Giant Bombcast 462: Got the Shaky Jakes

The person that wrote in about patch size being large as a result of many game packing their content into container files is only partially correct. It's the result of that and laziness.

You can alter a file without having to replace it entirely. There are utilities out there that will examine the difference between two versions of a file and generate a patcher executable that contains only the modified data and offsets for where to write it within a file. As long as you're not completely reorganizing the structure of the data within the content container (such that every bit within the file is different), you can generate a much smaller patch that only modifies the changed bits of the file instead of replacing it entirely.

I know because I've created patches like this once upon a time when I worked on mods and we didn't want to have to redistribute entire content containers to replace a few files within it.

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Unrelated - does Rorie have a beef with Rogue One? I thought it was the best Star Wars movie since Empire.

The table looks so empty now.

At least that Dead Rising revisionist history seems to have been dealt with for the most part. The first game is a lot like Crackdown. It was fun at the time but that's partially due to not having much competition on the 360 back then. It was still an awful piece of shit in many aspects. Escort missions, time limits and really shitty, overpowered bosses.

So where is the livestream for brads extralife? I cannot find it anywhere.

When i played ST Voyager Elite Force i think used the same control scheme as @rorie(left/right mouse buttons for forward and back). That was the first FPS i played semi-seriously. Eventually i phased out of that after some of my clan mates said i was weird.

As someone who already knew this, I forget this fact often. I'm willing to bet it's Sony's best interest that they don't advertise that fact heavily and try and get as many PSN+ subs as possible.

Don't think that really happens? Usually the games that get the bad rep have done something pretty egregious.

The problem is Lang (he's great FYI) is creating a binary choice where one isn't needed. It isn't an either/or choice. Look at Titanfall 2 - had a day 1 patch, but it was only like 80 MB or so. The game was still playable without it should you be in a situation without it.

A game should be decently playable out the box without it feeling incomplete without a multi-gigabyte patch.

Personally I would be for a staggered release schedule - i.e. Release digitally first and then press a disc version that's playable without having to 'download the rest'. I believe Rocket League did something like that.

Heck, this week I got this message from someone the other day that illustrates how bad it's gotten (they aren't a follower of GB/games coverage):

Seems like people have covered it but at the end of the day I don't care if it makes game developers' jobs harder or whatever, they need to fix this problem. At the end of the day a giant patch that takes hours to download is not acceptable and in the era of data caps is getting less feasible period.

I love how that game dev wrote in to do damage control for day one patches. You can spin it how you want, but game patches a lot of the time are fucking bullshit.

I played Vanilla WoW and it's so much better than the WoW today, for one it's actually a challenge to play, but it actually has world PVP which is great, the current game is just too easy and the world might as well not be there, it's a hub game like PSO.

@pokicchi: I'm thrilled/sorry that this info came out from the question I sent in!

Jeff: Just go get a dozen viles of Airborne and keep it at the office for all the GB duders. It is amazing stuff, and will flat out keep a cold from getting a grip if you take it early enough. Recovery speed is upgraded as well if the crud has you already. Buff that crew!

@ninnyjams: i am bike.

I still don't know what Frog Fractions actually is, besides that it's always spoken of in reverence.

Rorie kind of misconstrued the "controversy" about WoW's selfie camera. Yes, there were ridiculous complaints about it. But the main complaint about it was that it was essentially the biggest feature of patch 6.1. Let me break down 6.1 for you. What did it add? The selfie camera, and... Twitter integration. That's about it. Big numbered patches (i.e. a 6.1 and not 6.0.x) generally are reserved for actual content, such as dungeons and raids. 6.1 was the first big number patch IIRC that did not add any actual content such as that. Blizzard came back later and said they screwed up by labeling that patch 6.1. That's what the main controversy was about. Really, it was indicative of what the entire WoD expansion ended up being - mostly stopgap filler.

Easy solution to the military guy being accosted by his boss in the bathroom - start peeing in stalls. Boom, avoided. Or maybe don't have this weirdly synced-up peeing schedule with him. That works, too. (Also - Jeff's subtle call-out of Dan was great.)

During the whole belt discussion, I was thinking how weird Jeff was. Then I went to put on a belt this morning, and realized I too have the buckle on the right side. My worldview is shattered.

Let it die: DONT REVIVE YOUR CHARACTER, if you revive them with kill coins you still get everything in the inventory and all the kill coins you collected, splitherin and exp. you dont loose anything other then the coins you need to spend and progress in the level.