When is this so called "PATCH" going to be released?

I know I have seen everyone talk about this and have seen some comments on what people hopes the patch fixes.....So my question to you is this...When is the Patch being released for download?.I just kinda wondered if anyone had heard or seen anything because I havn't, all I have seen is that a patch is going to be released....that's it!!!

The main reason a patch rumor exists is because of the IGN review that mentions it.

Also on the Atrai forums David B (not sure exactly who he is, but he is with Frontier or Atari) alludes to things being fixed in the future.

A patch seems to be coming. When? Who know? The IGN article implies that we could see one as soon as on or around Nov 2.

Lots of speculation.

I just don't see how they could let this game go unpatched though.

I've heard a 'soon' date, as in IMHO, anyway from tomorrow to a week from tomorrow.

It's Wednesday.

Nice spin/wording/PR in there.

They won't just admit that the game is incomplete.

Yay !! They are fixing the block brakes. Now lets hope the Peps AI is fixed too. *** Edited 11/1/2004 7:01:31 PM UTC by Downhill Screamer***

I didn't know you could train vendors. Does this go for ride attendants too? I'll have to remember to look for that next time I play.

I can't believe they state that they can't reproduce the problem with peeps not riding rides. I saw this during my first crack at scenario #1. First, I added a bumper cars ride and ended up lowering the price to $0.50 before peeps would shutup saying, "I'm not paying that much". Making my bumper car ride NEVER profitable.

Second, I tried placing an enterprise out near the suspended airplane coaster and I got maybe 10 peeps total to get in line. I never received any thoughts on that ride so I had no idea why peeps wouldn't ride. So thinking maybe it's the intensity of enterprise, I swapped it out for the swinger but the same thing happened....VERY FEW RIDERS! I think this is due to the queue not being connected to a main path as discussed in another thread. This is either a bug or we need to better understand what a peep needs to find a ride. What defines a 'main path'?

There also might be a problem with peeps reriding anything. I placed a carousel at the front of my scenario one park and priced it @ $1.00. It had a full queue for a short while then became completely empty for the remainder of my time in that scenario.

Maybe realistically this is how it should play out since if I was in a park I would probably only ride the carousel once and never again, but I'm used to RCT1/2 with peeps constantly getting back in line for a ride if they liked it.....even the gentle rides.

*** Edited 11/1/2004 7:16:01 PM UTC by Greg***

God, I loving the wording of it...

"Some things are down to people's lack of understanding of how the game is workin..."

I can see this about the semi-block thing where rides would be like raised only two feet off the ground. But I mean, is it our faut that the manual was bad and the interface is crap?

"We want this game to be as good as possible, and can see that there are some elements/features that people were expecting that are not there, or are different to RCT1/2."

Not only are they different from RCT 1 & 2, they are totally different from real life. It's like being able to stop eating forever in The Sims, you guys screwed up. Go out and to what Chris did, look and ride at the coasters!

Ha! You got a direct reply from David B, Jeff.

Now that it's not just a bunch of braindead teenage gamers, they're getting even more defensive.

I posted to that thread supporting the cause. :)

Dear god that board is a joke. Is David's family and friends posting on there to back him up?

"I've played the scenarios myself and I know that they are playable"

Did he even build a coaster in that scenario?

Trouble is a lot of people don't think the block brake thing was a problem because they never used them, a lot of less experienced players (or enthusiasts) stick to continuous circuit mode which runs a lot better.

But the whole information booth breaking down think is a joke. And blaming it on age is even funnier.

During development a number of bugs were found relating to the drivers provided by both ATI and NVidia – in general; on ATI cards these driver bugs were related to older cards, and on Nvidia cards the driver bugs were related to newer cards...!

That pisses me off. I think they did that on purpose for all the people who like to go with NVidia, personally because I think they have a better videocard/chipset. So how can a newer higher end nvidia card have the same bugs as an older lower-end ati card?

Gotta lave it... I'm supposed to DOWNGRADE my Nvidia drivers if I expect the game to display properly. Of course, the blame is solely on the graphics card company, even though every other game company recommended the latest driver. *rolls eyes*

Finally we have a date for the supposable "Patch No. 1" I wonder what some of the fixes are.

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Lord Gonchar said:
Ha! You got a direct reply from David B, Jeff.

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Oh, you know I had to respond to that one. Wow.

I think perhaps part of the problem is that you and I enjoy playing scenarios, and a lot of the real issues don't crop up if you just bought the game to use the sandbox mode.

Well, exactly. The more you play the game vs design with the game, the more problems you'll find.

As a game, it sucks. As a design tool, it's pretty damn good.

Now just get everything working and find the right marriage of the two and we have an outstanding product.

