Patches are a typical no-win situation. If we wait too long with releasing them, we are depriving players from a more bug-free playing experience. If we release them too fast, the risk exists that early players need to patch the game more often than people who buy the game later on and additionally, it's possible that a patch introduces a new problem. In all cases we'll take flak.
We chose to release the patches fast because it means a majority of people will have a smooth playing experience. Patch V1.1 to 1.3 could've been condensed in one patch, but that means technical support would've been hotter than it is now. From the amount of issues we're seeing pop up on technical support for the moment, BD seems to be quite stable and the amount of bugs limited. Most issues people have are solved by directing them to the patch, so I think our approach is the correct one.
With patch 1.3 we were a bit too fast because it introduced an incompatibility problem on Win XP Home (though other platforms might have been affected too) which caused the game not to start up on some systems. Because of that, we had to release patch 1.31 right away. If you look closely, you'll see that it addresses only one issue, the starting up problem.
And yes, sadly because of the copy protection, the patches are large, but on the other hand, the copy protection is very necessary.
As a sidenote, patches shouldn't be necessary but the development budget necessary to make sure that they aren't, is something unavailable for most smaller developers, especially if the games are as complex as this one.
Lar
