Do you think Game Companies take us for fools?

As said before, a lot of it is because of the size of the games being released. Theres always been patches for PC games, but as bandwidth and the game sizes increase so will the patches. a lot of it has to do with the publishers of the game also, not the developers. They push for the game release, and as now almost everyone has an internet connection and know what patches are they push harder for a buggy "gold" version and fix the game later with patches. We all still buy them so they all keep doing it! :p
 
Nice to see peoples opinions. :) Keep them coming!

That patch does take a good 10 minutes to install. In the end I went and had a coffee while I waited for it to finish. :rolleyes:

Some good points about the software size increasing as well, hence the larger patches. I remember when I used to buy PC Gamer every month just so I could get the patches from the cd's. :)
 
Not really no, Its the publishers who normally push the game out before its ready.
As for patches I don't care how big they are if they fix/improve the game. However I do work for a isp so get fast internet for free. ;)
I do see why its a pain for people on slower speeds but if it means the game is better then you've just got to put up with it.
 
Roduga said:
There is no such thing as finished software. I wrote a programme a while back that was a simple 200-line section of code. Worked everywhere, "great" I thought. I had to write a fix for it today. I can't think of a simple bit of software that is bug-free. Yeap, consoles have fewer problems but every console game still has bugs *AND* they can't be fixed.
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Indeed - one of the fundamental principles of testing is that finding ALL faults in a piece of software is not a realistic goal.

As for the patch size thing, I don't see what all the fuss is about. 530meg should be a breeze to download, even on 512kbit that's under 3hrs. Compare this to the old days where people on modem (20meg/hr absolute max, more like 15meg/hour for those with poor lines) had to download 80meg Halflife patches and it's not really any worse.

PinkPig makes a very good point that also these big patches often include new content (maps/mods/models etc) as well. It's not 500meg of pure bug fixes you are bringing down there.

The point was also made that game sizes are bigger now - generally speaking, patches are often fairly small compared to the full game, they are rarely bigger than around 10% of the actual game size. It's natural that they should increase a bit in line with install sizes.

Rhyzz said:
What would they do if I wanted to play on ISDN? I would almost certaintly be writing to trading standards over the size of that patch if I had had to wait 1day+ to get it.
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Well you'd certainly be wasting your time there, since the system requirements for BF2 clearly state that a broadband connection is required for multiplayer - and you don't *need* to download the latest patch for singleplayer.
 
The problem i find is that because of the inevitable bugs that need patching on almost every game that comes out now i never get a game on the release date anymore. I tend to wait a couple of months until at least the first if not second patch is available and then get it.
It means i get to play a game that doesnt crash and has been fixed, but i do miss out on the collective experience of playing a game with everyone else.

Whilst i accept that programming games for a million hardward combinations is tricky i do get the feeling that the QC and testing is not seen as quite as important as "you can always patch it later". There are some patches that fix things that really should have been picked up in beta.

Its a shame i suspect its a buissnes thing to get the game on the shelf as quickly as possible whereas the game developer wants their baby to be perfect.
 
Ugley_Matt said:
The problem i find is that because of the inevitable bugs that need patching on almost every game that comes out now i never get a game on the release date anymore. I tend to wait a couple of months until at least the first if not second patch is available and then get it.
It means i get to play a game that doesnt crash and has been fixed, but i do miss out on the collective experience of playing a game with everyone else.

Whilst i accept that programming games for a million hardward combinations is tricky i do get the feeling that the QC and testing is not seen as quite as important as "you can always patch it later". There are some patches that fix things that really should have been picked up in beta.

Its a shame i suspect its a buissnes thing to get the game on the shelf as quickly as possible whereas the game developer wants their baby to be perfect.
Click to expand...

I often get games long after the release date too; that way you get patches, the game often runs more smoothly (due to hardware improvements) and are also cheaper to buy. As an example, in the last ~year I've completed Mafia, Red Faction 1&2, Freespace 2, Star Trek Elite Force 2, NFS:Porsche 2000, C&C Renegade.... all of which were at least a couple of years old.

As for the testing side of things, I'm not an expert on the gaming side of things but I would imagine the problem is that it's quite hard to attract genuine professional software testers to the gaming industry. Apart from anything else it is probably incredibly hard to script for and the requirements are liable to change very frequently. These kind of obstacles mean that there probably isn't much time to do a full test of the final code prior to release (due to publisher pressures).
 
EA have really annoyed me :mad:

I bought BF2142 from the members market, finally tried to install it yesterday after rebuilding my pc and it said the CD key was already registered with another account :( They have said that it will cost $30 to transfer the account :mad: :mad:
 
Thats not EAs fault. Most online games these days tie a key to an account. Really should have bought a retail version imo. Or the person you bought it off should have supplied the account details.
 
Something which has annoyed me the most recently is oblivion i find its very buggy (ctd etc :( ) and doesnt run great and i was glad when they patched thinking they going to work hard bring more patches but no they release an expansion pack :confused:
i thought they could fix the game a bit more before doing that
 
Patching BF2 with the 448MB patch now (nothing else running heavy cpu/heavy HD use) Installing patch from 320GB data drive to 320GB Games drive.

Started 15:22
Finished 15:29
 
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