You know, to me RCT1 and 2 were all ABOUT the scenarios. I'm just not the type to sit down and tinker around in the sandbox, I need a goal in mind. My parks don't necessarily look as cool as, say, Gonchar's, but to me that's not the goal of the game.

So, the more I read commentary on this product, the less likely I am to get it. How sad is that?

Gonch and Jeff....are you refering to some post after David B's FAQ post on the Atari site? Because there was 3 pages of comments, now there is no comments at all and the thread has been closed. I'm wondering what David B said to you Jeff. :)

Nice. They deleted everything that was said. I just happen to have the post still on my clip board...

David: I was willing to give you a lot of credit for coming here and posting, because you're essentially walking into a burning building. However...

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Originally posted by David B
I think you exaggerate.

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If you thought the "lack of understanding comment" irritated me, that's significantly worse. If I ever said that to the customers in large software projects I've managed, it would be professional suicide. But so what? You've already got my money. I'm not some snot-nosed AOL kid that bought the game with his allowance money.

Certifiable bugs:
[list]
[*]Water tricycles launch out of station on trackless ride and "crash."
[*]Splash boats slide back down lift if you don't first put a flat piece at top of lift.
[*]Game doesn't gracefully exit from time to time.
[*]Frame rate is hideous unless you switch resolutions back and forth once every time you run the game.
[*]For reasons I can't explain, a queue over non-level ground might keep peeps from following the entire queue. Sometimes rebuilding the queue fixes this.
[*]Off-ground inverted coaster stations have no floor. Other than Nemesis, how many inverters have a station at ground level?
[*]Floorless coasters can't do more than five cars.
[*]Brakes on a Stratacoaster do nothing, but the block brakes will stop the train 100 to 0 on a dime!
[*]Rides stop loading, but continue to operate with a growing queue. The only thing that seems to correct this is saving, quitting, and reloading the game.
[*]VIP wanders aimlessly back and forth outside the park generating hundreds of "VIP has left the park messages." Seeing as how that's a scenario goal, it's a pain.
[*]Ride stats spontaneously change (which obviously makes the peep non-riding issues even worse).
[*]Build an identical ride twice in the same park at different places. One will get many riders, the other few or none.
[/list]

Bugs or really poor design decisions:
[list]
[*]Peeps don't ride anything. You know what I mean. See the dozens of screen shots posted on this subject. Go to Broom Lake and explain why you can build one of everything on the map, but the peeps aren't interested in going two blocks up the stairs outside of the entrance plaza.
[*]UI elements overlap slightly in ride control menu.
[*]Workers don't stay in their zones.
[*]Reverse incline on a corkscrew coaster actually launches it out of the station?
[*]Block brakes stop the train outright on certain coasters. Not real life. I rode Raptor several times this weekend, and the only time it stopped a train there was when it e-stopped. Otherwise, it trimmed speed only slightly. They seem to work as they should on the spinning mouse.
[/list]

Poor design decisions:
[list]
[*]No aggregate peep thought window, so if your park rating goes down the tubes, you have no idea why.
[*]Since your FAQ says shop break downs are on purpose, I'll put that here. But if it was on purpose, why can't you call mechanics to them?
[*]No vertical sync option, so high motion (i.e., most any coaster cam) causes image tearing. If you're a gamer, you know it can be turned on via the driver, but most consumers don't know.
[*]No separate load and unload stations, as in RCT1/2.
[*]Can't see other worker's zones when assigning them, so you have no idea if you're overlapping or not.
[*]Staff window is cumbersome. Doesn't remember filter each time you open it, so you have to turn off every position but the one you want every time you open it.
[/list]

I really thought looking at the demo that you had something special. I think you potentially do, but unless you can put you and your team's ego aside and fix the problems, the game isn't done. The thing that makes a game, or any software, great, is the last 10% of the work. That 10% was never done.

I really wish you knew how to design games Jeff. It seems like you actually put thought into things. :)

Were on page 8 of the RCT 3 bug reports and the game hasn't even been "officially" released yet.

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Kyle Fobe said:
I really wish you knew how to design games Jeff. It seems like you actually put thought into things. :)

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I don't know about that. But as much as I hated working for The Man, there's something to be said for corporate software development practices in terms of accountability and metrics. That kind of thing has become huge at Microsoft even (though I can't get into specifics as I'm under NDA). I don't think game shops have this discipline. If you've ever read Masters of Doom (awesome book about "the two Johns" from id Software), and you worked in some corporate development shop, you'd be absolutely shocked that good games ever get made at all.

EA seems to be the only publisher that I think really gets the accountability. They run everything like a Hollywood production, which in some ways is good because bean counters are ultimately in control. The best producers can get it right without sacrificing the integrity of the art.