• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition Launch Update Is Reportedly Huge, Patch Notes Leak

xrnzaaas

Gold Member
That's how projects work, if you don't set a release date, features creep up, tasks go unfinished, paperwork doesn't get done, marketing has no idea when to begin to send out review copies, schedule advertising and so on.

It's just part of life, people in these teams care about what they are doing and will spend every last available minute working on it if the deadline is coming. Why is a 11 GB annoying for you? You can't wait a bit for the download to be done?
It's only 10 gigs now, later it will be only 30 gigs, a few years from now using the disc to start the download of the entire game will become a norm. I think it's perfectly reasonable to speak up against releasing more and more unfinished products. The fact that we didn't have the Internet 20-30 years ago isn't the only excuse why older games didn't need big release day patches to work properly.

I remember how refreshing it was to play Final Fantasy 7 Remake or one of the Yakuza's without having to download ANY day 1 patches, but that pretty much doesn't happen now.
 
Last edited:

Patrick S.

Banned
So you would be happier to not have the patch? They just quit on the game a couple months early while disks are being printed? You’d prefer to keep the game breaking bugs forever like in the old days? Weird hill to die on







I mean would you feel better if there was no patch? Legit? You want them to give up? Just pick a date and quit. Game breaking bug printed on the disk? Have to keep it. It’s not fair for an imaginary person with no internet if we fix it!



Or does every game need 100 years of QA by a team of 1000 to replicate what the launch with millions of copies would be like? I mean that’s just a small 100 year delay with a few hindered milly added to the budget, no big deal! And if it’s one of the bugs that can’t be fixed, just cancel the game!







Neogaf is such a mistake.
Then why are you here?
 

mhirano

Member
Wow, we're screwed.
People are making excuses for developers f*ck-ups.
We almost had PS3 and PS Vita stores shut down (including game patches) a few days ago and people can't see the problem with unplayable retail discs...
Guess it's better finding another hobby for the future
 

Arun1910

Member
Wow, we're screwed.
People are making excuses for developers f*ck-ups.
We almost had PS3 and PS Vita stores shut down (including game patches) a few days ago and people can't see the problem with unplayable retail discs...
Guess it's better finding another hobby for the future
You really have no idea how much effort it takes to code games.

A lot of studios have their own QA teams and even outsource work for people to find bugs. They try to varying degrees to get people to crash their games in playtests so they can fix bugs.

Regardless of how long QA will ever go on for, they will never ever get nearly the same amount of data until it releases to Hundreds of Thousands or even Millions of consumers.

Games are huge and a lot more complex than they were years ago with many more types of systems integrated and interacting with each other.

Sorry to tell you that it is absolutely impossible to release any type of big budget software with no bugs at all. Patches will always be a thing.
 

Jaysen

Banned
Cool, thanks to Sony's ineptitude in regards to add-on storage, I now get to play the "What game that I or my wife love should I delete off the HD now" game.
 

Azurro

Banned
It's only 10 gigs now, later it will be only 30 gigs, a few years from now using the disc to start the download of the entire game will become a norm. I think it's perfectly reasonable to speak up against releasing more and more unfinished products. The fact that we didn't have the Internet 20-30 years ago isn't the only excuse why older games didn't need big release day patches to work properly.

I remember how refreshing it was to play Final Fantasy 7 Remake or one of the Yakuza's without having to download ANY day 1 patches, but that pretty much doesn't happen now.

The size of the download isn't a function of internet bickering, but rather on the state of the project, internal guidelines, size of the game, bandwidth limits and so on. If the game is not even in a state to be printed then you won't get day one patches of the size of the game, don't be silly.
 

Hugare

Member
I totally agree with that. My only comment here is that it is ok to have patches... Actually, this is something good as the developers are trying to deliver the best possible experience. However, it is not like these games are brand new releases. So, what I would expect is that what comes in the disk is in a very good play state. By the size of the day one patch I have concerns that this is not the case here...
I know what you saying

Having a not playable version on disc would be a mess. Unfortunately, Cyberpunk wasnt the first one to do that. I remember that Modern Warfare remake required an update to even boot the game, I think.

