Jul 12 2013, 9:42 am
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Lummox JR
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IIRC the standalone keeps its packaged .rsc with the binaries, so it should always be around to reload. Although a game with 300 MB of resources has bigger problems.
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What problems would those be? Are you saying you can't have a lot of music / sound content in the RSC? We're using OGG format and most songs are 1 - 2 MB, there's just a lot of songs, and sound effects.
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I'm basically just saying that's a whole lot of resources. Behemoths like SS13 rarely pass 30 MB, and even that's excessive.
I'm surprised more people don't use mod files for music. The various module formats are so much better because you can get long play times out of much smaller files. | |
I see. I don't think this will be an issue and I'm actually just guestimating about the size based on planned assets.
With most of the most popular games being well over a gig in size, I don't think its out of the question for a large scope 2D ORPG to have 100 mb + download size, especially when you offer it up for pre-download before play. I am a full time music producer, mod format just doesn't work when you're trying to have music that sounds like torchlight 2, diablo 3, world of warcraft... Even most indie games now have full 44.1 kHz 16 bit quality music. I'm pretty sure that midi and mod is pretty abandoned in the indie community, and definitely completely abandoned in the commercial market. BYOND is legacy, but it can at least sway with the times. I can't see a MOD sound track being as entertaining and quality as OGG sound track. | |
Just add an option to use the current RSC encryption, I'm somewhat sure current servers can even load that because of how the RSC code works
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Are you trying to say there's currently a limit to the RSC size to work properly? If so, why isn't there documentation for this before I spend a lot of money to produce a lot of songs that can't even work in my RSC.
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I think he's saying that in general having a huge amount of resources could be problematic due to the time it takes to download, but if you distribute them as a package (as NEStalgia does), perhaps it's not so bad.
In the next release, sounds will be loaded in memory and also encrypted in the rsc, although the encryption (like the icon encryption) is rudimentary and has already been cracked (it is impossible to safeguard since it has to be done two-way). Nevertheless, this at least eliminates the obvious issue of a resource being usable directly from the cache (if that was ever a real problem at all). I personally don't think resource theft is a huge issue and that the people who do it are just wasting a lot of time. | |
Yeah, I don't intend to make players download the rsc on demand nor from the hosting server (or servers, in my case). Instead, it will be required up front. I also intend to be using my own BYONDexe client... is there a way to detect who's trying to log into the game from the pager vs the client? I would be interested in deterring pager players to the website to require a download first. While the deployment method of BYOND is great, its not something that works for games over 50 MB which is my case. That's why I intend to require the RSC to exist on the client machine, up front.
Also, I'm not too concerned about the stealing of the graphics, I just know that it really would be better to have the music in memory and not on the hard disk, especially considering the cache fills up very fast with a lot of sound. I really appreciate what you guys are doing with the engine, and without some of these issues being solved or improved, it really wouldn't be feasible to do what I'm trying to do. So for that, I am grateful. | |
I understand not having the resources downloaded from the main server, this is obviously a smart move, most of BYOND games force you to download resources from the server everyone is playing on ... not good practice...
Downloading upfront, yea cool I like that! Not allowing me to login from the BYOND pager client.. why? You can force them to preload resources from another server anyway hopefully a unused one.. You should also force this with your BYONDexe client anyway, keep the exe minimal and let the resources flow in once opened, this is how many games do it currently (at least for updates), its more the norm now. | |
I don't see why I would have to explain why I want to do what I want to do... but I will. I think its more efficient for the client to have my client package that I built pre-installed before playing the game. I don't want the user to experience the game differently than intended. Part of that experience is how I will package the client.
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I see, it was more of general question as to why.
But thank you nonetheless. | |
You are right, and I will be taking advantage of the generic auto-update we have. But I do want the first point of contact of the game to occur with the client install. I also want to be given that right to send seeker / hub users to that client install.
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Sounds good to me, I have nothing against it BYOND is a tool set at the end of the day and should be customisable, paid or not. Especially when you want to be separate from BYOND as a whole. Even if that's not your goal, it should be possible for a developer.
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