The more i am reading these forums the more I realise how unfinished the game was when it was released. I am sure that GPG would have loved to have all these features (like the map vault) out on release but for various reasons was unable to.

I personally cant wait for the hundreds of custom maps that will be about but well all just need to be a bit more patient and believe GPG when they say things are on the way!

oh and LOL

que the "DONT YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!" post

In response to liqwidstyx, this is not a bash or taking for granted the AWESOME job modders have been doing.

But my opinion is Modders should Enhance a game, but should not have to "FIX" known issues, balancing and bugs just to bring the game up to Par.

Hmm, well, I know you meant well, but your gonna have to stick your foot in your mouth on this one. Prime is the creator of the 4th dimension mod, so I'm pretty sure he knows about the two mod forums.

No reason for us to get all up in arms. We all just want supcom to be the best it can and to spread it's mods far and wide.

The next GPG patch? That's for the client right?

This is a popular request but is not likely.

Unlike SC or War3 where maps are automaticallly downloaded, SC maps and mods are not a few hundred K. They can be tens of megabytes. Players would be unlikely to be very happy waiting for 4 or 5 people to download a 30mb map or mod to start their game. We've taken a different approach partially for this reason with The Vault, as I think you'll see. We may provide options in the future for people to lownload the map needed for a game they want to join, but bear in mind the game creator can change that map at any time; it's not a part of the lobby creation process as I believe it is for SC.

honestly I know who OP is and the work he has done. I didnt realize he was the OP but my post still stands. GPG has done a ton to support the modding community.

Fair enough, the size is definitely causing a problem there. I don't think there's a way around that one

Plan B then.
Myth TFL and Myth II: Soulblighter (two of the greatest RTS games of all times, and still alive after decades) both don't allow users to automatically load a mod cause just like in Supcom, some of their mods might take up anywhere for a few kb up to gigs of space (basically campaign expansions). What they do is they tell you exactly what mod and map the hosted game is currently running and the lobby won't let you join the game unless you have that. In Supcom, a player who is denied access to the custom games can be send right away to the mod/map vault entry for that mod and given the opportunity to download it.

I'm guessing that's sort of how you guys are planning to do it.

i sure know these forums and watch them nearly every day i have time to. And i also wrote a thanks thread to the developers for their great help a while ago. But now it comes the time where i realised that all this awesome help is useless without such a auto download feature.
Did you ever saw people playing a mod online? There are tons of cool mods (and crappy mods) and the developers help all modders to create them, but what uses us a mod, if we cant play it online?
So all i want is to put this problem some places higher, so the developers understand how important it is.

Ok fair enough... But there are altrenitives.

There are a total of 4 options suggested down below. highlighted with arrows.




but is it posible to make it a P2P map downlaoder.. im sure every one knows how Bittorrent works.
ill do a quick example for others that dont know.

Ok One Example. With out the maths.
host has 100% of the map and starts to upload the map to P2.
P2 starts to upload what player to has of the map to P3.(P3 starts the upload to P4)
lets say P2's internet is slow at uploading to P3 but has downloaded the map. the host who has uploaded the map to player 2 now starts to upload to player 3 as well untill player 3 has the map. then player "host" player 2 and player 3 are uploading to player 4..
and this will happen to all of the players download much much much faster even if every one has an average internet speed.

Maths... Should be correct..Correct me if i am wrong. this is the best way of explaing this, that I could think of.

In theory if the host uploads at 20KB/s with a 10MB file to upload to 8 players would mean approx 9mins of uploading per person 8 person map
would mean at least 1 hour of uploading.. there would be no way for that to work for one person to uploading at a time.
This is with a tiny map with out any scripts.

But with the P2P method
"Host" uploads at 20KB/s
P2 uploads at 10KB/s
and P3 uploads at 45KB/s (this would be limited to 10KB/s because you cannot upload faster than what your downloading unless it spreds out to all other players: 10KB/s to P4, 10KB/s to P5, 10KB/s to P6 etc..etc.)
There are 5 other players in the game waiting.
As you can see this is already complicated enough

Ok the math.
10MB file would be transfered to P2 in 9 mins(given above) during that time P2 is uploading to P3 during those 9mins P3 would in theroy have about 50% of the map once the host has transfered 100% of the map to P2
Also During that time sine P3's upload is so fast the other players will be getting the map as fast as P3(asuming the others internet speed is fast enough also shown above.)
now since P2 has 100% of the map now the host will be uploading at 20KB/s + P2 10KB/s to P3 (because P2 has the same map.)
Therefor 5MB @ 30KB/s is just under 3mins.
After that the Host, P2 and P3 upload is combined to ~75KB/s to help the other players finish the map. (+ the other players will be distributing the map between each other)

