I've been doing this since beta, the problem is SE doesn't "recommend" it, which means in theory you shouldn't be using it (in theory).
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If it's not against the EULA, I'll use it. I mean, they provide it. The only reason they don't recommend it is because the more people doing this, the less people there are to provide peer-to-peer rates on the official patcher, making it slower for the people who are still patching through the official patcher. I imagine this is why most people have a lot of problem.
However, I agree. If they would allow us to DL the information a week before it's released (optional so you can still log in if you want beforehand), then it would make the process of patching before it's released much more painless.
Signed.
Last time I checked, Final Fantasy XIV is the only PC game with which I have had to download a patch through a third-party program that did not come with the actual game. In fact, with XIV I have had to download every single patch in this manner so as to not spend an entire week re-downloading the same 300MB, and I'm not the only one. Sounds like someone's standards need to be revised.
They could at least provide an official download site when the patcher proves unfavorable (i.e. when insufficient people are playing the game / using the patcher which SE apparently doesn't give a shit about). Heck, I can go to Fileplanet right now, search for 'World of Warcraft', and get results for every major patch back to v1.1, but I search for 'Final Fantasy XIV' and get nothing but trailers. Something is wrong there.
I don't have this problem either but I know how bad this games updater is so /signed
I know they can do a better job, SE's other PC game updates isn't this awful...
I want to know why the hell are we downloading the entire patch every time and not just the section/small portion that was updated on the mini patches, if they are just overwriting the master file like say 1.17 = 1.17a (240MB), 1.17b (1MB), 1.17c (480KB) (just putting w/e byte rate,just for ideas.) every download is previous file data + new file data. When you download 1.17c you're downloading the whole 241MB + 480KB...
Should just leave each update as is 1.17a as 1.17a, 1.17b as 1.17b, 1.17c as 1.17c. It's not like SE allows us to play the game without all the patches installed/updated so I don't see why they took this method for updates...
It's for new people and newly installed clients which is actually better than what most MMOs do currently (though some are adapting the 1 patch fits all setup now). This way, if someone joins in 2012, 2013 or 2014 they won't have to download 3 years worth of patches and just 1 overall patch file. (XI does this as well.)
Maybe next time people won't complain about the POL service because while it did get congested during big updates there was nothing wrong with POL beyond not having a 1 click access to the game.
agreed, time for an updated patching system.
For new players sure this might be good but doesn't make sense pissing off all current existing players with this.
They should have some kind of version checker and after checking version if below X version doing full, if not just adding mini patch... but yeah what you're saying makes sense... still don't like how it does it though as myself being one of the current players lol
last patch was up to two days for me