They already have a system where, leading up to a patch, it will download the bulk of what is required after you leave the game. That spreads it out pretty well. The only time I have to wait an hour to download everything is when I install on a new machine and screw up the copying process.
When a new issue goes live, the incremental patch that is downloaded and updated is actually normally not that big to me.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
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it would take pressure off of the servers to could reduce lag ingame
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The servers you play on are not the servers involved in patching.
It would be of minimal benefit compared to the current system for a bunch of work. And there can be issues with torrents, of various natures. I admit I may be misremembering, but as I recall, didn't Blizzard have to change their torrent client a bit to fix a hack/viral issue with people abusing the bittorrent system?
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
As TonyV says, the pre-download for new issues takes out a lot of frustration of a new issue.
Have you not experienced this?
Intermediate patches come in pretty quickly. I find the "Applying" process to take longer, in most cases.
www.paragonwiki.com is a great source of information for this game.
New or returning to the game? Want advice from experienced players who want to help YOU?
The Mentor Project: Part of the New Player Council.
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As everybody knows.. it's a pain in the butt to wait 1 hour (or more) to download every new issue.
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Huh? I can't think of a single new issue that took more than ten minutes or so to download for me. It's always the "Applying" that takes 20-odd minutes. Is this a connection speed issue?
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
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I find the "Applying" process to take longer, in most cases.
[/ QUOTE ]Indeed. And the "Applying" process is similar to installing an application, so changing the way the patches are downloaded wouldn't affect that in the least.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Wow, you guys really tore this thing apart....onto the replies..
The applying process does indeed take longer, however with a torrent system in place. All you would need to do is start the updater, it downloads a file manifest.. and then confirms that the files are accurate.. and doesn't need to install or do anything of that sort. Say for example the CoH Test folder is up to date.. and a new issue comes out.. I will simply replace the City of Heroes folder with the CoH Test folder.. it will quickly check the files... and I'm up and running in minutes.
Patches would work as normal, you would still have to use the updater and all that.. but for big releases such as the new upcoming issue, providing a torrent will take stress off of the initial downloads. Yes, I speculated that spammed downloads on the system may influence gameplay... but it does stress the servers none-the-less.
Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is a good example of this. They thought their servers were amazing and could handle the stress, but as soon as they released a new video.. their server crashed. A torrent would take most if not all of the stress off of the server.
As far as it goes for updating after closing the game, I have experienced this... but it's just an extra hassle. As it updates and finds more files.. it takes up bandwidth and stresses my family that uses our security enabled wi-fi when all of the sudden it takes 3 minutes to load facebook. Not to mention, I don't like having unnecessary programs running that are just hogging memory.
The idea of torrenting the new updates would be to minimize time it takes to download and update a new patch. Sure, a fraction (say 65%) of you may update ahead of time, but some people either forget to do it, or leave it off till later. My best friend always forgets to update the second family computer to the most recent patch after an update, and I'm forced to play guitar hero while I wait an hour for it to download and install.
With a torrent, EVERYBODY will be able to download new patches quickly... it means more people in game after an update, it means less stress for those who don't have high-speed internets, and it means no more waiting for the new patch to apply. With the game wrapped up already preinstalled and updated, all you need to do is extract it and wait for it to check the file manifest.
Let me make this abundantly clear, all if not all of your responses are based on I myself. I myself update ahead of time. I myself am able to download it in 20 minutes. But You yourself is not the same as everybody themselves. Everybody has a different circumstances, and a torrent will accommodate for a wider population of the city of heroes gaming community, both in speed and efficiency.
As stated, there's already a system to update ahead of time. If someone chooses not to make use of it, I don't see why a second system should be implemented for their benefit.
Also, as previously stated, the longer portion of the time comes from applying, not downloading. Torrents do not address applying in the least.
The only way that this would possibly address the Applying portion of the update were if the entire update were available ahead of time in torrent form and were downloaded directly to the appropriate directories. This seems, underneath it all, to be what you want. There are, however, two major problems with this.
