Unreal Championship to be patched (1 Viewer)

[Scott "E"]

They'll be fixing a few exploits, but more interesting is that they are going to be adding a way to turn off anti aliasing. Read about it here.

 

[Romier S]

 

[BrianB]

It's not the first real patch, you know that, Romier

 

[Romier S]

It's not the first real patch, you know that, Romier

Oh I know. All to well my friend. You of course know how folks get when they see the dreaded words "Exploit and bugs" in the same sentence as "patch". Its only a matter of time until someone lets its loose. (ie....LAZY ASS DEVELOPERS!)

 

[BrianB]

It's a tricky one - as long as the market demands games come out ASAFP (and I know the desire for the initial batch of Live games to hit their target was exceptionally strong), you'll get games that potentially aren't as well tested (or have as many B/C class bugs cleared) as they should be.

But I do find interesting the turnaround from Microsoft. Prelaunch of the system: "no patching! just upgrades!". Now: "patch!".

Of course, patching of console games isn't something new, it's just something publishers (and Sony) never shouted about. It's not infrequent for games to be mastered from a different build between the first pressing to the second. It gives the developer that little bit extra time to clear up big bugs that don't get noticed until after the title's launched... And any consumer who gets bitten by it simply gets a replacement disk from the second batch which mysteriously fixes the "bad disk" they had.

Most (in)famously, Gran Turismo 2... But it's definitely happened with more than that.

 

[Steve Deacon]

Absolutely it goes on with the consoles. I wrote Mass Destruction on the Sega Saturn back in '97. We found out that they'd pressed and shipped an initial batch whilst we were still squashing bugs. I know for a fact I could cause one of the initial batch disks to crash within 5 seconds or so, all because they wouldn't wait.

 

[Romier S]

I wrote Mass Destruction on the Sega Saturn back in '97

I actually still have that on Saturn. Its one of the few games that fell through the cracks when I initially sold my Saturn (which I rebought a few months ago). Its a pretty damn fun little game

 

[Romier S]

double post

 

[Steve Deacon]

I actually still have that on Saturn. Its one of the few games that fell through the cracks when I initially sold my Saturn (which I rebought a few months ago). Its a pretty damn fun little game

You're too kind, although from reading your posts in the past, it seems there's very little you haven't bought and played. It was OK for a quick blast, but had all the depth of a puddle. It did run at 60 fps though, which is more than the PSX version could manage.

Well, I've dragged this off-topic quite enough.

 

[Damien]

it looks like microsoft DL'able content is living up to expectations. These fixes are very significant, especially the tag rifle cheaters/and ctf team switchers, as well as rank cheaters. But other things like auto-aim, triangles, and no crouching still hurt. Ghost Recon also has some very significant problems that are going to be fixed(well maybe not all in the first patch either). This leaves mechassault, hopefully microsoft can get the lobby fix in with the first batch of content, that REALLY would be sweet. I think that if it isn't possible to have the game finished by release, what else as a developer are you going to do? This is one of the big three of xbox live's games, so it WASN'T being delayed, especially after bruteforce/starwars/doa/marvel are already postponed. Just as long as they were trying as best as they could to get the stuff in, but fell short due to time restraints, then I 100% agree with patches rather than delays. If it's released 6 months from the games original sell-date, then I'd say it's being abused. Hopefully this won't have to be done too often as companies should be learning.

 

[Conroy Tesa]

Please patch NHL2k3 and the ranking cheat(getting 100 wins per win) and networks being unsyncronized error, thus giving a loss.

 

[Jon W H]

It's only a matter of time until someone lets it loose. (ie....LAZY ASS DEVELOPERS!)

Eh. Heard it all before. It's amazing how some people remain ignorant about the industry and feel they have a right to demand the sun, moon and the stars, yesterday.
In any case, I was against the idea of "patches" at first, but seeing how it's difficult to foresee exploits without a large base of testers, it's probably for the better that developers work to correct oversights. A team of 10-20 testers vs. 100k gamers? No question there's going to be new discoveries.

 

[Damien]

i see what you are saying, but there are so many noobs on with minimal skill keeping up with the vets with that lightning gun. taking off auto-aim and those triangles that make hiding in some some spots useless would really increase the skill/strategy level needed to play.

 

[paul h]

I'll be more than happy with an improved frame rate and as Live hasnt even launched over here yet i'd like to see the patch free with a magazine!

 

[BrianB]

Paul, you can go sign up (and pay) for Live on the XBox website in the UK. It's not "officially launched", but like in the US, it's fully ramped up.

 

[paul h]

Cheers Brian, i'll have a look and sign up ... though i'm gonna need a pretty damn long cable, had broadband installed next to my pc which is upstairs and nowhere near the XBox or TV!

 

[Jon W H]

i see what you are saying, but there are so many noobs on with minimal skill keeping up with the vets with that lightning gun. taking off auto-aim and those triangles that make hiding in some some spots useless would really increase the skill/strategy level needed to play.

Do we really want the 'noobs' to have a very tough learning curve? I'm just remembering how I was starting out on Nov. 15th. Once the rankings are changed to reflect lesser points for bot killing, I think you'll start to see the cream rise to the crop. I'm anticipating that. Perhaps you will start to feel the vets are getting more props, then.
As for the lightning gun, I have mixed feelings. I love its long-range sniping capability, but I agree that auto-aim at short range is a little bit dumb as far as the LG is concerned. Toning the LG down at short range would probably make everyone happy.
Don't get me wrong. I'll play with auto-aim off, competition mode off if there are enough people. I don't use the LG on most maps, either. It's a small part of my strategy and I actually have no problems getting around the 'noobs' with LG and AA enabled. It depends on if your game revolves around one approach, which may be prone to what a lot of people are complaining about, I guess.
I'm not sure what to say about the triangles. I was wondering if you think people with larger television screens might have an advantage in spotting opponents earlier.