Linux Has an autoupdate feature. When will the windows guys get -autoupdate and -fork for l4d?
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Cousins Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 2:39 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [hlds] Server/client updating and L4D matchmaking *ahem* This is a bit long, so TL;DR: Matchmaking breaks for hours after every update because of the automatic nature of client updates and the manual nature of Server updates. It needs fixing by making the hldsupdate automatic too, but with some intelligence.. ------ Non-TLDR version: Everyone knows the drill by now. Whenever an update is released, matchmaking suddenly becomes useless when trying to find a server. It's also a problem for other games, but at least with a server browser you can see and choose servers that have been updated. People already playing when the update drops are fine, but anyone they invite gets the new update and can't play with them, and if a group logs out and back in to grab the update, because of how servers are updated they wouldn't be able to find many freshly updated servers to actually play on. What needs to happen is for steam to be a heck of a lot more intelligent about updating clients and servers need to self update. When an update is released, it should start off by being distributed to servers only, but not applied, and trickled down slowly so as not to disrupt the gameplay of people on that server currently. For major updates with a large filesize they would have to be released a couple of hours before pushing the client update, but for most patches it could be done an hour or so before. When a server has downloaded all of the update, it should then tell the master server it has done so and is ready to update itself, but it continues to run until given the go-ahead to update. When a certain percentage of servers have reported to the master server that they are ready, then the master server should tell them to update. When the servers are told to restart, they don't instantly shutdown (this would be annoying for anyone playing and potentially cause a massive load on the content servers with players from thousands of servers all updating their client). Instead, servers wait until they are empty, change maps, or end a campaign (depending on the game). This helps spread the load of clients grabbing updates, as well as allowing people to finish their game. Shortly before the server shuts down, it sends the players a message telling them a game update is available and that they can grab it at the end of the map/campaign when the server updates itself. At the same time as the master server tells servers to update, the steam content servers begin to release the update to clients in the normal way. This way, anyone in a game can continue playing and anyone looking for a game can continue playing without having an update forced on them and then needing to hunt for an updated server. When the client update is pushed out, anyone in a game can continue without worry that the server will boot them, but anyone launching a game will get the update and will have servers to use (any that were empty will update instantly, and gradually as games finish and maps change servers will update themselves). Anyone invited to join a game in progress will be fine for the most part, and only inconvenienced for a short time while the game they were invited to is completed. It's probably a hard system to implement, but the current system just renders matchmaking unusable and really needs fixing. And even in games without matchmaking, it can be frustrating when you want a game but can't find any empty local servers because everyone who has updated only has a few updated servers to choose from. _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