Since its a "Definitive Edition", not having a playable version on disc would be embarassing

And size means anything, really. Patch notes means way more.

We dont know the specifics, so maybe they had to replace a big chunk of the files due to one small bug.

Doom had a 50gb Day One patch or something like that due to a reason like this
 
Last edited:

mhirano

Member
You really have no idea how much effort it takes to code games.

A lot of studios have their own QA teams and even outsource work for people to find bugs. They try to varying degrees to get people to crash their games in playtests so they can fix bugs.

Regardless of how long QA will ever go on for, they will never ever get nearly the same amount of data until it releases to Hundreds of Thousands or even Millions of consumers.

Games are huge and a lot more complex than they were years ago with many more types of systems integrated and interacting with each other.

Sorry to tell you that it is absolutely impossible to release any type of big budget software with no bugs at all. Patches will always be a thing.
I would agree with you if the Mass Effect games were brand new and not prettied up ports from games that were released and bug fixed more than 9 years ago.
 

Umbasaborne

Banned
Were at a point where they cant even put finished versions of re releases on a disc jfc

edit: i know a lot of work went into these. Im just feeling salty today, dont mind my ignorance
 
Last edited:

Arun1910

Member
I would agree with you if the Mass Effect games were brand new and not prettied up ports from games that were released and bug fixed more than 9 years ago.

That doesn't mean it's a case of copy paste.

The port wouldn't be 1 to 1 on a new engine. Then think about integrating all the new systems with the old ones that are now different because they're ports.

New systems can have bugs. Ports can have bugs. New systems mixed with old can cause bugs.

Nothing in Development is as straight forward as you may think as a Gamer.
 
Last edited:

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
It's kind of disheartening the day one patch for a remake has to address things like crashes, but at least they're out ahead of it (presumably).
 

splattered

Member
I really want this game to be good... just waiting for reviews and then i'll pick it up if the remasters deliver. God i hope so... really liked this series.
 

Phase

Member
This industry is becoming more and more of a joke. Release a game that "only" gets a Metacritic score of 85? Devs fired. A score of 80? Studio closed. A score of 90? Sorry, we need to restructure to stay competitive and maximize gains. Devs sent to B team to help on other stuff, studio closed. Management gets six million dollar bonus.

A remaster of a game that has been out for almost fifteen years needs a huge day one patch.... It's just ridiculous, man.

Cars release finished. TV releases finished. Books release finished. Music releases finished. Movies release finished. TV shows release finished. General software releases finished. Sure, it gets patched when issues arise, but it's not "release MS Office without printer support and patch it in five months later" or "MS Word spelling checker becomes pay to use with patch 1.2 after reviews are out".

Games release with entire levels, episodes or maps missing, that the devs promise will come later, but then they don't. Anthem was supposed to be this awesome, future changing thing. We know what happened.

Battlefield drops season passes and promise everything will be free. Then, what constitutes "everything" is cut down 80%.

And that shit with review embargoes. FUCK that! FUCK the gaming websites and YouTube shills who get free Cyberpunk chairs and tell you how awesome and mold breaking Cyberpunk is, and when the game launches, it's "oops, I had no idea". I wish every reviewer was like Mack from Worth a Buy. He calls shit out the second he sees it and doesn't give a fuck about review copies. I'd rather read/watch an honest review than a day one review, thank you.

Did Roger Ebert care about review embargoes? No, he saw a movie he thought was shit, and called it out.

The gaming industry is full of lies, fraud, grief and exploitation. It is shameful and it's awful.

I really really miss the 1990s, when computer gaming was less mature and spoiled by greed and corruption. And it was a lot more creative, too. And games were complete, and you didn't need an internet connection to get fixes for a broken game you bought on release.

