Xbox 360 Prey Patch - Aug 2006

[Luke]

Ahhhh I see. Ok then then what is the case for dedicated servers? Im gonna go with time and money and also M$ restrictions? I jumped the gun a little bit seen as usually developers and publishers are not the same company. I appoligise.

[bummerman]

I would assume that it could be run in Dedicated server mode, but that would require spending on another x-box 360 to do it which apparently is not done much...you know....."That old chestnut".

[VenomSteve]

Its not as easy as it would seem..

The pc version of the dedicated server would have to be converted to be live compatible (ie adding the secure comms so that the xbox 360's can communicate with a host server, and fit within the live harness)..

The interface would have to be updated to allow map voting, kicking etc

And of course the cost (nb: i have no idea what the cost would be, im just a programmer and dont have access to such info)

[Luke]

From what I know about Live! it can be a pig to develop dedicated servers for, this being the main reason why most games do not have them. For most though it is not an issue because the engines are not that intense. I suppose in the coming months when the internet gets it speed boost in the UK (not sure about US) there will be significant improvement. And on the topic of internet services, the PS3 apparantly has such a complex architecture that making online servers is next to impossible due to the massive load of information that has to be transfered. Im guessing this is why Sony have not concentrated on online play, unfortunatly it will be it's downfall.

[Do Me Proper]

Wow, no one is playing this game anymore, and I mean NO ONE!!! I went on last night and found one ranked game listed with one player in it, the host, and today when I tried to play there were NO GAMES being hosted. Hmm, perhaps no one seems to think the patch fixed anything major. I hope developers see this and realize that they just lost out on a ton of revenue from downloadable content and a sequel. I liked the game, but I think I'll just be renting the sequel now.

[tommygun]

i dont think they care if they lost players as long as they got us to buy it in the first place they succeeded and theyll do the same just more people will be more open eyed this time around

[Joe Siegler]

Originally Posted by tommygun

i dont think they care if they lost players as long as they got us to buy it in the first place they succeeded and theyll do the same just more people will be more open eyed this time around

Sorry you feel that way, but it's untrue.

[Crayola]

Originally Posted by tommygun

i dont think they care if they lost players as long as they got us to buy it in the first place they succeeded and theyll do the same just more people will be more open eyed this time around

You obviously don't know 3DRealms very well. You know, 3DRealms. The people who have been working on a game for 9 years to ensure that it is a fun, quality game.

[Do Me Proper]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

Sorry you feel that way, but it's untrue.

I doubt you all don't care if people are playing online anymore so long as they bought the game, I just think it's a shame to see such a good game fall into the crapper like this. If it weren't for the lag it would be my favorite game now, but I can't justify paying for dlc with the online portion as it is.

[tommygun]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

Sorry you feel that way, but it's untrue.

well i didnt mean so much as in 3drealms as i did in venom and 2k and those other heads

[bummerman]

Well, I think "Id" found out with Doom 3 and "3dr" is finding out with Prey, if you're not prepared to make a serious commitment to the MP component,best to leave it out of the game

[Do Me Proper]

Originally Posted by bummerman

Well, I think "Id" found out with Doom 3 and "3dr" is finding out with Prey, if you're not prepared to make a serious commitment to the MP component,best to leave it out of the game

I would have actually preferred that. Sure it'd be dissapointing, but then I would have just rented the game and been bummed that there was no mp, rather than buying the game and being frustrated with the lag and now lack of games due to said lag.

[Hydrafiend]

I have a solid cable connection and the game is still laggy as hell-the patch did nothing. Every other online game plays perfectly fine. I think this Venom company is utterly incompetent. They got my money this time, but they won't next time.

[bummerman]

Originally Posted by Do Me Proper

I would have actually preferred that. Sure it'd be dissapointing, but then I would have just rented the game and been bummed that there was no mp, rather than buying the game and being frustrated with the lag and now lack of games due to said lag.

yea,and I wouldn't have bought two copies of the game, just one

[Luke]

Some of you people need chill out right now. The complications of multiplayer on the Doom 3 engine have been stated time and time again. The patch did make a lot of improvement over the stock game and personally I have found games that are 6 players or under relativly lag free. As well as that I have found a big increase in the amount of games online, contrary to what most of the negative posts here have stated. As a result I have one thing to say to put this argument to bed.

