UWE, please do mappers and modders a favor...
hozz
Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172660Members
Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172660Members
... improve the auto download (as far as you can) 
With the added emphasis of NS2's modability lately, a prerequisite is that players can actually try maps and mods hassle free.
If mods don't "just work", it can greatly reduce the amount of players getting in contact with custom content.
Initial hurdles, however small they may seem, usually scare a lot of people away.
Which brings me to the point: NS2's custom content auto download is not very good.
"missing required mod"
"error code 16"
"file not found"
"server mod is out of date"
Anecdotally, 50% of connection attempts to modded servers will end in some kind of error for me. Funnily enough, a subsequent reconnect usually works.
I realize most of these are probably Steam workshop issues, or server configuration issues, or have valid technical facts behind them. But anyways:
These don't seem to be problems that are inherently un-fixable, or can't be attenuated.
Please make the auto download more robust, so it is more pleasant for players (especially new ones) to use. It should "just work" as much as possible. I believe this can help the mapping and modding community greatly, and in the end NS2's longevity.
With the added emphasis of NS2's modability lately, a prerequisite is that players can actually try maps and mods hassle free.
If mods don't "just work", it can greatly reduce the amount of players getting in contact with custom content.
Initial hurdles, however small they may seem, usually scare a lot of people away.
Which brings me to the point: NS2's custom content auto download is not very good.
"missing required mod"
"error code 16"
"file not found"
"server mod is out of date"
Anecdotally, 50% of connection attempts to modded servers will end in some kind of error for me. Funnily enough, a subsequent reconnect usually works.
I realize most of these are probably Steam workshop issues, or server configuration issues, or have valid technical facts behind them. But anyways:
- There's no reason for these error messages to be so cryptic. These don't help players at all figuring out what the problem is.
- When joining a server with a lot of mods, the auto download will abort after a certain number of downloads. Only repeated reconnects will finish all downloads and finally get you on the server. There's no reason for this in the first place - have mods download in order instead of all at the same time, whatever it is, please fix it.
- It's stupid having a custom map server running and 20 players on it, only for half of them (or everyone) to randomly drop out on a map change (various error messages). Even if it's just a server misconfiguration. These players have successfully joined the server already, so what is going on? That's not the impression they should get of custom content.
- If a server mod is out of date, maybe people still have a good reason to play it. Why shouldn't they be able to?
- The loading screen should show what mods are being downloaded, and a progress bar/file size info thingie for each. Staring at "downloading mods", not knowing what is happening, is bad. (people shouldn't be expected to use the console)
- While we're at it, a disconnect button on the loading screen wouldn't be too wrong
(people shouldn't be expected to use the console)
These don't seem to be problems that are inherently un-fixable, or can't be attenuated.
Please make the auto download more robust, so it is more pleasant for players (especially new ones) to use. It should "just work" as much as possible. I believe this can help the mapping and modding community greatly, and in the end NS2's longevity.
Comments
You don't know how many times I missed a slot because of that.
Let me guess, fixed in a patch released tomorrow.
Funny you would suggest that...
Hopefully fixes people issues, these errors happen particularly often to AU users. At least I notice us complaining and reporting it more often.
This helped me with missing required mod.
Yes fixing these issues should be high priority. A failed example would be when .vpk was introduced in L4D2. What a joke, "this server is running a map you don't have, please visit [this] link to download it and install it manually".
I tried that fix after seeing it in a Skyrim forum, I don't get the error too often anymore but it doesn't eliminate it entirely.
When a mod is updated on the workshop, a client will update to the latest version when they join a server running it (including map changes) or at startup as well if subscribed. The workshop doesn't support downloading an old version.
So does the server. Until it catches up, the client and server will be out of sync between the time of a mod update release to the time of the next server restart or map change.
Meaning, the server mod is out of date (the client is running a later version) and because of that, cannot join for the same reasons the latest NS2 client cannot join old NS2 servers (things could break bad!).
Sewlek has implemented the feature into his balance mod. Checks if the server has been empty for a while (5 minutes I think) and then changes the map so mods can be updated.