There's a reason why I'm spending a lot more time replaying my older games: they don't disappoint me.
Sheffield United Yes GIF by Sheffield United Football Club

/thread
 

Kilau

Gold Member
Speaking just for myself, I'm not interested in buying an external drive that I'll never use again once real PS5 add-on storage gets released.
DF showed in testing that many times an external SSD loaded PS4 games faster than using the internal storage. There is no reason to use up limited internal space when the alternative is “affordable” and often better.
 

bargeparty

Member
This industry is becoming more and more of a joke. Release a game that "only" gets a Metacritic score of 85? Devs fired. A score of 80? Studio closed. A score of 90? Sorry, we need to restructure to stay competitive and maximize gains. Devs sent to B team to help on other stuff, studio closed. Management gets six million dollar bonus.

A remaster of a game that has been out for almost fifteen years needs a huge day one patch.... It's just ridiculous, man.

Cars release finished. TV releases finished. Books release finished. Music releases finished. Movies release finished. TV shows release finished. General software releases finished. Sure, it gets patched when issues arise, but it's not "release MS Office without printer support and patch it in five months later" or "MS Word spelling checker becomes pay to use with patch 1.2 after reviews are out".

Games release with entire levels, episodes or maps missing, that the devs promise will come later, but then they don't. Anthem was supposed to be this awesome, future changing thing. We know what happened.

Battlefield drops season passes and promise everything will be free. Then, what constitutes "everything" is cut down 80%.

And that shit with review embargoes. FUCK that! FUCK the gaming websites and YouTube shills who get free Cyberpunk chairs and tell you how awesome and mold breaking Cyberpunk is, and when the game launches, it's "oops, I had no idea". I wish every reviewer was like Mack from Worth a Buy. He calls shit out the second he sees it and doesn't give a fuck about review copies. I'd rather read/watch an honest review than a day one review, thank you.

Did Roger Ebert care about review embargoes? No, he saw a movie he thought was shit, and called it out.

The gaming industry is full of lies, fraud, grief and exploitation. It is shameful and it's awful.

I really really miss the 1990s, when computer gaming was less mature and spoiled by greed and corruption. And it was a lot more creative, too. And games were complete, and you didn't need an internet connection to get fixes for a broken game you bought on release.

There's a reason why I'm spending a lot more time replaying my older games: they don't disappoint me.

Confidently incorrect on a lot of this, doesn't surprise me tho.
 

Pallas

Member
Sucks but don’t blame the developers, I’m pretty sure the patch exists because they can’t make the final adjustments and fixes before launching because of deadlines set by EA. We all know about those damn deadlines. Another thing, 11GB patch seeems kind of small compare to what Cyberpunk 2077 hit us with(40GB patch) so it’s not exactly a large amount. Again not defending this practice but developers are often times rushed to meet deadlines.


Also to those that can’t tell a difference between the original and remaster, get some glasses.


They're going to fuck this up, aren't they? Gonna be MCC all over again.
Doubtful, MCC was a broken mess at launch but there was more games and multiplayer to deal with.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


With a new generation of gaming hardware always comes a new crop of interesting games, many of which will be new IP. But with that will also come new capabilities for us to enjoy classics in new ways. Given that, and the fact that remasters are super popular these days, even when they are of games that aren’t even really that old, it should be no surprise that the original Mass Effect trilogy is getting the remastered treatment.

While it’s true the Mass Effect games aren’t even really all that old and still generally look pretty good, Surely, there’s nothing inherently wrong with those games getting a new coat of paint and seeing official releases on more modern hardware.
 

Zannegan

Member
Jeeze, it's disheartening to see so many in here acting like anyone against essential day one patches is ignorant. We know dev goes on up until release day, long after a game has gone "gold." We know game dev is difficult. We aren't anti-patch philistines.

But companies are absolutely taking advantage of the situation to release products that aren't really finished. We're not just talking about last minute bug fixes and performance tweaks anymore, and we haven't been for a while. We're talking games that are sent out practically unplayable and sometimes literally incomplete, with the hope that the dev team will be able to patch up the most egregious flaws by the release date.

