Addons at ease

[whisperFFW06]

If the patcher is able to jump from any version to up-to-date version, then it indeed would be an excellent idea.

[Maruk]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (whisperFFW06 @ April 10 2003,15:26)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">But what about versionning?[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
It&#39;s a good point. Currently, there&#39;s no way how to make versioning in Flashpoint missions and addons (this is something to consider in our next game).

But we definitelly should consier some versioning for the AAE packages.

[Suchey]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Maruk @ April 09 2003,20:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Our intention is to establish a submission and evaluation process and select the best addons (solely from BIS perspective) and recommend it at our official websites.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
It would be GREAT if BIS would wrap up these files which they select as being &#39;best&#39; in a single installer package (say once every month or so)...this would allow a single package of addons to be used as a (BIS) standard and make things ALOT easier on multiplay servers&#33; Its alot easier to say "you need the latest update of the user addon pack from the BIS website" than to say..."you need this list of items to play". With a single package in place, addons may actually becomes useful for dedicated servers&#33;

[PSC]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (DeadMeatXM2 @ April 10 2003,15:41)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">...Regarding the installer, will there be any option for an upgrade/patching system? Similar to the official BIS patches, so that the user does not have to re-download the entire addon, just a small update...[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
That would be a nice feature. The possibility to update only single files inside a previously installed PBO. Like only the config.cpp, or a texture or P3D.

PSC

[Leone]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Maruk @ April 10 2003,15:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">To make it more clear:
The entire and only goal of this initiative is to make the best addons available and accessible for the more casual gamer and not only for the small community/minority as it&#39;s now and hopefully make the community bigger and Flashpoint generally stronger within the gaming world.

Generally, we preffer to make it easy for average gamers than to make happy hard core addon fanaticts but we&#39;re always ready to listen to your feedback.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Yep...that&#39;s a lot clearer thanks Maruk. The only thing I wonder about is how you you actually go about getting these packs or addons to the casual gamer....and would they have a clue what AAE even meant? It would seem to me to be the fanatics that are the ones most likely to download such addons, because they are the ones who know where the sites are, and follow the progress of such things.

The casual gamer I suspect doesn&#39;t check Flashpoint websites, nor look for updates (or even patches). So how would they know about AAE? But I suspect this is something that BIS and CODEMASTERS might want to talk about (or not ) Just thought I&#39;d mention it.

Yes, I talk too much, but one last thing...would this be an initiative that could be extended to an entire mod project at some point in the future?

Thanks,

Leone

[whisperFFW06]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Suchey @ April 10 2003,15:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Maruk @ April 09 2003,20:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Our intention is to establish a submission and evaluation process and select the best addons (solely from BIS perspective) and recommend it at our official websites.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
It would be GREAT if BIS would wrap up these files which they select as being &#39;best&#39; in a single installer package (say once every month or so)...this would allow a single package of addons to be used as a (BIS) standard and make things ALOT easier on multiplay servers&#33; Its alot easier to say "you need the latest update of the user addon pack from the BIS website" than to say..."you need this list of items to play". With a single package in place, addons may actually becomes useful for dedicated servers&#33;[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
I don&#39;t think the goal is to make a single file, it is to tag addons with AAE and provide easy installation system. For doing so, addons have to be approved.

[Suchey]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (whisperFFW06 @ April 09 2003,21:22)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I don&#39;t think the goal is to make a single file, it is to tag addons with AAE and provide easy installation system. For doing so, addons have to be approved.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
yeah...Im just saying that if they are going to "recomend" certain addons, it would make things MUCH easier on Muliplayer servers if they would also put all of the "recommended" files into a single installer so there could be a standard pack of sorts for use in &#39;on line&#39; play.

[whisperFFW06]

Well... First though on the 3 points showed by Maruk :

- Installer : Well.. Something which could track version numbers and make appropriates updates if possible.
- Demo missions : The template would be really excellent. In my opinion, demo mission is required.
- addonRequired : so far, the propositions seems quite OK. Would it be possible to add some auto download feature? Like, let&#39;s say addon X is required but missing, make a pop-up appear askig "Addon X is required, but appears not to be present on your system. Do you want to download it? Yes - No". Further, this way, this would solve the issue raised by Suchey about single addon pack for dedicated servers, as the only thing required for such a pack is an addon just stating the correct addonRequired sections.

Whis&#39;

[CanadianTerror]

Considering that this is not an engine change or modification but just a suggestion(order?) in how to do addon distribution. why so late?

Most of us have like 3-4 gigs of addons at this point without any "proper official" way of doing it.

I don&#39;t disagree with the idea, it just seems like it should have been brought up a long time ago.

[whisperFFW06]

this is not just a suggestion, considering the patching system that has to be built. This takes time