To pack or not?

Here's the thing, I don't know whether to pack my media into my exe or not. There's greedy people out there (*cough* like Puki) that will try to steal my media if it's available with the game itself.

Thing is, big commercial games usually make their own format or just include the models anyway. I have no idea why they don't pack it into the exe.

Any idea why?

Well, I can quite often get into packed stuff anyway.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think the thing about packing everything into an exe is that the entire exe is loaded into memory when run. This, then, wouldn't be an option if the program uses a huge amount (many MB) of media.

*cough* *cough cough* *COUGH* *AAAHHHOOOOOGGGAAAAHHH*

--Mike

Ok then, you're wrong. No, only the executable part of the exe is loaded into memory. The data section is loaded as required, just as it would be if it were external.



A few ideas. One would be that they want to build up a community of modders who develop new free content. It attracts people to buy the game if they think modding is fun and if they think using the extra free content makes the game better value.

Another would be issuing a patch. Which would you prefer to host? A 5MB patch which replaces a few pack files or a 500MB patch which replaces one huge exe? You'll note that most retail game publishers do not byte-patch, they file patch. I don't know why this is, but I'm assuming they have a good reason for it, such as it breaks things if it's interrupted, or perhaps it set off AV/spyware programs.

Anyway, that's a couple of ideas why it might be.

Having said all of this - the media that I take is hardly then distributed - I'm not making any games. My RPG is purely my own hobby and has no commercial value.

People can call me a stealing scumbag, etc. However, I am a pioneer on these forums for purchasing media and encouraging people to sell media for profit. I have bought a few hundred pounds worth of media from people in my sig and have spent £300-£400 on Turbosquid alone. Overall, I have spent in excess of £1,500 on media for a game I have no intention of selling.

*ahem... cough*

:)

--Mike

There ya go - shows what I know. lol. :P

That's why I like Molebox. No changes to the code, and the Pro version allows for incremental file updates. If you set up your Moleboxed .exe right, it'll load art from, for example, graphics1.dat, but pull any later-changed art from a later-distributed graphics2.dat (which only contains updated files, with no need to distribute a new .exe). If you later add additional art, you'd just need to distribute your recompiled/Moleboxed .exe that uses the new art along with graphics3.dat (which only contains the new stuff).

Yeah good point, Gabe.

I wish I was smart enough to make my own file format :P

i say let them make mods, as long as they don't make hacks for any of my online games(i am making one atm) i am fine with them just messing with graphics that can just be restored with a simple reinstall

Heh, well it is logical, so you would expect it to load everything. I did until recently, but apparently not.

Don't bother! We packed everything in our first release and it became such a nightmare to upgrade, patch and mod that we made the decision to never do it again. If you wanna steal our stuff then do it, just don't use it or we'll sue your sorry ass.