hi, im working on a 2d online RPG. i have made an autopatching system, and im pretty satisfied with it. except on one thing.. currently, how it works is if the client has an old version, you get a message when you try to log in "you have an older version, please press OK to exit and then run the autopatcher". however, im not sure if i completely like this. in UO, you would start the game by starting a program which would check if you needed updates, download them if needed, and then start the client. do you think this is a better system then what i have? im not sure if i should create a new program to do this, or just have the autopatcher itself do this.

If you have the auto-patcher re-start the client, I think you'll be OK. You should definitely ship what you have built and tested. Then ask players what bugs them about the game, and fix that. Once the auto-patcher makes the top-10 list, you can start worrying about making it better.

Which brings up a second point: for an online game, shipping version 1 doesn't mean you're done; it means you've just started! It's very different from a shrink-wrapped console title...

It seems the only difference between the methods you describe is that UO uses the autopatcher as a launcher. You always start the autopatcher, which in turn starts the game when it's done. In fact, you could even have the player decide what is better, since it might be marginally faster (and produce less load on the patch distribution servers) to start the game directly while still retaining the possibility to do it the other way 'round with a simple commandline toggle.