Automatic Mod Downloading

[Harzach 2507]

Regarding mod compatibility, the "meta-data" approach has worked well for other games in the past - for example, all of the Elder Scrolls games have had third-party utilities (often several) that would detect mod conflicts and allow you to resolve the issue either by adjusting the load order, merging mods, "cleaning" mods, or simply removing the offending mod from your mod list. If only Wrye played Arma 2...

[gossamersolid 155]

- Where the mod will save the compressed files and where and how will save the decompressed/installed files?.

Default OS:\Users\Username\Appdata\Arma2\ModCache\ModSubFolder, but let the user decide via config file

- Where or how will it save/store the documentation needed for use the Mod content in the game as mission (SP & MP) maker in example?.

Same place I just mentioned

- How will the system prevent to download/install incompatible content?.

Well we can only load working PBOs in right now, why would would it change?

[wipman 1]

Hi, when i was reffering to "incompatible content" i was thinking mainly in addons uncompatible with other addons or full mods; when i had the ArmA and the ArmA2 too installed, i'd downloaded various addons and mods that didn't even allowed me to enter in the game if i had the 'other thing' installed.

If something is entittled as "very cool...!" by many... it'll get an official aprove for sure, besides... how will it download the mod/addon and install it on time to enter in an X public server?, i still fail to see it. Let's C ya

[doveman 7]

Hi, when i was reffering to "incompatible content" i was thinking mainly in addons uncompatible with other addons or full mods; when i had the ArmA and the ArmA2 too installed, i'd downloaded various addons and mods that didn't even allowed me to enter in the game if i had the 'other thing' installed.

I don't see the problem. Whether downloading the Required mods for a SP mission or the mods required for a server, they're obviously not going to be incompatible with each other as the author or server admin will have tested them together (OK, there might be the odd occasion where a mistake is made but generally it will work fine) so if it automatically downloads and enables the required mods it will be fine.

Obviously if the user can choose to download and install any mod then it could be incompatible with another one but that would be the case if he had to manually download it from armaholic or some other website. For SP missions however, if the author has specified an Allowed/Recommended/Compatible list in addition to the Required list, the user can have some confidence that those mods should be fine to use.

[Phantom Six 25]

I find the best way to load up mods would be how Original Ghost Recon did it. You go the mod section and select the order of mod load and enable / disable whatever addons you have on your list ingame. That would make everything much easier. I don't mind using mods as it is now because I'm use to it but just for the convenience of other people, I like that method best.

[iceman77 18]

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 :)

He's talking about new players, not players who've been around the franchise awhile. And I can tell you that sixupdater, while very useful, isn't/wouldn't be user friendly to your average gamer/pc user who's coming over from other games. For people who have been around this franchise awhile, and for people who are computer savvy, sure it's pretty easy to quickly get the hang of a tool such as six updater. To you or I it may be second nature to just assume it's easy for everyone. The game's all about mods, and if obtaining and installing the correct mods for any given server isn't user friendly to newbies instantly (which it isn't) then people get frustrated. Because to them it's seen as one giant cluster ****.

[doveman 7]

He's talking about new players, not players who've been around the franchise awhile. And I can tell you that sixupdater, while very useful, isn't/wouldn't be user friendly to your average gamer/pc user who's coming over from other games. For people who have been around this franchise awhile, and for people who are computer savvy, sure it's pretty easy to quickly get the hang of a tool such as six updater. To you or I it may be second nature to just assume it's easy for everyone. The game's all about mods, and if obtaining and installing the correct mods for any given server isn't user friendly to newbies instantly (which it isn't) then people get frustrated. Because to them it's seen as one giant cluster ****.

All true but I'd add that I'm not really new to Arma anymore and am quite computer savvy and just because I know what I need to do to make it work, doesn't change the fact that I still find it a complete cluster **** ;)

There's really no reason why the user should have to mess around with third-party tools to setup the correct mods for a server/mission and having to quit and restart the game to change mod profile to play on a different server or a different SP mission is inexcusable.

[rory_pamphilon 16]

Iceman is correct, my original point at the start of this post was that for a seasoned Arma vet finding, installing & trouble shooting mods falls somewhere between a 'slight pain in the ass, but worth it' and 'not worth it'.

For a newbie this changes to somewhere between 'if only there was some official help/mod downloader/installer to play these amazing mods I see on armaholic' to '2 hours of research, trial and error & potential broken arma 2 install for a slightly different m4 skin, no thanks!'

The problem with this is that it stratifies the arma community...

(est figures)

Top Tier, 10-20k of us, OFP/Arma/Arma 2 Vet, All mods installed correctly, most server admins & BIS forum members probably here.

Middle Tier 20k-100k players, FPS addict, played a bit of coop/warfare, loves Dayz, doesn't fully understand mod installing, mostly uses launchers.

Bottom Tier 100k-1.5million, Dayz brought them here but find they actually like Arma & would try mods but has no idea where to start, uses launcher for Dayz.

