Latest update on 1.2 patch from Sega/CA

[sbroadbent]

I haven't posted regarding the patch, but it does bring up one thing I read a while back. Rather than having only a couple "mega" patches that it would be better to have several smaller patches. Set ongoing deadlines. Any fix that resolves a bug gets put into the next patch. If something is found at the last minute that causes problems, remove it and release the rest. I'd rather see several incremental updates that improve the game bit by bit, than one huge update that due to it's enormous size and the promise that it'll fix a vast majority of the problems gets delayed because of one unforeseeable glitch.

So far reports say that the unofficial 1.2 patch works as intended (you do need to install over a fresh 1.0 copy). Why can't we get the patch minus the code that causes the problem. Why delay the entire thing. Release what you have, and keep moving forward. Since the original release of M2TW couldn't be released in a perfect state, why try to make this one patch perfect with all the fixes you intended for it.

Or maybe this is just too simple of a concept.

[sapi]

I think CA work the way they do because they are 'allowed' to make x patches and no more.

[Foz]

I haven't posted regarding the patch, but it does bring up one thing I read a while back. Rather than having only a couple "mega" patches that it would be better to have several smaller patches. Set ongoing deadlines. Any fix that resolves a bug gets put into the next patch. If something is found at the last minute that causes problems, remove it and release the rest. I'd rather see several incremental updates that improve the game bit by bit, than one huge update that due to it's enormous size and the promise that it'll fix a vast majority of the problems gets delayed because of one unforeseeable glitch.

So far reports say that the unofficial 1.2 patch works as intended (you do need to install over a fresh 1.0 copy). Why can't we get the patch minus the code that causes the problem. Why delay the entire thing. Release what you have, and keep moving forward. Since the original release of M2TW couldn't be released in a perfect state, why try to make this one patch perfect with all the fixes you intended for it.

Or maybe this is just too simple of a concept.

It doesn't work "as intended." According to the release that started this thread, the "intermittent passive AI" is the main target right now, which means to CA at least, this is dysfunctional behavior, and requires fixing. Many things work right, but that one (at least) does not. And that's not even counting the fact that you have to reinstall the game to 1.0 to use the leaked patch. You could write that off as unimportant, but in reality it's a pain in the butt, and in itself warrants them pausing to remedy it.

As for more patching... I'm sure we've been over this ground before, but for your benefit sbroadbent I'll list reasons not to update more frequently:

1. Doing so invariably means users are running vastly different versions of the game, as many are too lazy to constantly update. This in turn causes confusion, the persistent reporting of old already fixed bugs, and can cause multiplayer compatibility issues as well.

2. Frequent releases waste the developer's time. The more they issue patches, the more time they must spend packing them up, making sure they install correctly, and all of that jazz that isn't simply writing code. Not only is it inefficient to do that step more often than necessary... but it also makes the rest of the process less efficient. Each patch becomes undefined, including whatever happens to get fixed from time A to time B. This means the team doesn't know what's in the patch until it goes out the door, and must spend time figuring out what they're supposed to be doing more often since the patch is so fluid. Also, it's disrupting to release often: generally developers can get in a groove if they're working in the same direction for a while, and will usually remember right where to pick up again next time. Constant releases distract from that continuity of the development process.

3. Cost. One main reason this isn't often done is that it requires huge amounts more testing than a few larger patches do. That testing costs a lot of money. Testing is required for every update that goes out the door, because any one of them being messed up like the 1.2 patch is would cause a big problem. So more releases = more testing = more money, which means companies will try hard not to do it.

4. Less updates means they tend to make bigger splashes each time there is one. Look how hyped people are for 1.2. If these fixes had come out instead in 10 smaller patches, hardly anyone would be raving about how much work the dev team was doing to patch the game. In fact most of us might not even realize the patches were fixing noticeable things, we'd be likely to just take them for granted. Along the same lines, big updates get noticed by other gaming entities as well. The 1.2 update for M2TW is likely to be packaged with notable gaming magazines, and hosted on a myriad of sites due to its perceived importance to the game. Smaller patches are perceived as less important, and so would never rate that sort of special treatment.

There's probably more, but it's getting a lil late here and I'm running out of steam, so I'm going to call it quits. That should be more than enough info for everyone to chew on. Besides, four points is plenty enough for one post

[a_ver_est]

Thanks for he feedback CA, I really appreciate it.

[edyzmedieval]

Finally, I can proudly say this is the attitude I've always expected from CA.

[sbroadbent]

It doesn't work "as intended." According to the release that started this thread, the "intermittent passive AI" is the main target right now, which means to CA at least, this is dysfunctional behavior, and requires fixing. Many things work right, but that one (at least) does not. And that's not even counting the fact that you have to reinstall the game to 1.0 to use the leaked patch. You could write that off as unimportant, but in reality it's a pain in the butt, and in itself warrants them pausing to remedy it.

When I say it worked "as intended" what I meant is that it didn't necessarily introduce any new bugs that made the game worse except for the CTD issue.

Well, I suppose if the AI was passive before the 1.2 patch and is still with the existing patch should it matter if they went ahead with the 1.2 release anyway or delayed it? Essentially, all the other things that the patch fixes were withheld (at the last minute no less), unless you grabbed a copy of the leaked patch. Should we be made to wait until they figure out why the AI is still passive? Does the leaked patch make the AI passive bug worse?

I never bothered to download the leaked patch because with my internet service, I get crap torrent speeds unless I stumble upon a peer/seed that has an amazing upload speed. I was waiting for one of the traditional download sites because atleast then I'd have a much better chance at a quick download.

Regarding the CTD issue, do we even know why it happened? Is it something to do with the installer? Is it easy to fix?


I've worked on a project where I had given myself a deadline. I ended up going a couple months over the deadline, and had several delays. Rather than delay the entire thing too far by trying to get the entire thing done, I decided to release the product in pieces. I probably got more completed since I was focused on smaller chunks and had a better time frame in which to complete the rest of the project, rather than waiting for a single release.

You might have a point where a single large patch makes more of a splash than a bunch of smaller patches, but it causes annoyances when some out here would like to see some progress with some of the fixes getting released.

I'll quickly respond to your points.

1. The community so far has done a good job at bug reporting. Stickied in this forum is the 1.3 Wishlist and 1.2 Buglist. Is there really that much reporting of fixed bugs that occurs.

2&3. This depends on how your organizational process is setup to deal with these kind of issues. Since I don't have much experience regarding the QA and development process, I acknowledge I have an incomplete picture of the overall process.

4. 1.2 was hyped because of how much if fixes, but there has likewise been a fair bit of annoyance and frustration from delay after delay.