April 17th Patch Details | Clan of the Angry Monkey (FFXI)

;,; 26KPS

Submitted by Xilldon_RDM on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 02:19.

bah i guess ill patch tonight. the POL one if patching for me now. POL patch = 45 mins -,-

Just a Patch?

Submitted by Tamara on Mon, 04/17/2006 - 18:27.

This is beginning to sound a lot like what Guild Wars (which I sometimes play) does; in other words it may not be a patch so much as the new expansion in its entirety. We had an earlier FFXI patch, which when combined with this one, now puts us over 70 megabytes.

Guild Wards downloads the entire new game to your PC over the Internet. When 'CD shipping time' rolls around all you really need is an access/registration key because the new game/expansion was installed weeks earlier. It would not surprise me to learn that when my Treasures of Aht Urhgan CD arrives there is nothing on it remaining to be installed.

Your registration key will tell the Game Servers you are allowed to access the new areas. Because of this the online game vendor does not care if your PC has the new software even if you did not purchase such. All the vendor is asking you to pay for (sort of) in this 'brave new world' is a 16, 24, 36 digit key! LOL!

Still a patch

Submitted by sam on Mon, 04/17/2006 - 20:02.

Yes, thus far every FFXI patch has included much of the content for the next expansion pack. Generally it's because, whether you have the pack or not you need to still be able to /sea the new areas and see people wearing the new gear.

That being said, I'm certain the character models for the mobs exclusive to the ToUA areas as well as the textures and models for the areas themselves wont be included in this patch. This patch will just have all of the new content that everyone (whether they have ToUA or not) will have to have access to.

And yes, 52 megs (or whatever) is still a patch. A patch does not suddenly stop being a patch if it gets too big.

Vis Maior's Journeys
http://maior.samhart.net/

Guild Wars

Submitted by Tamara on Mon, 04/17/2006 - 20:29.

I glanced at the screen and the Guild Wars 'patch' went over 400 megabytes - that's no longer a patch, that's a game! LOL!

In any case the logon screen changed recently and it now has provision for adding 'Access Keys', so NCSOFT used our broadband (Time-Warner) to deliver their new game (Guild Wars: Factions)!

http://www.guildwars.com/

Still still a patch

Submitted by sam on Mon, 04/17/2006 - 21:41.

2KB, 52MB, 400MB, 20GB, or X... if the upstream calls it a patch, and it does what patches do, it's a patch. From this:

The size of patches may vary from a few kilobytes to hundreds of megabytes â€” mostly more significant changes imply a larger size. In particular, patches can become quite large when the changes add or replace non-program data, such as graphics and sounds files. Such situations commonly occur in the patching of computer games.

Now, a 400 MB patch is a bit obscene, especially considering that the US is 12th among industrialized nations as far as broadband access. Ouch... that's just mean....

Just goes to show the way they should do these updates is to break these up into small packages to be pushed out slowly over weeks and then "assembled" on some day. But then again, MMO games usually don't hire the top network engineers to just work on their update process.. so they tend to just brute force it every time... Idiots...

Vis Maior's Journeys

http://maior.samhart.net/

Guild Wars

Submitted by Tamara on Mon, 04/17/2006 - 23:13.

The Guild Wars: Prophecies patch was not a patch, it was a new game; that's all I am trying to tell you.

If you want to claim that NCSOFT 'patched' the original Prophecies campaign and included a new game within that patch (Factions) then feel free to do so, but we are just mincing definitions then =^_^=

If you are a Guild Wars: Prophecies player and you want to play Guild Wars: Factions then there is nothing additional to install. NCSOFT decided (for whatever reason) to install on your PC both games, without giving you an option to decline. This was to support a 'preview event' when you could play the new Factions game (that event has passed).

I suppose if you purchase Guild Wars: Factions in four weeks, and later wish to play Guild Wars: Prophecies (original game) then there will be nothing for the Factions player to install, either.

In any case NCSOFT does not use the word 'patch', they prefer to use the term 'stream' instead
http://eu.guildwars.com/support/article/update_thursday_march_9/

And the reason I suppose they use the word 'stream' is that Guild Wars has updates every second or third day. It can even pop up a message telling you to logout and log back in so you can play the latest version of the game.

In fact, as I recall, you could continue to play the original Prophecies campaign while the game attempted to stream down the 400 meg content for the coming Factions campaign.

Probably the best way to view it is the definitions of terms: 'patch', 'download', 'update', 'stream', and 'game' can become a bit blurred in online gaming. NCSOFT is selling two games (marketing approach) which is really just one game and NCSOFT considers themselves to always be streaming new content instead of just 'patching'. This month the new content is so massive NCSOFT has opted to charge customers the price of a new game to access it; but you can continue to pay the original one-time charge to play the original game even though all the new stuffs are sitting on your gaming machine.