How about, instead of worrying about the poor professionals who are being paid to put out a working product, we start thinking about the consumer who would like to get what they paid for in a reasonably complete and working state, pretty please?

Companies need to manage their development better so that the games come out finished. If they can't, they need to delay their products until they are. If those most basic of steps are not workable in today's business/development paradigm, then the paradigm needs to change.
 
Last edited:

Hero_Select

Member
Holy shit what's with all the negativity over a day one patch that pretty much all modern games have now?

The game went gold about a month ago iirc and it's a good time between then and release to patch up and improve things further. I get that Bioware isn't exactly on peoples fav. list anymore but calling this "pathetic" is.. weird..

Have a day one patch and people go crazy
Release the game without one and have more bugs and people go crazy

It's literally a lose-lose.
 

Xaero Gravity

NEXT LEVEL lame™
Holy shit what's with all the negativity over a day one patch that pretty much all modern games have now?

The game went gold about a month ago iirc and it's a good time between then and release to patch up and improve things further. I get that Bioware isn't exactly on peoples fav. list anymore but calling this "pathetic" is.. weird..

Have a day one patch and people go crazy
Release the game without one and have more bugs and people go crazy

It's literally a lose-lose.
People aren't happy unless they're upset about something
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
It's impossible to calculate or determine the game makers intent, but IMO.

1. Ok patch
- Game is content complete and totally playable
- Game can be finished
- Don't need to download the patch if you don't want to or are an offline gamer
- Patch is comprised of some minor bug and performance fixes, or balancing in MP game
- Small patch
- In other words, they released a fully functional game but saw some minor things to improve the past month while the game was getting pressed and shipped

2. Asshole patch
- Game on disc is missing content and in a shitty state
- Potential the game is so broken it might not even be beatable
- Somehow even offline gamers need to download it to even play the game (so they already knew and coded the game unplayable straight off a disc)
- Patch includes giant fixes, which shows they rushed it
- Big patch file
- The game is in a bad state, but rush it out the door hoping to time it so when gamers play on day one the patch is there that fixes everything. Even for gamers who are offline and wants to play SP mode, the game might still force a patch due to missing content because the game is broken or they are too cheap to include two discs. So the boxed disc has half the game and you got to download the rest yourself
- I forget which games did that but I know there were some which were obvious that was a planned intent. I think one of them was a Crash game(?)
 
Last edited:

Zannegan

Member
Have a day one patch and people go crazy
Release the game without one and have more bugs and people go crazy

It's literally a lose-lose.
Or (and I know this is crazy, but hear me out) delay the game until it's finished and reasonably bug-free, THEN go gold.

The fact that all games do it doesn't really excuse the behavior, it just shows how widespread the problem is. In fact, that's probably why people are pissed.
 
Or (and I know this is crazy, but hear me out) delay the game until it's finished and reasonably bug-free, THEN go gold.

The fact that all games do it doesn't really excuse the behavior, it just shows how widespread the problem is. In fact, that's probably why people are pissed.

Cant do. We are passed that now. Just how small DLC packs slowly creeped in back in 2006 and now a DLC is basically...why give you full beefy game when we can cut out some stuff and just sell an extra $20 per DLC. We/The industry let it happen and now its such a normal thing that its not even considered an issue. I mean can you believe back in the day, pre patches lets say PS2. You put the game out and it has to be perfect. Like, there was no way you could fix it afterwards besides returning the stock and re-printing the whole thing again. Imagine just how much beta testing and bug testing they did back in the day to MAKE SURE, not a single game breaking bug existed. A glitch here and there sure but never to the extent where we are getting unplayable games from the disc or without a huge patch first.

Im all for patching the game but its getting out of hand how comfortable studios are to put it out there knowing its not cooked to perfection.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Or (and I know this is crazy, but hear me out) delay the game until it's finished and reasonably bug-free, THEN go gold.