Insted of 2 people reciving the map in ~18mins,
It is reduced in theroy to ~12mins.
I do also know the maps are much bigger but also i know there are people with insanely fast internet speeds (~400KB/s upload ~ 10MB Download) personally my internet max speed is ~27KB/s upload and ~180KB/s download.
which is what the ISP's call 1500/256 or 1.5 megabit.

So also is there is a really popular map for example the R2 map (I dont know what it is called). 3 out of the 4 people have the map the theroy max speed of all the uploaders is ~60KB/s and this map is (for some unkown reason) 10MB. 10MB @ 60KB/s then map should be downloaded in just under 3 mins.

and SoS im sure there will be people nice enough to promote there maps by hosting a game.. and allows people to join just to download teh map..
i see it alot in WC3 some one will host the latest DoTA for like 5 hours allowing hundreds of people get the map so they can play.

The reason I hold So strong to the peer downloading maps idea is becase about 20% of the people.. if they dont have the map they wont play that map no matter how appeling it looks.

final option is.. if some one wants to join a game and they dont have the map.. GPGNet could. open a box saying "you dont have this map would you like to download from the MapVault" player clicks "yes" and then the map is downloaded.. huzzah! then they can join this custom game with the custom map



I Also agree 100% with O-Prime.

wow looking at all this. the is the most i have written for a long time
There has been a few edits in this post.

There is nobody who want s to wait 10 minutes for a map.
Even 5 minutes is a long time.

The map vault is perfect as it is and we don t need peer to peer stuff in sucpom.
The only thing we would need is if you click on a game with a custom map it should automatically ask you if you want to download it, so you don t have to search it.

I just found out that you can use the vault from inside a game to download files, but do you need to leave and reenter the game, before SC notices that you have the file, or does it check the files every second?

IF it does check the file every second or so, the vault is ok, but if not, it is far from perfect because no one wants to leave and reenter a game only to see that the game is already full...

does anyone know?

It automatically notices. If it says you don't have it, and you think you do, you don't have the right version.

So when can we expect the mod vault?
Theroetically, it should be the same as the map vault, only that you allow scd files. Why does it need so long to make it?
Mods were and are the main reason why i like SC, but so far, i was only able to play 3 mod games and it was very hard to get some players.

After the next upcoming patch, the mod vault is the top priority of our Vaultist, tjones.

I hop eyou have seen with mods like Zone Control (which is a map/mod) that The Vault can serve very well to keep people current with the right versions of a mod. We'll be introducing even more features to help players ensure they have what they need to play in a game with the right maps and mods. We'll get there, and it won't take forever.

Thank you!



Thanks OP, for making this thread.

And finally....please don't let players join a game if they don't have the right mod/map.

Why can't we just allow players download a map while in a pregame lobby? Like automatically from the vault, if the host doesn't want to wait, he can just kick the guy downloading, same thing happens on SC/WC3 on bigger maps.

So far, I think the best way is to ask in general chat if anyone else has the mod/is willing to DL It, or to ask in the mod forums for other people to play with.

Where there is a will, there's a way

(mind you it would be nice if there was a more efficient way)

I dont get what the deal is about size. My mods are usually about 10KB if that, the custom map I made is 900KB. What 10MB? I havent seen it, zone control was 141KB.

HazardX's World Domination map is 20 MB.

Some WC3 maps were too big to transmit over Bnets inbuilt limit of 4MB. You always get bigger ones and they are hardly the rule.

but this does prove my point. the P2P does work in theroy.

I think that they should at least implement the option to do P2P downloading for maps and mods like WC3. Then at least we have the choice. So then when hosting a small map its easy.

Or maybe just have it so that when a person joins the game and doesn't have the map, it automatically downloads from the mod vault. That means you still have the convenience of auto downloading but you don't have to worry about the amount of time it takes to get the map since were using the GPG servers!

Anyhow we need something to help rather than going into a game and it saying "You don't have this map/mod". Then having to work out what map/mod it is and find it in the mod vault. Then trying to rejoin, only to find that it is full!

Necromancing for the win!

How? O_o