Why are older WotC prdoucts being updated almost weekly?

[Topdecker]

It seems like the D&D Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is updated on a near weekly basis. Why is a product over a year old receiving weekly tweaks? Keep in mind that I like support, but a weekly frequency seems a bit like overkill especially when other product lines can go many months without an update. I don't think Microsoft does updates as frequently, being satisfied to update on the 2nd Tuesday of the month....

Anyhow, I am getting a bit tired of my FG launch being slowed by the frequent updates. But perhaps a bit less frequency is worth considering since even OS makers realize that pace matters.

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[Talyn]

And yet the cool thing is: you get to decide the frequency of clicking the Update button!

There are threads upon threads of people reporting issues with DLC (not just 5E) so be thankful anyone is bothering to patch things at all. There's only a handful of community developers who actively try to patch and/or update our DLC at all.

[Nickademus]

I imagine the updates are based on the individual developer that formatted the module. The person that made SCAG is probably more active in bug hunt than others. Does your FG update automatically? I'm not familiar with how Steam works.

[Topdecker]

No, I still get to select the UPGRADE button.

The update frequency is ridiculous. I am not even running 5e at the moment and waiting through the almost weekly SCAG update (and a few others, too) just to get a chance to update materials that are much less frequently updated has finally resulted in a sanity check. It should not be a choice between weekly updates and not at all - something a bit more sane would be appreciated.

If I could completely disable 5e update checks, I would. Eventually someone will realize that allowing the consumers to control which products are updated might reduce costs by a significant amount and then it might be something to implement, but until then, crying WOLF and hogging the update flag is really tiresome for anyone that has 5e in a secondary role.

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[Nickademus]

Only click the button once a month.

[Trenloe]

Check that you're in "live" mode and not test or dev in the FG settings window.

[Topdecker]

Trenloe -

I am in live mode. I think that everyone here that owns these products are well aware of how frequently they are updated. They even update the themes every time - something that I would bet good money is a complete waste of time and bandwidth because there is no way that the themes are tweaked every time the mod gets updated.

It's update spam. It makes me regret having bought the products since it has become a continual and unavoidable timesink. (I have other products that are updated in a responsible fashion - I should not have to pay a time tax in order to keep things current.)

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[Trenloe]

I think that everyone here that owns these products are well aware of how frequently they are updated.
Actually, no, I wasn't. Certainly not to the point of it being an annoying issue for me.

I'm sure there are people who own these products who want the update as soon as it's available. It's the first time that I can remember someone complaining about too frequent updates.

Let's see if the devs have any feedback. But, as has already been suggested, if running through an update is such an issue for you then don't press that update button - it's not forcing you to, you can still load FG fine with the update button still showing red.

[Trenloe]

I've just ran an update and looking at the last time Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide was updated on my system: <FG app data>\vault\WOTC5ESCAG.dat was last updated on June 20th - 22 days ago. Details of the June 20th SCAG update here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?38844-Wizards-of-the-Coast-data-update-(6-20)

If your <FG app data>\vault\WOTC5ESCAG.dat has updated more than once since June 20th then maybe there's an issue with the file on your system. It might be worth deleting it, then running an update to get a clean version of it. Or maybe there is something else that's making the FG update process download SCAG repeatedly on your system.

[rob2e]

I personally get EXCITED when I see the update button turn red. Since 3.1 (?) updates have been so fast I can't imagine why anyone would be upset over IMPROVEMENTS. But that's me. I like Nick's idea about only press it once a month if you find it objectionable.

Off to go press the button (even if it's not red)...

[Zacchaeus]

The author of he Sword Coast Adventure Guide is no longer active and there were a couple of issues which I dealt with. Unfortunately because of the way the author had created the original module the map pins on the main map were missing. That got fixed and updated. Since FG has moved on since SCAG was written I decided to bring it up to date by adding in embedded images and making it better; hence the third update. And finally due to an oversight on my part the name got changed necessitating a 4th update. So, due to a variety of circumstances SCAG did get updated almost on a weekly basis during late May and June.

If this caused you issues then you have my apologies but I do try to get fixes out for thing that are wrong rather than leave them for months unattended.