The fact that all games do it doesn't really excuse the behavior, it just shows how widespread the problem is. In fact, that's probably why people are pissed.
This post is proof that you are completely ignorant about how all of this works.
Marketing, logistics etc. all gets fucked up when you delay a game until everything is perfect.

Please do a little research and learn that things are more complicated than a simple, "let's delay it at the last minute"
 

Redlight

Member
Day one patch just means the game came out too early. Can’t support that shit. Release a complete game ffs.
Master discs have set deadlines so that production, packaging and distribution can be completed by release date. Often large marketing budgets have been implemented and ads are booked and payed for long in advance.

You can't just delay a game by a week or two without consequence, you'd have to start that extensive process all over again and potentially lose millions in the process.

Day one patches make it possible for developers to keep polishing the game during that period in order to make the game as good as possible on release day. Would you rather they release it 'as is' and then not touch it again until weeks afterwards?
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Cant do. We are passed that now. Just how small DLC packs slowly creeped in back in 2006 and now a DLC is basically...why give you full beefy game when we can cut out some stuff and just sell an extra $20 per DLC. We/The industry let it happen and now its such a normal thing that its not even considered an issue. I mean can you believe back in the day, pre patches lets say PS2. You put the game out and it has to be perfect. Like, there was no way you could fix it afterwards besides returning the stock and re-printing the whole thing again. Imagine just how much beta testing and bug testing they did back in the day to MAKE SURE, not a single game breaking bug existed. A glitch here and there sure but never to the extent where we are getting unplayable games from the disc or without a huge patch first.

Im all for patching the game but its getting out of hand how comfortable studios are to put it out there knowing its not cooked to perfection.
Yeah, I can imagine, how much it was like that when games were still in the megabytes of disk space....
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Master discs have set deadlines so that production, packaging and distribution can be completed by release date. Often large marketing budgets have been implemented and ads are booked and payed for long in advance.

You can't just delay a game by a week or two without consequence, you'd have to start that extensive process all over again and potentially lose millions in the process.

Day one patches make it possible for developers to keep polishing the game during that period in order to make the game as good as possible on release day. Would you rather they release it 'as is' and then not touch it again until weeks afterwards?
These bozos live in their little shell of a world, where they think everything can be adjusted on a dime. They are incapable of thinking about logistics and all that stuff.

For the record, yes it would be nice if it was perfect on release, but in order for them to not have a day 1 patch likely would mean 2 maybe 3 months of extra waiting. No thanks.
 
Yeah, I can imagine, how much it was like that when games were still in the megabytes of disk space....

Just because now the disc space is 10 times larger doesn't mean its all game mechanic information that its so hard to sift through. Theres 4K textures, high res video cutscenes, flac sound bites etc that all take up massive storage space. COD Warzone last year released a high-resolution patch and it was 20GB. Thats the size of the whole Driveclub game. So no, thats not an excuse that because theres more GB compared to 4.7GB back in the day, that its much harder now to fix flaws before game release. Its happening because they know they can release it in that state and you will buy it no matter what.
 

Freeman76

Member
Whens the embargo up for reviews? Some of the nutjobs round here will have a hissy if its the 13th since they are releasing the game a day earlier now.
 

Zannegan

Member
This post is proof that you are completely ignorant about how all of this works.
Marketing, logistics etc. all gets fucked up when you delay a game until everything is perfect.

Please do a little research and learn that things are more complicated than a simple, "let's delay it at the last minute"
Did I say delay it at the last minute? And as much as I love being talked down to by internet strangers--who generally have no idea what they're talking about but speak confidently in broad concepts and marketing buzzwords--if you don't assume everyone who doesn't think like you is a complete and total moron, you'll have more productive conversations.

To the point, are you telling me you honestly cannot think up a solution for the problem of games being released in an unpolished or even unfinished state besides A. day-one updates or B. last-minute delays?
 

