Does anyone think CA put out the Leak patch just to see if we like things.

[Quickening]

Trust me, CA and Sega employees would rather you carry on playing a buggy game for a week or two than that they lose their jobs and ruin their future career prospects.

CA and Sega would rather us play a buggy game for oh, four months now. That doesn't sound too professional either.

[Lupiscanis]

CA and Sega would rather us play a buggy game for oh, four months now. That doesn't sound too professional either.

I've been playing games that are well over four years old and still have bugs that haven't and never will be fixed. No game is bug free, ever.

[Quickening]

I've been playing games that are well over four years old and still have bugs that haven't and never will be fixed. No game is bug free, ever.

Yes but there are bugs and there are bugs. There are minor things and then there are fundemantal flaws in the game mechanics as seen in Med 2.

[Cheetah]

With due respect to everyone involved this is the most pointless debate IMHO. The only thing that matters is that they use the opportunity to improve the patch.

[Lupiscanis]

Yes but there are bugs and there are bugs. There are minor things and then there are fundemantal flaws in the game mechanics as seen in Med 2.

And those fundamental flaws are not always the easiest to fix. As an example, I play Everquest (moreso than I do M2tw in fact) and probably one of the largest bugs in the game is the haste rounding problem. Without going in to too much detail, because of the way the server ticks, it can generate problems with swing rates at certain haste %'s in combat.

This bug was being reported by players in January of 2006 and it's still not fixed, purely because its very difficult to come up with a method of fixing it. Perhaps the same difficulty lies in the problem with the passive siege AI as well as some of the other problems.

The leaked 1.2 patch has shown a lot of promise. Most of what I would consider game breaking has been fixed and some problems still remain, but its still a good patch (and will be even better when its hopefully officially released).

As to the OP, no, I don't think it was released deliberately.

[diotavelli]

CA and Sega would rather us play a buggy game for oh, four months now. That doesn't sound too professional either.

Um, yes: CA and Sega would rather have you and the rest of us play a buggy game for four months or considerably longer than release unofficial software and then lie about it. There's nothing unprofessional about that whatsoever.

Neither company would have wished to release a game with the problems that M2TW had/has. But both will accept that these things happen in business and now they'll be doing what they can to rectify it.

Clearly they're not moving fast enough for your liking but, again, I hardly think they're delaying it on purpose: not when they could be using the coding resource being used on patch 1.2 on something that will earn them some money.

You're unhappy about the state of the game. That's reasonable. To go from there to suggesting either company is unprofessional is daft.

If you had some evidence that CA knew the original release would make so many gamers unhappy but released it anyway, you'd have an argument; merely being of the opinion that they should have known is not the same thing.

If you had some evidence that CA could have released a working patch earlier than they have, you'd have an argument; merely being of the opinion that they should have worked quicker is not the same thing.

In business, things go wrong. Companies then work hard to put things right. Their customers are entitled to be annoyed in the interim but to slate the companies involved on nothing more than opinion and guesswork is unfair.

[Zatoichi]

Well, I happen to know for a fact that it wasn't CA or SEGA that released patch 1.2 early.

It was Elvis.

From his secret Moon base.

So there.

Now please excuse me whilst I reattach my tinfoil hat.

[R'as al Ghul]

Here's a point against the leaking on purpose:

It doesn't work with 1.1.
Leaking a patch which screws all 1.1 installs would clearly be a stupid idea.
Add to it that the casual gamer or user doesn't know how to get a torrent makes it even more obvious.
Nevertheless, CA would do good to check the feedback and improve their patch while they're still at it.

[Quickening]

Here's a point against the leaking on purpose:

It doesn't work with 1.1.
Leaking a patch which screws all 1.1 installs would clearly be a stupid idea.
Add to it that the casual gamer or user doesn't know how to get a torrent makes it even more obvious.
Nevertheless, CA would do good to check the feedback and improve their patch while they're still at it.

Actually those reasonings are evidence for them leaking the patch. They know that only hardcore fans will know about and go to the effort of downloading the torrent and using the patch. This way the perception of CA by the wider audience is not damaged but they still get feedback. It's not an "official" release yet they still requested feedback from those using it. Why do that when by their own words the patch was not ready to be released in the first place?

But yes as someone else said it doesn't matter. The important thing is that they are working on it and Im very happy that the cannon/ballista tower bug is also due to be fixed. As it is, Im enjoying this leaked patch.

[Quickening]

Well, I happen to know for a fact that it wasn't CA or SEGA that released patch 1.2 early.

It was Elvis.

From his secret Moon base.

Lies. He was on Atlantis at the time.

Now let me get back to watching my X-Files DvD set.

[R'as al Ghul]

Actually those reasonings are evidence for them leaking the patch. They know that only hardcore fans will know about and go to the effort of downloading the torrent and using the patch.

You'd have a point if CA didn't say that they don't cater to hardcore players.
They would be stupid not to ask for feedback, now that it's widely discussed. It's beta testing for free.

[Lupiscanis]

Actually those reasonings are evidence for them leaking the patch. They know that only hardcore fans will know about and go to the effort of downloading the torrent and using the patch. This way the perception of CA by the wider audience is not damaged but they still get feedback. It's not an "official" release yet they still requested feedback from those using it. Why do that when by their own words the patch was not ready to be released in the first place?

But yes as someone else said it doesn't matter. The important thing is that they are working on it and Im very happy that the cannon/ballista tower bug is also due to be fixed. As it is, Im enjoying this leaked patch.

But it is damaged because there will be a percieved bias towards those who know how to get the 1.2 patch (read: "hardcore"), and those who can't (read: "non-hardcore") will be a little irked because they don't have it.

[Quickening]

But it is damaged because there will be a percieved bias towards those who know how to get the 1.2 patch (read: "hardcore"), and those who can't (read: "non-hardcore") will be a little irked because they don't have it.

But casual gamers will never know about it. And even if they did, it's not CAs' fault if they don't know how to use torrents. Especially when it's for downloading an unofficial patch.

[diotavelli]

But casual gamers will never know about it. And even if they did, it's not CAs' fault if they don't know how to use torrents. Especially when it's for downloading an unofficial patch.

Casual gamers would get to know about it if someone within CA or Sega blew the whistle or the fact that the patch had been leaked intentionally was uncovered in some other fashion.

This conspiracy theory only works if you assume that CA and Sega have absolute confidence that there is no way that people could find out the patch was 'leaked' intentionally. Given that they couldn't have absolute confidence that that is the case, the conspiracy theory doesn't work.

Therefore discussions as to whether CA might benefit or not are entirely hypothetical.

The idea that CA suits would seriously consider letting hardcore gamers test an unofficial release of a patch, when doing so would involved giving tacit support to torrents and lying to their customer base, is laughable.

[pike master]

lets sum it up this way

who is cheaper to test the patch. a skeleton crew of expensively payed team from sega or a much larger group of consumers who will do it for free and not only that but do it in many times the number of sega testers.

[diotavelli]

lets sum it up this way

who is cheaper to test the patch. a skeleton crew of expensively payed team from sega or a much larger group of consumers who will do it for free and not only that but do it in many times the number of sega testers.

Or, more plausibly, let's sum it up this way:

Which is a better business strategy? Leave customers (who have already handed over their money) playing a bugged game whilst you get a working patch built or release a bugged patch that will be distributed by a mechanism you are publicly opposed to, lie about not having been authorised the release and risk getting loads of really, really bad PR as a result.

Put yourself in the shoes of the CA and Sega suits involved. If you did want to get the patch beta tested without officially releasing it, how would you go about it? Use forums such as the .Org to recruit a load of beta testers, building goodwill in the hardcore gaming community by your obvious desire to collaborate and involving no risk to your company whatsoever? Or follow the high risk strategy of leaking bugged software that will be distributed by torrent and then lying about it?

[Martok]

This thread has already come close to the flames a couple times, and appears to have reached the end of its usefulness anyway. (Plus, all this going around in circles makes me dizzy. )


Closed.