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Map Manager Form
Re: Re: Re: Re: Single player for MM ? and a suggestion.
Posted by rd on Wednesday January 2003 9:06:58pm from 65.94.228.xxx ID: 32
hi again,
:As I currently understand it, the pk3 file is a compressed archive, and in order to install it you just place the pk3 file into a certain folder in the games root folder.
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well either "gamedata\some_folder" or directly in the "gamedata\base" folder.
The advantage to having a subfolder instead of puting it in the "GameData\base" folder is to have a specialised config and saved games for that particular map (keys, video res and such). Wich perso i think is the best way to go. it keeps your main folders clean of debry when your done with the map.
:Can you also install the pk3 file by unzipping it into other folders in the games root folder which in turn would speed up the level loading process as no decompressing is required but taking up more room on the hard drive?
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if i understand what you mean, yes you can extract the content of the pk3 files but its highly unusual, the pk3 file should remain intact and go into a subfolder with any other files contained in the zipfile.
its compressed so the game doesn't take so much room on the harddrive (2.5gig for ut2003!).
But since they're only user made maps, the real pk3s that would need to be extracted are the ones installed with the game.
And even then you'd need to defragment your hard drive right after to place them contiguously and that just isn't MMs job, its up to the user, and that would only give a negligeable boost, you'd probly shave off a small percentage, like 3-5 seconds over the 20-30seconds it usually take to load the game without the user made map.
But i don't think that's MM job or that you need to worry about since most game players have fast computers. Maybe in a version far far away from 1.5 like you said, but even then its highly unusual, i mean if the computer needs that just to load the game, imagine how poorly it runs the game ? lol
:If that is the case then adding the support for the pk3 file format would not be to difficult, as the pk3 files are structured in such a way to be ready for loading, so the install part would be an easy extracting process.
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exactly, just extract pk3 file from the downloaded zipfile to its own or the base folder as per the readme's instructions, then run the game with the proper command line arguments to load the map and start playing. Again as per the author's instruction if he/she chooses to include them. But i dont know if the pk3s that go into the base folder would work in a subfolder of its own ? I'm not fully versed in that area to help. Thats why i'm looking for a maploader to help me out ;-)
There's just so many command line arguments and options, its hard to keep track of them just to play a game. The game makers should just change the way games are loaded from the command line, i mean, when i want to open a text file, i either double-click it or drag&drop it on notepad and it opens it no questions asked. it should be that simple!
Hey there's a neat idea! : Why not have MM associated with game files so that when double clicked MM would do its thing and launch the game with the map ?
How genius is that! lol
:Which way do most people install pk3 files, just drag and drop the pk3 file or unpack the pk3 file and place the files in there folders?
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like i said, it depends on the author, where they want the files to go, its usually says in a readme.txt file, either a subfolder or "GameData\base" folder.
:On another note, I also download my files to defined folders, depending on the game the archive is intended for, but I also know a good few people who don't.
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oy! i wouldn't want to be the one to cleanup their hard drive lol
well its really no big deal, i mean they have to put the download somewhere right ? might aswell be now when the file is ready for download rather than when all files are downloaded and jumbled up when MM starts. its either sort now when the download is starting or sort later all jumbled up.
guess they'll just have to adapt, its not such a big deal. Or they can manually set the info for each map. think "properties" for maps, just like the properties for a file in explorer. Or list them all and let the people right click a bunch of them to set them to use a particular game and type (save the info in a cachefile). Like a filter for games. They say : i want to play something in ut2003, click the dropdown list, select the game, and the maps filter out any that don't work in ut2003. any map that hasn't been filtered or associated with a game, can also be included in a separate window so they can try to use it with the game.
But i would highly recommend they use the folders method. it is far less work. Just set your download manager to download the file into that folder, and let it do the work. Then MM can scan that folder every few seconds for new content (or use that feature of explorer's to display new files when available, acdsee has it too) and ask if you want to play the map when its downloaded.
I'm sure that would give them incentive to sort the zipped maps by game and genre. Just set your download and wait for MM to ask you if you want to play it. simple.
:Currently I would go for a single install instead of multiple installing of archives, and inform the user that the file being installed is being installed for a specific game, getting the root folders for games should be easy enough as most games do store it in the registry, with the option for advanced installing, which will also multiple installing and will only warn the user what
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