I really think we lost a huge chance of settng things right with Skyrim. That game was a big mess with many, many glitches and many patches that fixed some and created new ones. Yet the press showered it in GOTY distinctions and people bought the game in big numbers....such a high profile game bombing and getting destroyed in reviews everywhere due to it´s poor QA could have sent a very strong message.
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Developers that always put quality first and new few patches(if any)to fix or...
- Thread starter IcyRhythms
- Start date
Undead Fantasy
Member
They are usually god like with remasters. The only one they fucked up was the Uncharted collection that had a 1.00 day one patch lol.
Wolfgang Jr
Banned
Diablo 3 launch says otherwise.
Games shouldn't require patches. They should be fully developed and fully playable on the disk. Its not ok to go ahh we promised this and this and we will just patch that in later (or in some cases even require extra payment). It is a completly bullshit practice. Delay the game if you have to.
What exactly are these developers promising to people with no internet access or poor internet access? Will these patches be available once the network goes down? Will the game remain playable on another console once this happens? There essentially selling you a broken game.
What exactly are these developers promising to people with no internet access or poor internet access? Will these patches be available once the network goes down? Will the game remain playable on another console once this happens? There essentially selling you a broken game.
Yes i think so, just as smash has more balance issues then at the start, its marketing for the deluxe version :/
thunder_snail
Member
The DRM was terribly done, but the game itself didn't have problems as far as I can recall.
Undead Fantasy
Member
Prepare to be crucified for saying that.
But I do agree. At least have your campaign issue free at release.
McBradders
NeoGAF: my new HOME
Oh those damn lazy devs, am I right?
CecilRousso
Member
I think this thread is going to show you that people do think that.
Undead Fantasy
Member
They are when they are used to fix a broken product at release. I will never understand why gamers are ok with a game shipping with terrible frame rate, multiple crashes and other game breaking issues. Especially remasters of old games like Return to Arkham. That shit was unacceptable.
If they are used for multiplayer or extra content, then by all means do them.
BossDarkseid
Member
Genuine question but are there any particular examples of say games this gen which have required a patch to be fully playable, out of the box as it were. I'm not sure about No Man's Sky but that seems like a possible example?
Also why do people think the developers are lazy and don't delay it, vs the publishers pushing it out the door? Maybe its just a distinction that bugs me for some reason
The first poster incorrectly saying SE were going to do this (maybe I'm misunderstanding their post) is an interesting example. Tabata never said no patches. Never said no Day 1 patch. He literally said they delayed FFXV because in July/August they weren't happy with what would have been the Day 1 version for people who lack high speed internet, or any at all. So they delayed it, made optimizations and improvements so you could play all the content in the game without having to download something out of the box...and released it.
The sentence after that he mentioned that for people with high speed internet etc they would continue to patch the game and plan DLC to enhance the experience, respond to user feedback etc. Which sounds pretty reasonable.
The idea that devs are lazy or don't care, using it as a broad assumption, is such a stupid armchair dev argument because you don't get underpaid and socially isolated working in crunch on a product for years, just to get castigated by someone anonymous because you "don't care".
Although the fact there are games like Arkham Knight (PC version?) and the Arkham Remasters (bit of a pattern...) and more that make you feel more like "but...why?" in their QA. To me those are the instances where I get more curious about how a developer felt it was acceptable to release those in their state, but them in AK's case it gets complicated because apparently Rocksteady didn't work on the PC SKU of the game so it becomes a more complex issue.
Ubisoft stuff is interesting because they have a myriad of technical issues in some of their games, but equally I think they've been given enough rope to tie their own noose thanks to Ubi pumping up the development teams to 1000s of people all over the world.
QA must be a nightmarish near impossibility.
Undead Fantasy
Member
Didn't it have a 70GB patch?
BossDarkseid
Member
I think that was if people wanted to download the TV segments in HD rather than stream them. A 70GB patch would be.... 0_o
not on pc
CecilRousso
Member
So, to use one example, strategy games like Civilization and Cities: Skylines shouldn't be continued to be improved after release, with single player balance changes, AI improvements, fixes and similiar things that patches brings to the tables? Or are you using a very broad definition of extra content?
Eh even Nintendo Classics like Ocarina of Time ran like shit at the time and would have greatly benefited from a patch or two. If that game came out today it would have been declared "unplayable and broken".
Big slowdowns due to the framerate tanking even became a stylistic element at some point on older consoles.
People have always put up with shit performance and bugs.
Septimus Prime
Member
Housemarque
When they patch, it's for features.
When they patch, it's for features.
Bonfires Down
Member
Rockstar, especially considering the size and complexity of their games. Though it's hard to say for sure since they release so few games.
PetriP-TNT
Member
You seem to be wildly delusional of realities software development.
Eh, Blizzard makes complete sense in context to this thread. They've had too few misses, and a lot of functional games on day one with high polish and quality.
If Diablo 3 is enough to get them booted, then Nintendo sure doesn't deserve to be here. Every studio that has put out 5+ games eventually makes a mediocre to dud product.
Honestly it's hard for me to come up with many devs that hit high quality and are also technically efficient enough to not need patches outside Nintendo or Blizzard...but that's usually because those companies have tons of money to spend time on their games, and they're usually fairly focused lean experiences. Many of the experiences I regard as high quality are systems-heavy experiences that have more moving parts to break (Arkane or Firaxis titles), intentionally release to early access for consumer feedback while they continue to develop a game to a solid v1 (Klei Entertainment), or are just ambitious with incredible post-launch support that turns an already great game into something better (Larian, CD Projekt Red).
I'm still glad patching exists. No dev is perfect, games have only gotten more complicated to build, and community feedback can absolutely make a better product. It sucks when patches are crutch for rushed products, but it also sucks when a dev releases a game that needs them...but just leaves the title behind to rot.
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Games are more complex but they also take much longer to develop, have way way way bigger teams, and are built on more common, simpler hardware. Yet we still get games built on the fly.
The rub:
- Not finishing your game by deadline is bad project management and should never happen
- but like any creative endeavour, no game is ever really "finished"
- and most studios and publishers don't have the resources to throw insane man hours at a project to meet the project management schedule
- so most of them suck up every possible minute of dev time (incl up to launch day)
There's also the fact that they can improve the game with launch day patches - so why not do that?
- Not finishing your game by deadline is bad project management and should never happen
- but like any creative endeavour, no game is ever really "finished"
- and most studios and publishers don't have the resources to throw insane man hours at a project to meet the project management schedule
- so most of them suck up every possible minute of dev time (incl up to launch day)
There's also the fact that they can improve the game with launch day patches - so why not do that?
CecilRousso
Member
Those two things you mention there, development time and team size, they're not really things that make things easier, are they?
What do you mean by that? Could you expand?
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
So you think less time to develop a game and less resources in the form of a smaller team would make development easier?
No Man's Sky, any Bethesda game, Battlefield 4, Arkham Knight PC... Pick a bunch.