Automatic Mod Downloading

[tacticalnuggets 24]

All you need to do is have a system to download from an outside file source. As it downloads, it should automatically place the files in the correct directory. Whatever mechanism loads the addons at game initialization time should be repeatable while the game thread is already fully initialized. Or if that is too hard some how, the game should just restart itself with a temporary event order stored in a queue for joining the server. The game runs, processes the queue and walla, your joining the server. Everything just happened automatically from the users perspective.

[noubernou 77]

What about groups that don't run the latest release of a mod?

People flipped the F$#k out when ACE was doing weekly releases.

I just don't see this being needed. This is one of the easiest games to install and run mods for.

[sbsmac 0]

What about groups that don't run the latest release of a mod?

People flipped the F$#k out when ACE was doing weekly releases.

Errr - what about them ? I don't think anybody in the last couple of pages has suggested that servers should automatically upgrade to the latest version (though the option to do so would be a nice-to-have). Any decent mod system _would_ provide consistent client/server versioning though.

I just don't see this being needed. This is one of the easiest games to install and run mods for.

It's great that you don't see the need and are prepared to do a bit of extra work but that doesn't change the fact that there are plenty of players who just can't (or won't) get to grips with the rather clumsy mod system that currently exists in ArmA. The argument here is that by streamlining mod-managent a lot more people would be able to participate in online play with a lot less effort. I can't see how that is anything but a good thing.

[Steakslim 1]

The mod system is clumsy? Are we talking about the installation and organization of mods themselves, or the varying amounts of servers with different mods installed and having to sort out what mods they run against what you have?

Because ArmA2 has by far one of the easiest mod installation and implementation methods i've dealt with. It's actually harder to acquire the mods than it is to run them. The thing ArmA needs most is an improved and working mod selection screen, preferably one that starts up before the game's exe actually runs, rather than the main menu, and an MP gui that gives more detail. Currently Yoma and Spirited Machine's launchers can give me more freedom searching out MP servers and the mods they run than the actual in game server screen.

Anywho, if anything is to be done as the thread has been asking, it absolutely must be done right, or no one will use it when someone makes a 3rd party one that is much better. We could have a system where someone joins a server, lacks the mods necessary, and is prompted to d/l said missing files in a method similar to Yoma's, comparing and contrasting what is needed against what the user already has, and has an actual ETA of the files and time it'll take to d/l them, since mods can be rather big. I know this is what many have already described, but remember it needs to be done right. We need to be prompted to what files we are about to be downloading and whether we actually want to d/l them rather than literally "auto-download". Not doing so could lead to a lot of useless shit on your harddrive at the mercy of what ever the server is running, not always being what you'd want to have. I remember a similar system with old Half Life 1 games of course, however you were stuck not knowing when the downloads would be done, and the assholes in the server thought it would be funny to force a thousand sound files into the server that you do not want, and results in a 30 minute or more download time to get through them all if you are lucky.

[sbsmac 0]

The mod system is clumsy?

Yes. :-) See my earlier post for a list of things which the current system does NOT offer. The mod system is even worse when you consider that as well as 'mods' many individual missions require particular addons (sometimes even particular _versions_ of addons). Sometimes these addons are incompatible with each other - there's currently no way to load the appropriate set without restarting the client and server. I'd like to see a system where clients automatically pick up and use the correct addons for the particular mission being run.

The addon/mod system was designed back in the days of OFP when people were lucky to have dial-up and the idea of automatically synchronising content over the network was unthinkable. If you were to design a system today you would end up with something very different. A lot of people seem to be stuck with a 'failure of imagination' and only see the problems inherent with making an incremental change from the current system rather than starting again with a clean sheet of paper.

[noubernou 77]

Errr - what about them ? I don't think anybody in the last couple of pages has suggested that servers should automatically upgrade to the latest version (though the option to do so would be a nice-to-have). Any decent mod system _would_ provide consistent client/server versioning though.

So where would the mods be hosted? How would you differentiate between servers running multiple versions?

