ChaseTheLasers
Ekchuah's Shrine Comporium
17
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Posted - 2011.11.09 19:48:00 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Topknot wrote:Tippia wrote:GǪsoooo. Manual patching? Question back: What is it that you like about the manual patchers? We would really like to get rid of manual patchers eventually because it would simplify our build process a lot and like Mandrake said, give us a better environment to push out smaller updates. But I would really like to hear the benefits you see in the manual patchers.
Hi
Me and the misses both have multiple Eve accounts, along with multiple computers and then house mates with them too. Each machine has Eve installed.
Some of the recent expansions have been reasonably big, which isn't an issue even on our low bandwidth connection due to being able to copy over the stand alone update patch to each machine and run it. Subsequent minor patches we don't bother with though, and just let the auto updater handle it.
I appreciate that we might not be the normal Eve user, but we have about 7 machines dotted about that have the game installed. That's a long download / patching process on a crappy speed connection, never-mind download limits from the ISP.
If you don't mind me asking, why do manual patchers complicate the build process? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it the Eve installation in program files/CCP/Eve is 'stand alone' in that it can be moved from machine to machine without issue (I've done it a few times). The userdata does not appear to be stored there, but in the sensible location of the users profile.
If this is the case, then the Eve directory can very easily have a patch differential file made for it using one of many methods. At work I do something similar (but on a much smaller scale  ) by using PAR2 files.
I have my application installed and just generate a load of PAR2 files for the directory. I check on an older installation of the software that there is enough parity blocks to make up the difference between the versions. Once done, I wrap this in a silent installer for network deployment. It's nice because for older versions you just generate more PAR2 files, up until the point where you can just do a full reinstall of the application if they get too many / large.
I know there will probably be better methods than PAR2 for this scale, but ultimately if Eve is stand alone then you only need to make a differential file across an older and a newer install? The actual generation of the installable EXE after this is the easy part in my experience.
I suppose the main issue is how to patch / update any userdata outside this directory. For example, if there are changes to an ini file. I don't know how this is currently handled: Is it by the patcher (if so, a problem), or by the main Eve client itself? If it's the latter then it's super easy and no additional work is needed, otherwise it would either need to be moved to the client, or a small standalone patcher perhaps?
Coming back to the issue though - I would only really not like to see the loss of 'large' manual patchers for expansions. For everything / most pushed updates after this, I wouldn't care and will use the auto patcher anyway. Copying a few meg file on a pendrive / across the network is rather pointless as the auto patching process is quicker.
Chase |