So, let me explain to you a bit about patches. You see, the truth is, they're rather like buses - you wait for ages, then two come along at once. In other words, "one every 10 minutes" really means "two every 25 minutes" or perhaps even "four every hour". There's a mathematical reason for this, which is to do with symmetry...
First, we'll suppose that passengers arrive at the bus stop and start waiting at a constant rate. Next we'll pretend that the bus company is competent and releases its buses on time from the depot, once every ten minutes or so. Now, let's say the 5.32pm bus suffers from traffic on its route to the first stop. It is slightly late, and therefore there are more passengers waiting than normal, who take longer to load, especially when they haven't thought to get the correct change ready first, start fishing in their purse and then spill money everywhere and spend forever picking it up!
Sorry, please excuse me. Anyway, this longer loading time makes the bus a little later still, which means that at its next stop, it has even more passengers to pick up, and so on.
Meanwhile, the 5.42 bus arrives at the first stop. It has got through the traffic cleanly, perhaps because for once the bus lane contains only buses, taxis and cyclists, rather than all the people who get frustrated with the annoying pensioners in front of them who keep missing the lights. So the 5.42 arrives on time, but because the 5.32 arrived late, it collected some of the passengers who would normally have got on the 5.42. The 5.42 thus leaves slightly earlier than normal and arrives at the second bus stop early. Now the 5.32 was even later to this stop, so there are even fewer passengers now waiting for the 5.42, so it becomes even earlier.
This process continues, and gradually the ever earlier 5.42 catches the ever later 5.32 until they both arrive at your stop together. Of course, reality is much more complex - passengers tend not to arrive at a constant rate, for instance - but the basic principle is the same: as soon as the symmetric once-every-ten-minutes is broken, the chances are that it will lead to the buses bunching together.
Here's a website that demonstrates the effect.
Anyway, I seem to have strayed a little from the point... I sense you wondering how exactly public transport relates to patches. Let me explain. The first couple of patches were rushed through QA to get them to get them to the hungering public whose game was crashing roughly as often as the usual offering from Microsoft. After 1.52, they heard cries of "You've ruined combat" from the CivFanatics boards and so vowed never to release a patch again without careful testing. So Take 2 did their business analysis and threw about all the usual jargon about business processes and workflow and the like and at last came to the conclusion that they needed more testers (and that each and every one should test every aspect of the game to see if they could find fault, and of course report in great detail). At the very same moment, the rather more efficient (and pragmatic) Firaxis handed them the new patch.
So they started testing, and started recruiting testers. Like extra passengers getting on the bus, these new testers delayed the patch, not least when inexperience led one to drop his change. And so the patch was delayed and delayed. But now the pattern was reversed, and the Management heard the cutomers' ire when the patch continued not to be released. And so they decided that after this patch they would fire all the new testers and release the new patch with limited testing as this must be what pleases the masses.
So mark my words: when the patch arrives - with their great games-fu, Firaxis will finish the next patch almost instantly, and with the rush through QA it will arrive approximately a week after the one we're all waiting for. This will cause great vexation in the Realms Beyond community when all Sirian's efforts to avoid having a game running over a patch turn out to be for naught. And so the Management will hear of this and the cycle will begin anew.
Now that I've finished musing, let me tell you what I saw in my local paper this morning. I was flicking through all the usual stories of footballing woe and needles in playgrounds when I came to the astrology section and decided to see what the future had in store for me... (cue "spooky psychic" music, or perhaps just some Weird Al)
| Your Sign | Your Future |
| Cancer | You will continue to chase the happiness of your customers past all bounds of logic, contradiction and reason until the shareholders, the very people who told you to do this in the first place, give you the shove and replace you with someone exactly the same. Ah well, the next cushy job will be along soon. |
| Aries | Your long efforts to get a proper job have finally been rewarded as you've landed a "QA Consultant" role. However you will soon learn what this really means, and be secretly relieved when you quickly become surplus to requirements. |
| Everyone else | You will find yourself inexplicably waiting for something that should have been here ages ago. Whether it's a bus or a patch, I hope you brought along something to do. If not, try looking to the brightest star in the sky - its inhabitant can usually keep you amused. |
As a Libran, I found the prediction unusually accurate, so I followed the advice and found a metaphor, and within it an Adventure. This is the story of that adventure.