(advanced) patches and update creation

[stevenp]

most modern day online games have a feature called a "patch" or "update"

when you install the game it install 100% of the data on to your pc, but every time they want to make a change to something,
they create a patch, like for an example

"patch eternal legacy v1.03.A" patch i would change mana cost of fireball from 30 to 20

instead of ppl having to down load the entire game again (* which is 7 MB ) they would install the "patch" which would be only 1 or 2 KB and it could correct this

how would you make a patch?

[DilloDude]

What you could do if you were plannning a lot of stuff like that is to store the data in an external file. When the game loads, it reads the data out of the file. When you want to change those values, you just remake the file. You'd make a separate program to do this. Then people just download the file, and replace the one that is already there.

[stevenp]

thats exactly what im talking about !

now... how do i do that lol

is it easy? or difficult?

[DilloDude]

First create variables to store all the values. Try to make convenient use of arrays, to avoid having a large number of variables. Put them all in a save group. When you want to use it, check the variable eg:
mana -= storedData[fireball_cost];

When the game starts, use loadVars.

To set the variable, make a new 'game' which has boxes where you can enter numbers for each value. When it runs, it loads the vars and fills the boxes. You can then change the numbers in the boxes, which will also change the variables. Then have a save button that will use saveVars.

[stevenp]

hey thanks so much man!

your help is very much appreciated, and im sure everyone else will too once they see the next update will be like 500kb maximum

+1 for you