Before you bought the game, there was the demo. You cannot come on here complaining and bitching about the game being not what you wanted claiming it is 3DR's or Venom's fault when there was a perfectly good test demo that could give you an idea of what the game was like before you spent your hard earned cash working five to nine at Burger King. You have only one person to blame, and that is you.

3DR, Venom. Keep up the good work.
Thank you.

[Do Me Proper]

Originally Posted by Luke

Before you bought the game, there was the demo. You cannot come on here complaining and bitching about the game being not what you wanted claiming it is 3DR's or Venom's fault when there was a perfectly good test demo that could give you an idea of what the game was like before you spent your hard earned cash working five to nine at Burger King. You have only one person to blame, and that is you.

3DR, Venom. Keep up the good work.
Thank you.

Yeah there was a demo before the game was released which I enjoyed, and still do enjoy the multiplayer (theoretically, I like the gameplay but not the lag). However, demos are not necessarily the best representation of a final product, they tend to have glitches which are worked out before the game is shipped, and even then there is now the possibility of a patch later on that will fix any issues (although I'd rather have developers fix things before they ship, the ability to patch is nice, but it seems like everyone is taking advantage of the opportunity to ship a game as quickly as possible and then fix issues only after they have made a profit).

Many people assumed that the patch would make a drastic difference, but it didn't. I still get the same lag most of the time that usually makes the game unplayable. I don't think it's too much to ask for that a $60 product would be relatively free of flaws. It costs about $10 to see a movie, yet have you ever seen a movie where at the end it suddenly starts skipping frames, or goes black and white? If that kind of crap happened you'd be pissed, and probably ask for your money back, and if the production company announced that they'd be fixing the issues in a few weeks you'd probably be less than thrilled.

I understand the need to guard developers against overly-harsh criticism, but I think that everyone's complaints are well-founded. Besides, this is a product, and as consumers we have every right to be upset when an expensive product is defective. I'm really tired of having one of you guys in every post that feels the need to shove your nose so far up the developer's a$$ that you can see the back of their teeth. It's alright to be upset, and so long as we do so in a semi-pleasant manner it is our right as consumers.

[bummerman]

When most "x-box" live users have a connection upload of 384 or less and these too, are the ppl that host, you really have to wonder at the wisdom of providing only maps optimized for 6 to 8 players.Couple this with the naivete of the typical x-box 360 user wno doesn't have a clue about bandwidth requirements and it's easy to imagine the mayheim that occurred as these low bandwidth servers tried to squeeze as many ppl as possible into their games

[Luke]

Originally Posted by Do Me Proper

Yeah there was a demo before the game was released which I enjoyed, and still do enjoy the multiplayer (theoretically, I like the gameplay but not the lag). However, demos are not necessarily the best representation of a final product, they tend to have glitches which are worked out before the game is shipped, and even then there is now the possibility of a patch later on that will fix any issues (although I'd rather have developers fix things before they ship, the ability to patch is nice, but it seems like everyone is taking advantage of the opportunity to ship a game as quickly as possible and then fix issues only after they have made a profit).

Many people assumed that the patch would make a drastic difference, but it didn't. I still get the same lag most of the time that usually makes the game unplayable. I don't think it's too much to ask for that a $60 product would be relatively free of flaws. It costs about $10 to see a movie, yet have you ever seen a movie where at the end it suddenly starts skipping frames, or goes black and white? If that kind of crap happened you'd be pissed, and probably ask for your money back, and if the production company announced that they'd be fixing the issues in a few weeks you'd probably be less than thrilled.

I understand the need to guard developers against overly-harsh criticism, but I think that everyone's complaints are well-founded. Besides, this is a product, and as consumers we have every right to be upset when an expensive product is defective. I'm really tired of having one of you guys in every post that feels the need to shove your nose so far up the developer's a$$ that you can see the back of their teeth. It's alright to be upset, and so long as we do so in a semi-pleasant manner it is our right as consumers.