Guild Wars does not support dial-up according to their literature.

So can you move characters between the two games? The claim is you can eventually move your original character to the new game (and maybe back) if you complete enough Missions in the original game.

GAH

Submitted by sam on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 13:56.

Probably the best way to view it is the definitions of terms: 'patch', 'download', 'update', 'stream', and 'game' can become a bit blurred in online gaming.

GAH! It's a patch.

When you've worked in the software industry longer than I, then you can come back and debate with me what is and what isn't a patch.

Whether the patch contains a whole new game or not is irrelevant. By the definition of what a patch is, it's a patch.

Vis Maior's Journeys

http://maior.samhart.net/

Opininated?

Submitted by Milotheshort on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 00:39.

"Milo i knew you were gonna say that you are so opinionated =^.^=" - Tamara

I'm sorry but sometimes you seem down right argumentive just for the sake of being so... The reason you puchase software titles for "patches" that have already have been downloaded are for the sheer convience if lets say you need to re-load your pc.... its not some huge inconvience or waste of money. It's a patch as long as the software company designates it as such... go get some professional software sometime that they debug.. we have encoders that the university uses for the spectrometers that are over i gigabyte of information... the more complex the application the larger the patch... if i recall service packs released by microsoft are "patches" too. I think you need not make a mountain out of mole hills.

Patch

Submitted by Tamara on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 00:54.

"It's a patch as long as the software company designates it as such"

Okay, then I guess it is not strictly a patch as the software company in question (NCSOFT) is attempting to utilize new terminology (new to me).

You think I am arguing because that is a perspective you often come from, actually I am just trying to understand; because EB GAMES mailed me a 'pre-order' FACTIONS CD and there was nothing on the CD that needed to be installed. Had me rather confused for a while, to say the least =^_^=

So if Maior calls anything coming down from the manufacture which modifies the original install "a patch" that works for me.

And I suppose I also need to change my mindset to where if NCSOFT says they are 'streaming new content' to my PC that modified the original install then "streamed content" also works for me too! LOL!

In any case - streamed or patched - my PC is now ready to play the latest versions of FFXI and Guild Wars. And I have FACTIONS on order (though it appears there is nothing to install when it arrives) and I have TREASURES OF AHT URHGAN on order (and it appears there is something that needs to be installed when it arrives).

From which (the preceeding paragraph) you can finally see why I need to understand what is going on - I need to know when I have to put a CD into my PC (FFXI Expansion) and when I do not (GUILD WARS Expansion)! LOL!

me too!

Submitted by Milotheshort on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 01:06.

lol i got the update downloaded
"cocked, locked and ready to Rock!"

The defination of a patch is any content a company releases to fix previous problems, bugs, errors etc. or something used to pre pare for a version update/expansion to prevent bugs from developing... i think we could all agree on that.

I understand

Submitted by Tamara on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 03:51.

So I understand 'client side' and I understand 'server side', but although it appears I now have an up-to-date client, and even though the passing of the hours have brought midnight here on the East Coast, there is still (apparently) no working Phoenix Server for me to connect to.

I think I will forget about FFXI play, even if only for a few minutes, on this Monday following Easter =^_^=

This takes so long :(

Submitted by Golagres on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 04:34.

I'd guess i would join in on the complaining but im so screwed it just doesn't matter lol. Fresh install 30mins, checking the files and downloading them 6+ and still counting >< oh well.

Fresh Install

Submitted by Tamara on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 05:02.

You have my sympathy, the game has gotten very large.

I got into the game for a tiny bit, about 1600 players online, just going to put a mule out to bazaar for the night, it is time to head to bed.

The one thing I noticed is the Jobs Menu is now two columns instead of one, and there are three fresh ??? slots which tell me I have not unlocked those jobs yet =^_^=

*** EDIT ***
'just going to put a mule out to bazaar for the night'

LOL! - or NOT!

I use a 2nd (older) PC to bazaar and just when I get the FFXI full screen, then click on 'Select Character', FFXI causes the older PC to reboot! It has done it three times now on the same click!

Oh well, heading to sleep. Not going to bazaar a thing if this old PC reboots all the time. I'll worry about this new feature tomorrow. If it keeps up I'll have it looked at, maybe.

fgrehgyrgyefg!!!! /angry

Submitted by cyclonus on Tue, 04/18/2006 - 13:25.

Stupid ass patch ate my FFXI - I think.

Fairly high-end box (not one of those overpriced gameorz!1! boxes) and as soon as I get the full screen - PoL dies.

***EDIT: Could require updated video card drivers - Gah, I don't want to deal with this when I get home

On another note, for those of you that have data mined / read posts - wewf @ storm fife for brds!