The more things change ...

MOH · 27-09-2007 10:00AM #1

I was reading the letters page of a PC games magazine last night.
The five letters published were:

- Is it safe to overclock my PC?
- Based on your reviews of cards last issue, should I upgrade my graphics card now, or wait for the next generation?

Two on violence in games:
- Violence in games doesn't turn people into homicidal maniacs
- Games are meant to be fantasy, if you can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality you've got bigger problems than just games

Letter of the month:
- Why do companies keep releasing games that immediately require downloading a patch? Can they not either finish the game before they release it, or include the patch with the release?

Nothing too unusual there, all common discussions these days.

Except the magazine was PC Gaming World, March 1998.

kaimera · 27-09-2007 10:03AM

heh.

L31mr0d · 27-09-2007 10:35AM

MOH wrote:

Letter of the month:
- Why do companies keep releasing games that immediately require downloading a patch? Can they not either finish the game before they release it, or include the patch with the release?

What I find funny is that back in 98 patchs where only ever in the order of 1MB or 2MB at most. Its seems as the average internet speeds have gone up the size of patchs have gone up proportionally. Now its normal to be downloading patchs in the order of 100MB or 200MB.

Still it goes to show though, nothing has ever been done to fix this problem.

Zombrex · 27-09-2007 10:40AM

L31mr0d wrote:

What I find funny is that back in 98 patchs where only ever in the order of 1MB or 2MB at most. Its seems as the average internet speeds have gone up the size of patchs have gone up proportionally. Now its normal to be downloading patchs in the order of 100MB or 200MB.

Its a good point. I still have no idea why BF2 requires someone to download 400MB to patch the game.

It smacks of laziness on the part of modern programmers.

Doctor DooM · 27-09-2007 10:41AM

L31mr0d wrote:

Still it goes to show though, nothing has ever been done to fix this problem.

Working for a software company, I can tell you the reason for this is that at some point, the software has to be printed on discs. If the companies stopped production and printed new discs every time a bug was discovered or fix was needed, the costs would spiral, there would be no definitive version, and people who bought the old versions would be peeved. There is no such thing as perfect software.

MOH · 27-09-2007 11:18AM

SDooM wrote:

Working for a software company, I can tell you the reason for this is that at some point, the software has to be printed on discs. If the companies stopped production and printed new discs every time a bug was discovered or fix was needed, the costs would spiral, there would be no definitive version, and people who bought the old versions would be peeved. There is no such thing as perfect software.

The letter in the magazine was saying that since we're constantly being told that pirates in the bedroom can remaster and distribute discs with no problem why can't the software companies (I know it's a completely different matter with tens of thousands of copies, I'm just quoting the guy from 9 years ago

)

K.O.Kiki · 27-09-2007 12:43PM

Working as a lowly tester, I tell you the reasons for patches are:

Overambition on the part of the developer
and
time constraints on the part of the testers

That's dealing with text/audio heavy work, now.
400mb for BF2 smacks more of development deadlines coupled with an incomplete design document.

the_syco · 27-09-2007 12:57PM

L31mr0d wrote:

What I find funny is that back in 98 patchs where only ever in the order of 1MB or 2MB at most. Its seems as the average internet speeds have gone up the size of patchs have gone up proportionally. Now its normal to be downloading patchs in the order of 100MB or 200MB.

I have games from 98 that fit on 5 floppy disks. I'm looking to buy a game now (Stranglehold), that fits onto two 6GB DVDs...

Also, back in the day, games only needs 1MB or RAM. Some games now need 1024MB or RAM.

User45701 · 27-09-2007 12:57PM

well the whole thing is those mags are directed at a target market who might be men aged 14-20 and the youngins who are only getting into computers (i know some people who didnt get into pc agaming till they where like 18 20 ect) So they will have these questions thats why they loook like they are just reprinting old things

L31mr0d · 27-09-2007 01:13PM

MOH wrote:

The letter in the magazine was saying that since we're constantly being told that pirates in the bedroom can remaster and distribute discs with no problem why can't the software companies (I know it's a completely different matter with tens of thousands of copies, I'm just quoting the guy from 9 years ago )

IMO, they should have more extensive beta testing. Get a few 100 people to sign up for the beta and after each stage is complete have them test it for free. People will do it to get a first glimpse at an upcoming game. This will leave the developers free to work on the next module and have a bug report built for them by the beta testers.

