Quake Wars and Quake 4 MUST have forced-updates, heres why

[Loffy]

Hi!
Why not make a perfect game? Then an update wont be necessary.
No need to thank me. Just send cash to bank account: 1234-56-789.
Have a nice day!
//Loffy

[Florisjuh]

[quote=Florisjuh]I’ve never really moved with ET, I’m still playing ET 2.55

Eh, why exactly?[/quote]

• My clanservers are very popular on unpatched
• Much tighter community as in almost everyone knows each other
• No ETPro pubs - j/k - Altrough most clans use etpro for scrimmages
• Most features from patched trough mods like etpub

[SCDS_reyalP]

A few of you have excelently pointed out major concern. Namely, were I a modder or an server admin, I would definitly appreciate an “update news” page on the game’s homepage so I could read the details about the upcomming patch well before it get’s auto-patched.

For modders it goes beyond that. In the past (for id games), the mod SDK corresponding to patches has been released weaks or months after the patch. That means that there is often no way for mods to update right away. Even after they get the source, it may take time to integrate it.

This cascades on to leagues etc, as they usually use a mod.

So to accomplish forced updates in a sane manner, you would have to release the updated code before pushing the patch out the the general public. This is possible, but id (and friends) general practice seems to be minimum effort / priority for SDK stuff.

[DG1]

• Forcing updates will cause major problems for servers, who will need to change configs to adapt to changes and there may be permissions or other security (or security software/settings) implications, particularily for changed binaries. Admins (esp for large GSPs or server hosting companies) need to have reasonable ability to schedule updating, and not have it all completely broken in the mean time. True, if the update didnt require any task other than updating the files, then automatic would actually be better for them, but somehow I find it unlikely that they wont have to at least restart the process.

• Similar might apply for clients too, perhaps an administrator login could be required for the update to work - got to consider Longhorn here, not just WinXP. some players dont use an admin account when playing or using the 'net (usually due to being able to reduce damage from viruses, or because it’s dad’s machine and he wants to limit the damage the kids can do).

• Mods are usually broken by updates and need new builds. Forcing mods to be broken is defeating the purpose. In theory you could work around or limit that by giving modders the updated SDK prior to release, but this means further significant delay to patch release and anyway are the modders liable to have their own autoupdate? Not to mention, as ReyalP points out, its more than a little optimistic to assume an updated SDK available in ample time before forced update. I dont think forcing updates can work unless you have a ‘total’ system like Steam. This might seem like over emphasising the importance of mods, but um, look at the player & server number stats for ET, and indeed many if not most of other games.

Personally I think software shouldnt be forced updated on people’s machines unless it’s absolutely necessary (some people say that about PB, but forced updates are absolutely necessary to it’s desired function). This is true for technical reasons as per above and also for democratic ones - if people dont want to run the latest and (not always) greatest, its not our business to stop them when it doesnt directly impinge on us.