In Theory: How SSD Could Radically Change Next-Gen Games Beyond Faster Loading (Digital Foundry Video)

[mjk45]

JWeinCom said:

mjk45 said:

You have to look at what came before, before patching you were stuck with what was on the disc for good or bad , no hd's , and you had to to load from disc every time, sure the digital world has uncertainties and convenience has a price where the reliance on the platforms and publisher support is much larger now,but things like patching can be mitigated by saving ,it's not just a console thing either.

Well you only had to load from the disc if we're talking about disc based systems.

While your points are basically true, how many major releases do you recall that were buggy to the point of borderline unplayability back in the old days?  I honestly can't recall that many.  Nowadays it's fairly common.  Developers are definitely using patches as a cop out.

While there are some who use patching as a cop out it's not all negative, as to buggy games pre patch there were plenty but since the world was less connected you didn't have  the awareness that you have today or the critical audience feedback,I started gaming on a secondhand C64 moved onto Amiga then PC and consoles, so I have been gaming for over 30 years and I recall bugs ranging from nuisance value up to game breaking ever since I started, now whether it is worse or better today, I don't know.

What I do know that the more complex the system the more things can go wrong and with today's games becoming more complex as well as more open and less linear, the chances of bugs have increased, the numbers of bug testers you see in game credits is a testament to that, the response of using day one patches and patching when necessary to fix the problem seems to me to be driven by publishers preferring not to hold back releases when a day one patch will do the job.

Last edited by mjk45 - on 29 December 2019