Patch em all up please ...

[cavalry corps]

I will by K43 , looks great. But I do not plan to get more until I feel that the series will all be at the same standard.

There have been some very good improvements to the system in the last few games, that needs to be applied to them all. I would like to suggest that players here gently remind HPS to upgrade all the games to the latest mark of K43 to avoid them getting out of sync so to speak. There are some good games which have had no patch for a long time.

Awaiting to see if anyone else feels the same.

Cav

[Glenn Saunders]

Our policy is to patch games on request as time allows and as people are actually using the games and require the features.

Asking to patch all is not a valid request - sorry.

I took the initiative and did B45 as there have been posts and I figured it was a good thing to do. We just released the Sealion patch the other day and it should be ready too - when HPS get around to posting it. I was thinking Korsun next maybe.

We have NEVER updated every game to the exact level and are working though titles - if you do not plan to support the series until this happens, well what can I say except - thanks for you interest and support in the past.

You have to understand that if you lined up every HPS CD John has made in the 10 years with them, you would have over two feet worth of games. That is a lot of Updates.

On the other hand if you have a game on the go, or you are starting a new PBEM game and you really want a particular feature in a game, then we will do what we can to be responsive to the request.

Glenn

[cavalry corps]

Our policy is to patch games on request as time allows and as people are actually using the games and require the features.

Asking to patch all is not a valid request - sorry.

I took the initiative and did B45 as there have been posts and I figured it was a good thing to do. We just released the Sealion patch the other day and it should be ready too - when HPS get around to posting it. I was thinking Korsun next maybe.

We have NEVER updated every game to the exact level and are working though titles - if you do not plan to support the series until this happens, well what can I say except - thanks for you interest and support in the past.

Glenn

Could we have a provisional idea when they will be patched. Many of the features like to reduced fatigue would be key to every game. I thought that the intention was to bring them all up to the same standard. Not being a computer person I do not perhaps realise that maybe a lot of work. But consider maybe new people here would prefer to see an old title with the same rules and enhancements as the newest one as an incentive to buy the older titles?

Cav

[Glenn Saunders]

Could we have a provisional idea when they will be patched.

I am sorry - I don't have a provisional Schedule.

We do it on a game by game basis as needed.

Many of the features like to reduced fatigue would be key to every game.

Again - I am not sure what feature you are referring to here.

The changes.txt for B45 v1.02 doesn't say anythig about reduced Fatigue.

I thought that the intention was to bring them all up to the same standard.

The series has NEVER been all at the same level at the same time, not since the third title of the series came out.

Not being a computer person I do not perhaps realise that maybe a lot of work. But consider maybe new people here would prefer to see an old title with the same rules and enhancements as the newest one as an incentive to buy the older titles?

As I've said before - new people or old people - if you have a game and you are really starting something and do legitamately want to play the game with a feature and you let me know the situation, I will do what I can as I've always done.

But requesting everything be at the same level will not happen - we would have to redo B45 because the Sealion patch added yet another new feature - so even B45 pathed 5 Dec is as of the Sealion Patch, will be slightly out of date.

Patching is always an ongoing process - that is just the way it is.

Glenn

[Nitram Draw]

I've always wondered how you chose which games will be patched. It seems to be sort of random. Is it random?

[FM WarB]

Why wouldn't those games that have gone longest without a patch be patched first?

[Glenn Saunders]

I've always wondered how you chose which games will be patched. It seems to be sort of random. Is it random?

No - patches are and have always been done on an as needed basis.
(LOL - something I said the other day as A$$ needed basis and someone called me on the typo which I thought was humourous

For example, we patched up a bunch of the MC series for the big nato battles in Germany and then Al Sandrik came along and said - "Jeez Glenn, I'd like to use the new MC rules for Nukes in a ME67 thing I am doing - can you help me out" And we did!

Patching and patch testing take away resources - from John all the way down to the guys working to test the new EXE.

Lets take Sicily for a second - the game is good - no bugs but is someone looked at the Budapest changes.txt file and saw:

" - Change so that Commandos are always in command and never isolated."

....and they figured this was a cool thing and they wanted to play a game of Sicily and use this rule - then I could perhaps get the game patched and have that person play a scn - not just test that rule but look at everything to make sure he game is stable - don't crash and all the basic things work. If after a few days of a couple guys playing with the patch, there are no issues found, we release it to HPS and they post it when they get a chance.

But we're not going to Update Sicily as a make work project - have you seen the list of development things John has on the go - see the news at johntillersoftware.com - then consider all the titles in all the series that John has created. Does anyone have a game of 1812 on the go that needs a new feature update? If so let Rich Hamilton know.

I see Sealion is up now on the HPS Site and that game had not been previously patched. There was nothing really wrong with it Sealion - not a single bug reported and only one incorrect value in the OOB reported. I think I did something in one of the scenarios too - but it was all pretty minor. I don't know of any feature anyone wanted - but I figured we should fix these things if nothing else.

So - bottomline - there is a lot of John Tiller Titles out there and they are all supported by a crew of people who do what they can and respond to the reasonable requests by the community. Requesting that ever game or even special consideration be made for every PzC Title to be updated before any new games are considered is I feel, not something that is reasonable to expect from John Tiller.

Glenn

---

Why wouldn't those games that have gone longest without a patch be patched first?

Because maybe nobody was playing one of the games and asked for a patch to support the game.

Patches are NOT make work projects for people with nothing to do - they are done on an as needed basis.

Glenn

[enigma6584]

Well I got to say this is disheartening. I guess I always assumed you guys were going to bring everything up to the same level in terms of features and such.

[TheBigRedOne]

As a playtester on the SB series, I can back-up what Glenn has to say in terms of the work that goes into rolling out an update. This is a better term than patch. Patch implies that something's not right, versus updating a game with upgrades that have been put into newer versions...

It's not a matter of popping the update in and releasing, there are things that need to be tested out first by the team, not to mention the programming time to get the updates put into place (which I know absolutely zero about in terms of time, energy and more importantly, cost).

Testing SB games is a bit quicker, most likely, than your series, but there is still work that needs to be done before anything gets released.

[FM WarB]

Update is a better name for it than patch. The time required to do an update is also dependent on whether oob as well as pdt file changes are needed.

The Bulge game, which has gone the longest without a patch could certainly use the engineer and AT gun changes and I'd think the Bulge is a topic popular with gamers.

FWIW, consider this a request. :)