[Topdecker]

Ok, I was unaware of the SCAG being in that condition - my apologies for raising a fuss. I am on-board for getting broken products up to speed. Stepping in blind has to be a hard thing and I understand needing to take a few swipes at fixing it.

BTW, I can hardly run FG due to my poor internet speeds, so large part of this is due to my personal connectivity situation. The updates were soaking my game prep time (and I was checking on weekends trying to get around it) and finally I switched to my phone's data plan just so I could see if the products I am using had updates. I finally decided to complain - which I guess I would not have done had I fully understood the situation. I thought that these updates - given the number of them - were going to be stuff like spelling corrections :)

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[LordEntrails]

I do like the idea of a setting that allows you to chose what products get updated. i.e. a checkbox to Update All Products or if that's unchecked then you get a list of products that need updating and get to chose.

That said, I don't know the effort involved and if it would be justify Moon's time to implement it. But, it might be good to add it to the wishlist so he can think about it.

[Talyn]

I sincerely doubt it will happen with the existing architecture. Once Unity is a thing, I'd love to see it be able to only download the files that were actually updated rather than downloading the entire .mod file, in addition to being able to having more control over what specifically gets updated like @LordEntrails suggests.

[Topdecker]

I think it makes good business sense to implement checkboxes for products you want installed and updated. I mean, I would be perfectly happy if the 5e stuff wasn't even installed, much less updated. (And this isn't a dig at 5e - I will eventually get back to D&D.) And I have completed modules that I doubt that I will ever use again - or any time soon. When the catalog was smaller, it wasn't that big of a thing. But the catalog has grown a LOT over the last year and shows no sign of slowing down.

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[Zacchaeus]

Doesn't the updater already do that? It certainly checks all the files but I only see it updating those that actually need updating.

[Trenloe]

I do like the idea of a setting that allows you to chose what products get updated. i.e. a checkbox to Update All Products or if that's unchecked then you get a list of products that need updating and get to chose.
I understand where this is coming from, but this is opening up the potential to people disabling updates for some products then forgetting and complaining when stuff isn't working as it should - because they haven't updated one or more specific products.

Looking into making the update process a bit more efficient, along the lines of what Talyn mentions, would be a better approach to addressing issues with the amount of data downloaded as part of the update process, but not the ability to selectively disable individual product updates.

[Trenloe]

Doesn't the updater already do that? It certainly checks all the files but I only see it updating those that actually need updating.
I believe the update process checks the whole data package, not individual files within a module/extension/ruleset. So, taking SCAG as an example, the whole package is 179MB, most of which is images. If just the db.xml file in that package requires updating, the whole package is downloaded not just the one file that's been updated.

[Talyn]

Doesn't the updater already do that? It certainly checks all the files but I only see it updating those that actually need updating.

I mean like if you only updated the SCAG db.xml and it was say 300kb just download that instead of a 9Mb .mod file. Let the client handle the archival process.

[Nylanfs]

I could see that option for an entire ruleset ie Uncheck 5E, or CoC etc.

[Talyn]

Or have it be like Steam and other platforms where you can see a notification that each item has an update waiting but you can choose to manually select that update rather than a blanket Update All which is FG's only option currently.

Which, again, will have to wait on Unity as they have no intention of changing the launcher UI on the old engine, far as I've been told when I've asked.

[LordEntrails]

And maybe if you try to load a module that has been marked out of date you get a warning? That would help with the problem Trenloe mentioned (which would certainly happen and be the cause of many posts on the forums).

[Yagisan]

I don't think Microsoft does updates as frequently, being satisfied to update on the 2nd Tuesday of the month....Non-critical updates only. Keep in mind by default Windows 10 systems check daily for updates from MS and will silently download them.


Anyhow, I am getting a bit tired of my FG launch being slowed by the frequent updates. But perhaps a bit less frequency is worth considering since even OS makers realize that pace matters.
I certainly hope not. I want to see those updates as soon as possible. That means something was fixed. This is always a good thing.

[Dram]

I know this topic is pretty well hashed out. But, I was thinking that if updates were interfering with your prep time, you could always run the updater AFTER your prep session.

That way, at worst, you're one session 'out of date'. That's not so bad! Anyway, food for thought. It sounds like the SCAG is through it's update frenzy already, so.... *shrug*