Rant about giant patches

[Mikeus Caesar]

I've been annoyed about this issue for quite a while now, but having just experienced something terrible, i'm compelled to rant and rave.

I've finally gotten MTW2. I proudly sat through the 30 minute installation and then began the process of downloading the patch. An hour and a half later it was 92% through when suddenly, dun dun dunnnn! My PC froze. And there was nothing i could do but restart, and lose the download. Obviously i was quite annoyed and am currently redownloading, but it raises the question of why do publishers insist on releasing the cherry vanilla version of a game years later, despite it being acknowledged as terrible and buggy?

Why not update it so that future editions are patched before being put on CD? It would save people like me alot of time and trouble. How difficult could it be?

[Sjakihata]

Download through a file sharing network, such like torrents. Then you wont lose your download, or use a download manager for your browser.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Download through a file sharing network, such like torrents. Then you wont lose your download, or use a download manager for your browser.

I'm using a download manager for this second attempt, and for no reason at all it stopped downloading and claimed there to be a disk read error. So now rather than download it to my spacy external hard-drive, i'm having to download it for a third time to my PC, which is lacking in space.

[TinCow]

Why not update it so that future editions are patched before being put on CD? It would save people like me alot of time and trouble. How difficult could it be?

Most companies do this, but not until they really do make a new edition of the game. The majority of copies of the game are made all at one time when the game is released. Even if you buy the game a year later, your actual disc was probably made around the original release date. New discs are usually only made when new content is released, such as expansion packs, or when compilation packs are made, such as the Total War Battle Chest. AFAIK CA does update these new discs with the latests patches. I can't remember exactly, but didn't Barbarian Invasion include all the patches prior to 1.5?

[Mikeus Caesar]

Being the pessimist i am, i'll presume that there is some money-grubbing reason behind producing it all at once? Or is there a good solid reason for it?

[Gawain of Orkeny]

I can't remember exactly, but didn't Barbarian Invasion include all the patches prior to 1.5?

There was 1 patch for MTW and only one for VI. Im sure Kingdoms will include what ever patches have been applied to MTW2 .

The thing thats needed is an auto update feature that will automatically update you to the newest patch. Many games have these nowdays as I understand

[Stuperman]

My family built a house 2 years ago, It's in a beautiful spot out in the country, BUT there is only dial up avaiable out there, which poses a problem when you need to DL a 600meg patch. I definately feel your pain on this one (and how about how STEAM won't let me play ANY games without an internet connection, EVEN WHEN THE DAMN CD IS IN THE DRIVE).

edit: RTW gold gives you RTW 1.5 and BI 1.4 (in my expierence anyways) which I thought was odd.

[AntiochusIII]

Want having to wait *hours* for frickin' 100mb patching?

Try Obsidian.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

i would assume it's the game's producers/directors (don't really know the name but the guys basically paying all the bills) want the game out for a particular time (ie crimbo) and then the development is rushed, there are loads of bugs and yet it is still released. then the developers/programming-geeks continue to work on the game to iron out the bugs and, because of the internet, most gamers are able to download the patches so it isn't seen as too much of a downside for the company or the gamers... of course when patches are huge it's just stupid really

[TinCow]

Being the pessimist i am, i'll presume that there is some money-grubbing reason behind producing it all at once? Or is there a good solid reason for it?

Well, that depends on how you look at it. It's certainly "money-grubbing" but it's a pretty good reason as well. It works the same way for books, newspapers, board games, posters, and pretty much any other 'printed' media. The basic problem is that the people who create the game/book/whatever don't have the facilities to make the physical copies, complete with disc, manual, box, etc. So, they have to figure out what they want in the thing, assemble it all in a package, and then send it to a factory to be mass produced. The factory has a limited amount of room and for maximum efficiency, the machines will only produce one product at a time. It takes time to switch the machines from one product to another, and that time is lost to production. So, it becomes very cost inefficient to produce small batches of products.

The end result is that companies will try to estimate how many copies of their product they will sell, then place the initial order for that quantity. So, if CA thinks they are going to sell 2 million copies of the game overall, they will probably make an initial order of 2 million copies. This keeps them from having to go back to the factory with multiple small orders which would cost more and decrease their income.

So, yes, money-grubbing, but would you say that about books? The "First Edition" or "47th Edition" written on the inside cover of your book indicates which print run the book is on since it was initially released. Many books can go a decade or more without needing a second edition, simply because there are so many extra copies left over from the first printing. Of course, the book analogy isn't quite as strong because a book typo doesn't usually make the whole story unreadable.

(FYI - I'm crap at math and economics, so I could be totally wrong here. Is there an economist in the house?)

[Husar]

I think the really important question is: Why did your PC freeze?

That just shouldn't happen and I'd be very curious if my PC just froze while I'm downloading something.

[sapi]

My family built a house 2 years ago, It's in a beautiful spot out in the country, BUT there is only dial up avaiable out there, which poses a problem when you need to DL a 600meg patch. I definately feel your pain on this one (and how about how STEAM won't let me play ANY games without an internet connection, EVEN WHEN THE DAMN CD IS IN THE DRIVE).

Have you tried using offline mode?

I agree with Husar, though - you should be finding out why this happened to you (as well as complaining about it

[edyzmedieval]

My PC froze when I updated Oblivion too...

[Bijo]

Indeed: why it froze is the question. When I freely speculate, to my mind come the possibilities of bad ware on the disk, or perhaps a hacker...? I hope -- for your sake -- it's more in the direction of the former rather than the latter. If so, a thorough cleansing of your machine would do you good, currywurry.

[Mikeus Caesar]

The reason for my pc freezing is that it's just generally falling apart. It hasn't been defragged in since it was built two years ago, the HD is 4+ years old and is nearly full and everything is going to hell generally. But don't worry, once my GCSE's are over i'm buying a new HD and taking a weekend off to completely rebuild my computer. Fresh installation of xp on the new HD, wipe xp off the old HD and use it to run programs off (thus removing the need to spend days reinstalling everything).

Good as new.

[Mailman653]

I forgot when was the last time I d/l a 15 or 20 or even 30 MB patch, lately its been 100MB + for me.