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CLIENT AUTO-UPDATING

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UPDATING CLIENT DATA

For future clients we need to develop a way in which they can automatically

update to new data like for example new images, maps or item, being and skill

definitions. Here is described the sequence of actions that could implement

this functionality:

 1. Client loads initial core data for login screen (always included with

    release)

 2. Client logs on

 3. Server sends client list of required packages (maybe with versions)

 4. Client notices he doesn't have a certain package yet or is out of date

 5. Client requests from server .torrent files (or maybe at first just URL)

    from where to get the the missing packages

 6. Client downloads them and puts them in "data" directory (~/.tmw/data on

    Linux, cause that's writable)

 7. Client loads the list of files server mentioned in PhysFS virtual

    filesystem

 8. Client tells server that it is up to date

 9. Client could load some common data like item definitions here

10. Server sends client player position and so on, game starts, client loads

    and unloads additional data like maps, tilesets, sprites, etc. on demand.

UPDATING THE CLIENT BINARY

Updates to the actual client binary are also being considered, especially on

the Windows operating system. While the plan is to move any specific game data

outside of the binary, sometimes an update to the binary will be required for

being able to play the game. Also especially Windows users are used to

automatic update checks for many applications (possibly because of the lack of

such a feature system-wide).

On Linux this would require either installing a statically linked binary

(which could still have some issues) or automatically compiling/installing

from source. Neither are very attractive options, and I (Hammerbear) would

prefer not to deal with automatic binary updates on Linux.

On Windows a binary can't be replaced while it is running, so probably a

separate update tool would need to be written that is run before the client

to check for updates to the client and possibly replaces the client before

running it.