I smell the rotten scent of Diablo II...

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WTF -- There's ALREADY a patch!

From - http://nwn.bioware.com/support/patch.html

[This message has been edited by Blackthorne TA (edited June 20, 2002).]

 

So what? The game's being fixed. What's so bad about that?

 

What is bad you ask? After years and years in development it's finally released and what happens? It immediately has to be patched! What happened during Beta testing?
Come on, I made fun of this possibility in whatnots but as usual fantasy takes a back seat to reality.

Yes, of course it's good that the game gets fixed, but surely you can see that that's not the point here!

 

The beta testing period was roughly two weeks long. Any bugs discovered during this were probably saved to be fixed in the patch so that they could get the game released.

 

I'm with Wildfire here, I'd rather have a patch out the very next day then play the game with problems for weeks. I don't care how many times they patch the game. I hope they don't need to, but if they do then I hope it's timely. The worse thing is a game like PoR2 where you put out 3 patches but the game still has tons of issues. The key is fixing the problems. If they do this then I'm happy.

 

Let me make my feelings clear:

Good: They quickly issue a patch.
Bad: The need to quickly issue a patch.

@Wildfire
So did Beta testing happen after the game was sent to print?

[This message has been edited by Earl Grey (edited June 20, 2002).]

 

Well, I was reading the BioWare forums, and one guy only received the CD with the beta test on on Wednesday...

 

Voltric: I'm the same way. Why play with the bugs and suffer, it's better to update frequently. Unfortunately for peeps without internet access like me, I'll be playing the game without updates. Too bad someone couldn't send me the updates via snail mail. I'd pay for postage (through Paypal or whatever)!

 

I'm sure they were betatesting right up to the time when the game went gold. All in preparations for a patch on release day.

Actually, I'd be surprised if they weren't. They can't press all those CD's in a few hours. Printing manuals takes time.

In fact, I'd fail to be impressed with a game that did NOT have a patch available on release day. To them the game is "finished" and shouldn't need adjusting. A remarkably short-sighted and flawed view, IMO. It wouldn't speak well for the future of the game if there weren't frequent patches at the beginning.

 

Well... doesn't this mean that the game we buy is in reality a beta test version then?

 

Earl Grey, I'd suspect they fix as many of the bugs as they could before going gold but at least this way we have more fixes when we play. You'd you rather they held back the game another month to work out more of the bugs?

Vandalore, you can download the patch from the NWN website. I mean you must have some net access since you posted on this board. I'm not sure how big the file is but even with a 56K it can't be more than a hour or two for the transfer.

[This message has been edited by Voltric (edited June 21, 2002).]

 

Never played Everquest, did you?

Seriously...I can't think of a game in recent memory that didn't have at LEAST two patches after release.

 

True, but I don't have a means to transport files from the school's terminal to my home computer.

If you have time. See the topic I just posted - it's related to all this talk of patches.

 

I actually can remember such game. Planescape:Torment. Only one patch. Only 12 bugs remained unsolved. But I assure you, not for long
But that's off topic.

Please, don't flame presence of patches. Flame if there are no patches and game is bugged. Like in cases of some other games.

[This message has been edited by Extremist (edited June 21, 2002).]

 

Yes, of course I would. They delayed NWN long enough anyway saying they wouldn't realease it until it was "finished".

In my earlier post what I meant to say was: is the game being sold the same as the version being used for beta testing.?

 

No, the game being sold is not identical to the beta version. While I didn't work on this particular beta, I do a lot of beta testing and the 'in house' guys are always playing with a higher version number than the betas are, even when you are getting beta patches one or more times a week.

The gold version is cleaned up a bit (most of the debugging codes and such disabled, which tends to noticably improve reliability), have some of the last minute discoveries fixed, and the rest goes out on an 'on release' patch.

I don't see this as a problem, particularly -for a game that is essentially purpose built for multiplayer.

Aloha
Vormaerin