-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mike Zimmermann wrote: > One could argue the fact that even if you could download VPKs from the > server, what would happen if the original site went down? How would you know > where the new updates for it are at? Afaik, if someone in the lobby has a > newer version of the VPK, everyone will be directed to the URL in the latest > version to download it. So if a site goes down (which really doesn't happen > often enough that it would be a nusaince), you just update the version in > the VPK and put in the new downloadurl. People will then have to redownload > the entire VPK but at least it will have the correct downloadurl.
This is true, but.... The crux of this is that this is just another example of valve shoveling the responsibility for something it should be maintaining onto the community at large. It would be really nice if valve would step up to the plate here and host the addon campaigns. Make a simple web app that accepts the VPKs, and perhaps even automatically sets the download url(s) in the package. Then the issues of volunteer maintained disjointed, and sometimes only partially working, sites is a non issue. Another issue is the lack of built in compression in this format. For christ's sake, incorporate zlib, gzip or bzip2 compression into the file format. A standard zip file is achieving approx a 70% reduction in file size here. Simply incorporate a decompression lib into the standard steam client so the players can download a 30MB file, decompress it in a second or two and start using it. For sure, gzip and bzip2 are GPLed open source, so simply including a compiled version of the chosen library in steam is free and no violation of the license (as long as they don't modify the source code, and there would be no reason to). Obviously, this would greatly reduce the amount of bandwidth usage. This is so damned easy to incorporate, it's rather frustrating that it wasn't done 10 years ago. Actually, it's just plain stupid that it hasn't been done. Jay Deiman -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkpFQtoACgkQQ0lr+ZVKSBiJtQCglT+XqHpGHWUO4gubX4WLO/D6 9VwAoIAZGWUDhZrcfSFz3U2zszS7YraC =qvj6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
