Game updates
- Thread starter siziyd
- Start date
- Jul 27, 2017
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It is what it is. Ren'py, RPGM etc don't lend themselves to easily making separate patches. Only way to keep the file size down is compression and at some point thinking about splitting the game into multiple chapters.
- Aug 5, 2020
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The problem with patches is that they rapidly become quite a lot of work to provide. While it's easy to provide a patch to bring 0.9.5 up to 0.9.6 there's a good chance that 70% of your players like to store up a few revisions for a good session and they're mostly upgrading from a selection of 0.8.* onward. Now you're dealing with producing and uploading a whole pile of different patches, and dealing with constant questions about which file to download.
Of course, you could automate a fair bit of that by running a patch server but then you're entering a whole world of "OMG!!!11! Teh deV is tOteS haXxorInG JJoo!" To say nothing of having to run a patch server.
Basically it's just a terrible time burden for very little gain unless you're operating at scale or handing over a cut of your earnings to an outfit like Valve to handle that for you.
Of course, you could automate a fair bit of that by running a patch server but then you're entering a whole world of "OMG!!!11! Teh deV is tOteS haXxorInG JJoo!" To say nothing of having to run a patch server.
Basically it's just a terrible time burden for very little gain unless you're operating at scale or handing over a cut of your earnings to an outfit like Valve to handle that for you.
- Jan 9, 2023
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Why don't just provide incremental update with every release? As a user I can just apply them in sequence like v0.5 -> v0.6 -> v0.7 and get latest version in say 300Mb instead couple Gb for full v0.7 release, if I already have v0.5 game on my disk
- Nov 20, 2017
- 5,540
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Could work, would work, but you have the standard F95 lusers, that will ask if he only need to download 0.8->0.9 patch or if he can use this patch for his 0.4 game or whatever they could think of.
So, as other written before, it is more work to do than simple release the whole thing and it can get quite complicated. Also you need to plan a little bit ahead and not everyone can make that. I myself has only seen a few, who make a patch or have a update service integrated into their game.
In addition small games don't profit much from this. Proper video/image compression may have a bigger effect.
- Aug 5, 2020
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The more links being maintained in the OP, the more work for the uploaders maintaining those links. The longer and more confusing the OP. The more support requests and bad reviews you get for bugs because someone swears blind that they updated from 0.6 to 0.7 when they really used the wrong patch on 0.5 and wrecked shit up.
It just isn't worth it in the vast majority of cases.
And who has to do that?
Nearly all games are pirated, and the devs' releases wouldn't have such a system. That's why such a task would fall to the Uploaders. They would have to take apart each updated game and look for the new/updated files by themselves.
- Apr 14, 2021
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To be honest not a concern if you have decent connection.
If the game is worth it, i will download 1TB for the sake of 1mg, no problem.
If the game is worth it, i will download 1TB for the sake of 1mg, no problem.
- Aug 5, 2020
- 348
- 609
That too. Realistically, the people who pay are highly likely to be using an unmetered connection and can nip off to make a refreshing beverage while things download.To be honest not a concern if you have decent connection.
If the game is worth it, i will download 1TB for the sake of 1mg, no problem.
- Sep 8, 2021
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Also, if we ask for internet connection for automatic updates, lots of people give us hate, so it is what it is
If you get the game on Steam or Itch (using the Itch download app), they do that actually. It just downloads new/changed files, which makes for much smaller updates. I don't think many people know about the Itch one.
Most devs can't do that on their own, though, without nontrivial coding knowledge/experience that many of us don't have. Most dev tools don't have a built-in option for that either, so it'd be 100% on the dev to separate out files and/or set up an automated tool to do it for them, and frankly, I don't know jack shit about coding aside from what I've learned working on my game.
It's also a lot of work for the dev compared to "have Renpy make my latest build for me" when release days are already busy and stressful as fuck. I've worked 16+ hours on a release day before trying to catch and fix bugs, I have NOTHING on my brain by the end of it. It's a pleasant surprise if I can even hit "upload to itch" on the renpy launcher by that point.
