Critical Hit – Patching & Updates

Patching. A time when players should be excited about the latest content to their favorite game. But also a time when the most annoying technical flaws come to sight, patching errors.

Patching errors have long been the bane of many MMORPG fans and although I’ve experienced it a fair bit myself, the latest episode was severe enough to warrant an appearance in my Critical Hit article for this week. On Thursday night I received an email invitation to the final beta weekend for the upcoming TV/MMO hybrid, Defiance.

I’ve not really followed the game too closely since signing up for the beta but I was eager to try it purely because of the connection with the upcoming SyFy TV series. The event was scheduled to launch the next day and run through until Sunday at 9PM PST. I didn’t have any plans for the weekend so I readied my usual gaming marathon rituals and sat down ready to enjoy 3 intense days in a brand new MMO game.

However, what followed was instead 3 days of incredible frustration and disappointment. So the beta had started and I’d began my download but less than 5 minutes in, “Patch Error”. That was it. At least Diablo had the decency to give you something worth googling with an error number. Didn’t think much of it at first and began to download again, only to get the same error a few minutes later.

What followed was my entire Saturday spent trying to fix the error. A combination of copy and paste replies from Trion and some community tips didn’t change anything. I even attempted to download from a different PC at a different location, same problem.

So Sunday 9pm arrived and I still hadn’t got access to the game. Despite also being invited as a press member to get some coverage. I’ve experienced many issues with patching before, and even with games that are much more established; but this was still a real annoyance.

Have you ever had any issues patching to beta or live MMO games? Share your tales of woe with us!

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