First, it requires reworking the way the CoH Updater currently functions, changing it from the current download & apply system to a torrent model. Extra design time for a problem that really doesn't exist except for those who choose to make it a problem by not updating in advance.
Second, it's very likely that hosting torrents in this way would actually slow the updating process or even set up a queue which would mean some players might be forced to wait before they could even begin to update. So it's kind of counterproductive in that way. On the other hand, if the update were available as a torrent from sites not hosted by NCSoft, now you've opened yourself up for crackers to repackage your torrent with all sorts of lovely malware.
In short - it's not broke, so let's not fix it.
Iscariot's Guide to the Tri-Form Warshade, version 2.1
I'm sorry that math > your paranoid delusions, but them's the breaks -- Nethergoat
P.E.R.C. Rep for Liberty server
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Not to mention, I don't like having unnecessary programs running that are just hogging memory.
[/ QUOTE ] The updater, by itself, doesn't take up much if any noticeable memory. If the issue is coming near, then it's not unnecessary to have it running. And considering it stops and shuts itself off when it's down downloading...
Seriously, switching to a torrent model in any way would not be worth it. Possibly if we had our numbers increase in a huge way (triple or more) then it might be worth it but not now. Especially since downloading and torrent traffic are different, and some people have serious issues getting torrents to work.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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All you would need to do is start the updater, it downloads a file manifest.. and then confirms that the files are accurate.. and doesn't need to install or do anything of that sort.
[/ QUOTE ]Not necessarily. The only people who would know whether the updater could reliably work without the applying process are the devs. It isn't a given that a torrent system would remove that need.
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it takes up bandwidth and stresses my family that uses our security enabled wi-fi when all of the sudden it takes 3 minutes to load facebook. Not to mention, I don't like having unnecessary programs running that are just hogging memory.
[/ QUOTE ]A torrent download would use more bandwidth than the current updater (as you would be uploading fileparts to your peers as you download the fileparts you don't have), and would use up computer processes just the same as the current updater.
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With a torrent, EVERYBODY will be able to download new patches quickly
[/ QUOTE ]Assuming you've got seeders, sure. I've torrented a lot of things in my time, both legal and illegal. If you've got hundreds of seeders, you can download hundreds of hours of video in just a few hours. If you've got a piddling seeder pool, it could take weeks to complete the torrent. Or worse, if there are no active seeders, you get stuck at X% completion with no end to the torrent in sight. I recall torrenting an anime movie last year and I was stuck at 96% for two months before someone came along to seed me the last 4% of my file.
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less stress for those who don't have high-speed internets
[/ QUOTE ]Torrents don't magically make your connection faster.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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Not necessarily. The only people who would know whether the updater could reliably work without the applying process are the devs. It isn't a given that a torrent system would remove that need.
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Actually, the only way the updater could work without having to do the applying process would be wholesale file replacement. So instead of downloading at most a couple of megs for a new costume, you would have download a new 30 meg or so file for EVERY LITTLE COSTUME CHANGE. A file that will only grow the more is added to it.
And that is just one of the two costume files (totaling about 50 megs between the two, right now) most of the other files are much bigger.
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Or worse, if there are no active seeders, you get stuck at X% completion with no end to the torrent in sight.
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To be fair - if someplace like NCSoft/Paragon Studios went to using bittorrent, there would be at least one seed at all times, from the servers.
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Torrents don't magically make your connection faster.
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[/ QUOTE ]In my experience, the opposite happens, in fact 
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
www.repeat-offenders.net
Negaduck: I see you found the crumb. I knew you'd never notice the huge flag.
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Wow, you guys really tore this thing apart....onto the replies..
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You post, they answer. Just because they don't agree with your opinion does not mean anyone is 'tearing' into anything.