Hero_Select

Member
Did I say delay it at the last minute? And as much as I love being talked down to by internet strangers--who generally have no idea what they're talking about but speak confidently in broad concepts and marketing buzzwords--if you don't assume everyone who doesn't think like you is a complete and total moron, you'll have more productive conversations.

To the point, are you telling me you honestly cannot think up a solution for the problem of games being released in an unpolished or even unfinished state besides A. day-one updates or B. last-minute delays?
I'm sure everyone would love to release their games in as much of a polished state as possible. No developer who is passionate about their game is thinking "Eh, let's release this now and we'll fix it later".

Games are made with multiple systems in mind, some with their own launchers and need to accompany a wide-range of hardware when the PC is taken into account. It's nice to say "delay the game until it's bug-free then go gold" but that's easier said then done in the current environment of how games are made. Patches exist and unforseen/unexpected bugs happen. If it's not a day one patch then it'll be a day 7 patch or a day 13 patch.

You also pose a question but offer up no solution to this yourself. What would you do?
 

Ozzie666

Member
I was going to give the release a week, for reviews and bugs and issues to come out. Then I was debating taking a week off work to play the game. I am undecided which console to get it on. I am also fighting some pretty hard nostalgia. Can I really enjoy the game again, as I once did? It was epic for it's time and one of my fondest gaming experiences. The characters, the world, the lore. It's all legendary. I remember getting so addicted to the mining mini game in Mass effect 2, it was insane. I've probably replayed the series 2-3 times over all. But I've been holding off for a few years now.

I'm concerned it's bigger in my head than it actually was. Afraid, I wont enjoy it or be able to focus to finish it. That first time experience, is hard to get back. Very conflicted to be honest. But want it to be so good again.

Obviously the week I take off from work, isn't just for this. Well I tell myself that anyhow :)
 

Zannegan

Member
I'm sure everyone would love to release their games in as much of a polished state as possible. No developer who is passionate about their game is thinking "Eh, let's release this now and we'll fix it later".

Games are made with multiple systems in mind, some with their own launchers and need to accompany a wide-range of hardware when the PC is taken into account. It's nice to say "delay the game until it's bug-free then go gold" but that's easier said then done in the current environment of how games are made. Patches exist and unforseen/unexpected bugs happen. If it's not a day one patch then it'll be a day 7 patch or a day 13 patch.

You also pose a question but offer up no solution to this yourself. What would you do?
I agree that most devs would love to release their games in a more polished state. Unfortunately hey aren't in charge of their own release schedules and publishers are often content with "good enough" rather than "good" as long as the game still sells. There will always be market realities, of course. No game can stay in development indefinitely until it is perfect. I get that.

The problem is that devs are increasingly having to rely on day one updates to fix games that are shipped borderline broken. Also increasing are instances where even that isn't enough time and games are still messed up months and even years after release. People aren't pushing back against day-one updates that further improve a game, but day-one updates that are necessary for a game to operate as intended.

The solution is better management--nothing radically different, just a shift in priorities. If the time between "going gold" and release is necessary just to get all the elements of a game working properly across all those systems you mention at a playable frame rate with no crashes, then that time should be built into the original development schedule, with additional time for Q&A built in afterward. When things go wrong, delay internally as soon as possible, rather than betting that crunch and a day-one update will fix it. And start announce games later in their development cycle and closer to release.

A few months ago, I would have said it'll probably never happen, but after the Cyberpunk fallout, I'm starting to hope that publishers might start to see the value in having a reputation for games that work out of the gate. They won't so long as it doesn't affect the bottom line though, which is why it's so disheartening to see people bend over backwards and make excuses for crappy practices because "that's just the way it is now."

We're not going to change any of that here, of course, but we can certainly talk about it though without assuming everyone on the other "side" (in what is actually a spectrum of how far is too far) is a total idiot. On that note, thanks for the courteous reply that actually engages rather than dismisses.
 

Xeaker

Member
Gaming became so shit, is it REALLY not possible anymore to get a fuking 100% done game on the fuking disc?!?!?!!?

ChfV.gif
 
Top Bottom