jsmith45
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A Note
First off a note. I will be discussing these ideas in the context of a DROD 4.0, but they would apply equally well to say a hypothetical 3.5 release.

The Problem
There are currently 2 active versions of DROD, namely 2.X, and 3.X. However there are no fewer than 6 installable versions: a demo and full version for each of KDD2, JTRH, and TCB. That is a lot, and can cause substantial confusion to new players, especially since KDD2 can be purchased stand-alone or as a Smitemaster selection, imported into either JTRH or TCB. Then JTRH can be downloaded into TCB, but only if you bought the standalone version, and have a CaravelNet membership.

That is not very easy to explain to a newcomer, and one can see why it is confusing. When the fourth DROD game is eventually released, the situation would become even more messy.

You may notice that I did not mention DROD: AE. That is because I (a recent newcomer) was never confused about that version. It's relation was always entirely clear.

A Possible Solution
Anyway, I have a possible solution. Please read the whole thing before formulating objections, since I might address them later in the post.


Solution Part 1: DROD 4.0

DROD 4.0 would have only one version of the executable. There would be no separate Demo version, and Full version, at least not as far as the executable is concerned. The executable when installed would identify itself in the start menu, and in game as merely "DROD 4.0" rather than the name of the new hold released along with it.

There would be two installers, one that installs DROD 4.0 with only a demo of the new hold, and the other that installs DROD 4.0 with the entire new hold. The sole difference between these two versions would be that one drod4_0.dat would contain only the demo, while the other would contain the new hold.

The demo installer would NOT name the shortcuts as "DROD 4.0 Demo", or anything like that. This is because the version with only the demo hold would permit in place upgrade to the full version, by way of downloading the full version of the hold via CaravelNet, if the user had purchased the full version. The existing hold upgrade mechanism should be able to handle this.

The nag screen and buy now link in the executable would appear only if the game cannot find a hold with a specific flag (indicating the full version) set.


Solution Part 2: The other official holds

OK. So I just described a technically relatively easy way to avoid needing two versions of DROD 4.0. That helps keep it from making the problem worse. To fix the problem requires also dealing with the older games.

When DROD 4.0 is released versions 2.X, and 3.X would stop being sold. Instead the holds could be purchased and downloaded into the game via CaravelNet, much like how JTRH can be downloaded into TCB. This would avoid the need of releasing a JTRH or TCB hold file, which would be a major piracy concern.

To avoid losing potential sales of these older holds to people who do not want to pay for CaravelNet, CaravelNet could grow a free membership tier which permits downloading purchased Caravel holds only. All the other features, including downloading free holds would be restricted to the paying members, to avoid cannibalizing CaravelNet subscriptions.

Now, though we should take a moment to be concerned about quality. As it is currently, JTRH is just not quite the same when played in TCB. I've not tried that, but from what I've heard, the main change that is not an improvement is the music is not the same.

That could be dealt with by redesigning the music system in DROD 4.0 in some fashion. Perhaps the music could be broken into style groups much like room styles, but applying to an entire hold, so that even the menu music is correct. There are other options too, but in any case, the music system could already use a bit of an overhaul anyway. For example, there is already a feature request for the ability to have holds play custom music without embedding the music into the hold file, but playing it if present, and falling back on default music if not, much like the room styles.

Lastly, we have the issues of the demo versions of the KDD2, JTRH, and TCB holds. Caravel would want to keep demo versions of those holds around so people would try them, and possibly buy them. They could be prepackaged with DROD 4.0, so the drod4_0.dat of both installers would contain the demos.

Alternatively, the demos could be downloaded via CaravelNet, much like purchased holds, but without requiring the purchase. Like with the demo of the new hold, when you buy a full version and download it, it will upgrade the demo hold in place using the hold upgrade feature.

In Summary
The end result would be a single executable used for all modern (post-AE) and non-RPG DROD. You can download any purchased Caravel holds in game, even without a paid CaravelNet subscription.

Thoughts? Would that work to keep thing simple? Do Caravel Staff or any players have objections? If so, what are the objections?

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[Last edited by jsmith45 at 09-29-2010 04:18 AM : More minor typos fixed]

Banjooie
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...

This is /brilliant/.

If you still have mod points, and you have not spent them modding the OP here upwards, what is wrong with you?

eb0ny
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This idea could easily be merged with the starter pack suggestion.

____________________________

Rheb
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At the risk of repeating what everyone else have said and are going to say, I can see absolutely no reason why this shouldn't be done. And thanks jsmith, this community really is in need of constructive ideas.

____________________________
Voligner is my very own DROD-like game. Please check it out!

12th Archivist
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This is a Good Idea(tm).

I give it my golden* stamp of absolute approval!

* Not actually made of gold.

____________________________
It was going well until it exploded.
~Scott Manley

Check out the DROD Wikia project here!

rman
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This is an excellent idea. Outstandingly excellent.

