Could all-platform synchronized updates be a thing that ever happens again?

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

It happened with nightwave, and while I know it's unlikely, I'd like to see it happen more in the future - as a console Tenno. (I'm not gonna buy a PC which I can't afford and restart on there, cause I have thousands on hours on console). 

[Aeon94]

Guess it will be a thing for releasing each Nightwave season , I don't expect them to release all updates at same time.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Aeon94

[(NSW)Sk0rp1on]

It sounded like it was a huge amount of work.

So maybe? They’ll probably only do it for big stuff.

[trst]

Pretty sure DE said one of the reasons there will be a pause between this Nightwave season and the next because of needing to synchronize it with consoles.

But they have also said in the past that PC development won't ever be delayed due to the console builds and Nightwave is already stepping on that line so... Though once the format for Nightwave is more finalized I suppose it'll get streamlined enough that seasons could be implemented before the ongoing one ended.

 

Assuming Nightwave will remain their only exception here I suspect we'd need more lenient agreements from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo for updates to be more in-line with eachother.

[(PSN)RenovaKunumaru]

19 minutes ago, trst said:

But they have also said in the past that PC development won't ever be delayed due to the console

Everyone says that but did they actually say this?

[Merrowen]

Sure. It will happen when one company swallows all the others that own platforms warframe is on.

[-Amaterasu-]

2 hours ago, (PS4)RenovaKunumaru said:

Everyone says that but did they actually say this?

Yes, it was a long time ago though and I can't remember if it was a forum post or a dev stream. I might look for it if it isn't too difficult to find.

Synchronized updates probably won't ever be a thing though until cert stops existing since all their updates need to go through that which isn't conducive to releasing things with potentially game breaking bugs that now can't be fixed for a couple of weeks.

Edited May 19, 2019 by -Amaterasu-

[WhiteMarker]

Sure thing.
De can easily do that. You console guys wouldn't get your updates tested anymore, because that's what we on PC do for you. And we all would have to deal with rather slow updates because of you consoles.
So we all would have to deal with game breaking bugs for way longer.
Sounds like fun. Sounds like something that we should really push for.

Or maybe we keep it like it's now. PC get's updates early and tests them. And consoles can enjoy more stable updates.

Btw. Why would you want synchronized updates? If we talkeg about cross-play I would understand it. But OP just talks about synchronized updates. Seems strange to me.

Edited May 19, 2019 by WhiteMarker

[(XBOX)Architect Prime]

42 minutes ago, WhiteMarker said:

Sure thing.
De can easily do that. You console guys wouldn't get your updates tested anymore, because that's what we on PC do for you. And we all would have to deal with rather slow updates because of you consoles.
So we all would have to deal with game breaking bugs for way longer.
Sounds like fun. Sounds like something that we should really push for.

Or maybe we keep it like it's now. PC get's updates early and tests them. And consoles can enjoy more stable updates.

Btw. Why would you want synchronized updates? If we talkeg about cross-play I would understand it. But OP just talks about synchronized updates. Seems strange to me.

Yeah, but I think the real reason was that, due to weird legal thing, they can't update console as often without having to pay a fine or something... Could be remembering wrong.

[sleepychewbacca]

1 hour ago, (XB1)Architect Prime said:

Yeah, but I think the real reason was that, due to weird legal thing, they can't update console as often without having to pay a fine or something... Could be remembering wrong.

I think it's you have to pay to get an update in cert. 

So to not waste costs, test for bugs on PC, release final polished version on console. 

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

32 minutes ago, sleepychewbacca said:

I think it's you have to pay to get an update in cert. 

So to not waste costs, test for bugs on PC, release final polished version on console. 

 Yup. It's about $10,000 per cert update...PER console.  So, in this case, $30k each time they need to update...and that's coming out of the pocket of a F2P game.  That's not chump change.

As for how the Nightwave seasons can all start the same time, but updates can't...

Updates change entire code.. .Nightwave is just a few cinematics with riven-esque challenges to tick off with checkmarks.  That's not something that requires changing the dev build of the game for. 

[Leyers_of_facade]

Whenever I see these posts asking for all platforms to have the update at the same time, I just wish DE does it once with a major update (maybe even a major quest update), just to showcase why they never do it in the first place.

Most PC players are used to being "testers" and know that new updates will be filled with game-breaking bugs upon release, but knowing that most will be fixed within the next few hours if not 2-3 days, it is still more or less "acceptable"

Now... can't wait to see how that works out for console when it can take easily months to fix these issues due to the cost  🤔

[(PSN)UltroAdsunt]

3 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

Sure thing.
De can easily do that. You console guys wouldn't get your updates tested anymore, because that's what we on PC do for you. 

Sony and Microsoft will never let a game update without them verifying the update

59 minutes ago, (PS4)Taishin_Ishu said:

 Yup. It's about $10,000 per cert update...PER console.  So, in this case, $30k each time they need to update...and that's coming out of the pocket of a F2P game.  That's not chump change.
 

Do you have a source for that number?

Also last time I checked Sony and Microsoft didn't charge for updates on indie games. Now you might sat that DE is not an indie studio but it definitely was when it started.

Source: https://www.shacknews.com/article/79944/sony-does-not-charge-fee-for-patches

[WhiteMarker]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)Admiral_Aetius said:

Sony and Microsoft will never let a game update without them verifying the update

They verify that the game isn't harming their system, as in shutting the console down so that it can't be used anymore.
That's what the certification process is for.
They do not test if the game itself is bugged. So for examble a new boss could easily drop nothing. Or a specific combination of Warframe and weapons could freeze the game. Microsoft and Sony don't care for these things.
So yeah... hurray for cert process... 

