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Nicholas_Steel wrote:
Also for those that suggest a Torrent to aid the HTTP download, that won't work. Why? Well the GGPK file is different depending on what patches were applied to it in the past and then you have people using the GGPK Defragmenter program too! Torrent would only work if everyone's GGPK file was in the same condition as everyone elses's.
At least, you'd think that would be an issue. You could obviously distribute a torrent that just mentions the updated data (Instead of an entire copy of the GGPK file after the patch was applied) and the client will integrate it seamlessly in to an existing GGPK file regardless of the condition of the GGPK file.
GGG wouldn't even need to host the file the torrent file references as the Client will download the file via the existing HTTP infrastructure and then seed portions that have completed being downloaded via HTTP so that new customers can download speedily even when the HTTP servers themselves are burdened/at capacity. (I believe Blizzard handles it this way)
GGG would obviously need to integrate or create Torrent support in to the Client though and I doubt that's high priority :P They'd also need an option to disable the P2P/Torrent portion of the Client for players who have shitacular Modems/Routers.
I could be wrong here but all my programming and development knowledge indicates that it would be silly for GGG to be doing that kind of patching. In simple terms the patch is actually a file or series of files with a set of instructions to the client/patcher about what to do with them. Downloading the patch is just a HTTP stream of one or more files which your client follows the instructions and deletes old files from the GGPK file and adds the new ones or it might even just modify existing files. It may not even insert the file in the GGPK rather just put the correct file in the correct location. This works similar to when you drag a file into a zip file that already has the same name as one already in there. The fragmentation of the archive/packfile has no impact on this.
The only real barrier is that the client needs to be able to do torrent stuff. Or be able to call the torrent application you have installed and tell it to download the patch.
In the short term a torrent file or magnet link with the web-seed could just be posted on the forum for those that want to use that method. And Instructions about where to put the patchfile so the client can access it the next time you start it up.