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Let me make this abundantly clear, all if not all of your responses are based on I myself. I myself update ahead of time. I myself am able to download it in 20 minutes. But You yourself is not the same as everybody themselves. Everybody has a different circumstances, and a torrent will accommodate for a wider population of the city of heroes gaming community, both in speed and efficiency.
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All their responses can only be based on "you". What you are saying is that you think there might be people having trouble/complaints with the download process, and that the process should be changed for those people - even though there is no real evidence that they exist. The only person who we can reply to is you, not any of these Currently Fictional "Other People" .. and you don't actually HAVE any problems with the download.
Not that your proposed solution would actually fix it for them, though, even if it existed. Sorry, but "Torrenting" the updates would just be "Change for the sake of Change", it wouldn't actually be "Change for the better".
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
As stated, there's already a system to update ahead of time. If someone chooses not to make use of it, I don't see why a second system should be implemented for their benefit. - For the people who forget and don't want to sit around and wait for it to update.
Also, as previously stated, the longer portion of the time comes from applying, not downloading. Torrents do not address applying in the least.
- With city of heroes already previously updated to the most recent version at NC Soft, all you would need to do is get the torrent, download it.. and a file manifest would verify you have the correct files. I've done this multiple times to update to new versions. I don't know why I have to repeat myself, twice.
The only way that this would possibly address the Applying portion of the update were if the entire update were available ahead of time in torrent form and were downloaded directly to the appropriate directories. This seems, underneath it all, to be what you want. There are, however, two major problems with this.
- Umm, shoot and miss. The aim is for NCSoft to offer an ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVE (Just to make this clear) to using the CoH updater. You download all of the files, and replace only the appropriate ones with copy and paste. It's simple stuff, download, copy, paste.
First, it requires reworking the way the CoH Updater currently functions, changing it from the current download & apply system to a torrent model. Extra design time for a problem that really doesn't exist except for those who choose to make it a problem by not updating in advance.
- You they wouldn't need to rework it. This is meant to be an alternative for people that either have bad connections, don't want to wait.. etc etc. It would simply be a link on the official CoH site that would let you torrent the new update.
Second, it's very likely that hosting torrents in this way would actually slow the updating process or even set up a queue which would mean some players might be forced to wait before they could even begin to update. So it's kind of counterproductive in that way. On the other hand, if the update were available as a torrent from sites not hosted by NCSoft, now you've opened yourself up for crackers to repackage your torrent with all sorts of lovely malware.
- The only official link (which would be stated with a few lines of text both in the updater and online) would be as follows.
Hai! This is the new update, in torrent form! If you want to torrent the new update for fastliness, then click the link above. It is the only, and guaranteed safe link to do torrentz!
But of course, people are pessimistic... so let the pointless debate continue!
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Wow, you guys really tore this thing apart....onto the replies..
You post, they answer. Just because they don't agree with your opinion does not mean anyone is 'tearing' into anything.
How is emphasizing this relevant to the topic. All of the sudden there are 3 or 4 replies, with lots of things to defend. The idea of a debate is that you defend your argument, is it not?
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Not necessarily. The only people who would know whether the updater could reliably work without the applying process are the devs. It isn't a given that a torrent system would remove that need.
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Actually, the only way the updater could work without having to do the applying process would be wholesale file replacement. So instead of downloading at most a couple of megs for a new costume, you would have download a new 30 meg or so file for EVERY LITTLE COSTUME CHANGE. A file that will only grow the more is added to it.
And that is just one of the two costume files (totaling about 50 megs between the two, right now) most of the other files are much bigger.
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Or worse, if there are no active seeders, you get stuck at X% completion with no end to the torrent in sight.
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To be fair - if someplace like NCSoft/Paragon Studios went to using bittorrent, there would be at least one seed at all times, from the servers.
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Torrents don't magically make your connection faster.
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[/ QUOTE ]In my experience, the opposite happens, in fact
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Thanks for remaining slightly open-minded, it's reassuring since I'm thinking about never logging into this account again if the responses are always so pessimistic. I mean, how hard is it to remain open minded? 
