ANOTHER patch??

[Smoky]

I LOVE DCS. It's the simulator I've been dreaming of since I was a kid wishing that FS 1 and Jet were more than they could ever be.

 

But....

 

There are too many updates. Too many patches.

 

I'm sure a hundred people will be lining up to tell me why what I'm saying is wrong or sacrilegious. Nevertheless I feel compelled. I know I'm just one dumb customer with an opinion...but from my seat we are patching too much.

 

Please consider the impact of a patch:

 

-long download wait times interfere with gaming plans (for those of us with kids, this is a big deal because it might be another week again before I can find time to dedicate as this sim isn't a sit-in-and-go affair).

 

-servers must be refreshed. Last night due to an "invalid serial key" error I had to reinstall all of the DCS software on my server and reupdate before it took. This buggy process took an hour and a half before it was sorted out. So now I have to anticipate this overhead as well.

 

-mods must be refreshed. Both clients and creators alike have their world turned upside down by most patches. Not saying you have to care about that on the backend code (though it would be nice to support your supporting modders), but it would be nice to consider this point.

 

 

 

Would a quarterly patch cycle, yielding four updates a year, not be more feasible for both development team pace and iteration load management and for client?

 

Or least SOME sort of predictable schedule, eg "DCS will patch the first of every month. If there is no patch on the first then the next opportunity will be the following month."

 

 

Again, I'm not trying to be the guy griping about the little things. I actually think this is a big thing. If my company put out patches at this rate we would honestly be out of business in a year because it costs our partners time to patch and update their networks accordingly. They would be more than displeased.

 

I'm also trying to bring what I think is a reasonable solution to the table, rather than just griping. I would be very interested to hear other thoughts or proposals on how to mitigate and maximize the return on effort that the DCS team is putting into this wonderful sim.

 

Thanks for your time

[GGTharos]

Actually, a lot of people asked for more frequent patching. You can't please everyone.

 

And in your company, your customers have probably paid up-front for software and a maintenance schedule.

[outlawal2]

I feel your pain Buddy.. Not really any way ED can win with this one really.. Like GGTHAROS stated many folks want more patches and I am with you on the long download times.. One thing I have gotten into the habit of doing is to launch DCS every day and have it check for updates.. That way you kind of control when they are downloaded.. If your kids are definitely going to want to play on Friday night, make sure you launch it on Thursday evening to make sure any updates are loaded and ready for Friday.. Not a perfect solution but it does help..

[XtraChrisP]

I would just like to point out that you can launch the updater independent of starting up DCS world. I find it's quite efficient to fire up the computer a half hour or so before game time, click on the updater, and finish a chore or two while the updater does its magic.

[Strut]

I hear what some people are saying, but i believe the fella's from DCS are doing their best, and im very prepared to cut them some slack and accept patch's and updates at anytime. Thanks to DCS for the continual improvement, its something a lot of other companies couldn't be bothered with. So full points to DCS.:thumbup:

[basset]

Try World War 2 OnLine, it has not had an update for 2 years.

[Yurgon]

+1 for the "Happy about frequent updates" faction.

 

There is obviously room for improvement, but I've been here since the BS1 days when updates took months. With World, I'm really glad we get frequent updates to the core and the modules and I'm also glad that information about planned updates and features is much more frequent than it used to be. As GGTharos said, you can't please everyone.

[schkorpio]

small price to pay for having a game get better for free :P

 

but the easiest thing to do would be simply for ED to communicate patch releases a day or two before release - that way you'll be ready for it.

[Smoky]

One question though...

 

If nothing major is wrong and only small bug fixes are being addressed then why release a major patch?

 

Ideally everything would stay compatible for optional minor bug fix patches. Then major patches require everyone to sync. That way all camps are satisfied.

 

It just doesnt make sense to patch so often if nothing is wrong with the majority of installs.

[cichlidfan]

I suspect that there are a few advantages with smaller patches. Easier downloading/serving for one. Another that comes to mind is it being easier to track down the bugs that make it into the wild if you are rooting through a smaller chunk of new code. These benefit both the devs and the users.

[pyromaniac4002]

For anyone that didn't know already, there is an "Update DCS World" option in your Eagle Dynamics folder in your start menu. Maybe that's a more convenient option for someone with time constraints like Smoky. You could even conceivably run it at Windows startup if you really want to make it foolproof.

 

As for patches, I'm very happy with getting whatever updates ED is ready to release. Bring 'em on!

[russwg1970]

For anyone that didn't know already, there is an "Update DCS World" option in your Eagle Dynamics folder in your start menu. Maybe that's a more convenient option for someone with time constraints like Smoky. You could even conceivably run it at Windows startup if you really want to make it foolproof.

