Questions about writing a mod onto a cd

[SpecOp9 0]

Well,  it's time that I came to the conclusion that Resistance II will be a bigger download than I expected on it's release... Almost the size of the original Cold War Crisis CD.

SO now I am planning, or hoping that instead of making people download a huge file that would take the entire day even on a cable connection, and would likely blow the server, and make it haywire, I was thinking I should get a few Compact Disks and ship them out to various people that sign up for it.  Of course free shipping and handling, and no cost for the CD.

Only problem is, what the hell kinda CD do I get, that allows me to do this.  CD-R works?  I have no idea.

But likely the campaign is going to carry heavy loads of new music from various artists for the cutscenes.  I only have one song so far, and it's around 5MB.  For the beggining cutscene. Yes, big. and I plan on having many more songs.  well over 30, do the math, 5x30 is 150mb.  Nobody wants to download 150mb worth of music just to play a campaign.  Mostly with addons, which is about 100mb at the moment, planning on adding more BAS, RHS, and FDF addons to that, of course if they allow it, that means about 200 to 400mb worth of addons. Hopefully less, i have not done all my math yet.. this is all speculation.  Then you need to think about the engine modifications the game runs on.

bin is about 1.75MB

Dta is  1.19

so lets say roughly thats 3MB.

Then the Voices that go with the missions of the campaign.  Ohh boy.  I still need VOICE actors btw :-P  The original campaigns were around 65MB in between.

Maybey a few MP missions and Sounds, and SP missions, throw them together and lets say 5 to 10MB.

Ok, now.

Average CD space is 800MB  Lets add this all up now.

150MB for music

350MB for addons

3MB for Bin and Dta

70MB for Campaign

10MB for MP SP Missions and small SFX.

Totals out to 583 MB.

A 593 MB Campaign for crying out loud!!!!

Hopefully this is the worst case scenario.

Now that you understand,

frankly,

wat da F*ck do I do???

1. Ship out the 583MB project via Compact Disk?

2. Take 2 weeks to open up as many serversand mirrors as possible and hope the downloads go well?

3. Do you have an idea?

I could be left with no other choice but to cancel the project entirely, but I would hate to see that happen..I have canceled way too many things because of lack of interest from the community I guess.  So I'm giving it one more try before the release of Flash2 2005.  Bad ass Russians, bad ass resistance, bad ass addons (hence why I chose FDF, BAS and RHS), bad ass characters, bad ass everything..

I'm trying but need help in the process!!!

I'll add a lil picture 2

 PIC!

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

Compress the music. A LOT. Then have a high quality campaign download with the normal music and one with compressed music, which will be a lot smaller.

Also, for the minimal install, don't include the mods with it, just a link to where to get them.

[GoOB 0]

Or reduce the number of addons you are using. A wholloping 350 MB is really too much in my opinion

[SpecOp9 0]

Quote[/b] ]Also, for the minimal install, don't include the mods with it, just a link to where to get them.

Problem is, some of those links will probably take a long time to search for.  And if one of the links is inactive, then your screwed Besides not every single addon from the mod will be used

I just think it would be more easy to pack everything you need into one area.

[edc 0]

Yeah, I would agree, don't include the addons, especially since most people will already have many, if not all of them. That would probably cut it down enough that you could give it to OFP sites, like ofp.info, OFPEC, and OpFlashpoint.org to host it. You could also use BitTorrent.

[toadeater 0]

Forget about CDs, you'll go bankrupt when you have to make 5000 of them in one week. Then don't forget packaging and actually mailing the things.

So either find some place to host it, or you'll have to cut down on stuff... and still find some place to host it.

Definitely cut down on the music.

350mb of addons is a little much, find some way of cutting that down too. Also, stick to popular addons because most people will probably already have them downloaded. Maybe you should ask in the addon forum what addons people want in this campaign.

[SpecOp9 0]

Well it's likely to be a fairly large mod. Mostly to say it takes place in current day. In that case Ive coen FDF, BAS, and RHS...

It's not gonna be a small campaign, it's meant to match up to the official ones. Hopefully i try and go beyond that with cinematics.

But thanks for your help...I know somebody who owns a computer store, hes in the ofp community also, so hopefully I can work something out with him... (if all goes wrong)

Also perhaps I can make seperate downloads for everything. Or else it will be overwhelming for 56kers.. but then again there are not many 56k around anymore, at least I would hope not

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]but then again there are not many 56k around anymore, at least I would hope not

There are still 56kers out there (Like me ). Please don't make the mod come with addons that I already spent a long time downloading.

[theavonlady 2]

If you use AMORE to define your music, the music can be optional, without causing error messages if the OGG files aren't present.

[SpecOp9 0]

I know.. but this campaign won't be anythin without the music It's real hard to explain.

I'll see how the hype goes..maybey I'll do a CD for 56kers only. I'll see if their ping in OFP is real high or something :-P

[theavonlady 2]

I know.. but this campaign won't be anythin without the music  

Maybe you could publish the notes and folks could just sing along.

[SpecOp9 0]

LOL! A OFP Sing along campaign... brought to you buy Disney.

[ozanzac 0]

The size of this thing is really discouraging.

Music wise, I play campaigns with barely audible music settings, just enough to get the feel of the campaign but not too much to impede on why I'm playing the campaign, to role play (and kill stuff). Besides, different people have different tastes in music, hopefully the campagn isn't imposing anyones personal music tastes on to others, it can ruin the moment.

Addon wise, I download and keep pretty much every decent addon and mod offered, if I don't have it, and need to find it, I have no problems with that, but do have problems with redownloading stuff if it's not an update and I've already got.

For 500+ MB download, it'd need to be revolutionary. Like bring OFP:R up to OFP:IV standards.

This wouldn't have to rival the official campaigns. It'd have to kick their asses, and make BIS crawl on their knees to you, requesting your services. That would justify a 500MB download for me, and I don't expect anyone sending CD's through the post for anyone.

Quote[/b] ]3MB for Bin and Dta

70MB for Campaign

10MB for MP SP Missions and small SFX.

That, I'll download. I'll download addons and voices if their new. Everything else is just excessive.

[m21man 0]

I'd get it if it had these:

Quote[/b] ]150MB for music

3MB for Bin and Dta

70MB for Campaign

10MB for MP SP Missions and small SFX.

As for the addons, just provide links for them. People should learn to be self-reliant and go fetch addons by themselves .

[pitufo 0]

Quote[/b] ]I'd get it if it had these:

Quote

150MB for music

3MB for Bin and Dta

70MB for Campaign

10MB for MP SP Missions and small SFX.

As for the addons, just provide links for them. People should learn to be self-reliant and go fetch addons by themselves .

Ya, what M21man said

[SpecOp9 0]

Quote[/b] ]Music wise, I play campaigns with barely audible music settings, just enough to get the feel of the campaign but not too much to impede on why I'm playing the campaign, to role play (and kill stuff). Besides, different people have different tastes in music, hopefully the campagn isn't imposing anyones personal music tastes on to others, it can ruin the moment.

I know what ya mean.. music will be from movies mostly.. not bands, or anything like that. Also no music will play during missions, trying to keep it intact with the "realistic" things people like mostly about the game