Name one great, never patched, game

[Sukunai]

It's getting old, very old.

The game this and the game that.

Oh the game is not perfect on launch week, what a major surprise ([insert cargo ship load of sarcasm].

Been gaming since there was a hobby to talk about.
Guess what, not one game has EVER managed to achieve fame, and maintain it, and never get patched/altered/tweaked/revised.

Not one.

Ok maybe Chess. I think hundreds of years later it's still mostly the same game.

Games I have loved (in the non wargaming world that you might actually know).
Heroes of Might and Magic.
Civilization (of course).
Many games based on Dungeons and Dragons including Baldur's Gate.
Worms
Railroad sims Tycoon specifically
Sim City variations

My list would be longer but I'm not wasting time on wargames you might have never heard of.

The thing is, these games are all famous, and they all had patches and hassles to deal with before finally becoming icons in the game world.
They all managed to become great regardless of 'how did they miss that' levels of oops.

If this game sucks in 6 months, then it should die by the end of the year and THEN you can complain.

[VanToasty]

Yeah, I kinda agree with you. I'm sort of a gaming old timer myself, and I can't really recall whenever a game hit achievement of the millennium status right on release day. Really, I recall the launch of Civ 4... oh yes, that was bad. Compared to that I had zero issues with Civ 5 so far (technical, at least).

Let's just wait and see what the future holds for this. And all the doom preachers and nay sayers should really be so fair and give them at least a few weeks to patch stuff up. This is just what the gaming industry is nowadays, most stuff (except maybe very linear shooters that can be QA'd 'til kingdom come) does not get released 100% working and done. Software just became way to complex to guarantee that.

I mean, if my boss would come to me and say "Hey, let us write a gaming engine from scratch! That sounds like super duper fun!" I would quit my job in a heart beat. Ever seen what you have to do in DirectX just to know what a graphics adapter is capable of? Drives you nuts.

Well long story short, if you got a new engine, new game rules and new overall game mechanics, don't expect it to be flawless during launch. Give it a liiiiittle bit of time before firing up the torches...

[Takao]

Mostly, I think that it is the total revamp of the game that is giving Civ followers headaches. Let's face it, Civ 1-4 played pretty much the same, but here is Civ 5 which has revamped the whole gameplay and interface. Now you have to learn a completely different strategy. Gone are the roads and railroads everywhere.(yes, I wasn't happy unless all my controlled hexes had a railroad on) Gone are the massive military and huge battles.(which I admit I do miss). However, I am still on my first playthrough and am learning the new strategies for Civ V.

P.S. It would probably have been good to read the manual first, but now they all come as a stupid PDF. God, do I miss the thick manuals of games gone by.

[Taciturn Scot]

I recall the very early days of computer games (ZX81) when you bought software on a cassette. Those were pretty solid games but even a few of them were buggy. Those were games written for a system with 48k of memory. So, no. I don't expect a computer game to be perfect out of the box.

[TehJumpingJawa]

I think the difference is that most great games are great from their release inspite of some bugs.
Civ 5 is IMO crap, and we're left hoping that patches will make it worth owning.

[Kruelgor]

Mine Sweeper?

[Takao]

I don't think Civ 5 is crap, as I have not seen any "show stopping" bugs. Annoyances, yes, but no "show stoppers."

[DarkieBabZ]

I played Baldur's gate without any patches (atleast the first few playthrough)

That said most games need patches, in these newer times all games have the mmo disease and are released with tons of bugs often to please the investors of a game delveoper.

But civ 5 do ok since there will be patches, all the mods will open up "100 games in 1" just look at games like EU3 I still play that game because there are tons of great mods and alot of replayablility (just like civ games)


But all in all we should be thankfull about that fact that we even get patches.. think back to amiga/nes times where the game you got where the game you got stuck with (stupid metal gear solid!!!) I still remember that nes game it made me cry as a young kid.. the horrors

[thefluffyrocker]

As someone who plays both console and PC games i have to say that i feel PC programmers are quite lazy in game design, as in releasing a finished product...because they know they can pump out any old ☺☺☺☺ and fix it later.
How come they can released fully finished games for consoles but can't for PC's?

Even though i have been looking forward to civ 5 i won't be buying it until probably around xmas, when it will likely be finished or in a decent playable state rather than a glorified beta test.

Saying that though if the AI isn't improved at least i may not even buy it at all as atm the game just sounds incredibly easy to play.
I was looking forward to a bit more of a challenge with more strategic thinking but if the AI is gonna hand you ranged units on a plate to smash at will for example then i can't see it being any challenge at all.

[brianb0422]

While I understand that problems are to be expected at launch, the whole gaming industry has taken on the motto of, "Launch Now, Patch Later."

It's very insulting that I spend my money on a product expecting a certain level of workmanship to have been put into it, only to have glaring issues popping up left and right.

And in all honesty, this is not the first time I've had such an issue with 2K. They just aren't a very good 'release day' company. They, however, are a very good '3 months later' company, when at which time a patch may finally arrive addressing ALL the problems.

[MrMT]

As far as I know, chess was patched extensively in its early days. It then settled down into what we know, but the graphics continued to undergo constant shifts.

[Takao]

Chess is just an English patch for the Indian game Chaturanga.

thefluffyrocker,

Because up until recently, console games could not be patched!


brianb0422,

2K has been quite good compared to other companies like, say,Ubisoft. I have ceased to be one of their unpaid beta testers a while ago.

[Arch Duke]

@ OP try to understand people have been EAGERLY awaiting this game and for them to load it up and not be able to play- or play with a great amount of instability isn't exactly making them happy. How do they vent-- here on the forums.


The people who enjoy the game are too busy playing to post here..


it's really that simple. Chill out OP

[OrionSol]

name ONE civ game that came out that was WORSE than the prior CIV

I'll give you a hint... it is the most recent CIV

[falcon012]

Of course it is impossible to get everyone to agree on what makes a great game but in answer to your thread's title question I submit 2 titles:

1) "Imperial Glory" released in 2005 by Pyro Studios. It's biggest drawback was the lack of historical accuracy but as a game it was a lot of fun and played as advertized right out of the box.

2) Another one which played perfectly out of the box was "War and Peace" released in 2002 by Microids.

I never had any problems with either game having bugs, crashing or refusing to install. To my knowledge neither game was ever patched.

Edit: There was one minor patch for Imperial Glory.

[rhugga]

It's getting old, very old.

The game this and the game that.

Oh the game is not perfect on launch week, what a major surprise ([insert cargo ship load of sarcasm].

Been gaming since there was a hobby to talk about.
Guess what, not one game has EVER managed to achieve fame, and maintain it, and never get patched/altered/tweaked/revised.

Not one.

Ok maybe Chess. I think hundreds of years later it's still mostly the same game.

Games I have loved (in the non wargaming world that you might actually know).
Heroes of Might and Magic.
Civilization (of course).
Many games based on Dungeons and Dragons including Baldur's Gate.
Worms
Railroad sims Tycoon specifically
Sim City variations

My list would be longer but I'm not wasting time on wargames you might have never heard of.

The thing is, these games are all famous, and they all had patches and hassles to deal with before finally becoming icons in the game world.
They all managed to become great regardless of 'how did they miss that' levels of oops.

If this game sucks in 6 months, then it should die by the end of the year and THEN you can complain.

Oh snap.. another bitter betty fanboi post filled with scores of unbacked useless ramblings. /yawn

Go back to warcraft kiddie.

[Bosko]

The AI is terrible terrible terrible, thats my only real gripe.

But instead of dumbing down the game to attract new customers they should focus on being a good company with solid day 1 releases. They should try to emulate Blizzard. They dont release trash and fix it in patches and expansions over the course of 2 years.

When will they realize junk like this hurts their sales more then the game being 'too complicated for new players'.

[Bosko]

Go back to warcraft kiddie.

Not much of an insult considering how much skill and strategy it takes to be good at WoW compared to Civ5 :P Assuming you ment WoW and not War3/SC...WoW is kind of a generic insult.

[Civ5notworkingforme]

As someone who plays both console and PC games i have to say that i feel PC programmers are quite lazy in game design, as in releasing a finished product...because they know they can pump out any old ☺☺☺☺ and fix it later.
How come they can released fully finished games for consoles but can't for PC's?

The reason console games have fewer bugs is that it's a fix system and they know all the component. For PCsThere are literally thousands upon thousands of different hardware parts out there, different OS's with different softwares installed on them.

[sketch162000]

While I understand that problems are to be expected at launch, the whole gaming industry has taken on the motto of, "Launch Now, Patch Later."

It's very insulting that I spend my money on a product expecting a certain level of workmanship to have been put into it, only to have glaring issues popping up left and right.

And in all honesty, this is not the first time I've had such an issue with 2K. They just aren't a very good 'release day' company. They, however, are a very good '3 months later' company, when at which time a patch may finally arrive addressing ALL the problems.

QFT. It's akin to extortion. Since devs know they can patch, they just release half-assed versions. Then they want you to pay an additional $50 to buy an "expansion" that just adds crap from previous games. Patching started just to fix bugs that were missed by the devs. Expansions were originally bonus optional content. Now devs count on the fact that they can just "do it later..." smh.

And I know we're mostly talking about PC games, but nowadays console games can be patched and updated, and those are mostly ready to go on launch. I think of assassin's creed 2 for example, they really polished that game.

