DOOM - Hurt me plenty! - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

Vela wrote:

5GB isn't a patch. It's an expansion pack.

Exactly. Wasn't too long ago that 5GB was an entire game.

Verecocha wrote:

People will complain whatever they do. At a patch, ... But if we want more complicated games, in every sense of the word, then shouldn't we expect there to be more bugs in the systems that might be found relatively last minute? Not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers just my opinion on the matter.

People do love to complain, but 5GB on day one is ridiculous. This isn't a few KB because there's a 1/1,000,000 chance of something weird happening in a menu or something. 5GB is an entire expansion pack. 5GB is almost an entire DVD, over the internet, on day one. Isn't this what certification is meant to catch? Aren't consoles meant to be plug-n-play? I like patches fixing broken things, I like expansion packs and such, but 5GB on day one? What the heck did they break to warrant 5GB?

I understand that games are getting more complicated, but as budgets and staff counts increase (and patch sizes with them) there should be a corresponding increase in the amount of effort put into QA. Development requires more effort these days, true. But it does feel like they're not putting the same amount of extra effort into making sure things aren't broken before shoving them out the door. There's too much reliance on "fuck it, we've got their money, we'll just put out a day one patch and they'll have to lump it" for my liking.

Blocks100

Exactly, I mean how much more demon spawn can you fit into 5GB?

AJ

Swirl, I can pretty much guarantee you they're putting more effort into ensuring things are working than they used to; these problems are exponential with the amount of code and assets.

It's almost certainly this big because they've updated the textures, possibly made them all a little bit better because the generation pipeline's been improved. Thinking they've let through a massive fuck up just because the patch is 5GB is unfair and most likely completely wrong.

There should, probably, be a thing in place so people can choose individual updates they want, like with Windows, but delaying an update you've got ready, just so people don't piss and moan, is madness.

Blue Swirl

AJ wrote:

Swirl, I can pretty much guarantee you they're putting more effort into ensuring things are working than they used to; these problems are exponential with the amount of code and assets. It's almost certainly this big because they've updated the textures, possibly made them all a little bit better because the generation pipeline's been improved. Thinking they've let through a massive fuck up just because the patch is 5GB is unfair and most likely completely wrong. There should, probably, be a thing in place so people can choose individual updates they want, like with Windows, but delaying an update you've got ready, just so people don't piss and moan, is madness.

All true, but 5GB on day one is ridiculous. Sorry, it just is. If it's not a fuck up, then it's a massive indicator of the state of the gaming industry as a whole these days that this is somehow acceptable.

And I don't think you should hold back up dates if they're available - I just think day one updates of several gig is just a bit shitty.

Somewhere along the line, someone made the call that this was OK. And I disagree. That's all. No moaning, no disrespect to the amount of work developers put in, etc. But I think we can agree that when a triple A title has a 5GB "update" the minute you put it in the drive, there's something rotten with modern gaming.

Yossarian

Isn't there about a month between a game being sent to be pressed and actually hitting the shelves? So there is an extra month that devs can spend fixing and polishing things before you get your hands on it. That could be seen as a good thing, no?

AJ

It's not ridiculous in all situations, though, just some. Other people, me included, find it totally acceptable and prefer it this way.

The problem is in no way with the practice of having 5GB updates on release and entirely with the fact that they don't cater for people with slower connections (or who are time poor or exceptionally impatient) by making it possible to start the game without it and/or splitting them up so people can choose just the important fixes over everything including ones that (for example) just make it a bit shinier.

AJ

Do people actually complain enough (and in useful ways) to the platform holders? Things aren't going to change unless they do.

Unlikely

I received this from brother and sister in law. I even managed to play it briefly.

Kow

trippy wrote:

Much appreciated either way, thank you.

I had a look inside the guts of an old machine and it turns out it's already been mostly cannibalised. There's only 1gb of ram left in there, which I don't think would make much difference to you. Sorry.

Escape

Yossarian wrote:

That could be seen as a good thing, no?

Split it in two like Windows: important and optional. Optional covers graphical improvements and so on, and is able to download in the background.

Vela

So, patch discussion aside, this game is good yeah?

Skerret

Seems so.

Minkymu

My connections so fast 5gb is done pronto. Installing the disc is still my biggest bug bear beacause it takes ages.

Billy

5gb could be patch depending on how they've built the game. E.g. if they wanted to add textures (one of the largest things in a game) they may have to repack the entire texture pack or some large parts of it. It's probably a combination of patch and content.