It's great that you don't see the need and are prepared to do a bit of extra work but that doesn't change the fact that there are plenty of players who just can't (or won't) get to grips with the rather clumsy mod system that currently exists in ArmA. The argument here is that by streamlining mod-managent a lot more people would be able to participate in online play with a lot less effort. I can't see how that is anything but a good thing.

Streamlining just places the complications elsewhere. Who supports this infrastructure? BIS? Communities? Kind donors?

[sbsmac 0]

So where would the mods be hosted? How would you differentiate between servers running multiple versions?

Hosting doesn't _need_ to be much different from today (although looking at the current prices of Azure or S3 hosting it would be a reasonable business overhead for BIS). I'm not sure what you mean by your question about running multiple versions. I would propose that addons are keyed by a hash rather than a textual name though to allow better control of versioning.

Streamlining just places the complications elsewhere. Who supports this infrastructure? BIS? Communities? Kind donors?

I tend to agree that some things are irreducibly complex but I disagree that this is one of them. BTW - I haven't proposed any specific infrastructure, just pointed out that the current system could be much improved.

[Rough Knight 9]

Automatic selection of mods for a given campaign would be ok. Then if you didn't have them, the game wouldnt let you play the mission but give you links to download the required addons.

Something like this would make it easier to play missions or campaigns that require many addons. I tend not to play them [i know I am missing out] because it is so hard to organise requirements for those missions, then find you can't play another one you had started without reloading the game with its different required mods.

Making mods switchable ingame, without having reboot the game would be another massive plus for ARMA3 if it could be incorporated. I don't think we will find the perfect fix, but it can definitely be much better than how it currently is.

[dmarkwick 261]

Automatic selection of mods for a given campaign would be ok. Then if you didn't have them, the game wouldnt let you play the mission but give you links to download the required addons.

Something like this would make it easier to play missions or campaigns that require many addons. I tend not to play them [i know I am missing out] because it is so hard to organise requirements for those missions, then find you can't play another one you had started without reloading the game with its different required mods.

Making mods switchable ingame, without having reboot the game would be another massive plus for ARMA3 if it could be incorporated. I don't think we will find the perfect fix, but it can definitely be much better than how it currently is.

I guess some amount of fundamental initialisation is needed for ArmA to properly reference and cross-reference addons. But even if the game did a "silent" reboot and flashed up a pseudo-screen while it did this would make the impression of improvement in this area.

[whisper 0]

So where would the mods be hosted? How would you differentiate between servers running multiple versions?

Streamlining just places the complications elsewhere. Who supports this infrastructure? BIS? Communities? Kind donors?

Who supports current servers infrastructure? BIS? No, simply servers owner.

I really, really, really don't see why all the bitching here.

Suppose you have a ArmA3 server.

In the config file, you indicate the list of directories containing the mods the server is running, and the -mod parameter list used.

modDirs[] = { "@CBA", "@ACE", "@ACEX", "@ACESM"};
modParam = "@CBA,@ACE,@ACEX,@ACESM";

You also indicate an entry pointing to a web server hosting listed mod directories where clients A3 can download the directories

modsURL = "http://myclanserver.myhoster.com/armA3ServerMods/";

When a client connects, dependencies are checked, if client doesn't meet them, he has to download what the server runs, a pop-up window in game appears, asking to download server mods, and if client clicks yes, download starts from the web server indicated in A3 server config. Client can abort the download at anytime.

Once download is finished, the client game is restarted with the -mod line indicated by server, and connects directly to the server.

It's simple for the client, he doesn't have to use a third party tool (meaning he doesn't have to hunt for it, or even has no need to get into "hey, there must be a 3rd party tool to help with this addon/mod thing), he doesn't have to manually hunt for each mods each server is running.

It doesn't impact the server itself because the download is hosted somewhere else.

In fact, with such a system, server admins can host way more modded servers because they don't have to think about how to handle mods for their players. They can update their mods on server, they don't have to make sure any new player in their group is in the know-how of the tools used by the group. Everything is simpler. Which is apparently an horrible thing for some people here.

Who supports the infrastructure? Well, the guy paying for the web server, can be anyone. Exactly like anyone supports the game server infrastructure.

This is the first thing I can come up with with 5 minutes thinking, ofc there are tons of optimizations possible for this. there is ZERO need for official BI infrastructure support.

