The Daily Update at the Com

**hoom** · 04-28-2009, 07:33

Well that is more or less the scenario 2.

I skipped the first bit up to 'the discussion probably went like this'

Anyway, regarding the daily updates, I don't understand quite why CA don't post updates at the CA Developer blog http://blogs.sega.com/totalwar/ ???
I mean, isn't that exactly the sort of frequent updates that are what a developer blog is for?

**Rufus** · 04-28-2009, 17:45

When they say naval invasions will be possible but rare, are they referring to any transportation of troops by sea to any destination, or just to a foreign country (true invasions)? I don't have a problem with naval invasions being rare, but the AI should transport troops by sea to its own colonies more frequently.

**Monsieur Alphonse** · 04-28-2009, 18:16

Patch will be tomorrow

April 28th

I have to start this one by saying 'and this is why we don't normally put dates on things'.

The patch will now go live tomorrow (29/4/09), rather than today as there have been some last minute technical issues to do with distribution. I should stress the patch itself has been through the CA, SEGA and external Beta group test phases and has done well, so we don't expect any hitches with the code itself. That said we're unable to bring it you this evening due to a technical problem with uploading/distribution.

My apologies to those of you who have cancelled appointments/meetings/dates/operations/weddings as a result of this change, this upgrade will make a genuine difference to the way Empire plays and of course address it's stability issues.

Kind regards,
Kieran

**Beskar** · 04-28-2009, 18:30

Originally Posted by Monsieur Alphonse

My apologies to those of you who have cancelled appointments/meetings/dates/operations/weddings as a result of this change, this upgrade will make a genuine difference to the way Empire plays and of course address it's stability issues.

Wife-to-be: Darling, tomorrow we will finally be married and have the happiest time of our lives.

Husband-to-be: Sorry Hunny, we got to cancel.

Wife-to-be: What?! Why?!

Husband-to-be: CA are releasing their new patch. I can't miss it for the world.

Wife-to-be:

Husband-to-be: What's wrong?

Wife-to-be:

Husband-to-be: ?

Wife-to-be: ARggghhhh!!! Mother was so right about you!!! *runs off crying*

*ex-Husband-to-be, logs onto to see daily update at the Com and reads the delay*

Ex-Husband-to-be:

YOU CA!!!!

**Elmar Bijlsma** · 04-28-2009, 18:41

So... SNAFU?
This Steam thing, what a marvellous idea. Really does wonders for patch distribution. Makes traditional sites like GamersHell look rather foolish now. It's only one day, but in the current cavalcade of fool ups (no prizes for guessing which word I would rather have used) it's just stunning that they could bungle something so comparatively simple as patch distribution. It's like they are doing it on purpose.

**Servius** · 04-28-2009, 21:13

I understand the anti-piracy advantage of steam, and I can see how it might offer an advantage in patching in making sure everyone who plays has the current patch, but it doens't make patching easier or faster.

Downloading a patch exe from a developer and double-clicking it to install the patch is pretty easy. In this case, the use of Steam causes a delay in patching, even if it's (hopefully) only for 1 day.

**TB666** · 04-28-2009, 21:25

well to be fair he never promised the patch would be out today.
Still it looked like it would have since there wasn't any issues with the actual patch which was the thing that could have caused a delay.
Instead it turned out to be STEAM that caused the issue.
Sad but I guess waiting one day won't kill us.

**Husar** · 04-29-2009, 12:10

Originally Posted by Servius1234

Downloading a patch exe from a developer and double-clicking it to install the patch is pretty easy.

Have you ever seen topics like "do I install 1.12 before 1.13 and then can I install 1.6 right away or do I need 1.5 first?" or maybe even "help, I tried to install 1.8 before 1.7 and now I can't start the game anymore!!!"?

Well, now you say patches that include all previous versions are the best option, so you get topics like "Why are they not respecting us 56k users?" "Can't they offer it in like 500000 seperate zip files?".

So you say releasing it both ways is the solution so you get topics like "I want to download patch 1.5, do I need to download just patch 1.5.exe or do I also need 1.5_0.zip, 1.5_1.zip, 1.5_2.zip.....?"

And let's not forget "my virus scanner says patch 1.5_234.rar contains a virus, can anyone confirm this? Why are CA trying to infect us?!?!?!".

So i guess it just sounds easy but in practice it might cause even more problems than Steam's automatic process, though that isn't perfect either.

**crpcarrot** · 04-30-2009, 13:20

Originally Posted by Servius1234

I understand the anti-piracy advantage of steam, and I can see how it might offer an advantage in patching in making sure everyone who plays has the current patch, but it doens't make patching easier or faster.

Downloading a patch exe from a developer and double-clicking it to install the patch is pretty easy. In this case, the use of Steam causes a delay in patching, even if it's (hopefully) only for 1 day.

well i jsut wanted to say i found steam much simpler than this cos when i got home last night the patch was already doeanloaded and ready to go with no user intervention at all.