• I Cast Fist
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    10 months ago

    I mean, I understand when they chuck everything into a single file, but they used to know how to make their updaters unpack and replace only the stuff that needed updating, instead of just throwing the whole fucking file at you, redundancy be damned.

    For instance, stuff in Quake 3 engine is kept in .pk3 files. You don’t need to download the full, newest .pk3, you send a command to remove/replace files X, Y and Z within it and call it a day.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yeah but then people go completely ballistic when games require you to install their own launches I don’t think Steam would necessarily be able to handle the myriad of different formats that would be needed to make that work. So either you have custom lunches or you don’t have particularly efficient patches.

      I guess most people care more about the launcher.

      • I Cast Fist
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        That’s because games don’t need “their own launcher” to apply updates like that. Ask anyone that’s been playing on PC, patches were these self extracting files or “mini installers” that you just needed to point to the installed game’s folder. Even vanilla World of Warcraft let people download the patches for offline install, it even included a text with all the changes applied.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          People don’t want the fiddling on of that. I just want to be able to install the patch and then it be there.

          That’s why lunches are a thing there’s no other reason to have them.

          You might enjoy the technical solution but 99% of people don’t care. I never understand why people seem to think that the 1% of the most experienced people are the standard when they are anything but. Most gamers build their own PCs, they don’t want to have to understand about file systems and formats and compiling. They just wanted to work and then they want to play their game.