No Planned Standalone Patches for Battlefield 3

Post by trog @ 10:19am 09/12/11 | 21 Comments

While everyone has generally been pretty impressed with the download speeds from EA's Origin, many Australians have had issues downloading the huge volumes of content relating to Battlefield 3. The recent release of a 3.5GB patch was another reminder that, for those of us on limited download plans, keeping games up to date is a bit of a hassle when your ISP isn't able to mirror them locally.

Since before the release I've been swapping emails with people at DICE and EA trying to see what can be done about this, but unfortunately all for naught - I can confirm now that EA/DICE have no standalone installer for patches for Battlefield 3 and as far as we know have no plans to create one, so you will have to update through Origin.

As always, we encourage people that are impacted by the limitation to head over to the official forums and let them know if they're having problems.

battlefield 3 patch

Buy now from Green Man Gaming Only GBP£12.99!

(compare all prices)

Latest Comments

Link

Eorl
Posted 10:24am 09/12/11

They have stated they will separate patches into must have and optional. So that will at least stop massive patches full of game data we might not want.

Link

Dan
Posted 10:35am 09/12/11

The data usage from an ISPs monthly cap isn't an issue for me. There's an abundance of large volume plans available to most Australians these days. My biggest issue with this is that it's just plain annoying having to redownload the whole thing ever time.

It's especially bad when you have more than one person in your house playing the game that also needs to patch up. So a 3GB patch means waiting around for 6GB to come through your 12mbit DSL.

I imagine those that live in a sharehouse with a few people that all want to play SWTOR are going to be in for some fun waiting to pull that beast through the tubes multiple times, when it all could be avoided if they would just release a redistributable installer instead of forcing you to use their downloader.

At least Steam has the backup creation option. So you can just get one person to download it, then use the backup creator to make installers for everyone else. But Origin and these newer MMO startups aren't offering that yet.

Link

Lithium
Posted 11:20am 09/12/11

What so you can't copy and paste the updated files from one battlefield 3 folder to another? I'm sorta relying on this not to be the case :/

Link

trog
Posted 11:34am 09/12/11

What so you can't copy and paste the updated files from one battlefield 3 folder to another? I'm sorta relying on this not to be the case :/

I have read that you CAN do this, but you basically have to copy the entire folder. A few people reported it works but I think some of them had to do some sort of "repair", and in some cases I believe they had to redownload the ENTIRE game. YMMV.

Link

Eorl
Posted 11:59am 09/12/11

It works, I had a copy of BF3 on my HDD before I re-installed windows, and just copy pasted it into the Origin Games folder, ta da.

Also Dan, in regards to SWTOR, if people are smart, they will download it once, then save it to external, and give it to friends/family. You don't NEED to re-download it, some people just do, and then complain because they didn't seek advice on whether they could copy paste it.

Link

Dan
Posted 09:30pm 10/12/11

Are you sure about that? It doesn't always work. I have the full current install sitting on my work PC and was considering trying to zip it up for mirroring on AG, but obv there's no way of testing to see if it would work on someone's PC because the game isn't active yet and if there's a bunch of registry stuff that it needs for the autopatcher to work properly, then that's not something we'd want to even attempt to support.

Link

Pharcyde
Posted 10:31pm 10/12/11

Not surprising. A great game marred by f*****g horrible implementation.

Link

teq
Posted 10:50pm 10/12/11

what worries me is that I've sunk 43 hours into the game already, but there will come a day that they are going to turn the whole thing off and say 'game over, buy battlefield 7'
I am planning to sink at least another 40+ hours into it, I f*****g love - but I hate having zero control over it

also, I have access to literally hundreds of megabits of traffic at work, almost unlimited hardware resources, but I can't host a game for myself and my mates - wtf

Link

Whoop
Posted 12:04am 11/12/11

There's an abundance of large volume plans available to most Australians these days.