Assuming you've got seeders, sure. I've torrented a lot of things in my time, both legal and illegal. If you've got hundreds of seeders, you can download hundreds of hours of video in just a few hours. If you've got a piddling seeder pool, it could take weeks to complete the torrent. Or worse, if there are no active seeders, you get stuck at X% completion with no end to the torrent in sight. I recall torrenting an anime movie last year and I was stuck at 96% for two months before someone came along to seed me the last 4% of my file.
The idea is that immediately after the release, people will be able to use a torrent instead. Say 40% of the community use the torrent, that's maybe 200 people or more, which means 200+ seeders. After the initial downloads, sure the seed count will go down.. but it's meant to get as many people in game, as quickly as possible after a large update. If people don't want to use the torrent, then that's fine. They can use the updater the game provides.
Admittedly though, I can see that malware could be an issue. The only solution I could see is that CoH emphasizes that the only official torrent link is on their website. Any other download source would be false and unsafe.
All their responses can only be based on "you". What you are saying is that you think there might be people having trouble/complaints with the download process, and that the process should be changed for those people - even though there is no real evidence that they exist. The only person who we can reply to is you, not any of these Currently Fictional "Other People" .. and you don't actually HAVE any problems with the download. <-- Quote
Well yeah, of course I don't have a problem... but I still think there is room for improvement. If people didn't try to improve things during the industrial age, we may not have light bulbs, cars, computers, televisions, telephones, telegraphs, cameras, iPods, and all of that fun stuff. If people decided to just be happy with they way things are, then things would never change. I'm sure history in most cases supports that fact. They didn't fix the stock market (which needed fixing) until it finally crashed. It put the world into shock, promoted dictatorships, and poverty spread. Not until after the war and after rebuilding did we finally put measures into place to prevent the market from crashing. If we realized things that needed improving before the crash, for all we know, WWII may not have occurred (It know it would have, Isolationism and things like that kept anybody from interfering with Hitler's rise to power).
I hope that makes my point evident enough.
Well, you floated your idea. This forum is for questions from players, to be answered by players.
If you think this is worth development time, bring to the Suggestions and Ideas forums, because this forum isn't a high-priority read for NC folk.
www.paragonwiki.com is a great source of information for this game.
New or returning to the game? Want advice from experienced players who want to help YOU?
The Mentor Project: Part of the New Player Council.
Shouldn't this be in the suggestion forum now?
This should absolutely be in S&I, surprised it hasn't been moved yet.
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As stated, there's already a system to update ahead of time. If someone chooses not to make use of it, I don't see why a second system should be implemented for their benefit.
[/ QUOTE ]For the people who forget and don't want to sit around and wait for it to update.
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Which doesn't address the point I raised in the slightest. Why should Dev time be spent to offer an alternative method when the one we have works just fine? "For people who forget and don't want to sit around" doesn't really fly for several reasons, not least of which is that your propsed alternatives calls for other players to support these lazy people by seeding full torrents of an update to them (meaning they'd have to be running something in the background while playing or doing whatever).
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Also, as previously stated, the longer portion of the time comes from applying, not downloading. Torrents do not address applying in the least.
[/ QUOTE ]With city of heroes already previously updated to the most recent version at NC Soft, all you would need to do is get the torrent, download it.. and a file manifest would verify you have the correct files. I've done this multiple times to update to new versions. I don't know why I have to repeat myself, twice.
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Repeating yourself doesn't somehow make your arguments stronger or more correct. Again, you've failed to address the problems with your idea. It's not as simple as "all you need to do is get the torrent, download it, and a file manifest" etc etc. The torrent only works if there's already a pool of seeders, otherwise it's basically just downloading, slowly, from the official NCSoft publish of the update. That certainly wouldn't be faster than the updater and would probably be slower.