 

As for patches, I'm very happy with getting whatever updates ED is ready to release. Bring 'em on!

 

 

Ok it's been a while since my last play and I've update to Win 8 in the process...... Does anyone know how do I get to the auto-update from Win 8? It doesn't have the same "start menu" and I have ver 1.2.0....

 

I checked the actual Eagle Dynamics game folder and didn't see any .exe files that looked like an update.

[schkorpio]

For anyone that didn't know already, there is an "Update DCS World" option in your Eagle Dynamics folder in your start menu. Maybe that's a more convenient option for someone with time constraints like Smoky. You could even conceivably run it at Windows startup if you really want to make it foolproof.

 

As for patches, I'm very happy with getting whatever updates ED is ready to release. Bring 'em on!

this is a great idea - simply copy the "Update DCS World" shortcut into the Startup Folder in the start menu and you are done :thumbup:

[schkorpio]

Ok it's been a while since my last play and I've update to Win 8 in the process...... Does anyone know how do I get to the auto-update from Win 8? It doesn't have the same "start menu" and I have ver 1.2.0....

 

I checked the actual Eagle Dynamics game folder and didn't see any .exe files that looked like an update.

try making a shortcut with this command:

 

"C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\bin\DCS_updater.exe" update

 

 

Edited June 29, 2013 by schkorpio

[russwg1970]

try making a shortcut with this command:

 

"C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\bin\DCS_updater.exe" update

 

 

 

Hmm... Can't get that to work... Looking in the Bin folder I do see .exe files for "DCS" and "launcher"... but nothing for update.

[BigfootMSR]

You could also hit "NO" when it asks if you want to update if you are ready to play right now. You dont always have to have the most recent patch.

[Rotorhead]

Personally, I'm all for smaller frequent updates. I'm really not happy when I have to wait for a major update for several months, just to fix a small bug which is already known and even fixed in the internal version.

 

And although I'm not fond of Steam very much, automatic updates are one of the few features I actually like. And I am happy that DCS has the same feature too, but unlike Steam, you don't even HAVE to update in order to play.

 

Only thing I really want is ED to properly test the updates before release (having negative experience with bugged updates in the past), and I have no problems with them.

[Anatoli-Kagari9]

For me it is great to see how dinamicaly this sim keeps progressing. The path rate is nothing compared to what I am used to in, say, X-Plane10, with the effects unfortunately not even comparable to the magnitude of things that keep happening in the DCS World...

 

Let them come at any pace, for me at least.... although if I was not only flying for fun, and not even participating in any online servers, my opinion might differ...

[Havoc04]

Not fussed with regular updates.. ALTHOUGH patch notes would be appreciated to come with said Patches..........

[Dr_Arrow]

Please don't stop those frequent updates. Autoupdater is a great tool, very flexible and anyone who doesn't want to update can click no and play their older version. I hope that with this approach we won't have to wait half a year for some small but important fix like broken FFB for G940 until all other bugs are resolved. Now ED can squash them much more efficiently in small weekly updates.

[Supersheep]

It took some years (!) to get the achievement of an autoupdater and some people at ED went to great lengths to make the community happy with it. It's not like it's there for fun, it has a good reason. That said, I too sometimes decline an update to have it run at a more opportune time than right before a long-scheduled flight, and it is really nice that this is actually possible. All the flexibility is there and if I wanted, I could update only to 1.2.3, ..4, ..5 and ..6, thereby massively reducing the frequency of the updates. This way, everyone can find the balance that makes him happy.

 

Edit: Is this the first time that ..6 is mentioned?

Please don't start speculating about its content now ;)

[SkateZilla]

But....

 

There are too many updates. Too many patches.

 

And when ED Decides to stop doing mini patches to fix stuff and make everyone wait for a major Version Number (1.2.5, 1.2.6 etc),... let's see how happy people are...

[Dudikoff]

And when ED Decides to stop doing mini patches to fix stuff and make everyone wait for a major Version Number (1.2.5, 1.2.6 etc),... let's see how happy people are...

 

Let's not get carried away and dramatize over several people complaining about frequent patches. It doesn't mean that it's what the majority of the community wants and that ED should change their approach.

[Irregular programming]

There are no downsides to regular patching.

[Vivoune]

Personally I welcome frequent patches, it's easier to download a few hundred Mb every now and then than a few Gb at a time every few weeks. Stuff get fixed and bug squashed fairly rapidly and I find it always very reassuring in term of general 'health' as It keeps DCS constantly alive and moving from where I stand. The tinier and more frequent the patch, the easier it is for dev and community to assess if the addressed fix is working as intended or not and correct it accordingly with another quick patch.