My sarcasm meter just went so nuts it blew up and took the universe with it. This country is a joke for internet.

what worries me is that I've sunk 43 hours into the game already, but there will come a day that they are going to turn the whole thing off and say 'game over, buy battlefield 7'
I am planning to sink at least another 40+ hours into it, I f*****g love - but I hate having zero control over it

also, I have access to literally hundreds of megabits of traffic at work, almost unlimited hardware resources, but I can't host a game for myself and my mates - wtf

I figure if I get 1 or 2 years out of a game then that's all I need. Unless they release new maps constantly, I get bored with the same 5 multiplayer maps over and over.

so battlefield 3 doesn't even have a private match or listen server or anything?

Link

infi
Posted 01:48am 11/12/11

if you do it overnight what's the hassle?

Link

BladeRunner
Posted 04:11am 11/12/11

I have found copying clients generally does work. Sometimes it does need fiddling with or "repairing". Never seem to use reg keys these days, aslong as Origin/steam recognise the game it should work.

Link

Tepid
Posted 06:01am 11/12/11

ummmmmmmmmm what. theres even lots of unlimited plans out there. i have had unlimited on 2 ISPs in a row now, max ive paid is 70 dollars a month.

Link

Whoop
Posted 06:39am 11/12/11

unlimited***********************************************

you mean.

also what's the big deal with copying installations from one pc to another? that's how I back up my steam directory, I just copy it to an external drive, format, copy it back & run steam.exe does origin work differently or something? I'd think that as long as the game is listed under your account, steam/origin wouldn't give a toss where the files come from.

Link

Dan
Posted 09:20am 11/12/11

My sarcasm meter just went so nuts it blew up and took the universe with it. This country is a joke for internet.

Kidding yourself, even Telstra -- who were the historic data allowance misers -- have 500GB for $90/m these days.

Sure, we're not as liberated as US/EU, but having to download a 3GB patch or even a 16GB mmo client a couple of times really shouldn't be the enormous strain on your monthly quota that some make it out to be.

Link

Lithium
Posted 09:38am 11/12/11

It's a bit of a strain when you are on wireless and a patch is over a half of your entire monthly quota.

Link

copuis
Posted 09:49am 11/12/11

Kidding yourself, even Telstra -- who were the historic data allowance misers -- have 500GB for $90/m these days.

Sure, we're not as liberated as US/EU, but having to download a 3GB patch or even a 16GB mmo client a couple of times really shouldn't be the enormous strain on your monthly quota that some make it out to be.

that 500gb upload and download, not just download (my biggest gripe on telstra, even tho I am on that home bundle)

Link

m3nt4l
Posted 11:23am 11/12/11

It's a bit of a strain when you are on wireless and a patch is over a half of your entire monthly quota.

I remember those days, and on that note I think I should phone up and cancel it, I'm still being charged for it and I haven't used it for a year and a half.

Link

Whoop
Posted 03:40pm 11/12/11

There's no way I can justify paying 90 bux a month just to play video games, nor would a lot of average people who don't make millions every year working in IT. Is that 90 bundled or alone? Because all I have is internet, I don't have a bundle so whatever I get I pay more.

Link

casa
Posted 04:02pm 11/12/11

If people are too stupid not to just sign up with TPG unlimited for $60, then they should not be complaining about quota.

This whole Origin thing doesn't bother me either as I live next door to the exchange and my speeds are bats*** crazy. That AND I don't live in a share house so don't have to worry about that sort of crap.

Will suck for a Diablo 3 lan though :) hopefully everyone downloads it beofre they come over!

Link

Eorl
Posted 04:29pm 11/12/11

I pay $59.95 a month for ADSL2+ Unlimited with Home Phone, on TPG. It is the most common ISP + plan in Brisbane. All other ISP's I have looked at or been with, have unlimited plans. Hell, even Dodo has unlimited.

Link

Nathan
Posted 06:25pm 11/12/11

that 500gb upload and download, not just download (my biggest gripe on telstra, even tho I am on that home bundle)

I think that gripe starts to lose all meaning when we're talking about a 500GB limit. Uploading at the normal ADSL2+ maximum of 1024kbit/sec for the whole month 24x7 will only manage ~300GB of data by my math.

Commenting has been locked for this item.

21 Comments

Show

Features

Reviews

ASUS ROG Rapture GT6 WiFi 6 Mesh System

User:
Pass: