Question: It is a given that, with time, questions and answers will become out dated. Good answers will not always apply to future patches, and questions may concern issues that simply do not exist in newer patches.

I have been linked to a few meta posts regarding the appropriate action. [The consensus here](https://gaming.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/946/outdated-answers-due-to-patches) is that out of date answers should be edited to be up to date.

The same mod has answered [a similar question](https://gaming.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1339/how-should-we-deal-with-out-of-date-questions-answers), showing a markdown method to keep the original authors intent, but since has steered towards "leave a comment, alert the author" and "post your own, up to date answer".

[There is another similar question](https://gaming.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1527/update-old-answers-according-to-patch-notes-for-unreleased-patch), however it does not appear to have had as much traffic, and the accepted answer appears to be a reference to the first question.

This is where my question comes in. **Is it appropriate to add completely new content to a question, where there is a new solution due to newer changes to the game**?

What defines the difference between updating an answer to be current, and going against the authors intent?

Answer: 
Answers are our bread and butter. They're the whole reason the site *exists*. We also provide our strongest rewards for answers: 10 whole rep per upvote, along with perhaps an accept.

There's lots of incentive for answering a question. In fact, that's our heaviest moderation task; sorting the chaff from the wheat. We get plenty of contributions, but not all that many of them are very *useful*.

Which leads me to my suggestion:

If an answer is out of date, **post your own, up-to-date answer**. We're kind of making a mountain out of a molehill here. Unless the update is incredibly minor, such as the UI was updated to move the button or something, the process is straightforward, and has several advantages of doing so:

1. The question now has an up-to-date answer, and can help (potentially) many readers.
2. You get rep for doing so, which will reinforce the whole cycle nicely.
3. More importantly, the original answerer *won't* get more rep (or, at least, not as much. Accepted answers tend to garner additional drive-bys.).

At the end of the day, whoever has answered a question has tried to add some useful content, and with games continually updating, still has a useful answer for an older version of the game. As time passes, the answerer may not even play the game anymore, and may not even be able to keep the answer up to date. It seems counter productive to reward them some more because they happened to be the first or accepted answer.

The SE network tends to have a self-reinforcing cycle for this behaviour. We're in a bit of an edge case, as most of what we play can exist in multiple versions, and every answer potentially has some utility to a fraction of the playerbase.

The one issue we run into for this, though, is for MMOs and online games; these are games where you *can't* play older versions. It's the latest, or you're not playing. This is where the M.SE feature for obsolete answers would come in handy, but until then, the steps would be generally the same, except add one more to the end:

4. Downvote the old answer, and comment that it's now out-of-date, and doesn't work anymore.

Depending on how old the answer is, it might even be eligible for deletion; the answerer got their rep from helping, but without keeping it up to date, it's no longer a useful answer. But the rep won't go away, and deleting those old answers keeps the site much cleaner.

But deletion only applies in those cases where the answer is completely obsolete; MMOs and other online games that require specific versions.
Changing an existing answer is a tricky and even dangerous thing with regards to old questions. In the case of games, you can never assume everybody is using the latest and greatest version. I know people who still play MC 1.2 and 1.4

At the same time, new information exists and a new answer therefore exists. Where, then, do we put this?

Scenario 1: Original answer-er comes in and updates their answer, preferably using some chronological meter.

```
As of version 0.2
.
.
.
As of version 0.1
.
.
.
etc.

```

Sadly, not everybody on the site bother keeping track of old answers, and frankly who has the time? Especially when everybody else can do if for you.

---

Scenario 2: Somebody else updates answer with new information, likewise keeping older answer(s) in chronological order.

In this case, the top answer and accepted answer is still seen as such, and now has the correct/updated information. Good?

It seems the main reasoning behind this is a top answer should always be the only correct answer because it is the top answer. (or replace top with accepted, you get the same meaning).

---

Scenario 3: You make your own answer with the current information.

What happens next? The original top answer get downvoted over time and your answer, assuming it is the new correct answer and well written, becomes upvoted and the new top answer.

Naturally, this could take time, but I have seen it happen. On my older account where I was using the original SO almost since its start I have an answer that has something close 5k downvotes because it is no longer the correct answer and I was too lazy to update it (actually, I went to update it one day and notice that) It had originally received over 2k upvotes when I stopped noticing or caring. A new answer was given, and was now the top answer. My answer was also the accepted answer.

---

So the real question is what is the preferred method? 

For me it really is a matter of context. If I can say that at least 98% of the players are using the updated version then the original answer is merely historical. If the game is still widely used then I would create a new answer because people would still be looking for a solution. 

If the game is outdated but the answer was even more outdated then I would update the original accepted answer (or highest voted) because a new answer would be unlikely to get any attention.

In either case if the original answer-er returns they can do what they want with their answer. But if the game is still played and the original answer is updated, then I see no reason to post a new answer or even edit in an answer.