Thanks!

[Taiyoumaru]

So I finally got around to using this account to post something on here. Real life has kept me busy but soon enough I can finally start playing some CNC online with real people to get my ass handed to me until I'm out of scrub tier.

 

I just wanted to say, thank you CNCNet team. Been a long time fan, always wanted to show my appreciation. The effort you guys made through these years in keeping these games afloat really is something for the gaming history books. Truly, if anyone were to ask me "where can I get a definitive version of CNC X?" I would point them towards this place without any hesitation. No actual developer effort has even come close. I've almost completed for the first time ever a campaign run of the entire Red Alert 1 game, that I could never find when I was a kid, especially in such an awesome version. Going through my backlog of games has always been tedious when old games just don't run as well or at all on newer systems. But you guys came through. Not only can I play any old CNC game on my PC, but I can do so knowing that I'm not missing out on the entire experience, all the music tracks, the FMVs, bugfixes, whatever, you guys made it happen and I will always be thankful.

 

That said I did want to ask, is there really any need to split the installers instead of a unified one per game? I recently tried getting a mate of mine into RA1 as he was super stoked to hear about this place, but when he downloaded the game, he found out that singleplayer was missing completely. I was very confused when he told me this, even had a go at him for being dumb, since last year when I downloaded it from this place, I got the entire game with movies and that awesome launcher and everything. So I got home and it took me a while to discover that since last year the installs have been split into single and multiplayer! But not before it took me forever to see that the middle download button doesn't actually mean what I thought it initially meant (installs for other system types), but actually linked to single and multi installers. Sadly my friend had the wrong idea and now he doesn't feel like trying again even after I found out and explained the difference. So I just wanted to ask why the need for confusing separate installers, when it could just as easily be done through 1 installer where you pick your choices like it was last year. If the concern is saving bandwidth, surely simply having a toggle for the movies which are by far the largest files, is enough?

 

I just feel like since CNCNet is already offering the premiere/current definitive version of these games, that they should be presented as whole entire games like other definitive versions, with options regarding the install only be given in the installer per se.

 

Also a small sidenote, I decided to check out the singleplayer TD installer and it only links me to Nyerguds site. When I got his version off his site, the CNCNet version included was older than the current one and it wouldn't connect at all to the servers. So I messaged Nyerguds about it and he told me it takes a lot of effort to always be on the ball updating his installer with the newest CNCNet, since you guys seem to be working a lot on it and there's always an update that might or might not be incompatible. So you can see that in this case specifically, not only are the single and multiplayer versions separated by installers, but there's actual differences between them with CNCNet, leading to a person who might have initially downloaded TD for the singleplayer to be confused as to why the multiplayer isn't working at all, potentially making them think that's how the situation is overall.

 

Ultimately these are just minor nitpicks on my part but I really think it would be a much more elegant solution to have 1 version per game that you are maintaining for both the single and multi folks, especially if upgrades for the games' code or music or w/e come along.

 

Also this totally looks a lot better:

https://gyazo.com/e18265b68e9dcb26c26701b6c25524b4

 

Than this (with the exception of the settings icon):

https://gyazo.com/5dba40e7b443b9147fac93eda200f68f

 

Notice how ugly the "singleplayer button" looks in the second picture, all alone squished at the top there, like an afterthought?

 

Again, thank you for your time and all your hard work, I shall soon contribute as best I can, and sorry for being so annoying. Here's to many more years of CNC goodness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FunkyFr3sh]

Yes, we need to merge it all into just 1 single download. Our linux/mac versions already got that somewhat done, those come with a additional launcher where you can select the game first, if the game is not installed, it will install it. Same will be done for windows too at some point, of course, it can also download the campaign then.

 

Takes some effort to get it done though, one big problem is the fact that different people work on each installer...

 

The new mini installers are not only small, but also work on linux/mac and have a few extras we needed. I will get rid of my old RA1installer and merge it with the new mini installer at some point. Not sure if nyerguds and tore would want to do that though

 

Here is how it looks on linux: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5by5H1Q2PxEU1NmZENBaEU4VlU/view

 

Here is the launcher that should work on windows too: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5by5H1Q2PxEX3FEbm5ZNFV3c1U/view

 

You can build it up on your own already by now, takes a few steps if you like to have the campaign available though. (I will make a new better launcher later, this was only made quickly for linux)

 

 

 

Not sure what nyerguds was talking about, we only had 1 update in 5 years... I'm pretty sure he did that update, will have a look into it to see why it's not working atm. Thanks for reporting

 

 

Oh, and the look of the launchers was changed because of linux too (there were problems with the background image)

 

 

 

Edit:

 

Playing online doesn't work for me either with nyers installer. It looks like the problem is related to a change tore did (he forced https on the server). That means nyer has to update the file in his installer, can't really do anything about it.

 

You can get the latest cncnet5.exe here if you like to update it on your own meanwhile:

http://downloads.cncnet.org/cncnet5.exe

 

[Taiyoumaru]

Have you considered a client approach like Steam for instance. You download the CNCNet client and through it you can install any of the supported games. This would also help with having multiple CNCNet installations. And within the client you could add or remove features from each of your games, like movies, music, community maps etc.

 

I totally realize what I'm saying is a ton of work, but it sounds really cool hehe.

[Nyerguds]

Playing online doesn't work for me either with nyers installer. It looks like the problem is related to a change tore did (he forced https on the server). That means nyer has to update the file in his installer, can't really do anything about it.

Fixed.

[FunkyFr3sh]

Have you considered a client approach like Steam for instance. You download the CNCNet client and through it you can install any of the supported games. This would also help with having multiple CNCNet installations. And within the client you could add or remove features from each of your games, like movies, music, community maps etc.

 

I totally realize what I'm saying is a ton of work, but it sounds really cool hehe.

 

That's how it works, you download 1 file and get access to all games. It will never have auto-start on windows though, will also never run sneaky in the background and cause a high cpu load like steam.

 

Playing online doesn't work for me either with nyers installer. It looks like the problem is related to a change tore did (he forced https on the server). That means nyer has to update the file in his installer, can't really do anything about it.

Fixed.

 

cool