____________________________

Best quote ever (TSS ending spoiler):

Syntax
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Sounds perfect - I still get confused about the versions, and been playing for over half a decade

Moo
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This would be a great improvement. If the "engine" and the "content" could be split, and we could have one install/exe which could play all of the games (and demos) in the way they were intended to be played (correct music, title screens, etc)...

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[Last edited by Moo at 10-22-2010 05:24 PM]

Moo
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Bump, as 4.0 has been released, and with no obvious progress in this direction.

Jatopian
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They are, I understand, talking about this issue behind closed doors. I don't know how I feel about one executable, as the distinction between demo and full version is pretty clear even though DROD has handled it differently since Caravel's inception. The main thing that concerns me is all these things new people shouldn't be purchasing, although amusingly enough Plimus seems to have taken care of that unasked.

Edit: ??? What'd I say?

____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator

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[Last edited by Jatopian at 04-12-2012 12:05 AM]

Keiya
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I believe it is Danforth downmodding you. If they make understanding what you're buying easy, he can't get his challenge by selling DROD anymore!

____________________________
636th Trapdoor Replacer

Official Hold Progress:

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[Last edited by Keiya at 04-12-2012 12:24 AM]

mrimer
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Jatopian wrote:
Edit: ??? What'd I say?

Jatopian, I didn't mod you down here, but I've noticed that you've been prompting for explanations when you get downmodded. If we request the kids stop paying attention to modding, then let's follow suit. Based on observed precedent, I'm guessing that asking why people mod you down in each instance will simply garner more downmods from the masses.

Edit: Oh, let me respond to this FR also. Currently, it is non-trivial to structure the DROD data to install a full version directly on top of a demo version. We'll keep thinking about how to do this, though. Also, I hope it helps that one can play all the games from within a single (latest) game engine.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 04-12-2012 02:54 AM]

jsmith45
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Sorry for the late reply, but I'v been away from DROD for quite some time (and it took a while for any official response). I know this is certainly too late in the process for such changes to be made part of the 5.0 release either, but I thought it was worth having the developers think about this.

mrimer wrote:
Edit: Oh, let me respond to this FR also. Currently, it is non-trivial to structure the DROD data to install a full version directly on top of a demo version. We'll keep thinking about how to do this, though. Also, I hope it helps that one can play all the games from within a single (latest) game engine.

Really? That claim really surprises me. The DROD executable is virtually identical between the demos and the full releases. The main difference is the data.dat and drod#_0.dat files. Obviously you know that already. :-D

I suppose in retrospect it is obvious what the issue is. The identifier numbers of the built-in data won't automatically match up. The result would be the save data associating things with wrong rooms or even wrong holds. That is the classic problem of surrogate keys in a database. Darn.

Even so I hope some progress gets made.

mrimer
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jsmith45 wrote:
I suppose in retrospect it is obvious what the issue is. The identifier numbers of the built-in data won't automatically match up. The result would be the save data associating things with wrong rooms or even wrong holds. That is the classic problem of surrogate keys in a database. Darn.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. We've had a couple people make attempts at implementing an auto-merge process, but nothing has really come of it, afaik.

Fortunately, to address the other point: DROD 5.0 *will* support and feature all of the previous games, skins, music, etc., so this will be *the* definitive place to do all things DROD. No more multiple installs required in order to see and hear everything from previous versions.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 01-05-2014 01:01 AM]

Pinnacle
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mrimer wrote:
Fortunately, to address the other point: DROD 5.0 *will* support and feature all of the previous games, skins, music, etc., so this will be *the* definitive place to do all things DROD. No more multiple installs required in order to see and hear everything from previous versions.

So ideally, the next step from there is to update KDD, JtRH, TCB, and GatEB to 5.0. After that, there could be a single 5.0 client, with demos of all 5 main holds included, and an in-game interface to buy the full versions. Buying the full version of a hold would just install the full hold into the main client, along with all the non-free styles.

____________________________
Once (adv.): Enough.
Twice (adv.): Once too often.
~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

jsmith45
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mrimer wrote:

jsmith45 wrote:
I suppose in retrospect it is obvious what the issue is. The identifier numbers of the built-in data won't automatically match up. The result would be the save data associating things with wrong rooms or even wrong holds. That is the classic problem of surrogate keys in a database. Darn.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. We've had a couple people make attempts at implementing an auto-merge process, but nothing has really come of it, afaik.

Fortunately, to address the other point: DROD 5.0 *will* support and feature all of the previous games, skins, music, etc., so this will be *the* definitive place to do all things DROD. No more multiple installs required in order to see and hear everything from previous versions.

Yes, I just read that, and was just about to reply to this post acknowledging it, when i saw you had replied. Since it took you over a year to reply to the FR initially, I had not expected you to reply so quickly this time .

