StarCraft II to Get Day One Patch for Battle.net

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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StarCraft II to Get Day One Patch for Battle.net



Whenever StarCraft II comes out, you can expect a day one patch, because Blizzard is going to be refining the new Battle.net right down to the wire.

Speaking with VG247's Patrick Garratt [http://www.vg247.com/2010/03/09/blizzard-confirms-day-one-patch-for-starcraft-ii/#more-84393], lead designer Dustin Browder said that StarCraft II would almost certainly necessitate a mandatory patch right out of the gate, just to give the Battle.net team "a little bit more time to sort of get their ducks in a row."

This doesn't necessarily mean anything bad though, said Browder. "As a consumer back in the day, I always thought a day one patch was kind of a sad sign, but I've got to tell you, as a developer now I kind of welcome it, just for the chance to get a couple more months to really polish and work on the game a little bit longer."

"If you think about the logistics of printing million of boxes, and millions of discs, and getting all that distribution out to all parts of the world, there's a big chunk of time there that can be utilized by development to improve the game," added Blizzard rep Bob Colayco. "It only makes sense to use that time somehow."

The patch was going to be as tiny as they could possibly make it, elaborated Browder, "so it's really quick once you install the game," and not a hassle.

As for the rest of the game? Well, it's coming along swimmingly, according to the full interview [http://www.vg247.com/2010/03/09/interview-starcraft-iis-dustin-browder-on-the-beta-gdc-and-finally-going-home/]: The single-player campaign has all the missions and mechanics in place, and all the sound has been recorded - all that's left is there is to playtest and polish the hell out of it until it's sparkling a gleaming shine. The multiplayer balance is shaping up nicely, too - Browder said that while Terrans were a little bit below par at the moment, almost all the races were shaping up to have a 50% win ratio, with only minor tweaking necessary.

Though Browder was optimistic that the game would ship within the stated release window of "the first half of 2010," he didn't want to rule anything out. "You never know what's going to happen. You never know when something's going to jump up and bite you that you didn't expect," he said, "Yeah sure, today it's looking great, but who knows tomorrow?"

"I can't tell you how enthusiastic the team is at this point of getting this game out of the door, not only to get the game into the hands of our fans, but also so we can go home. But at this point we really want to get it out in the worst possible way, and any delays are going to meet with our righteous fury."

Ah well, better than Day-One DLC, right guys?

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xHipaboo420x

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I think this is much more preferable to delaying the game for the sake of last-minute Battle.net tweaks - it would mean a sooner release date, which is just fine by me!
 

tomvw

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John Funk said:
This doesn't necessarily mean anything bad though, said Broder. "As a consumer back in the day, I always thought a day one patch was kind of a sad sign, but I've got to tell you, as a developer now I kind of welcome it, just for the chance to get a couple more months to really polish and work on the game a little bit longer."
Okay? So day one patches are a good thing now or what? This quote makes absolutely no sense to me... Maybe I'm just thick?

Anyhow, nice to see that the game is shaping up alright and the balance is what we expect.
 

John Funk

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Dec 20, 2005
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tomvw said:
John Funk said:
This doesn't necessarily mean anything bad though, said Broder. "As a consumer back in the day, I always thought a day one patch was kind of a sad sign, but I've got to tell you, as a developer now I kind of welcome it, just for the chance to get a couple more months to really polish and work on the game a little bit longer."
Okay? So day one patches are a good thing now or what? This quote makes absolutely no sense to me... Maybe I'm just thick?

Anyhow, nice to see that the game is shaping up alright and the balance is what we expect.
How I'm reading this is that, when he was a consumer he interpreted day one patches as "Oh no, there is something broken about this game," whereas as a developer he now sees them as "Oh god yes, we have time to actually continue working and tweaking and polishing after it goes to the 'print to disc' form."
 

samsonguy920

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Frankly with the stuff that gets missed with many games leaving them broken from day one, I welcome a day one patch, gladly. Nobody's perfect and not everything gets found at testing.

And definitely better than day one DLC by far. That's just weak salesmanship in action.
 

Gildan Bladeborn

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Aug 11, 2009
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John Funk said:
tomvw said:
John Funk said:
This doesn't necessarily mean anything bad though, said Broder. "As a consumer back in the day, I always thought a day one patch was kind of a sad sign, but I've got to tell you, as a developer now I kind of welcome it, just for the chance to get a couple more months to really polish and work on the game a little bit longer."
Okay? So day one patches are a good thing now or what? This quote makes absolutely no sense to me... Maybe I'm just thick?

