How Many Patches Is Too Many?

Velocity Gamer: How many of these things should we suffer before we declare the game has released unfinished?

[Son_Lee]

Enough patches to get it right. If it's more than a few to fix the problems out the gate, then yes, the game was released with too many bugs.

[dinkeldinkse]

How broken is too broken?

[Neko_Mega]

True, plus with Fallout New Vegas. If anyone even could tell, almost each update remove a part of the game.

New Vegas they remove the little girl that chase after the rat and later the black kid. Yet nothing made the game really run much better.

[mynameisEvil]

What in God's name are you talking about? The only thing they took out (that may or may not have even been there) were any bodyguards that were at the Freeside entrance near Mick and Ralph's.

I THINK I remember seeing them on the Xbox, then I stopped playing the game until June of 2011 where they weren't there, so whether or not this is a fake memory or not, I can't be certain. Everything else has been kept in.

[NukaCola]

When talking about Bethesda games a lot of people rag on New Vegas a lot, but I have it on PS3 and as it is now post patch, it's still the most solid game I have played from Bethesda. I have literally no bugs or freezing, a few bits of slowdowns but overall it's fixed.

Skyrim on PS3 so far isn't doing bad at all. Nothing really killing my game, no freezing either (But to be fair my save fil is under 5mb so maybe I am not up there enough yet.

[Dark_Overlord]

@NukaCola

Bethesda didn't make New Vegas, it was Obsidian

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

1

Disagree all you like but last gen this was barely an issue. Patches are used as a crutch to be lazy nowadays.

[Ducky]

... but last-gen, devs didn't really have the luxury of patches anyways.

Games were also smaller, so there was less room for error. Glitches still existed though.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

Which is my point exactly. The second they got the "luxury of patches" they used it as a reason to be less thorough in quality assurance.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

Double post

[Tanir]

bethsdeda is such a lazy company of devs, never finishing their game until a year later. thats why i wait for the GOTY edition and is why i still dont have skyrim, even tho i really wanna play it.

[h311rais3r]

I wouldn't call it lazy but rather ignorant. A game this large needs a lot more testing than it gets. A lot of the glitches none of my friends have seen or me. It just happens to some an when it does. Bye bye skyrim lol. They need many testers to test everything.

[Zha1tan]

Its clear you have never programmed anything in your life.

Thousands of lines of code possibly even millions.....yes because a few strands clash or dont become compatible, yes utter laziness....

[h311rais3r]

Problem is. Can u fix one thing without breaking another?

[Reborn]

Again, the small errors are to be expected in such a large game. Can't get them all - on launch. Which people would be fine with. (till they can sort it out)

But when huge problems such as freezes/lags/crashes and save issues come into play. You have to wonder how on earth those things dodged testing. What did they do, play before the file got large enough? Or simply ignore it, and hope the community wouldn't mind?

End of the day, something is clearly wrong with their testing process.

[cyclonus007]

It depends.

There is no excuse for a single player game with no online component at all. Multiplayer gets a pass but mainly if the patches are for balance, not so the game can actually be playable.

[ilovemyps3]

before internet, you had to be sure the game was perfect, with no bugs. impossible to update that cartridge...

today, studios can announce a game, 3 years before, and most of the time, the game will be released that day.

when you get some updates and it adds some new features, it's cool.

when you get some updates because the studio released the game with bugs and flaws, and knew they were going to patch it later, it's not cool.

when studios block content on disc, and make you pay for a 100kb file, for getting those 2 extra maps, that were included in the disk, it's not cool. maybe there is a law forbidding those things. it's like selling you a cabriolet, but if you want to use it, you have to pay extra 5000$.

if the content IS ALREADY in the disc, when you pay for it, you should be able to use it.if you make some new maps or content, and i need to download them, and pay them, in order to be able to play, it's ok. but if these maps are already in the disc i bought, it's not fair to make me pay extra cash, for them. any lawyers here, at N4G, that could check this ?

and for patches that patches the patches, man, finish your phoking game, and release it later. but don't release a flawed version (black ops online was broken on ps3, why would it work better, on xbox, than on ps3, since it's the same algorithms/code, but wrote in another language?) unless "someone" starting by "M" and finishing by "T" really wanted it to happen, so people buy the "best version". i bet 30-40% of gold live subscriptions are bought for cod games. microsoft really need to make sure people will play the game on their console... giving away 20-30 million dollars to treyarch, to make the xbox version look great, and the ps3 version look bad, with broken lag, etc, it's much better than spending 10 million on advertising, for cod.

would treyarch accept those 20-30 millions from microsoft ? please answer me.

when microsoft extended the xbox warranty, with 1 billon $, honestly, what are 30 millions, for microsoft ? even 50 millions aren't nothing, compared to the 10 million guys that will pay 60$ for a gold subscription, to play cod online.

gta4, they had paid 50 millions, as well.

i could bet next gta5 will be a xbox exclusive. i bet microsoft could pay 100 millions, to have that game on the xbox.

bookmark my comment, and come here and bubble me, the day gt5 is announced exclusively to xbox.

[ilovemyps3]

4 disagrees and still counting ;)
at least, 3 xbox fanboyz are here, i can smell them, and let me tell you, they don't smell good :)

[Dark_Overlord]

"when studios block content on disc, and make you pay for a 100kb file, for getting those 2 extra maps, that were included in the disk, it's not cool. maybe there is a law forbidding those things."

I have already contacted trading standards over here in the UK, and apparently it is completely legal as they own the software :(

[ilovemyps3]

too bad :(
thanks for your answer.

i would like to talk to treyarch, for example, and tell them " hey, i don't play online, i only play the single mission, because i don't have an internet connection. i refuse to pay the full price, since i will only use half the game.so if i don't login and play online, will you give me back some cash ?"

[Systematrix]

Never too many patches, always not enough dev time

[aaronobst]

As many as it takes to fix the trainwreck on PS3

[Detoxx]

Over 9000