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Question: What is a patch? Why do I need a patch?Answer: Sometimes when a game or other piece of software is released to the public, it is not everything it should be. These imperfections may show up as features that do not work correctly, glitches that occur at certain points in the game or at worst, they may even cause your whole system to crash, requiring you to restart your computer. The most common term used for these problems is a "bug". A patch is a small piece of software, usually put out by the same company who created the program/game in question, that fixes the bugs that surfaced after the initial release of the program.In most cases, your game will be perfectly playable without applying any patches, but if you manage to encounter one of the situations that the bug was created to fix, you may get some bad results. For this reason it is usually best to apply any available patches. Also, if your game has a multiplayer component (usually via LAN), then every computer that is involved in the game must be patched to the same level (ie have all the same patches installed) or they will not be able to communicate effectively and your multiplayer game is doomed to failure. As a final note about the purpose of patches, many patches add new game features that were decided upon either by the game developers, avid players of the game, or both. These enhancements can sometimes be quite extensive and usually add greatly to your game playing enjoyment Question: What is NOT a patch?Answer: Many times there are files that are created by talented programmers that allow you to play a game without having the game CD in your CD drive or others that let you cheat at a game. While useful, these are not considered truly patches. Along a similar line are programs that allow you to 'crack' a game, or bypass the security that the publishing company has put on the game CD to keep people from making copies of the game that may or may not be considered illegal. It is not our intention to get into a discussion about the merits/legalities of making duplicates of copyrighted material. There is enough information including literally books full of information about intellecual property laws to be found on the internet. If you are interested in this subject, the answers are as close as your nearest search engine.We do not archive this kind of file, firstly, because of the massive amount of server space that it would require. We have enough trouble finding resources for actual game patches without taking into account these other types of files. Secondly, there is the matter of the legal question, and it is just best to keep away from that kind of situation. Question: Why was the game/software released with bugs in it?Answer: After a program is finished, it is the job of the programmer and others to test the program to see that there are no problems with it. By itself, this can be a very difficult task because there are so many factors and situations that need to be tested. When you add on to this the sheer number of different computers, drivers, peripherals, operating system configurations, other software, and the almost infinite combinations thereof, the testing phase becomes very difficult indeed, and it is practically impossible for any one person or small group of people to test every situation that could occur. It isnt until the program is released to the public that some of the bugs appear.Question: How do I use a patch?Answer: This can be a tricky question, and it helps if you have a little (you dont need a lot, though) knowledge about common file types. I will attempt a small primer to tell you about some of the major file types you will likely encounter. The first, and usually easiest, type of patch is that which ends with the extension (the last 3 letters of the filename after the '.') 'exe'. This is an executable file, and this means that you simply double-click the file and it runs. From that point on, you should follow any screen prompts that you are given and the patching will take place. Next, you have the files that end with 'zip' (sometimes they may end in 'rar', 'ace', or a few other extensions). These files are 'archive' files and require a special program to open them, unless you are running Windows XP (or similar OS) which has some rudimentary zip support built in.In order to open these types of files, you will likely need a special program like WinZip (www.winzip.com) or PowerArchiver (www.powerarchiver.com) or any number of other archive programs. While most of these programs require you to pay to register them, there are a couple of very good free programs. These are ZipGenius (www.zipgenius.it) and 7-Zip (www.7-zip.org). Some other archiver programs that you could try are:WinRAR WinACE (there is also a version for Mac OSX available) and StuffIt (there are versions for Windows, Mac and Linux available through this site) In most cases, when the patch comes in the form of an archive file, you must unpack the archive into the directory where you installed the game, usually replacing files that are already there. The most important thing to do with ANY patch is to see if there are any special directions for its use. These directions may be found on the website where you obtained the patch or you may find these directions in a file called 'readme.txt' or a similar name which you must open with Notepad or another text editor. Be sure to read carefully to see if there are any special directions for patching your game. Question: Why should I visit the Patches Scrolls website?Answer: The Patches Scrolls website is THE source for game patches. Many times, especially if the game is an older game, the publisher has possible gone out of business, been bought out by another company, or just stopped supporting the game that you need a patch for. In this case, it can be VERY difficult to find the manufacturer's patches. The Patches Scrolls is updated daily with new patches and has been a repository for all your game patching needs for over 10 years. If there was ever a patch made for your game, it is very likely that we have it. If we don't, let us know and we will do our best to find it.Question: How can I help?Answer: There are quite a few areas where we can use your help. Though we hate to touch on the issue of money, it is quite expensive to maintain the server space necessary to store all of the patches that we have, and more patches come in every day! As games get bigger, so do the patches, and it isnt uncommon at all to get patches that are 100-200 megabytes in size. As you can see, server space tends to fill up quickly.Donations are always welcome, not only money, but if you have some server space that we could use (10 GB or so), it would be much appreciated and will help to keep our site alive. We also have a need for web designers, programmers with some web experience, and most of all, your spare time. Maintaining a site of this size requires a variety of talents and especially those who are willing to donate a little of their time to help out. This site is a free service and always has been, and with your help, we can keep it that way. Question: How can contact you?Answer: Use our contact form that is off of our main page.Question: Why is every download link here pointing to dlh.net or Filefront?Answer: Quite simple: Dlh.net is hosting this site and others and provides the main download server. Filefront provides an additional mirror.Question: Are these patches official? I don't see patch X on the official site.Answer: Tought question. Yes, these patches are all official unless marked otherwise. The current situation is this: Developer A develops a game and maybe even publishes the game himself. Then publisher B is putting the title into their portfolio, but only sells the game in the US. The title sells pretty well, so another publisher picks it up to distribute it in germany. Meanwhile developer A has fixed a few bugs in the game and publishes patch #1 on their website. It also sends patch #1 for validation/testing and distribution to publisher B and C. Publisher B tests it successfully but applies his copy protection to patch #1. Publisher C instead has to change the patch to incorporate localization changes. So in this example we already have 3 legitimate patches, but only one will work with your game, depending on where you bought it from. We also spend great lengths of time and monitor thousands of developer/publisher sites to get them all here in one place instead of forcing you to monitor all these sites yourself and also get many files from press-only sites before they are put on official sites. If you find out a patch is not working with your game, please let us know and where you bought the game, so we can update out database accordingly. After all, we are humans too and can only write down what we were told.
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