Anyhow, nice to see that the game is shaping up alright and the balance is what we expect.
How I'm reading this is that, when he was a consumer he interpreted day one patches as "Oh no, there is something broken about this game," whereas as a developer he now sees them as "Oh god yes, we have time to actually continue working and tweaking and polishing after it goes to the 'print to disc' form."
That was my impression as well. If it helps, think of it not as 'fixing' something they discovered was broken after they've already created the master copy and started printing media, but as refining how Battle.NET works after the game has already gone gold. At some point they have to stop working on it to create the physical media, but that doesn't mean they can't keep improving Battle.NET during the time between that happening and the street date.

Ergo, a day 1 patch.
 

Rathy

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Aug 21, 2008
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I'm happy to see this, though I expect nothing less from Blizzard anyway. I wish more companies would keep doing as much work once the game hits its deadline and the disc was sent to retail. It doesn't even have to be anything big, it could just be taking time to re-experiment with textures even, which I would not put past Blizzard.
 

pneuma08

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Sep 10, 2008
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As a consumer, especially back in the day, a day-one patch brought up the idea that the game was "unfinished" and that they really needed more time that they weren't given. This was an especially stark comparison to console games, which cannot be patched and therefore must be "whole" at the time of completion (for lack of a better word).

That said, any software dev will tell you that no matter how many times you go in and test, there will always be more bugs to iron out, and the more complex the program, the more dark corners for bugs to be. Making use of the the time between submitting "gold" code to be printed and the discs being shipped to and used by consumers makes a lot of sense.

IMO, Day 1 DLC falls into the same category, here. I honestly don't see the difference between the two; they're both the devs using the time between gold source and consumer use to improve their existing product.
 

ark123

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Uh, I'd love it if the first day patch actually changed a bunch of stuff and the ladder fiends of beta couldn't just own everyone in sight. Just call it Beta and listen to feedback =D
 

Cherry Cola

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Jun 26, 2009
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tomvw said:
John Funk said:
This doesn't necessarily mean anything bad though, said Broder. "As a consumer back in the day, I always thought a day one patch was kind of a sad sign, but I've got to tell you, as a developer now I kind of welcome it, just for the chance to get a couple more months to really polish and work on the game a little bit longer."
Okay? So day one patches are a good thing now or what? This quote makes absolutely no sense to me... Maybe I'm just thick?

Anyhow, nice to see that the game is shaping up alright and the balance is what we expect.
Indeed they are good. Gives the developers time to work on the game even when it's done.

Day one DLC on the other hand! Grrrr...
 

Credge

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Apr 12, 2008
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After playing the beta a few times, I soundly unimpressed with SC2 =\. Apparently I'm one of the few. I dunno, I guess I like my RTS being more about strategy and tactics than build order and execution.

I'm also not impressed with B.Net 2.0. By not impressed I mean that there's nothing impressive about it. I've used it before. For years. In Steam.
 

Azhrarn-101

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Irridium said:
So it may actually come out this year?

Huh, I guess hell froze over after all.
It's been known a while now that Blizzard has been aiming for a First Half of 2010 release for SC2: Wings of Liberty. Beta certainly plays like a dream, nothing really overpowered atm, they're just tweaking balance. :)

As for Diablo 3, that's currently slated for somewhere in 2011, but no real facts on a release window as such.
 

Jared

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Jul 14, 2009
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Well. Gotta give them points for wanting to get everything right first time...I am sure, or at least I hope, it will go well...unlike Ubi...heh
 

Viruzzo

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Any patch is a good patch, so I see no problem with this. You are going to have to connect to the Internet anyway when you play it (at least to see this fabled Battle.net 2.0).

John Funk said:
[...] almost all the races were shaping up to have a 50% win ratio, with only minor tweaking necessary.
(wears nitpicking hat)
Shouldn't it be ~33% each, since there are three races?
(removes nitpicking hat)
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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Viruzzo said:
Any patch is a good patch, so I see no problem with this. You are going to have to connect to the Internet anyway when you play it (at least to see this fabled Battle.net 2.0).

John Funk said:
[...] almost all the races were shaping up to have a 50% win ratio, with only minor tweaking necessary.
(wears nitpicking hat)
Shouldn't it be ~33% each, since there are three races?
(removes nitpicking hat)
No, because that would mean that they lose twice as much as they win.
 

Pendragon9

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Apr 26, 2009
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THE TERRANS BETTER BE THE MOST POWERFUL! >.<

Seriously, I hope Blizzard doesn't shank them by taking their awesome abilities.
 

sigma83

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I actually think that as a major online game it is merely taking advantage of the medium to release day one patches. I don't think less of developers for releasing patches. Please, patch more.
 

teisjm

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Mar 3, 2009
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I don't really mind day one patches as long as they don't charge for them.
but hey, it's blizzard, who honestly thought they would screw around with costumers liek that anyways (d2 last free content patch 9 years after release, i'm looking at you, and feeling happy)