Questions tagged [patching]

21 questions
79
votes
4 answers

How does one make games playable before they are fully downloaded?

Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2 have a nice feature: I can start playing before the full game or update has finished downloading. I guess Diablo 3 downloads mandatory files like like UI assets and some meshes and textures that are used across several…
nikitablack
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37
votes
4 answers

How do patches in games work?

Console and PC games have patches sometimes to fix bugs which the developers missed/didn't have time to fix. My question is how do these work? Sometimes the patch files are a few megabytes in size. I don't understand how a small file can alter a…
MulletDevil
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14
votes
7 answers

Ways to manage changing designer data alongside changing player data

I have an online game where players get to shape the world in some way - eg. Ultima Online's housing, where you get to build your houses directly onto certain parts of the world map. These are changes that should persist over time as part of the…
Kylotan
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14
votes
3 answers

PC game update systems

I've almost finished a PC game (I'm releasing it in a day or two). I'd like a way to easily release patches over the net in case I find a bug in the game right after release, or in case I want to add features later on. I am using InstallJammer as my…
QAH
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10
votes
6 answers

How can I maintain saved game backward compatibility?

I have a complex sim game I want to add save game functionality to. I'll be updating it with new features continually after release. How can I make sure my updates don't break existing save games? What sort of architecture should I follow to make…
Rye bread
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10
votes
3 answers

How do you design a record/replay system for a frequently changing game?

I'm working in a free MMORPG and I have a problem. I'm (with other people) developing a video recording system for the game. The idea is basically: we record all the packages sent & received with timestamps, plus some local data from the client, and…
Marco
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7
votes
3 answers

Game Patching Mac/PC

Just wondering what types of solutions are available to handle patching of PC/Mac games that don't have any sort of auto updater built into them. In windows do you just spin off some sort of new install shield for the game that includes the updated…
Centurion Games
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6
votes
2 answers

How do "community patches" for commercial games work?

For a lot of games, mostly role-playing games (Gothic 3, Oblivion, Skyrim, Titan Quest to name a few), there exist community patches. So, patches that are made by the communities, not by the developers. How does this work? Most commercial games are…
Foo Bar
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5
votes
2 answers

Making an auto patcher

I'm currently in the last phases of an original release for my upcoming risk game - I'm looking at making a patching system to autopatch the game. My current concept for it is- 1: Player opens the game 2: Game checks valid serial key 3: If valid,…
Charles
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4
votes
1 answer

How does Starcraft 2 load its metadata?

Lets say you are playing Starcraft 2 melee map. The game loads the map. Melee maps have the following dependencies: Liberty (Mod) Liberty Multi (Mod) I think the game engine will load the data from Liberty (Mod) first, then from Liberty Multi (Mod).…
chobok
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3
votes
3 answers

In GameMaker Studio, how can I make an auto-updater for my game?

I would like to let players update their copy of my game by clicking a button, which would: Check for updates Download the update Prompt the user to restart the game I want to do this because my friends hate to re-download my game each time I make a…
user61819
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1
vote
1 answer

XNA - Distribution and Patching

I have a couple of questions. Some of this I've done some research on, and some of it may be lacking, but any help is appreciated. 1) When distributing an XNA game for PC that uses custom fonts that I've installed on my Dev system - will they be…
PugWrath
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1
vote
0 answers

Minimizing patch size with Addressables

I'm working on a cross-platform Unity game for release on mobile and on a console. Our game content is all loaded through Addressables. We want to leverage Addressables to minimize the size of patches after launch. The Addressables documentation…
Kevin
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1
vote
0 answers

How do I support multiple platform patch cycles in a client/server multiplayer game?

I'm making a game with network multiplayer that will be playable with crossplay from multiple platforms. The game is written in c++ and uses regular TCP sockets for network communication. Currently the game exists on windows but ideally it will…
user1920703
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1
vote
1 answer

How can I make an update patch for a Unity game on Windows?

I ran into trouble making a PC game using Unity. If I try to update my game, I can't a update the C# scripts (because AssetBundles don't include C# scripts) So I think I'll need to use a server and patch all files. But I don't know how to do so...…
더블에이트게임즈
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