First Xbox Patch?

[Bond]

Pancho Eekels, Digital Extremes lead designer, announced details about the planned update for Unreal Championship in the official
UC forums at Infogrames. The "upcoming patch" will fix some exploits that people have listed on every forum. Right now the update includes the Stats, Balancing of teams, TAG Rifle exploits and some other bugs like getting outside of maps. The update will also include some adjustments for real-time voice control and (thanks god) the frame rate issues.

Here is what Pancho had to say about the frame-rate adjustment:

Even though we went to great pains to give you the best frame rate possible by redesigning the levels that were shared with UT2003 (not dumbed down!!) among many other things, when there are intense battles with lots of bots on screen things do get a bit hot under the hood. These are consequences that come with a high detailed worlds and stem from the problem that a) the bots are using a fair amount of CPU time. Hey if you want them to be smart they need some CPU time. I see you walking around with just 3 neurons... b) overdraw. This happens when many many particle effects/decals get drawn over and over and over top of each other. Even 2gig machines will bog down when this happens. Together with Anti Aliasing where the scene gets a special treatment to reduce the jagged edges this works even less in your favour. We are planning for players to have an option (a controller key combination) to turn AA off. Plus there are also smaller (but they do help!) optimizations that together will give you a fair amount of boost in your performance.
Whether this update will be released as a separate download, or included in the upcoming downloadable content is as of yet unknown. Click here to check the whole thread.

So there you have it; the first Xbox patch. You can call it an update, a patch or whatever you want but the bottomline is this is NOT a bad thing at all, specially for gamers. Rumors say UbiSoft is also planning an "update" for Ghost Recon and that MechAssault may also get an update in the form of a lobby similar to the one found in MotoGP, which so many gamers out there, including myself, think it should be taken as standard for all Xbox LIVE games. We'll have more on this as it develops.

Source: TeamXbox

TeamXbox: "Oh... yes... we swearith! Not a bad thing! Good thing indeed!"

[CamFu]

Who really didn't think this was going to happen? I really hope this doesn't become a trend. IMO, that is why I love to play console games. I can put in a game, not worry about if it's the latest version.

Then again, I can see this helping with sports games... like Madden. Give a team an updated roster, or have the sleeper player on the team actually rated above average.

All I'm saying is that I hope that developers don't get lazy, and rush games, knowing that they can just put a patch out there a couple months later to make up for what they didn't want to put the time and effort into from the beginning. But I know I wouldn't call it a good thing, that is for sure.

[Jonbo298]

I agree with Cam. I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend on the XBox and "future" consoles. I like developers making sure a game is done correctly before its released.

[Dyne]

Lol, I heard about the cheats alright, but I never heard about the patch. Thanks for posting.

[gekko]

A patch has been out in MotoGP for a LONG TIME. One has been out in NFL 2K3 for almost just as long. One has been planned for Ghost Recon for weeks.

This makes #4.

[Professor S]

I have no problem with the releases of patches, as long as they are done after the utmost effort has already been put into a game. Think about it. How many times have we played potentially excellent games that have suffered due to budget constraints that result in slow framerates, lack of options, poor sound, poor presentation and gameplay? I think the release of patches can be a potential boon to both developers and gamers alike.

Unreal is already an excellent online shooter, receiving rave reviews from nearly every site that reviewed it. Now the developeras are releasing a patch to make it even better and you think thats a BAD thing? Funny, I thought it was an excellent example of corporate responsibility.

We coming into the age when video games takes years to make and cost millions to develop. The money/time will not always be available to give you the gaming experience that you deserve from a game, and with patches being available it allows developers to release the games, have them make a profit which frees up revenue and then the developers can afford to develop patches for features that they most likely would have wanted to include in the first place.

And no, most developers can't just say "hey, lets throw more money at the game to make it perfect!". Gaming powerhouses like EA and Acclaim are the exception, not the rule, and with all their money they still make mainly average games. Most developers have investors that neeed to be kept happy, and you keep them happy by releasing product so that said investors can make a profit. This does not always lead to the best product seeing store shelves.

Also, with Online gaming quickly coming to the forefront, patches and add-ons will be necessary to keep interest in XBox games over long periods of time. An excellent example of this, which I am greatly anticipating, is the upcoming MechAssault add-on that gives you another arena to play in and 2 new mechs for FREE. No purchase of an expansion pack required.

My advice to all the negative Nellies out there would to stop looking at the negative aspects of patches, and start looking at the many more positive things that can come from them.

Damn, that was pretty good, I think I'll write an article for the site of the positive side of console patches.

[Null]

i think your looking wayyyy too into patches.

patches dont drastically change the game. they are small things that come to fix bugs our counter cheating. (IMO, catch 22 cuz i believe the HD which can be used to get patches to help against cheating... also is what allows more cheating)

but if a game that comes out that is crap, patches arent going to fix the game.

been dealing with patches for years and years

if a game is bad. the developers are going to use the good idea's and things to improve gameplay on the Next game, not give all the idea's away for free in a download.

and the downloads have to be a reasonable size. even in broadband. downloading a big enough patch people dont want to do when they want to play right away.


I'd prefer to see console games done correctly the first time instead of fixing bugs later.

and dont confuse Addons with Patches. Addons arent required to play the actual game. they just add more. levels, gameplay types. or etc. Addons are good, i dont think anyone would complain about addons.

patches fix goofups and mistakes the devs made in the game.