[2024 - still unsolved] PoE should allow to choose what version you want to play.

I could see something like this, under direction of tencent, as a paid add-on but otherwise it seems so far out of the GGG wheelhouse

I personally would pay for an opportunity to play the version i want if such existed would this be the condition of them adding those.


Ulsarek,

"

Not only would it split the playerbase, it would also hurt GGG financially and thus be detrimental to this games and PoE2's future development

this is just false, path of exile is free to install - devs get the money from mtx, which could be bought in any version, and since some that aren't available now would be reintroduced people who left because they didn't like the changes would come back and bring in more of the money.

"

forHordeforeverandalways wrote:

Jsuslak313, nothing ever get's deleted from the internet man, think about that..

This is NOT the internet as you are claiming it to be. This is game code stored in a private server. Unless you are somehow saying someone "stole" the code of each and every patch and saved it somewhere? Path of Exile is not some forum post that stays forever. When a game client ends, it ENDS. See: many flash games circa mid 2000s / early 2010s. Happened all the time. Things get deleted and removed.

@Gus: Perhaps I should rephrase. For THIS GAME and games of this decade, it is totally impossible to retrieve code for patches that DO NOT EXIST. It was deleted, rewritten, removed entirely, etc. Games do NOT keep old versions around for shits and giggles, especially in an online, constantly updating game. MAYBE they keep around the last year (being generous) of each individual patch / bugfix just in case they royally screw something up, but they are most definitely NOT just storing away 100s of versions of this game somewhere.

In the late 90s / early 2000s, patches to games were almost exclusively STANDALONE separately downloaded patches that are applied on top of the base game. Without ANY patch, you are still left with the version of the game that you bought on disc. For THIS Game and all modern games, the BASE game is what is being changed. There is no standalone patch, there is no "old version", there is not even a "base version" really anymore. We are forced to download the latest patch and bugfix because, without it, the game doesn't function anymore. That previous version is GONE.

Technically you could use old clients for reverse engineering and then develop an emulator that comes close enough to have a functioning old patch running. Unless there's a leak at GGG and actual source code finds its way online that would be the closest one could get to playing the PoE of old. It's basically what's being done for many mmorpgs and sometimes these emulators turn out amazing, rivaling the official version even.

It's not impossible but highly unlikely for someone or a team of people to actually pick up such an insanely huge and difficulty project.

Even more so when the original studio is still operating. There was an emulation project for League of Legends, ChronoShift, that reached a playable state and got popular before being released. Riot Games caught wind of that and quickly shut it down.

I disagree. The last thing this game needs is to further fracture the playerbase between even more versions.

I wrote a whole thread about my concerns about how PoE2 is going to impact trade here if anyone's interested. The TL;DR of it is that PoE lives and dies on a healthy trade economy which requires a sufficient number of players both providing supply and demand. If the player count diminishes too far, we might be looked at a forced SSF experience which everyone will hate since the game wasn't balanced for that.

And this was discussing PoE2's impact on PoE1's economy. I can't imagine how bad it might be if players were allowed to play whatever version of PoE1 they found the most enjoyable. Hell I bet in some versions, they may be the only person playing on it so they'll be stuck on SSF even if that wasn't something they wanted.

@Jsuslak313
I didn't get what you meant at first but since you clarified this actually makes sense if we assume they don't store anything. I'm just almost 100% sure that they do store them (unlikely several variations of every patch but mb the final polished variation of each) because its only 30gb for one(used to be less) and about 30 patches total which really isn't a lot to store in total.

I'm not sure if this goes as an example of a leak as you put it (i'm not into programming much) but i found at least 3 patches across the internet (pre 3.24) (the only problem is that PoE client doesn't allow to download the not-latest version)

"

BTW i even dug out this patch in some old forum but the launcher is specifically designed to not let you download it whatsoever..

@Ulsarek
If you're as knowledgeable in computer science as Jsuslak313 i would also like to hear what you think of what i quoted

"

forHordeforeverandalways wrote:

"

BTW i even dug out this patch in some old forum but the launcher is specifically designed to not let you download it whatsoever..

@Ulsarek
If you're as knowledgeable in computer science as Jsuslak313 i would also like to hear what you think of what i quoted

The above is correct. Just having the patch files won't do much. The launcher is designed to do a version check and just prompts you to get the latest version. I booted up my old PC that still has the Incursion client installed. You could backup the old content.ggpk files if you wanted to but that's the extend of it.

Well, if we are now sure we have some of these content files, is there really that huge an amount of work to be done by developers from this point to that version being runnable in the client? If we were to pretend there are no other complications like taking possible cheating in consideration etc and that for now we picture it as offline ssf unrelated to main game in any way thing

"

forHordeforeverandalways wrote:

Path of Exile should allow to choose what version you wanna play.
(I personally would buy it and play it (even SSF if online couldn't be accomplished for some reasons) and rebuy my mtx for the offline client or something like it if this was allowed)

There are things that each person would like changed, but we all understand that developers can't suit everyone right? For example i like to play melee builds like dual strike, and i liked 100% more multistrike support and 100% base attack speed skills much better. So i would just go play pre-Legion(3.7) patch and no reason to ever complain in the forum again. What's so wrong with that?

BTW i even dug out this patch in some old forum but the launcher is specifically designed to not let you download it whatsoever..

Sounds like a really cool idea. Offline mode with ability to choose what patch you want. +1

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

@Gus: Perhaps I should rephrase. For THIS GAME and games of this decade, it is totally impossible to retrieve code for patches that DO NOT EXIST.

Great, but you don't know that the code doesn't exist. You say so yourself:

"

MAYBE they keep around the last year

Stop a moment and really hear yourself. You wouldn't be saying "maybe" if you actually had information confirming what these companies are doing with their version control systems. You even put it in all caps to highlight it. This should set off some little bells saying "maybe I don't need to say any of this at all".

You don't have to do this to yourself. You don't have to make these black & white, absolute statements.

Rewind to the moment of entering the thread. Imagine if, instead of launching straight into the silly absolutes with "totally impossible!", you said something like "Well, it's possible they haven't kept all the old code, that'd be pretty common these days". You reach the same position, you don't claim more than you know, you're calm. Amazing. Maybe that's less fun or something, I don't know.