f13.net

After reading the APB "Every single part of our game is kind of at least a little bit screwed, but it's going to be fixed soon!", I just wondered:

has a miracle patch ever actually existed? Delivered? Brought a game back from the brink?

One single patch?

No.

A series of patches, sure.

If I recall, Eve wasn't received (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/evethesecondgenesis/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary%3Bread-review) very well at launch as well. (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/eveonlinethesecondgenesis) But Eve tends to be an exception, not a rule.

I thought miracle patch meant "beta sucks two days before launch but there is a patch waiting that will make everything ok!".  And yes AoC pulled it off, beta was unplayable, launch was smooth and ran great.

Trammel. (Yeah, I went there).

There have been patches that make a playable game A LOT better (BC2 has had a couple of those), but nothing I can recall that took a DOA title and made it worthwhile.

 :drill:

From what I've heard AoC's miracle patch really was a miracle.

While not done in a single patch, EQ2 experienced quite a turnaround from its poor launch.

That's a matter of perspective.  Although, I suppose unplayable to technically playable may count.

AoC is as close as you'll get. 

What about an "unmiracle" patch?  Lich King might suffice for that title.

How so?  The introduction of Dalaran did, however, kill the game for a lot of substandard systems. Some PCs that did fine in Org and everywhere else, just choke in Dal. 

SWG: Jump to Lightspeed?  :awesome_for_real:

I'd call EQ2 fairly DOA at launch. I know coming from EQ as a necro and then having a beetle pet and tons of group mobs raping me constantly removed all my interest. Glad I went back, they really turned that game around into something I like better than WoW. Not that I'd know post-launch WoW because $$$ to get back into it. If only Cataclysm would contain the base game + all expansions the way SOE does. Oh well.

Jump to Lightspeed was pretty great, but yeah.  :why_so_serious:

Dark Age of Camelot : Trials of Atlantis
 :why_so_serious:

TOA is definitely a good example of an anti-miracle patch, the game was essentially unplayable for at least a week after that launched, at least in the new zones - I can't remember if the old world or SI zones were affected. Crippling lag, for everyone.

yes EQ2: EoF might be a miracle expansion


unmiracles include SWG:Combat Upgrade and others people have said.  The real money is on future expansions in certain games being unmiracles.

Hold up, "miracle patch" is reserved for that gray void between open beta, and launch. Any thing before or after isn't a miracle patch. You know, where they have that magical build no one has seen but they keep telling you over and over in open beta "we have this fixed internally"?

All others are really good patches, or really bad ones. Not miracle.

No.

WTF guys?!? NO ONE has mentioned Alganon?  :why_so_serious:

/runs away . . .

I would note that even though AoC pulled off a miracle in the last two weeks of beta just to get the game technically playable, it could not save the game from the mass exodus of people that followed. Beta was consumed too much by being blocked by the technical aspects to get proper feedback and implementation time on the game under the technology. I think this is the problem with the optimistic view (fanboy) in the last month of beta for the miracle patch. Even if it does happen what are you going to be left with?

This. Miracle Patch is the cry of people claiming we're totally testing with an 8 month old client and the new one is totally better.

Which, even when true (that we have a really, really outdated client for a stress test), it mostly means "and the new one has totally untested bugs because the beta hasn't been able to test it"

There have been a number of good patches, but I've never seen a single patch take something from "Ye GODS" to "hey, this is fun!" in a single patch cycle.

I'd say that AoC got a miracle patch, because pre-beta was full of people who couldn't even log in and one last effort before release saw a relatively smooth launch.

Content post-Tortage was still an issue, but people could actually play it.

Actually I would say Eve's Apocrypha patch about a year and a bit ago.  It fixed an unbeatable build that had dominated the game for years (nano/speed builds), which would have been enough by itself, but it also got rid of almost all lag. Suddenly, unexpectedly, you could warp into a 1500-person fight and instantly start to fight with a responsive ship. Of course, a later patch reversed that, but having done it once I suspect that we'll see it again.   

Can't really think of one, but I can think of an inverse

SWG: NGE :-)

Tyrannis/Dominion/whatever the next two years worth of EVE patches end up being called.

I would agree with this. It was pretty much brilliant for as long as it lasted. Not just because it allowed massive fleet battles but because it allowed people with less powerful computers to fight at all.

