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[Hzza]

Couple of questions to try and get some discussion going. Try and keep developer/publisher bias out of the way and just speak of your own experiences where possible.

When was the last time any of you guys played a game on day 1 that worked straight away and the only patches released have been for balance or to release new content? How much did you pay for it?

What was the last game you bought and after how long was it patched to a level that was deemed playable in your opinion? How long/how many patches were released until, in your opinion, the game was in a "finished" state?

When did day 1/week 1/continuous patching become the rule rather then the exception?

Are services like Steam ruining game developement by allowing automated patching?

[Zarf]

Have they fixed the Bad Company2 Friends list yet?
It's not a problem that steam provides this functionality, It's that publishers are using it rather than allowing their devs enough time to fix issues picked up in Beta.

[Mr Chug]

I haven't bought a game on day 1 in a long time, but it's become instinctive to check for patches when firing up a non-steam game.

There's also games that I've played that seemed relatively bug free at the time, but turned out to be full of bugs I just never encountered. Empire Total War is my favourite example- I played an unpatched full campaign without realising that the AI couldn't launch naval invasions at all.

[discordance]

BC2 friends list got fixed months ago i forget when

[claws]

I don't think patching is that bad a thing. If you don't have patching, you either need a) massively bigger test procedures = pricier games or b) simpler, more deterministic games which are easier to test.

Definitely some devteams are a bit fast and sloppy. Worse are the (looking at you, Codemasters) who often cba'd to patch at all and just leave games horribly broken. Most broken game that was never patched, anyone?

[Finaldeath]

Lots of games have worked for me with no patch. It has been bad since the internet appeared to be honest - but before then you got bugs in games that just were not patchable (of course, games were simpler then...)

[Officer Dibble]

Poker Night at the Inventory, launched day 1 with no bugs (that I know of). Only patch so far has been to make a couple of UI changes.

I agree that the number of games being released with game-breaking bugs on day 1 has increased, but I'm not sure that's down to Steam or any other digital download platforms. Most of these games tend to be ones with big publishers behind them pushing for early deadlines so they can can run giggling down to the bank a week earlier, while everyone else struggles to play what should have been an amazing game. A good example of this is All Points Bulletin, it was horribly buggy when it was released so no one played it and it died. Had EA let them work on it for another 6 months or a year, we might all be playing it now and having an amazing time.

Digital delivery is the 'next big thing' where gaming is concerned, while technology is improving it's becoming a much easier and much better system to use. I don't think the system has quite hit its stride yet, it won't be until there's serious competition for Steam that we see real improvements being made. There is a lot of talk about whether the next generation of consoles will even be able to use discs, I don't see this happening just yet, particularly not in the next Nintendo console, since retail sales still beat digital hands down. This isn't the case for PC gaming though, we're pretty much already there. When was the last time you walked into Game or something similar and they had more than about 3 shelves of PC games.

[CruelCow]

When did day 1/week 1/continuous patching become the rule rather then the exception?

Are services like Steam ruining game developement by allowing automated patching?

Easy to patch certainly has changed that, but don't blame steam, blame the internet.
Non steam games also often get 0-day patches and the likes.
Games are getting bigger and complexer and there for harder to bug test. Also nowadays a game breaking bug doesn't mean you have to recall every single cartridge you delivered, it means you need to host a patch file on your server.

I also blame all the customers who accept buggy games. It was pretty hilarious with fallout: new vegas: "I'm positively surprised I've ony encountered a few game breaking bugs yet"


Me personally? I have few problems. I don't think I've ever preordered a game, and I can't remember the last game I've bought on day 1.

[Mr Chug]

Poker Night at the Inventory has a few speech bugs if you interrupt conversations. Tycho once tried to start the same conversation with the Heavy 3 times before the scene kicked in and they actually started chatting.

There's no doubt that easy patching has made some developers a bit sloppier, but it's not across the board, and it wouldn't eliminate all bugs even if they didn't have the option to patch.

Talking of patching, anyone know if Elemental: War of Magic is patched to playability yet?

[Leftism]

Civ 5 worked straight out of the box for me.

One 100MB update for balance issues, AI fixes and new content so far.

It's only downfall is being unable to fix multi player games that go wrong, e.g. When a player times out they can't rejoin the game and the host has to load a previous world save and re-host the game for it to continue.

[Brahms]

Don't buy games on day 1. Day one release seem to basically have contempt for the purchaser. If the game requires online check in for a multiplayer component I can almost guarantee that for the first week (at least) there will be problems with this

[e90]

DRM isn't there because it stops people pirating... it's there to stop them pirating for the first few weeks (something it often accomplishes).

I think an element of game patching is similar to the system of patching windows (imo).... if the patch needs cracking to work with a patched game... its harder... and everyone wants the bug less version.

Windows are shocking at updates. Many updates that come out fix problems they knew about two years ago.... but as soon as it becomes an issue (a virus has started to abuse the flaw) then they release an update... this means that (I'm counting most pirate windows, not all) everyone NEEDS to update, but only legit versions can.   If I'm honest that stopped me pirating windows... the patch was only released when it was needed and I couldn't apply it meaning that I get all the drive by download infections.

If they released it perfect it wouldn't need updating, therefore if pirates crack it on day one even they get a bug free safe game etc.

just my opinion

[Millicent Bystander]

Most buggy game I bought at day 1 was Daggerfall, it came out in 1996 though.  This was when the internet was strange and new and actually putting fixes online probably hadn't occurred to Bethesda.

It was still an awesome (and massive) game though even if I did play that starting dungeon about 100 times.

Civ 5 was ok out the box, just a pity it was crap.

[Teatime]

I also blame all the customers who accept buggy games.

You mean the customers who whine and create an uproar each time a game's release is pushed back? Or those who will always whine about the price and only buy if it's cheap enough?

"Sir, we have the occurrence of a serious bug in 3.42 percent of tested machines. We are trying to pinpoint the cause of the bug. Do you want to push back the announced release of our 3.5 million dollar game for another month? BTW, tomorrow is payday, if you kindly remember."

[Lazzars]

people still played new vegas despite the groin punchingly bad bugs. one thing i wish, though, is because of direct to drive style services like steam they would patch the demos too