The only reliable merge strategy I have ever had success with in similar circumstances is the export to some other format and re-import. That is actually mostly possible as an inplace upgrade strategy with DROD, given that import/export player and import/export hold functionality exists.

Anyway thanks for getting back to me on this.

The 5.0 feature described completely satisfies me personally.

That said, as pinnacle mentions, a single 5.0 download that includes all demos, with full versions unlockable via CaravelNet or license key, or something would be even better for new players.

But it sounds very tricky. Oh well. I'm now impatiently awaiting the release of TSS. So hurry up already.

mrimer
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Glad you're looking forward to TSS!

Yeah, I'm trying to prioritize in order for us to deliver TSS in a reasonable time frame.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

jsmith45
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mrimer wrote:

jsmith45 wrote:
I suppose in retrospect it is obvious what the issue is. The identifier numbers of the built-in data won't automatically match up. The result would be the save data associating things with wrong rooms or even wrong holds. That is the classic problem of surrogate keys in a database. Darn.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. We've had a couple people make attempts at implementing an auto-merge process, but nothing has really come of it, afaik.

Hmm... After digging deeper, it looks to me like a Demo to full upgrade might be feasible with only mostly trivial modifications to the current codebase, as long as it is done solely via CaravelNet. Using the full installer on top of the demo would never work.

(Succesful) Test of Concept.

As a test, I extracted the JTRH demo hold from the JTRH demo. I installed a brand new demo copy of GatEB on a machine that had never run it before. I then imported the JTRH demo hold. I played it (the JTRH demo in the 4.0 engine) to the end, and everything worked just as anticipated.

I then edited the hold's CreatedDate to match the Created Date of the official JTRH hold, so that both would have the game hold "guid". I also changed the Modified Date to match the created date, so as to ensure the official hold is seen as an upgrade.

Then I signed into CaravelNet (using my other form account), and found "Journey to Rooted Hold" in the list, and clicked download. It warned me that I was upgrading a hold, and I picked yes. The result was that the "Journey To Rooted Hold Demo" hold was gone, and the official "Journey To Rooted Hold" hold was in its place.

I ended up with all my room, level, and checkpoint saves intact, and all my demos still there. The only thing that missing was my current position save, but I was able to restore to the last checkpoint of the demo, but I could of course restore to any room start, level start or checkpoint of the first three levels.

Now the only reason this worked was because the demo hold was installed into holds.dat rather than the drod#_0.dat file, but I think that proves my point.

Implementation

But this does suggest a way of having a demo version that can be upgraded to a full version. Instead of shipping the demo in the drod#_0.data file, ship it as a loose hold file. That is not a big deal since the demos are free anyway. When the game starts up, it checks the hold.data file, and if it is empty, it auto-imports the demo hold.

Then upgrading to a full version can be accomplished via CaravelNet.

All supported with:
* one relatively minor code change for the client
* and a minor tweak to the CaravelNet server code so that TSS is not hidden in the list of CaravelNet holds in TSS if the user owns it.

It also requires making sure the demo "guid" is the same as the full game guid, and making sure the official holds modify date is greater than the demos, but those are not code changes.

Extra Credit

It would even be possible to ship the demos for all the games and have them auto-imported on first play. Supporting upgrades for these would be slightly more work, since the older games don't always have the same GUID for demo and official hold, and don't always have sensible ModificationTimes, but it ought to be possible to tweak the code that detects upgrades to handle these legacy cases.

The spitemaster
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The problem that you run into is hold information. (Music/Art) I suggest caravel key release. As to have all the information given with the demo copy but not all accessible. The electronic key would release the content to the player with the purchase. I as an untrained unlearned coder think that this would be easy and possible, but then again I don't really have any idea.

____________________________
Last night upon a stair
I met a man that wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would stay away

mrimer
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Yes, what you describe here makes sense. Thank you very much for the detailed write-up. Let me think this through a while regarding other potential ramifications.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

---

[Last edited by mrimer at 01-19-2014 09:55 PM]

Moo
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Does a demo need to be updated to a full version at all?
The "engine" download could come with all the demo holds. "Full version" installers could skip the demo for that hold, and just have the complete hold. When the player has a full game download available from caravelnet, this could be downloaded as a new hold, rather than overwriting or updating the existing demo. All that it would really need is an ID being set, either for the demo holds or for the full holds, basically saying "save demos/scores as hold x" to make full and demo holds appear the same. The actual IDs for the holds would remain separate. If people wanted to then delete the demo holds after downloading the full holds, they could.
This seems fairly straightforward, so am I missing something?