Back OT, the overclocking question is a good one. The amount of my friends who game who still think overclocking will blow up your PC. They also believe overclocking accomplishes nothing. Its news to a lot of them that differently clocked CPUs under the same architecture are all cut from the same silicon wafer, they believe a CPU is made to perform at a given clock speed

Stephen · 27-09-2007 02:30PM

I still encounter so many muppets that believe their 3ghz P4 is way faster than a 2.4ghz Core2Duo because, of course, 3ghz is more than 2.4ghz. They were the same knobs who thought their low-end p4s were superior to everything from AMD at the time, again because they got sucked into the clock speed myth. The same guys have their 100 euro bargain basement graphics cards that they expect to outperform a card that cost 3 times as much because their piece of crap has 512mb and the high end card might only have 256mb.

BIGGER NUMBERS = MOAR PERFORMANCE YEAH??

:rolleyes:

Zombrex · 27-09-2007 02:42PM

Just to clarify I wasn't saying that patches smack as laziness. Patches are a fact of software development, and a good thing as they (eventually) fix problems with the game.

But there is no need for patches that are half a gig in size. That is just sloppiness on the part of the developer, who either don't know how to use proper patching software or who couldn't be bothered.

MOH · 27-09-2007 02:57PM

Stephen wrote:

I still encounter so many muppets that believe their 3ghz P4 is way faster than a 2.4ghz Core2Duo because, of course, 3ghz is more than 2.4ghz. They were the same knobs who thought their low-end p4s were superior to everything from AMD at the time, again because they got sucked into the clock speed myth. The same guys have their 100 euro bargain basement graphics cards that they expect to outperform a card that cost 3 times as much because their piece of crap has 512mb and the high end card might only have 256mb.

BIGGER NUMBERS = MOAR PERFORMANCE YEAH??

:rolleyes:

That's what the girls say :mad:

gizmo · 27-09-2007 04:01PM

Actually '98 saw the release of SiN and its 32MB patch which outraged most people which probably sparked that letter. I'm sure one of those issues also saw the start of the near riot at Codemasters attempt at copyprotection in Colin McRae which stopped the disc from being read in a large number of CD drives.

Call Me Jimmy · 27-09-2007 06:26PM

Wicknight wrote:

Its a good point. I still have no idea why BF2 requires someone to download 400MB to patch the game.

It smacks of laziness on the part of modern programmers.

If a programmer is lazy, he / she gets fired. It's not the programmers, the programmers work as hard as they can, it's just that they aren't given enough time by the game companies.

thelordofcheese · 27-09-2007 09:37PM

Wicknight wrote:

Just to clarify I wasn't saying that patches smack as laziness. Patches are a fact of software development, and a good thing as they (eventually) fix problems with the game.

But there is no need for patches that are half a gig in size. That is just sloppiness on the part of the developer, who either don't know how to use proper patching software or who couldn't be bothered.

Arse.

It's got more to do with publishers setting unrealistic deadlines, which means dispite the ammount of bugs that do get caught not all can be fixed.
That coupled with the fact that games have gotten progressively bigger over the years, means that the patches have to increase in size as well, those shiney textures that make your games look so lovely have to come from somewhere.

Everytime someone treads out the tired old "it's lazy developers" line, god kills a kitten.

KdjaCL · 27-09-2007 09:52PM

L31mr0d wrote:

IMO, they should have more extensive beta testing. Get a few 100 people to sign up for the beta and after each stage is complete have them test it for free. People will do it to get a first glimpse at an upcoming game. This will leave the developers free to work on the next module and have a bug report built for them by the beta testers.

Back OT, the overclocking question is a good one. The amount of my friends who game who still think overclocking will blow up your PC. They also believe overclocking accomplishes nothing. Its news to a lot of them that differently clocked CPUs under the same architecture are all cut from the same silicon wafer, they believe a CPU is made to perform at a given clock speed

or even better get people to pay for beta testing or pay for demos, how is the TF2 beta coming along? Anyone else pay for the quake wars beta?

kdjac

Doctor DooM · 27-09-2007 09:57PM

MOH wrote:

The letter in the magazine was saying that since we're constantly being told that pirates in the bedroom can remaster and distribute discs with no problem why can't the software companies (I know it's a completely different matter with tens of thousands of copies, I'm just quoting the guy from 9 years ago )

You kind of answered your own statement there

28-09-2007 08:04PM

Lol, when I saw the title I thought you were talking about Fallout 3.

The more things change ...

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