Neither Venom or 3DR expressed that there would be a 'vast' improvement to online lag. People assumed that themselves and now they are complaining to Venom and 3DR suggesting that they did not deliver what they promised. In truth they did, if you compare what they planned to fix to what was actually done you will find a complete match.

Fair enough in the 8 player matches the lag can be quite intense but there is a simple solution, lower the amount of people in a match or for crying out load host your own match and cap it at 6 players. Everyone has the ability to make a match run smooth so stop complaining and accept the limitations.

I am not denying the consumers right to complain if a product does not deliver but to be honest 3DR and Venom have listened. They have made a patch fixed some things and adapted the net code as best they can. If you are going to blame someone, blame your ISP for slow upload bandwidth.

[Do Me Proper]

Originally Posted by Luke

Neither Venom or 3DR expressed that there would be a 'vast' improvement to online lag. People assumed that themselves and now they are complaining to Venom and 3DR suggesting that they did not deliver what they promised. In truth they did, if you compare what they planned to fix to what was actually done you will find a complete match.

Fair enough in the 8 player matches the lag can be quite intense but there is a simple solution, lower the amount of people in a match or for crying out load host your own match and cap it at 6 players. Everyone has the ability to make a match run smooth so stop complaining and accept the limitations.

I am not denying the consumers right to complain if a product does not deliver but to be honest 3DR and Venom have listened. They have made a patch fixed some things and adapted the net code as best they can. If you are going to blame someone, blame your ISP for slow upload bandwidth.

I do play in games with no more than 6 players, but the lag can still be unbearable with very few players. Before the patch was released they did state that the lag issues would be addressed, while this does not indicate the smoothest game ever it does imply that the game would show a noticable improvement. What people are upset about, at least what I'm upset about, is that the lag is still just as bad (minus the sound glitch, which is the only thing I'm certain the patch fixed) and this game is arguably the laggiest Xbox Live game out there, which is especially ridiculous when you consider that plenty of other games run fine with more than 8 people (Prey can't even be played with it's very small maximum).

The frustration stems from people who have come to expect a certain degree of quality from their games, when the reality of the situation falls short of the expectation (a reasonable expectation I might add, look to my movie analogy above) it is natural that people get a little p!ssed. What is really frustrating is that the developers seem to know the limitations of the game code, yet they released a game that was known to be flawed anyway. Xbox Live subscribers should not have to worry about their upload speed, a large part of the experience is its ease of use so long as you have a broadband connection.

[Luke]

Well to be honest me and tons of people I know have no issues with lag with 4 or under players and most often 6 is just as good. I have seen a noticable improvement with the patch and I feel sorry for the fact that some people did not recieve the same boost as I have. My point is it is not fixable in any conventional sence unless Microsoft provide support for Venom with dedicated servers otherwise it is quite simple not possible. This has been stated time and time again because of the complexity of the network code and to be honest it is not the best multiplayer game out there anyway. It is a standard deathmatch shooter with a few twists. They know what the problem is, and bitching about it constantly is not going to help them. You have all made your point, move on.

[superevilcube]

I don't really care too much about anything the patched addressed except for the "dropping out of ranked match exploit." That's the real issue I care about.

But besides that I think this game is amazing MP, and I think I'm gonna pick it up for the PC later on..

[bummerman]

Originally Posted by superevilcube

I don't really care too much about anything the patched addressed except for the "dropping out of ranked match exploit." That's the real issue I care about.

But besides that I think this game is amazing MP, and I think I'm gonna pick it up for the PC later on..

better servers on pc and yes, the mp is good!

[Do Me Proper]

The mp is good, but it's a shame that no one is playing it on Live anymore. The lag sucks, but sometimes there are games which are relatively lag free, but it's hard to find those now too.