Last sunday, I reinstalled Ennemy Territory:Quake Wars for a night of custom maps games. I downloaded and installed the custom maps pack, dating from 2009, and connected on the server. I was missing updated maps, the game proposed an automatic download and installation, restarted, and voila.... It means it checked missing dependencies, even versions, I got the parts I was missing, well..... I just had installed the game, nothing more.

Would such a thing hurt?

[noubernou 77]

Depends on the implementation of the downloading. If they implemented something like delta patching it wouldn't be too bad, and allowed you to point to different servers other than the game server itself so you aren't killing the games bandwidth.

Otherwise it seems like a feature no sane server admin would use. UO blasted through terabytes of bandwidth every ACE update when we used Yoma. We are down quite a lot since switching to SIX because of its delta patching mechanism (it is basically rsync).

[irishrocky 10]

Six Updater has come a long way and it handles all the mods I care about bar IVD and OktNoBlur while ArmA II Launcher allows me to choose what I run. No complaints here :)

indeed but it is far from perfect, they can make all the slightest tweaks to the GUI they wanna but if it seems like rocket science... chances are it is.

[gossamersolid 155]

Depends on the implementation of the downloading. If they implemented something like delta patching it wouldn't be too bad, and allowed you to point to different servers other than the game server itself so you aren't killing the games bandwidth.

Otherwise it seems like a feature no sane server admin would use. UO blasted through terabytes of bandwidth every ACE update when we used Yoma. We are down quite a lot since switching to SIX because of its delta patching mechanism (it is basically rsync).

I wouldn't mind every player connecting and grabbing 200mb from an HTTP/FTP redirect download server upon join.

There's not really that many players in ArmA...

Plus it's not like it would be forced, if implemented, it'd have to be optional in the server config.

[noubernou 77]

I wouldn't mind every player connecting and grabbing 200mb from an HTTP/FTP redirect download server upon join.

There's not really that many players in ArmA...

Plus it's not like it would be forced, if implemented, it'd have to be optional in the server config.

We have ~100 players regularly downloading on UO + dozens of one time players. Though that is the exception, not the rule, for most communities. When we (at ACE) added the license to all the files in ACE that was basically a fresh download of ACE for all of those people on Yoma. That would have been a lot of bandwidth.

[LugNut 10]

+1 for the OP.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard all the arguments before on why it's not needed..... Auto downloading from a redirect server is one big answer to growing the community, especially PvP.

[zoog 18]

Agreed with OP. Sure, there are lots of community fixes for some problems like Yoma or Six. But still I think we could really benefit from an official build in system which can download all required mods for a server, manage / update mods etc.

Not everybody is comfortable enough in a computer environment and I guarantee that we lose a lot of new players because of all the mod / server join issues etc. Most people like to spend their time actually playing a game instead of troubleshooting, reading unofficial manuals etc. trying to fix compatibility issues with online servers and other stuff.

[rory_pamphilon 16]

As post above put it so well, most of the people who purchase Arma 3 would much rather spend their time (and money) playing the game than messing around with file explorer, winrar, folder structures & command line inits.

I'm not trying to step on any toes here but the few people who think this is a bad idea or are currently happy with the way mods are installed or run currently, IMO, are definitely in the minority. Plus Arma 3 is going to bring in alot more players than arma 2 so that minority will get smaller, I can't imagine any people new to the Arma series will be happy using a mod architecture that dates from where.. OPF?

There would be some significant problems to overcome, mostly involving the larger mods, ACE, Xrip, total conversions etc whereby the time to download those would be running into hours. But atleast the player knows where he stands and if he wants to join a modded server badly he can leave it and come back to it once download is finished, it would be totally transparent, telling u size of mod and ETA of completion. There is zero transparency currently, no official documentation, no real legible and understandable error messages on attempting to join, just alot of frustration which must put alot of people off!

It cant be all that hard to implement BI? Ee already download mission content on the fly.

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

In Neverwinter Nights 2, this was a huge issue for Obsidian Entertainment, due to the fact that playing any server required the download of a custom walkmesh file at the very least.

Their solution makes so much sense that it still amazes me that more devs don't take this route.

