tyres
Eiger Norwand - comfort/soft tyres
Online Dealership links to this, providing 'useful' cars for online, A-spec and B-spec racing.
And here's the actual patch notes from Polyphony:
Thanks to the guys at neogaf for compiling much of this information.