[Truth]

Patches are for bugs and broken features. People in these forums are complaining about missing features and simplified existing ones. Those are things you can't patch. That's more like a total reworking with the "patch" as its title.

[rhugga]

Why is this useless thread still alive.... oh wait oops.

[menasure]

i've never patched half my games ... not because there were no patches but because i've never checked for them because the games 'worked' for me in their original form ... nowadays even incomplete games get launched, that's not too bad either because months later, by the time you're sure all patches are out, they've also dropped in price

[Bantams]

I would like to say Thanks to the following people

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Thankyou all Outstanding Job!

[Lloydthegreat]

Guess what, not one game has EVER managed to achieve fame, and maintain it, and never get patched/altered/tweaked/revised.

I'm not sure about this one, but when I got Age of Empires II in.....2001/2003 (somewhere around that time) it WAS perfect! And if my game got patched or what-not I wasn't aware of it.

Same goes for Age of Mythology

[Draco]

name ONE civ game that came out that was WORSE than the prior CIV

I'll give you a hint... it is the most recent CIV

Civ 2: test of time, this game was bad, really, really, really bad. Gamespot score was 4.2 out of 10
Civ 3: was nearly unplayable until the first patch.

Op.

It is not a matter of patching, any game given time can be improved. It is a matter of the game being unload able, intentionally dumb down, or just bad ai coding.


90% of the problems with civ 5 could be fixed with either testing the game for more then 3 mins or simple tweaks to already existing code.

I have started to add code to my game to make the ai more intelligent. For example. It now does a basic test to see if there is a low defense unit between it and me, if there is, it will move it behind a its high defense unit.

If I attack the archer, the archer now runs to the pikemen.

If I attack a city with a pikemen, it now attacks my unprotected archers.

The other addon was making the game counter flank, which was a failure. If i flank to the right, it will pen wheel to the left. Which is funny because now we just go around in huge circles. Not something that can be used in the game.

The point is that making these changes was like 20 min of coding. 20 mins and the ai is at least 1% better.

They could not spend 20 mins to improve the game because they do not test the game to find the bugs, or they simply put too much time in streamlining the gui, which did not need to happen at all. Civ 4 had a great user interface, you had to dig but once you found the info, you could do stuff with it. Civ 5 displays all the info you need, but you can not do anything with it.

[Saczva]

As someone who plays both console and PC games i have to say that i feel PC programmers are quite lazy in game design, as in releasing a finished product...because they know they can pump out any old ☺☺☺☺ and fix it later.
How come they can released fully finished games for consoles but can't for PC's?

Even though i have been looking forward to civ 5 i won't be buying it until probably around xmas, when it will likely be finished or in a decent playable state rather than a glorified beta test.

Saying that though if the AI isn't improved at least i may not even buy it at all as atm the game just sounds incredibly easy to play.
I was looking forward to a bit more of a challenge with more strategic thinking but if the AI is gonna hand you ranged units on a plate to smash at will for example then i can't see it being any challenge at all.

loads of console games come out with loads of bugs, look at MW2 or metro 2033

[FtRapture]

Mine Sweeper?

lol nice..

In reality the PC gaming world is subject to vast and varying hardware configurations so yes ultimately just about every game has issues for some and needs to be patched.

[AceOfSpades55]

Probably showing my age a bit but all of the Jane's combat simulations were perfect, if they wernt they couldnt be patched anyways because everyone was still using dial-up phone lines for ISP's like AOL ...blech. I still think those were the best combat games ever, but then again my memory could be flawed by being wowed at the power of this new thing they called a personal computer LoL...loved my commodore 64 and 128 LoL.

The fact is your always gonna see this from all game companies from now til...forever. A game takes 1-2 years with no profit coming in to make, in the meantime you are paying 4-24 guys 50k a year at least to sit around and spill soda and chips on thier keyboards. You do the math. The investors are all over the arse of the software company to rush something to the presses. After awhile the investors win. Then as usual all but like 4 people get fired or moved to another game project to save on the continuing costs and you have 4 overworked guys trying to fix bugs and improve the game to the standards they had originally intended to release the game at.

The reason that console games come out in a far more polished state are lawyers LoL, yes lawyers. Microsoft or Sony will yank a license from a software conmpany if they put out something that is completely junk. As well as they charge the software companies for the bandwith ect for hosting any patches and they make sure that they charge them alot. This and a few other things keep the console games on a better path since investors don't want to be "penalized" financially. This is also reflected in the price as console games "generally" sell for more and keep thier value on the store shelf longer than a PC game. They do that on purpose to keep the sale figures higher for console games to make up for the fact it costs more to produce. This does not apply to all but is generally the way it is and the way it will be for PC games....sadly

[falcon012]

War! Age of Imperialism - released by Donohoe Digital 2003. Great PC version of the classic board game; never released a patch.