The only ones who might benefit, in theory, would be those who came a few days late to the party and found a bunch of player seeders with complete updates who were actively seeding. Without those player seeders, this torrent alternative is going to be far slower than the regular way - and frankly, I don't see why anyone would choose this method when the updater is easier and likely safer. If enough people don't choose to use your alternative, it doesn't work for anyone.
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The only way that this would possibly address the Applying portion of the update were if the entire update were available ahead of time in torrent form and were downloaded directly to the appropriate directories. This seems, underneath it all, to be what you want. There are, however, two major problems with this.
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Umm, shoot and miss. The aim is for NCSoft to offer an ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVE (Just to make this clear) to using the CoH updater. You download all of the files, and replace only the appropriate ones with copy and paste. It's simple stuff, download, copy, paste.
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Wow, Caps Lock shouting. That certainly makes your arguments more convincing and not at all juvenile. You completely failed to address the points I raised which are problems with your alternative. If the alternative works out to be inferior to the existing method, there's no point to creating it at all. And so far, this is shaping up to be just such an inferior alternative. I honestly don't see a significant portion of the player base seeding copies of the new update just so other players who for whatever reason can't be bothered to use the updater can make use of this alternate method. And you can't use other websites because of the malware problem - meaning that it's NCSoft's publish and then other players.
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First, it requires reworking the way the CoH Updater currently functions, changing it from the current download & apply system to a torrent model. Extra design time for a problem that really doesn't exist except for those who choose to make it a problem by not updating in advance.
[/ QUOTE ]- You they wouldn't need to rework it. This is meant to be an alternative for people that either have bad connections, don't want to wait.. etc etc. It would simply be a link on the official CoH site that would let you torrent the new update.
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Fair enough. So the regular updater stands unaltered. I'll drop that point.
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Second, it's very likely that hosting torrents in this way would actually slow the updating process or even set up a queue which would mean some players might be forced to wait before they could even begin to update. So it's kind of counterproductive in that way. On the other hand, if the update were available as a torrent from sites not hosted by NCSoft, now you've opened yourself up for crackers to repackage your torrent with all sorts of lovely malware.
[/ QUOTE ]
The only official link (which would be stated with a few lines of ext both in the updater and online) would be as follows.
Hai! This is the new update, in torrent form! If you want to torrent the new update for fastliness, then click the link above. It is the only, and guaranteed safe link to do torrentz!
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Hopefully they wouldn't phrase it quite like that. 
Again, problems with this alternative being craptastically slow without a large population of seeders. In order to create those seeders a reasonably large number of people have to download direct from the NCSoft link (sloooooow) or update the regular way and then somehow function as a seeder after that. I don't see players doing this. I know I wouldn't.
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But of course, people are pessimistic... so let the pointless debate continue!
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If you don't want to address the problems in your idea, I suggest you either PM it directly to the Devs or keep it to yourself. If you post it on the forums, you're going to get criticism. You can dismiss that as "pessimism" and "pointless debate" if you wish, but that handwaving doesn't make the flaws in the idea disappear.
Iscariot's Guide to the Tri-Form Warshade, version 2.1
I'm sorry that math > your paranoid delusions, but them's the breaks -- Nethergoat
P.E.R.C. Rep for Liberty server
As everybody knows.. it's a pain in the butt to wait 1 hour (or more) to download every new issue. So I had a question for the devs, why not switch to or offer a torrent system? With enough downloaders, people could download every new issue in a matter of minutes. The same could be true for patches as well. I mean think about it. With all of the people that play CoH, people would download quickly, it would take pressure off of the servers to could reduce lag ingame, and completely safe. Since CoH requires an account and password, it would be safe to provide a torrent.. instead of a .zip file.
I know the restrictions of this come with the fact that the game is sold in stores, but you can already download the game on city of heroes. So why not be able to download it nearly instantly with a torrent?
I think it would be an amazing upgrade, and it would make many people very happy.