Moo
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So I guess I should have mentioned progress along with demos/scores... As long one hold (demo/full) has a way to basically override the ID so player data is actually associated with the other hold, I think it shouldn't be a problem.

jsmith45
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The spitemaster wrote:
The problem that you run into is hold information. (Music/Art) I suggest caravel key release. As to have all the information given with the demo copy but not all accessible. The electronic key would release the content to the player with the purchase. I as an untrained unlearned coder think that this would be easy and possible, but then again I don't really have any idea.

Well the game obviously ships with all ship all non-hold non-style specific graphics, or otherwise user holds would be broken. It also ships all non-hold specific sound effects for the same reason.

Hold-specific graphics and sound effects are downloaded from CaravelNet as part of a hold download.

Thus the only things that should be missing are style-specific graphics, and the music that goes with it.

Well, the DMF format actually allows music to be included with a style (although such a file may need to be manually crafted), and CaravelNet allows automatically downloading a DMF file for a style when missing.

So Caravel could create DMF files for the styles not included in the demo includiong the music, and set up the CaravelNet server to only list the offical styles if the player owns any game that includes that style. Thus when the full hold is downloaded, The missing styles and music get downloaded too.

None of that requires any real change to the Drod source code, except possibly the code for creating the initial drod.ini file, so that styles not included with the demo are not listed.

The biggest downside to all of this is that CD copies must not rely on internet access, which implies they must ship the full hold in the main .dat file. There may be support complications to that.

I'm mostly just hoping to make it easier for new players to try the game, decide they like it, and get playing, all without them feeling like they need to install all the game engines, possibly each in both a demo and a full version (should they choose to buy it) and to avoid them having the issue of having multiple player files that cannot be easily merged. (I'm sure many many of the forum members fell into that pit by mistake.)

tonyk
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mrimer wrote:

jsmith45 wrote:
I suppose in retrospect it is obvious what the issue is. The identifier numbers of the built-in data won't automatically match up. The result would be the save data associating things with wrong rooms or even wrong holds. That is the classic problem of surrogate keys in a database. Darn.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. We've had a couple people make attempts at implementing an auto-merge process, but nothing has really come of it, afaik.

Fortunately, to address the other point: DROD 5.0 *will* support and feature all of the previous games, skins, music, etc., so this will be *the* definitive place to do all things DROD. No more multiple installs required in order to see and hear everything from previous versions.

I know I'm late to this conversation but this is awesome. If this was the only new feature I would still beg you to take my money. Things are sounding great for TSS!

____________________________
Life is hard. DROD, harder.

mrimer
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Thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

Disclaimer: To avoid confusion, I need to mention that I'm not considering AE or anything earlier in the list of "supported skins". We will feature Erik's music, but in order to get the AE room style tile sets, you'll still need to install the AE 3.0 style mods. I'm planning on implementing a special import feature, however, so when you have these mods installed and you import an AE hold, it will automatically convert the 1.6 room styles in the hold to use the 3.0 style names.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 01-29-2014 08:37 AM]

RabidChild
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mrimer wrote:
Disclaimer: To avoid confusion, I need to mention that I'm not considering AE or anything earlier in the list of "supported skins". We will feature Erik's music, but in order to get the AE room style tile sets, you'll still need to install the AE 3.0 style mods. I'm planning on implementing a special import feature, however, so when you have these mods installed and you import an AE hold, it will automatically convert the 1.6 room styles in the hold to use the 3.0 style names.

So, this means as long as I have those styles installed, any AE hold I import will automatically use them? This sounds cool, but I'm concerned about what it will do to KDD 2.0.

mrimer
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KDD 2.0 isn't an AE (version 1.6) hold. It's a version 2.0 hold.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

RabidChild
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mrimer wrote:
KDD 2.0 isn't an AE (version 1.6) hold. It's a version 2.0 hold.

That's true, but I'm pretty sure it retains it's original AE Style IDs, judging by the fact that they map to different styles depending on which version of DROD it's imported into. TFMurphy explained it here. I could be completely misunderstanding how this works, of course.

Nuntar
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mrimer wrote: Disclaimer: To avoid confusion, I need to mention that I'm not considering AE or anything earlier in the list of "supported skins". We will feature Erik's music

Just to be absolutely sure, are you saying that AE music will be available for use in custom holds without having to install it in the hold file? Because, you know, that has been my #1 most desired feature request for a long time

____________________________
50th Skywatcher

mrimer
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RabidChild wrote:

mrimer wrote:
KDD 2.0 isn't an AE (version 1.6) hold. It's a version 2.0 hold.

That's true, but I'm pretty sure it retains it's original AE Style IDs, judging by the fact that they map to different styles depending on which version of DROD it's imported into. TFMurphy explained it here. I could be completely misunderstanding how this works, of course.

Ah, I had completely forgotten that we still used the numeric IDs for styles in 2.0. Please forgive an old, bearded man

However, that's probably okay -- my plan is only to perform this mapping for version 1.6 holds, and not version 2.0 holds.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.