7 minutes ago, (PS4)Admiral_Aetius said:

Also last time I checked Sony and Microsoft didn't charge for updates on indie games. Now you might sat that DE is not an indie studio but it definitely was when it started.

Source: https://www.shacknews.com/article/79944/sony-does-not-charge-fee-for-patches

You can be sure that as soon as a studio doesn't count as "indie" anymore, Sony and Microsoft will make money off of them. Maybe they didn't charge anything when Warframe started on PS4 and on XBox. But now Warframe is quite profitable. So certification will cost money...

[Guest]

1 hour ago, WhiteMarker said:

They verify that the game isn't harming their system, as in shutting the console down so that it can't be used anymore.

Something like that shouldn't be possible unless their consoles have some insane security flaws.

[WhiteMarker]

4 minutes ago, Pr1A said:

Something like that shouldn't be possible unless their consoles have some insane security flaws.

You play games on a console. Games are just programs. It's like installing a program on your PC. Obviously these programs get checked for issues, like bugs or maybe even malware.
I'm not saying that DE would willingly put malware into their game, but in theory some employee COULD sneak something in.

Or let me phrase it differently: Are you installing everything on your PC without checking for anything? When you set up your PC, did you just remove any firewall? 

So yeah, certification is important, so that nothing goes horribly wrong.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

Nope. Nightwave is the exception not the rule.

[Oreades]

People always sat PC are the testers and that has always struck me as technically correct but not necessarily accurate. 

Sure we catch some bugs here or there but IMHO what PC does more than bug test is give the first hands on feedback. Is a system implemented well and or enjoyable overall etc etc. 

Which tends to result in a better experience for the other platforms. In more than simply a "less buggy" capacity. 

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

7 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

You can be sure that as soon as a studio doesn't count as "indie" anymore, Sony and Microsoft will make money off of them. Maybe they didn't charge anything when Warframe started on PS4 and on XBox. But now Warframe is quite profitable. So certification will cost money...

Source? Or are we claiming speculation as fact?

In the end we don't know what certification costs now. The only time we have the curtain pulled back is when a developer leaks the info and that information may be specific to that developer and their current situation, not necessarily applicable to every developer.

I'm all for the open discussion and the criticism of facts, but let's not accept speculation as fact just because we want to believe it.

[WhiteMarker]

8 minutes ago, (PS4)Hiero_Glyph said:

Source? Or are we claiming speculation as fact?

What do you mean? Are you talking about my assumption that Sony and Microsoft, as companies, want to make money?
Do we really need a source? I mean, nobody gives away anything for free. There is always a price.
And when did I say that anything I stated was a fact?

[(PSN)JustJoshinEnt]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Hiero_Glyph said:

Source? Or are we claiming speculation as fact?

In the end we don't know what certification costs now. The only time we have the curtain pulled back is when a developer leaks the info and that information may be specific to that developer and their current situation, not necessarily applicable to every developer.

I'm all for the open discussion and the criticism of facts, but let's not accept speculation as fact just because we want to believe it.

Pretty sure it was stated by [DE]Steve in a DevStream, but I'll see if I can hunt down the clip.  Kinda tied up with work at the moment, so feel free to get a headstart.  Might not have been DevStream, might've been an interview, even..  But still, fairly certain it was Steve. I remember it pretty clearly, else I wouldn't state it as such.  Do with that what you will.

[Emolition]

9 hours ago, Pr1A said:

Something like that shouldn't be possible unless their consoles have some insane security flaws.

Tell that to Anthem that apprently broke alot of playstation 4s and made otheres just shutdown if the reports are correct.

[Guest]

Just now, Emolition said:

Tell that to Anthem that apprently broke alot of playstation 4s and made otheres just shutdown if the reports are correct.

That was an astounding display of incompetence from both Sony and BioMalware. On this day and age you have have memory protection and all sorts of other fancy stuff to ensure that a poorly coded app can't mess with anything else but somehow they managed to do just that.

[(NSW)Sk0rp1on]

16 hours ago, WhiteMarker said:

 

Sure thing.
De can easily do that. You console guys wouldn't get your updates tested anymore, because that's what we on PC do for you

 

I don’t think this is 100% true. The delay on consoles isn’t for purposes of bug hunting, it’s for certification by the platforms and probably some extra coding to get the game to run on each platform.

in fact, content has to be locked before the certification process begins, so a few bugs have to stay that way all through cert and then get fixed in a hotfix later.

pc still does get bugs first, but only because pc gets everything first, including the patches!

What I’ve gathered is that console bugs are kind of “collected” together and released in huge bundles, so console players often live with bugs that have fixes, but they have to wait for the next update.

so no, simultaneous release would not be easy.

 

[(XBOX)ShadowBlood89]

unlesh your wanting new content to take several times longer then no.

PC gets updates first as guess what pc platform is a stand alone platform that requires no need for them to submit cert to.
While consoles DE has to submit a cert build to have that build tested to make sure it doesnt cuase your console to throw it self out the window

for PC players they get a disadvantage in terms of big community events as they have to find out how it will work, while console players get to learn from there pc cousins mistakes in the event.
But cuase of that pc also gets to play with all the shiny new toys first an start the metas for those items