They contracted one of the community leaders to take his already made autodownloader and integrate it on a server by server level into the game UI, which made for seamless autodownloading. Downloads of 2+GB were routine, and it drastically and almost instantly improved multiplayer. In fact, it really resulted in a multiplayer revival for that game.

I'm not sure a solution like this could be any easier for BIS, considering sickboy's ready made solution. Sign him to a one time contract to integrate his already working and massively tested method into the in-game UI, and the entire MP community will see massive and immediate benifits.

[Doatg 10]

You know I am one of those who would like to see this done with the game. Because when i first started playing the arma series this was the most frustrating things for me to deal with but thank god im more patient then most. Even today the mods out there still cause problems loading into server different version etc. This is a problem for new people i agree i see so many new people come and go that dont even get to play on our server. What matters to me is for everyone to enjoy this great game and not pain over this diliema. Ive used the sixupdater also but if these files are filtered thru and implemented into game than all they really need to do i just play the game. Over time the files sizes wont be so huge just little update. And after that the user should be able to make a choice on the size if they decide to get it latter. Well i hope this gets done :)

[tacticalnuggets 24]

In Neverwinter Nights 2, this was a huge issue for Obsidian Entertainment, due to the fact that playing any server required the download of a custom walkmesh file at the very least.

Their solution makes so much sense that it still amazes me that more devs don't take this route.

They contracted one of the community leaders to take his already made autodownloader and integrate it on a server by server level into the game UI, which made for seamless autodownloading. Downloads of 2+GB were routine, and it drastically and almost instantly improved multiplayer. In fact, it really resulted in a multiplayer revival for that game.

I'm not sure a solution like this could be any easier for BIS, considering sickboy's ready made solution. Sign him to a one time contract to integrate his already working and massively tested method into the in-game UI, and the entire MP community will see massive and immediate benifits.

Thank you for pointing this out. Maybe simple success stories like this will inspire BIS to take action sooner rather than later. The community needs a breath of fresh players. Too many names look familiar and thats a bad sign.

[rory_pamphilon 16]

Yeah it's obviously been pulled off successfully in some other games in the past. I'm not saying that makes it easy to implement but the few games I can think of off the of my head have generally been very successful, Half life 2, CS, COD.. If Arma 3 had even a small % of the players that frequented these games, constantly dipping in and out of dif servers that run different mods, it would be spectacular, as Arma is one of the few games that can support any number of players so long as lag is kept under control.

Any more opinions and ideas regarding this? Maybe we can get a comment from BIS soon?:)

[gossamersolid 155]

Depends on the implementation of the downloading. If they implemented something like delta patching it wouldn't be too bad, and allowed you to point to different servers other than the game server itself so you aren't killing the games bandwidth.

Otherwise it seems like a feature no sane server admin would use. UO blasted through terabytes of bandwidth every ACE update when we used Yoma. We are down quite a lot since switching to SIX because of its delta patching mechanism (it is basically rsync).

Nobody said we'd be making our game servers handle the downloads... that's an issue we have right now with missions as it is. If your mission is over 10mb, the game server chokes when it sends the mission out to new players.

I want an HTTP or an FTP server to handle my requests (FTP would probably be the best route because I could have more control, but HTTP would do as well).

[jake_krieger 10]

Guys , who of you has Garrys Mod ? Now there is a Feature called Toybox .

You can download various mods INGAME ! No matter what you are doing.

Now that shows that its possible . All Bohemia now has to do is implement that somehow into ArmA.

[Zipper5 74]

Jake_Krieger... Garry's Mod runs on the Source engine. ARMA 2 & ARMA 3 run on the RealVirtuality engine. They can't just implement Garry's Mod's method into ARMA 2 & ARMA 3...

FPDR

[Archosaurusrev 12]

Guys , who of you has Garrys Mod ? Now there is a Feature called Toybox .

You can download various mods INGAME ! No matter what you are doing.

Now that shows that its possible . All Bohemia now has to do is implement that somehow into ArmA.

What Zipper said + do you have any damn Idea how it would lag EVEN if BIS got it to work somehow?

Server's would crash instantly.