Auto Patching mechanism

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CloudConnected

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May 7, 2005
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What happens if I'm in the middle of a clan match and the server just restarts? Or even if it restarts after the current game but we are playing a sequence of games. What if patches messup something so a mutator doesn't work anymore? What if I want my private server to be exploit full? What if someone finds a way to exploit this auto patching mechanism? How much funds will it take to develop this thing? Is it really worth it? The community could make mutators to fix extreme exploits, if the next patch isn't due in awhile. Will this make my server less secure? If there were extreme changes being made in patches, you could disable people with old patches from joining newly patches servers and etc. Sounds like a lot more work than it's worth to do.
 

Bazzi

Wearing pink
Apr 22, 2001
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www.bazzinet.info
Hey dont ask too many questions at once.
And lists exist for a reason, use them.

Clan matches are an issue here, I agree. Maybe they should choose a fixed time to release patches, say 1 am GMT for example, so people wouldnt plan clan matches there anyway.

If some mutator breaks, it could be fixed. The auto patch mechanism could go as far es enabling the mutators/mods to update themselves aswell.

Think of how Firefox handles them. Firefox updates itself, lets extension update themselves and de-activates incompatible extensions automatically.

If there were extreme changes being made in patches, you could disable people with old patches from joining newly patches servers and etc.
The newest version would always be required.

The community could make mutators to fix extreme exploits, if the next patch isn't due in awhile.

Didnt work out for UT2004 so far. All those ant-exploit mutators were often more a PITA than a help...

For the amount of work to: It's not much. its a simple version against version check, download update, run update, restart game, done.
You can code a basic system within some hours.
 

Wowbagger

Curing the infection...
May 20, 2000
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Visit site
Guild Wars Streams the updates but the servers never goes down. (its amazing bit GW has been down ONCE since it was released and that was for a couple of hours at the beginning)
You only get a message to restart the game BUT you can also neglect to do it and finish playing.

So it IS possible to do.
 
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FireCrack

New Member
May 25, 2004
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All we need is for people to be alerted of patches. When a patch is released a big box should come up and ask you to clikec one of two buttons (patch or dont patch) before proceeding. It has directions on how to later obtain the patch should you select dont patch.
 

Xipher

I didn't break it, you did
Feb 15, 2004
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FireCrack said:
All we need is for people to be alerted of patches. When a patch is released a big box should come up and ask you to clikec one of two buttons (patch or dont patch) before proceeding. It has directions on how to later obtain the patch should you select dont patch.

Either give instructions, or just ask every time they start up the game and go into the online section.
 

kafros

F1 manta tryouts
Jan 21, 2005
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For the anti-cheat mods note that game-engine modifications by EPIC (in the non released API that the modding community is using) are much more powerfull (more efficient and faster) than the released mods.

For people playing a match there is no need to stop in order to patch (since they are already playing they are all on the same version).

Their server will be auto-patched as soon as they change map. The only issue is that until this happens, people with the newer version will not be able to join this server for the duration of that particular game. But they will be able to join all others.
 

Xipher

I didn't break it, you did
Feb 15, 2004
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kafros said:
For the anti-cheat mods note that game-engine modifications by EPIC (in the non released API that the modding community is using) are much more powerfull (more efficient and faster) than the released mods.

For people playing a match there is no need to stop in order to patch (since they are already playing they are all on the same version).

Their server will be auto-patched as soon as they change map. The only issue is that until this happens, people with the newer version will not be able to join this server for the duration of that particular game. But they will be able to join all others.
Actually, I think it would be better to have the dedicated server admins to initiate the patching download (for bandwidth reasons), so they could have some sort of schedualed downtime. Autopatching is nice, but I do understand (and agree with) the necesity to have some control over the process
 

FireCrack

New Member
May 25, 2004
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I'm glad people agree wiht me. The biggest problem is not that people dont want to patch, it's that people dont know a patch exists.