Day 1 patches are a blessing and a curse, games are so complicated these days that it's incredibly difficult to hit zero bugs on time, some departments may have upwards of 1000 bugs when a game hits content lock with only a small amount of time to fix those bugs. Some publishers with several studios dogpile other teams during that time to try and hit 0 bugs on time, some studios don't have that luxury.

Personally I think patches are a good thing but scheduling for most games could almost certainly improve, and Internet speeds need to catch up with the size of content we consume now.

Anyhow, really looking forward to this.

Knight

Problem is it means they won't delay a game anymore, they'll just release it and hope they can patch it in time. Halo MCC will forever stand as a memorial to developer/ publisher/ whoever else was at fault stupidity. And the acceptability of launch day patches made that whole mess possible. They should have delayed the whole game a couple of months, at least, back in the day that's what would have happened.

acemuzzy

AJ wrote:

It's not ridiculous in all situations, though, just some. Other people, me included, find it totally acceptable and prefer it this way.

The problem is in no way with the practice of having 5GB updates on release and entirely with the fact that they don't cater for people with slower connections (or who are time poor or exceptionally impatient) by making it possible to start the game without it and/or splitting them up so people can choose just the important fixes over everything including ones that (for example) just make it a bit shinier.

SP you can always start without a patch can't you??

g.man

Vela wrote:

So, patch discussion aside, this game is good yeah?

Yup. Thoroughly enjoying it.

AJ

Knight wrote:

Problem is it means they won't delay a game anymore, they'll just release it and hope they can patch it in time. Halo MCC will forever stand as a memorial to developer/ publisher/ whoever else was at fault stupidity. And the acceptability of launch day patches made that whole mess possible. They should have delayed the whole game a couple of months, at least, back in the day that's what would have happened.

ET says that likely wouldn't have happened back in the day.

acemuzzy wrote:

SP you can always start without a patch can't you??

Fucked if I know, I haven't got either of the new consoles yet and couldn't install a PC game from disc if I bought one.

Billy

Depends if the game requires an internet connection!

Kernowgaz

g.man wrote:

Vela wrote:

So, patch discussion aside, this game is good yeah?

Yup. Thoroughly enjoying it.

How did you find the Foundry? It's quite a big level.

I saw that you were doing a rune challenge, not tried any yet, are they any good?

g.man

Loved the foundry and just finished the one after that. Levels are massive and very reminiscent of the labyrinths of old so far.
I've done two rune challenges, both warp you to somewhere else where you have to shoot X number of things in an allotted time. Time is very tight and they take a few attempts. Completing them unlocks more abilities. Decent enough.

Speedhaak

Sums it up for me, absolutely loving it:

Speedhaak

g.man wrote:

I've done two rune challenges, both warp you to somewhere else where you have to shoot X number of things in an allotted time. Time is very tight and they take a few attempts.

Yeah got one to kill Imps last night. Good fun, shame there isn't a mode outside of the campaign like this for score attack. I could happily sit in a small circled off area shooting Demons all day! Score attack is fun

Kernowgaz

Speedhaak wrote:

g.man wrote:

I've done two rune challenges, both warp you to somewhere else where you have to shoot X number of things in an allotted time. Time is very tight and they take a few attempts.

Yeah got one to kill Imps last night. Good fun, shame there isn't a mode outside of the campaign like this for score attack. I could happily sit in a small circled off area shooting Demons all day! Score attack is fun

Have a look in the Snapmap thing, there's loads of maps in there.

Speedhaak

Yeah I was wondering what that was, actually, what is it?

Kernowgaz

You can make your own maps and modes. You can filter the maps to co op, dm and other modes.

Played a couple and they're decent, don't know if there console specific ( probably are)

g.man

Played a couple of the original maps last night. Great fun.

trippy

Kow wrote:

trippy wrote:

Much appreciated either way, thank you.

I had a look inside the guts of an old machine and it turns out it's already been mostly cannibalised. There's only 1gb of ram left in there, which I don't think would make much difference to you. Sorry.

Thanks for taking the time, Kow!

I'm eyeing up things I can't afford on ebay and it's almost entirely to play this game and No Man's Sky.

Speedhaak

Oh cool. Had no idea what it was

g.man

Also, nice to see that ID ditched the fecking numbers spewing out of enemies heads when you shoot them. I'm guessing they had a lot of feedback pre-release that nobody wanted that shit.

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