Previously a small skirmish would be decided almost by first lock (as one side was fleeing) and so someone who loaded 2/3rds the speed of everyone else was at a 5 second disadvantage which would be huge. In addition, those medium size fights with could be partook in were filled to the brim with UI elements that bring the slower machines to their knees. Those UI elements were made optional and the lag was fixed such that loading a few seconds later(or even 30 seconds later) wasn't the end of the world in a big fight. Apocrpyha was the first patch that really made me feel that i could be valuable to a gang in a ship that wasn't designed expressly around support since I was running on an older laptop.

Now-a-days i can't even be useful in an inty because I don't load system fast enough and big fights simply don't work.(also some of the more retarded balance changes have changed the style of the game a lot to a more foolish direction)

I dont think a patch can be considered a miracle patch in a game thats already been out for X months and lost 3/4 of its subscribers.  Even if that game brings out the miracle patch unless it brings back those lost subs and then some then the patch wasnt much of a miracle was it?  I guess Eve would be the closest in that regard.  My interpretation of a miracle patch is its the big patch between beta and live that brings the game to the level it should be has never happened, largely because most developers are struggling to even get a half ass game live because they always launch too early. 

Awesome patches != Miracle patch.

Miracle patch generally = lipstick on a pig.

It was.  I couldn't even play AoC in beta.  The game kept crashing.  There was a miracle patch and Tortage was glorious.

And by then you were the only person in Tortage :P

AoC, no question.

This.
EQ2 for example may have been turned around, but it happened after most people stopped giving a shit about the game.

Can we call the patch that allowed people to actually play AO near launch a "miracle patch"?

No, the game was still a wreck and crashed fairly regularly.  Just not a full server reboot every 5 minutes. 

Plus, they followed that up with an anti-miracle patch that hasn't been equaled yet (the 6 patch if  your memories go back that far).

Thanks for that memory.  If I wake up in a cold sweat tonight, it will be your fault. 

Was that the patch that would randomly format your hard drive?

EVE did have that one patch which wiped your Windows boot files.

I know this doesn't qualify as 'miracle patch' in the standard given here, but for me, it was the CoH patch that allowed me to play on my old '03 HP laptop. One of the users partially figured out how to get the game running on really old ATI mobility chips and Cryptic picked up on the dude's work and completed it. It was an interesting patch cycle. First it was an unofficial patch that displayed near wire-frame elements of the game, then some things were in color, than after Cryptic worked on it, it was a nice, albeit flat, full color display. I've never known another company to work that closely with the community to get their game playable. I've always given Cryptic kudos for that. Back then, they were the only company that seemed to care about the player. I miss those days.

They still care  :rofl:

They worked with the community on some other bugs.  Early on, if you made your custom key bind file too large the network would start having huge lag spikes and the changes wouldn't save.  I won't say the company cares, but there were individuals who did.

AO beta was the first I ever heard of Miracle Patch's.  (It gets capitalized because if there ever was such a patch it deserves it, such a wondrous thing it would be, Conan doesn't count because the game still sucked.) I can assure you that AO was a train wreck in beta IN THE FUTURE! as it was at launch.  AO beta also had another first, players were convinced there was a secret client for launch, where everything would be cake and cookies.  Also my first real exposure of fanboys, as we know them today.

Patches can make games better in tiny increments over a lengthy period of time.

Can we include games that were fun and content rich, well paced and whatnot all through beta, and release day came with a 10x progression speed nerf and no corresponding alteration of the content volume leading to large grindy patches?

Because seriously, fuck THAT patch note.

I thought it was "Miracle Build" but yeah, I don't associate it with long term turnarounds, but with the fantasy fanboys have when the game is unplayable a week before release that the company is just putting the finishing touches on something that fixes everything and haven't released it for some unearthly reason.

Guys guys, don't you know the in house version is like 3-4 versions ahead of what we're playing.  I know release is tomorrow but they've got all these problems worked out in the patch, ITS ONLY BETA remember?!

What's a catchy name for this kind of patch, where you were having fun right up to the moment it was introduced? The nutcracker patch (after The Nutcracker, with added penis joke reference)? The termite patch (eroded the foundations)?

What's the opposite of the miracle patch?

Launch.

Blueballs?

ED.  NGE.

SB.exe

Dominion.

Anarchy Online trying to reformat your HDD.

Or EvE deleting the boot.ini file in an update.

I never got this patch.