[Saczva]

just because a game gets no patches doesn't mean it's bug free or perfect or even good

[iFold]

Guess what, not one game has EVER managed to achieve fame, and maintain it, and never get patched/altered/tweaked/revised.

Sure, why not. I can spend two minutes to crush your pathetic argument.

Final Fantasy VII
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Pac-Man
etc

I understand these aren't PC games, but it highlights the mentality of a company that had to make a game that would be IMPOSSIBLE to fix after shipment. How did they overcome this?

They tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and tested and tweaked until the final product had a polished shine that could be seen from space.

Here the process is more of "eh, good enough. If there's any issues we could maybe try to fix them or hopefully the complaints just stop."

[Saczva]

LOL pac man

[Ninja Llama]

Here the process is more of "eh, good enough. If there's any issues we could maybe try to fix them or hopefully the complaints just stop."

If the game crashes, it doesn't necessarily mean the game is glitchy, it could be your computer. I have a 3-year old iMac (not a PC, an iMac) that crashes every time I play certain games.

The crew cares about having a good product, because good products sell. They went over the game and enjoyed it, didn't you see the live stream?

If they only wanted to make money and nothing else, they wouldn't even release patches. They don't fix people's main problems with the game (e.g. the diplomacy) because THEY WANTED THE GAME TO BE LIKE THAT.

[DarkieBabZ]

Sure, why not. I can spend two minutes to crush your pathetic argument.

Final Fantasy VII
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Pac-Man
etc

I understand these aren't PC games, but it highlights the mentality of a company that had to make a game that would be IMPOSSIBLE to fix after shipment. How did they overcome this?

They tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and tested and tweaked until the final product had a polished shine that could be seen from space.

Here the process is more of "eh, good enough. If there's any issues we could maybe try to fix them or hopefully the complaints just stop."

actually FF7 came out for pc too and they did patch it a few times ^^

[amenus]

The fact is your always gonna see this from all game companies from now til...forever.

TRUE!!! More broadly though, you're always gonna see this from a SOFTWARE company.

As much as some of us don't like it, video game (software) creation is a business, and no successful business can survive, or grow, without PROFIT. The best way to profit in the software industry is to have deadlines. Without deadlines this business would have alot of perfectionist creative people (in their own vacuum) trying to tweak everything for excessive periods while money is being spent, and no profit is being made.

Most software goes through a period of (sometimes fairly vigorous) testing before release, but the ONLY way to REALLY test it (not just for bugs, but also for design and concept flaws) is to release it. Consumers run and test software in more ways than ANY software company (including Microsoft) can internally.

Any GOOD software company does enough to make sure that a program is functional and aestetically pleasing enough for you to buy it.

Afterwards consumers give feedback (in the form of support issues and criticism), then the company uses a portion of their PROFIT to patch and revise the software to gain our loyalty to consume the next "flawed" product that they'll release in the years to come.

If software companies didn't approach it this way, they wouldn't be around to make the next GREAT innovative video game (software).

Its business. I don't see anything wrong with it, and I won't fault them for it.

[Darkpriest667]

game that was damn near flawless at release... Master of Orion 2... Xcom UFO defense... Ill think of others later... oh VGA planets also...

[Darkpriest667]

also that is 3 games that were all made for pc... and i believe Moo2 was the first game for pc to ever sell a million copies.

[mrkhubbard]

Castlevania.

[Targon]

If you think about it, there are two types of problems that games(or even regular programs) may have. You have design flaws, and you have technical issues due to all the different hardware configurations out there.


When you have only one hardware configuration to worry about, there will be far fewer "crash" bugs, because the abilities of the device are known, and there will be ZERO differences from user to user. This is why consoles tend to have far fewer OBVIOUS crash problems.

Design flaws on the other hand require a massive reworking of one of more core part of the game/application. The weakness in the tech tree for example can't be fixed easily, and will require a massive amount of work to fix. AI is another area that would require quite a bit of work to improve, along with diplomacy improvements.

I will say this, Civ 4 at launch was better in EVERY way than the previous games in the series. Civ 5 on the other hand is more of a mixed bag right now, and that is where many people are complaining. Technical issues will always surround a PC game title, because you have people with computers that do not meet the minimum requirements demanding that the game be changed to work on their old machine.

Now, the game doesn't crash or have problems for a full AMD system(AMD CPU, video card since AMD owns ATI, and chipset on the motherboard). Playing on Prince difficulty on a huge world also seems to be a better experience in terms of game balance/difficulty compared to the easier difficulty levels. If you have crashing problems, the first place to check would be your system, since Civ 5 is the most resource intensive game out there right now. It may not seem like it pushes the video card, but with everything on high on a 1920x1080 display, it does a good job of stressing the system.