The more minipatches/versions floating around, the more likely that someone will apply them in the wrong order, skip some, or not understand the system at all, and all of those immediately become the dev's fault and the dev's problem. Constructive criticism and real bug reports are super helpful, but PEBKAC errors are extremely time-consuming to diagnose, especially since people tend not to admit they save edited or maybe missed a patch somewhere that is causing all the issues.
So yeah, as a player I definitely get where you're coming from and love Steam especially for doing that, but as a dev it's a *lot* easier to just have self-contained versions that work right out of the box, and let Steam/Itch take care of the whole "download the new bits" part.
From a dev perspective, I think it's better to look into ways to minimize file size - using webp instead of png, careful quality compression to minimize file size, etc. Taking a music file from 70mb to 2mb, or a clip studio file from 200mb to 1mb in webp files, helps me keep DD's size down pretty small. So a steam/itch patch can be measured in the kb or "a few MB" range.
Some others have posted great comments while I was typing, like the internet connection thing and compression, so I'll just end this here.
Most devs can't do that on their own, though, without nontrivial coding knowledge/experience that many of us don't have. Most dev tools don't have a built-in option for that either, so it'd be 100% on the dev to separate out files and/or set up an automated tool to do it for them, and frankly, I don't know jack shit about coding aside from what I've learned working on my game.
It's also a lot of work for the dev compared to "have Renpy make my latest build for me" when release days are already busy and stressful as fuck. I've worked 16+ hours on a release day before trying to catch and fix bugs, I have NOTHING on my brain by the end of it. It's a pleasant surprise if I can even hit "upload to itch" on the renpy launcher by that point.
The more minipatches/versions floating around, the more likely that someone will apply them in the wrong order, skip some, or not understand the system at all, and all of those immediately become the dev's fault and the dev's problem. Constructive criticism and real bug reports are super helpful, but PEBKAC errors are extremely time-consuming to diagnose, especially since people tend not to admit they save edited or maybe missed a patch somewhere that is causing all the issues.
So yeah, as a player I definitely get where you're coming from and love Steam especially for doing that, but as a dev it's a *lot* easier to just have self-contained versions that work right out of the box, and let Steam/Itch take care of the whole "download the new bits" part.
From a dev perspective, I think it's better to look into ways to minimize file size - using webp instead of png, careful quality compression to minimize file size, etc. Taking a music file from 70mb to 2mb, or a clip studio file from 200mb to 1mb in webp files, helps me keep DD's size down pretty small. So a steam/itch patch can be measured in the kb or "a few MB" range.
Some others have posted great comments while I was typing, like the internet connection thing and compression, so I'll just end this here.
Most of us give our Steam or Itch.io keys to Patreons; that's by far the easiest way to support the developer and get the game (and in those cases it just downloads the data that's changed). In the case of Love of Magic it also means you get updates as I make them (usually once or twice a week), as opposed to just the completed content at the end of the act.
- Sep 13, 2016
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- Jun 10, 2017
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The instruction to install my mods is: "extract the content of the archive into the "[path to the game]/game/" directory. And there's still time to time who ask what it mean.
Now imagine what it would be for a game that would have a succession of patch to apply in order to get the full content for last update. And I already see the "I installed the patches, but it don't works, and no, I haven't kept the previous version why should I have" coming, because many players, especially with Ren'Py games, delete the game once they finished to play the update.
And this is without counting the problem caused by the hosting of those patches ; many hosting sites remove files if they haven't been downloaded a single time after X months. Plus, of course, the extra works for the uploaders, what would have to manage the list of patches.
There's a more important issue with a patch server, at least from the dev point of view: How do you discriminate between games that are officials, and games that are pirated ?
It's obvious that, even those who don't care much that the game is available here, they don't really want to operate an update server that would benefit to anyone or, worse, that would mean "pay 1$ once, get the game for free until the end". There's way to deal with this, but it imply still more works, and generally they have already enough to do with just the game development.