[superevilcube]

Usually I find Prey games only in the middle of the day (Central timezone) from like 2 to 6, but I tried finding a game past 9 and I was waiting in a lobby for ten minutes

[bummerman]

I was playing like 4 or 5 hours last night, till about 10:30 est

[superevilcube]

So when is the "quit out of game" exploit gonna be fixed? It's so annoying when people quit 'cause you can't get anywhere on the leaderboards. Probably out of the past 60 games I've played only 17 have counted 'cause people keep on quitting.

[Gunner]

Lets be Fair, a Patch was released, now it didn't fix the Issues we all wanted it to, and from 'Venoms' point of view they have met their obligation to the paying public, it's still early day's for the 360 so problems are bound to be rife, net code plays a big part in the lag, but if people from the UK (like me) are complaining, how many of us are pushing in excess of 256k upstream..???? not many I'll warrant, how the hell are we s'posed to host games, in my expierence, have a max of 4 players for a 'lag free' game, sure we're being mugged off, as it is more fun with 6 or 8 people, the one thing I find more annoying is the Ranked "Quit" problem, if it is 1v1 and somebody quits then you get the points, other than that you get nothing, it's not a host problem it is across the board, now that isn't a net code problem, for gods sake sort it out, or have they 'REALLY' abandond us?

[Do Me Proper]

I totally agree. I never really expected a drastic difference in regards to the lag, but I did expect the quit exploit to be fixed, and as far as I can tell it still throws away points sometimes. Oh well though, could have been a truly great game if the multiplayer worked right, could have been awesome multiplayer too, but I guess it'll just be a what could have been game at this point.

[Luke]

Give me one quote, one thread, one single piece of evidence where Venom stated that they have met there obligation and that they are no longer supporting the game. Otherwise your argument falls appart on the first sentence. And what is the deal with creating a new thread when the other is only lower down the page and is still open? They know what the issues are, this was only the first patch and it was released shockingly fast after release and it did resolve all of what they set out to resolve. Granted lag remains but it has improved and it is hard to remove when the game has sutch a heavy net code (getting tired of saying this over and over). I am no member of authority here but I think I can speak for many people when I say, we are getting sick and tired of the same arguments over and over mostly by the same people. If you have a new issue carry on, otherwise Venom know the issue and they are once again hard at work. Let them do there job. There is a difference between motivation and plain annoyance.

[ezeht]

i have the pc game-

if i have to play a fps game- dm tdm ons what ever- with less than 16 players-i will not bother- short of a few bots or unfilled server that is-

id rather not run around half the game looking for some1 to kill- for me 2~6 man servers is a waste of my time- a 2~6 player server should be 1 room some places to hide or climb thats it etc.- at least you will have some action and not just be bored to death sniped or ambushed all game by campers etc.-

id rather play sim city rather than be bored to death on crazy large maps with few players- whats the point if little action???

lag is a prob on the pc game too- game play or player movement seems odd spastic and slow- nothing near as fluid or agile as ut04 player movement is etc.- weapons could use more balance too- few game modes and what only 6 maps i think it is-

i bought this game on hype- all the said great reviews-i liked the demo- didnt play multi prey demo- i think the system match was cool-but i only play them 1 time to the end-i prefer online play against other folks- lots of games suck at online play and or-

online plays way different than system match-player movement what ever- ut04 is best ive seen yet that- online play is just as good smooth as system matches-just for online play you have to speed up the game some in settings etc.

the patch added probs to my game- now it times out when i put the disc in the start the game- i have to click retry each time - lag is still a prob etc.- little effort went into multi prey-i went hungry spent 62.00 bucks for this game- i had hope for more or better online parts of this game- as it is-i played system match 1x and played online or tried to play online maybe 12x- i doubt i will play the game anymore-

on top of everything eles- less play and practice time- im less able to compete with the die hards who play often- suck game or lag or not- i bought the game first day to stay on the heels of new players- well- its hard to enjoy this game or even care anymore-

[Do Me Proper]

Wow, Far Cry just got patched today and holy crap it actually made the game much better. I was playing Prey online yesterday and the lag was actually not that bad at all, I was quite surprised. Of course someone quit a ranked match that I was hosting and when I went to check my tally on the leaderboards it was exactly the same. I also checked it this morning and tonight only to be confronted by an unchanged rank.

