The Process of Patching a Game - JD_2020

[JoMaMaz]

And yet another update from JD_2020 which explains the process of a patch. I believe this has been posted by him to hopefully alleviate some of the stress he has to go through of explaining the process to people. I will do my part in spreading this so that we can maybe inform a few thousand fans at least so they will maybe give him a break...maybe.

Hey COD fans –

There seem to be a lot of questions from the online community surrounding the process that developers go through to patch / title update console games, so I want to shed some light and remove some of the mystery by posting a walkthrough of each phase of the process. All in all, it can take anywhere from a minimum of 2 months to several months, depending on the variables involved in a particular game update.

Phase 1: Listen to the community.
- As soon as the game is released, we scour the forums and play online with the fans to listen to feedback and keep an eye out for issues that degrade the experience for gamers.
- We build a list of every issue reported, which goes immediately into our test lab for reproduction.
- Estimated time: minimum of 2 weeks to build a comprehensive list. In actuality, this is an ongoing process that starts as soon as the game is released and goes on forever. It’s given a minimum of 2 weeks here because the first two weeks of a game’s release typically do not yield enough information about the game to be considered comprehensive.

Phase 2: Reproduce the issues and engineer a solution.
Phase 3: Test the updated game and submit to the console manufacturers for approvals.
Phase 4: Console manufacturers test and approve the game update for release.
Phase 5: Release!

Read the rest of the phases in greater detail here.

Hopefully that shines some light on the patching process for many people. Thank you JD_2020 for taking the time to at least layout the process for those who may not know.

Thanks again to MapModNews for the news.

[imported_Will]

Re: The Process of Patching a Game - JD_2020

I see what they did there :awes

[imported_Ski]

Re: The Process of Patching a Game - JD_2020

I think most people know how its done JD.... its just others in the series appear to do it a lot better.

[deadman2312]

Re: The Process of Patching a Game - JD_2020

Thank goodness he explained it to us stupid dummies.

Some of us have been playing MP PC games for 10+ years, always wondered how that worked, we had no clue.

/end sarcasm.

I lost serious respect for this company after someone posted actual links and quotes to what this tool said about the COD/Gaming community as a whole, who's stupid now JD?

[Keyelite]

Re: The Process of Patching a Game - JD_2020

I think most people know how its done JD.... its just others in the series appear to do it a lot better.

Or in other games, for that matter.
Left 4 Dead saw an update every day, if not two updates in a day, when the demo was released. They were very, very small updates.. fixing a thing here or there

That's all people need to tie them over for the next "groundbreaking" patch.
A fix for a few CRITICAL issues. /record, cheat protect some of the cvars (that allow power servers, removing trees, etc)

They are called hotfixes. Most games have them. Even COD4 after it was released.