Now, the top tier would love it if the other tiers could also use mods because then servers could play multiplayer with massively pimped units, visuals, sounds & maps and still have full servers. Currently if the top tier want set up a server with mods you generally only get the top tier entering because the next two tiers get put off by the brief unhelpful error messages that kick you out of a modded server.

So we have a situation where only around 1% of the arma 2 customers can, with ease, fully enjoy one of arma 2's main USP's. Yes DayZ is still a mod & lots of people are managing to play it but that's beside the point. There have been 10's of thousands of mods before it and there will be 10's of thousands after it, every single one of them should be simple to download & install and be allowed to become popular.

Arma 3 needs a integrated official BIS mod downloader/updater/installer like so many games have already managed to pull off successfully. Why if Half Life 2 & COD can download, install & run mods simply by clicking on a game server in the multiplayer browser can I not do this in Arma? Yes Arma mods can occasionally be a little on the large side but counter to that is the extra patience I would say Arma players have & the large mods are often very worthwhile, I44, ACE etc.

If this sandbox for creativity was open to all, no matter if they are a vet or if its their very first time playing Arma (first impressions, v important) I believe it would truly take off in popularity and BIS would be looking at a unified (not stratified) player base double/treble its current size all dipping in and out of servers using different mods and having no issues with doing so. BIS should do with network capabilities as they have always done with graphics capabilities, build a framework for the future that may not be able to be fully utilised present day & wait for the hardware/download speeds to improve.

Edited October 26, 2012 by rory_pamphilon

[doveman 7]

I would also suggest that Arma can always tell a user "This server/mission requires downloading I44/ACE which is 4GB, do you want to continue?" or even highlight in the server/mission browser which of them will require downloading large mods to join/play, so that if they have a slow connection or just want to play something without waiting, they can choose something else.

[rory_pamphilon 16]

This would be a great addition! Bis could do an awful lot more with the server browser, why have a third party external launcher when the server browser could do it all?

Different mods loaded bring a very different game so we should be able to filter our way through them easily.

What do others want? Internal mod downloader/server browser or external program?

[cadmium77 16]

Yeah standardized installation would be very nice all right.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

And I can tell you that sixupdater, while very useful, isn't/wouldn't be user friendly to your average gamer/pc user who's coming over from other games.

Maybe the reference should be to Play with six instead of six updater? I dont think it gets much simpler than Play with six, though personaly i'm looking forward to it incorporating the six updater functions as well.

[almanzo 144]

Maybe the reference should be to Play with six instead of six updater? I dont think it gets much simpler than Play with six, though personaly i'm looking forward to it incorporating the six updater functions as well.

And again, I bet they are working on it. Hire the guys from six updater and make them part of the team. The system is allready there and working, sewing or bundling it together with the game shouldn't be a problem, and the user interface can allways be changed as long as the core system works, wich it allready does.

[gossamersolid 155]

If the game engine cannot be re-designed to allow mods loading ingame, multiplayer should be split from the single player executable and all multiplayer functionality should be handled from a launcher application that's included with the game.

With this multiplayer executable, players would have to login to some sort of authentication server (not sure how BIS would handle this, maybe via store.bistudio.com logins). This would help stop illegal copies from getting ANY multiplayer access.

Then from this client, people would find servers, have a friends list, etc and also be able to handle content downloading/loading.

[On_Sabbatical 11]

Things like sounds and textures should be client side : anyone should be able to choose the sounds he like and textures he wants without having the server running them !

When it comes to content stuff,there should be a size limit to download things ... small mods can be dowloaded while connecting to server and when it comes to full conversions you should get the mod first !

[gossamersolid 155]

Things like sounds and textures should be client side : anyone should be able to choose the sounds he like and textures he wants without having the server running them !

When it comes to content stuff,there should be a size limit to download things ... small mods can be dowloaded while connecting to server and when it comes to full conversions you should get the mod first !

When there are limits though, ensure that the limit is changeable. I'd really hate to see a hardcoded limit. It should be up the the server providing the files, the client would always be free to click "cancel" as soon as they see the mod downloading.

[iceman77 18]

Things like sounds and textures should be client side : anyone should be able to choose the sounds he like and textures he wants without having the server running them !

When it comes to content stuff,there should be a size limit to download things ... small mods can be dowloaded while connecting to server and when it comes to full conversions you should get the mod first !

There should be plenty of client side reskins & textures already floating around the mod community. I can't say for sure as I haven't went mod crazy with A2 like with previous titles in the franchise.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Iceman77

[doveman 7]

If the game engine cannot be re-designed to allow mods loading ingame, multiplayer should be split from the single player executable and all multiplayer functionality should be handled from a launcher application that's included with the game.

With this multiplayer executable, players would have to login to some sort of authentication server (not sure how BIS would handle this, maybe via store.bistudio.com logins). This would help stop illegal copies from getting ANY multiplayer access.

Then from this client, people would find servers, have a friends list, etc and also be able to handle content downloading/loading.

Bad idea in in my opinion. There's no reason, even if the game engine can't be made to allow in-game mod enabling/disabling, why the same launcher application that handles multiplayer can't handle singleplayer, as suggested in my ticket. Obviously this launcher application should look like part of the game, something like DCS World's launcher, rather than Arma II Launcher and allow the user to setup their controls, audio/video settings, etc. Of course, from this initial launcher it could then load separate loaders to handle the multiplayer/single-player sides of things if it makes it easier to have it modular like that but I imagine that would probably just be an unnecessary duplication of work/code that will, by necessity, be common to both sides anyway (MP it's just looking to the server for which mods to download/enable and SP it's looking to the mission/campaign for that information).

If only multiplayer is handled automatically, that does nothing to solve the problem's users face when playing single-player missions and having to work out what mods should/can be used and quitting and restarting the game with different mods just to play a different mission.

[gossamersolid 155]

Bad idea in in my opinion. There's no reason, even if the game engine can't be made to allow in-game mod enabling/disabling, why the same launcher application that handles multiplayer can't handle singleplayer, as suggested in my ticket. Obviously this launcher application should look like part of the game, something like DCS World's launcher, rather than Arma II Launcher and allow the user to setup their controls, audio/video settings, etc. Of course, from this initial launcher it could then load separate loaders to handle the multiplayer/single-player sides of things if it makes it easier to have it modular like that but I imagine that would probably just be an unnecessary duplication of work/code that will, by necessity, be common to both sides anyway (MP it's just looking to the server for which mods to download/enable and SP it's looking to the mission/campaign for that information).

If only multiplayer is handled automatically, that does nothing to solve the problem's users face when playing single-player missions and having to work out what mods should/can be used and quitting and restarting the game with different mods just to play a different mission.

Ok, I wasn't really thinking when I wrote it originally. I meant it should be something like DCS's Launcher.

[rory_pamphilon 16]

Is there any reason why u guys seem to be in favour of a launcher? I know launchers for arma 2 have bn good but thats because they have to be, there was no alternative apart from command line launching.

With arma 3 there is a chance to sit down & do this right, from scratch. Why not have a built in server browser that does it all? Or for SP a check before mission start that checks/downloads any missing mods.

Yes some mods need an engine restart but that really doesnt take long, especially with an ssd.

I just think a good proportion of people buying arma 3 will be new noobies & having everything internal lessens confussion. I mean if u go the launcher route and ur actually inside the game and try to join a game server requiring mods, does the game then exit & fire up the launcher to download?

I say keep it all internal with no limits, qazdar :-P

[doveman 7]

Perhaps you misunderstand what we mean by the word "launcher". Certainly I'm not proposing a desktop app like Arma II launcher, but something like DCS World's launcher. Because of the engine design (unless they radically change it for A3) it can't load/unload mods without restarting the engine apparently, so by necessity there needs to be a separate app which allows the user to select missions/campaigns/servers and then "launches" the actual engine with the required mods enabled. It's possible this engine/second part could also have a server browser integrated, so that users could switch servers without the engine having to close and loading the "launcher" but as most of the time switching a server will require the engine to unload and reload with different mods anyway, this would probably be of limited benefit.

[rory_pamphilon 16]

Anybody have anymore news they can shed on this?

Is steam works confirmed now Bis are going the steam only route?

Does this mean we may finally get auto mod downloading when joining modded servers?

[Bee8190 10]

Well, I guess this is going to stay the same. The six launcher seems to be doing such good job that I don't see BI being bothered much about this...that unless I've missed something.

However, too much of the ''community got it'' thinking going on around in my opinion, or at least from the looks of it

[liquidpinky 11]

WTH Posted in the wrong topic.

Thanks slow assed works internet. FPDR

Edited May 3, 2013 by Liquidpinky

[mr.g-c 6]

My opinion:

Has to be integrated into the game. I'm sick of those external over-extremely complicated launchers - and im not a beginner.

For this proposal, either in the mission file or in a server config file, download URL(s) for used Mods/Addons should be given when connecting to server. Addons/Mods version matching with bikey files should also be checked that way (perhaps a new "version file", a mod/addon maker has to integrate into his main pbo or a few lines into the "main" config file???)

Then when connecting to a server, the client will be asked IF you want to download the mod(s)/addon(s) needed, showing the expected download size and when confirming with "yes" it should Auto-Download.

This is something we MP guys missing since ArmA1 and begging for it - a game series which is every time advertised with its huge community backing and community modifications. Remember, since ArmA1.....

I know BI Staff is smaller than something like Valve/EA/Whatever, but i also believe something like this could be rather "quick" coded and is actually nothing that breaks deep into the engine, right?

Is there a ticket about it already? If not i will open one tomorrow.