Eve Launcher getting an overall, check the details on this Dev Blog.
Hello everyone, this is CCP Aporia reporting in from Team Special Circumstances where we are currently working hard on improving the EVE launcher.
The current situation
As you have probably noticed there haven’t been a lot of changes to the EVE Launcher since its original roll out. This is partly down to the team having been somewhat restructured, now consisting of CCP Atropos, CCP Aita and my humble self.
The other reason is that we were not completely happy with some things related to the EVE Launcher and how it handles certain situations. It is at times a bit cumbersome when it comes to updating the EVE client – how many of you had to download a full client install because the EVE Launcher patching failed? Quite a few according to our statistics! Combined with our own desire to be able to push out EVE client updates more frequently and reliably, we have decided to go back to the drawing board and rethink some of the things we are doing; trying to find ways on how to improve the overall user experience.
So, what do our plans entail? In short and among other things we are working on improving the self-update mechanism for the EVE Launcher, as well as its ability to download and update your EVE client, integration with digital distribution platforms like Steam and support for multi-box and test-client installations. Wow, that is quite a list, so let me focus this dev blog on what is probably going to be the most controversial change we are making at the moment. But do not worry, we will provide more dev blogs about our other plans as well as upcoming changes in the near future.
You are doing what?!
After careful investigation of a lot of different distribution and update mechanisms we have decided to base the EVE Launcher’s future download mechanism on the widely used and battle-tested BitTorrent protocol. The main reason why we are doing this is that BitTorrent itself can utilize a number of different transport channels at the same time and is thus less prone to failing on that level. Our current mechanism is built on HTTP 1.1 only, which is a protocol that was not designed for transferring large amounts of data. Sure, it does support partial file transfers through something that is called the Range header, but this header is not always passed through all the way from your internet access point to our servers. This then corrupts a file in your client and, if this happens while running the Repair Tool, it can completely corrupt your client. With BitTorrent we do not have this problem as it can run on top of a number of different protocols. Furthermore the protocol does a double validation of transferred data, ensuring that it is actually what we wanted to download and not some digital garbage. Eventually it is also possible to prioritize files over others when downloading which opens up a whole lot of possible future improvements to the user experience – for instance the ability to create your character while the game is still installing.
Well, don't worry.
Anyway, enough about the technical reasons behind this change, it’s time to address some of the potential concerns you might have. You might be worried about us “stealing” your internet bandwidth. This is a valid concern, especially since there are enough products out there which silently do or used to do this. Now, it is part of the BitTorrent protocol that every participant in the distribution network gives and receives data, and this is something we cannot really change. However, there are ways to limit this, and by default the new EVE Launcher will only make you share the data required for installing the client while you are downloading; once your download is complete you will not be distributing it to others, unless you explicitly enable this in the options – after all it might be useful for sharing the installation across your local network. We are also, by default, limiting the upload rate so that it should not affect your normal internet usage. This can be adjusted within the settings, should you wish to do so.
With this change you should be able to experience more reliable and potentially faster updates or repairs of your EVE client installation. We plan on rolling this out onto a test server near you within the next few weeks (watch the test server feedback forum for an announcement!) so that you and we can gather some more experiences with and valuable feedback about the new way of distributing and updating your client.
- CCP Aporia
[ Original Dev Blog announcement]
Can someone help translate this?
If I understood it correctly, CCP's devs are going to start scanning your computer for nudy pics of your wife/gf and upload them via bit torrent for their own personal use.
At the same time, you'll be downloading nudy pics of Shadoo sucking Soundwave cock
All nude pictures on your computer will be available to the whole Eve player base in a later update.
Sounds good. Nothing brings a community together like nude pics. At least thats what my FC said to me the other day
On a more serious note, it means less failed installations due to bad data transfer, possibly faster download speeds, and still playing parts of the game (fitting ships in station, character alterations, etc.) while installing the updates.
…also more nudie pics of you gf.
Maybe the next launcher will remember its settings so that we don't have to go back in and recheck "only display the launcher when there is an update" and "close the launcher after starting the client" every single time the launcher is updated.
This makes me lol. I still remember retarded devs decision to discontinue Torrent tracker for EVE client (~2 years ago?).
Technology changes fast. Two years ago, BitTorrent might have been the wrong choice. Or maybe they didn't have the knowledge on staff to do it right.
BitTorrent will probably double your download rates unless you were right next to CCP's servers to begin with.
Jesus Christ Riv you had 10 words to get right…. ONLY 10
Its OVERHAUL … not Overall
No, the launhcer is also getting a nice new pair of blue striped "engine man" overalls. It is going to be quite spiffy!
Actually its Overhaul.If you are going to correct him
Capitalization was for emphasis. Your "correction" is also incorrect because overhaul is not capitalized in this instance, as it is neither at the beginning of the sentence nor is it a Person, place or thing's title.
So in conclusion, go play in traffic.
LOL and then i go and capitalize Person …. …. derp
just stop
so basicly i don't have to install update, restart pc, run repair tool, restart pc again and then launch eve. but i can just update eve, then play it?
sounds cool if it works…
that's going to be fun. Some ISP totally throttle Bit Torrent.
Agreed. And to put a cherry on top of that, more and more ISPs are doing deep packet scans specifically to throttle down torrent users. Here I was hoping this dev blog was a joke, but its not April yet.
Wouldn't they lose common carrier status if they deep-scanned packets? Also, can't you just use BT over SSL? I believe it'd be illegal to scan SSLed packets as well.
Uhmm I hate to break this to ya but deep packet inspection died when BT introduced encrypted endpoints. This with radon entry ports added to the tracker may ISP blocking pointless and frankly only an idoit ISP would bother trying it … as a matter of fact most major ISPs have completely abandaoned the concept
BitTorrent technic is the way every downloader program should work. Change your ISP if it's mad enough to limit it.
Not everyone has the option to change ISPs.
Stop working on bullshit and fix eve
Sounds grand.
Kind of surprised the launcher doesn’t already use BitTorrent; most other launchers already do.
p.s. nudie pix
What I'd really like to see is a dedicated test server launcher (or something similar).
It's really good for getting our new guys up to speed in fleets without the risk of losing their precious new t1 cruisers. Some of them just feel a bit uncomfortable with installing it.
The Sisi launcher has been around for ages, Before the current Eve launcher was around by a long way.
CCP – "What else isnt really broken that we can fix?!?!"
Do you really think network programmers are at all the same as game programmers? 'Cause web developers prolly don't write reports…
Sadly if you have experience with world of warcraft, this is the norm. It works very well and will alow them to eventually have the latest patch downloaded to your pc before you need it