I do enjoy the multiplayer, but when there's only dm and tdm (which is fine) I need something else to keep the game interesting, ranking up accomplishes that for me. All I ask for is someone to explain to me how this issue has not been fixed, or at least tell me that it will be fixed in a future patch (I assume you'd like to increase your chances of having people actually buy the dlc, unless you've abandoned that by now). I was willing to let this issue drop and just take Prey for what it is, a potentially great game, but after seeing how ALL the issues that were said to be addressed in the Far Cry patch were actually fixed I am finding myself confused by the Prey patch yet again. In a few games, with no more than 5/6 players, the lag is ok BUT WHY IS THE QUIT EXPLOIT STILL NOT FIXED?

Someone please throw me a bone here, and please don't got my case for complaining Luke, I understand this issue has been beaten to death but that doesn't mean that an answer to a simple question is unreasonable.

[Luke]

The Ranking System is Micro$oft's department. They issued the strict guide for the rank system and Venom are trying their best to work around what they are given. Cry to Micro$oft. Once again if you read the whole thread you would know this.

Note for new posters in this thread:
READ THE WHOLE THREAD BEFORE POSTING
You may find the answers already exist to your repetative questions.

[Do Me Proper]

1. A number of small (mainly sound) issues which were fixed in the week or so after the released 360 version was submitted.
2. Load/Save Ambient Music disappearing
3. Centurion Gun sound problem
4. Crawler Defaulting
5. Texture Corruption
6. 16:9 hud fixes
7. Quit out of ranked match early exploit fix
8. Improved Match searches
9. Mutiplayer lag issues. From Venom on the issue: "We have dropped the requirment as much as physically possible without a complete rewrite... this enabled us to host 6 players on a 256k upstream (whereas before we could only host 2-3)".

[/QUOTE]

Well I'm not a new poster on this thread, in fact if you look you'll see I started it. I read back over the developer posts on the thread and didn't see anything about the quit exploit being Microsoft's fault, if you see it then please show me where.

Of course you can see what I did find is the list of what was supposed to be fixed in the patch, namely the quit exploit. I understand the lag issues, but can someone explain to me why an Xbox Live game does not support Xbox Live features like leaderboards that the developers added to the game?

[Luke]

I belive it was VenomSteve that stated Microsofts hand in the ranking system. If you do not belive me PM one of the Venom staff members. PS Kudos to Joe for making my note red. Also, on the qutting thing. There is no viable way to stop this really. Microsoft laid down the ground rules that all people that entered the game must be present at its ending otherwise the rank points are scrapped. The patch stops people from quitting straight away but there is no stopping someone pulling the plug on there 360. It happens a lot on ranked Table Tennis matches also.

[Do Me Proper]

I don't know, I've never noticed it on other games before, but then again Prey does have an odd Leaderboard where I can track my stats more precisely than in other games, so maybe you're right but you gotta admit it's still pretty frickin' annoying. I did however read today that the new content will be free. Is this true? If it is then kudos guys, that would definitely show some love to the community because I think at this point very few people would be thrilled to pay for new content.

[Luke]

Yes it is annoying because it is becoming a bitch to get my trueskill rank up on Table Tennis with people quiting and claiming I am a cheat.
Anyhow yes the content is free, check this sticky thread that is at the top of the subforum page here.

[VenomSteve]

Originally Posted by Luke

Microsoft laid down the ground rules that all people that entered the game must be present at its ending otherwise the rank points are scrapped.

Thats not quite right. The person's score is zero'd by all the clients. The problem occurs at match end when you have to submit scores to the arbitration server. The arbitration server wont update the leaderboards until every player that started the match has submitted stats for every other player... now if i leave the game before match end i will never submit stats so the arbitration service waits for the timeout (5 ish minutes if i recall correctly).. the leaderboards wont be updated till then...

There's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, not all of which we as developers have control over

[Do Me Proper]

Thanks, that's all I needed to hear. Where did it list that the content would be free? I couldn't find the sticky thread or whatever it was.