EAs downloader

[Freelance]

http://downloader.ea.com
seeing as there's a fair bit of anticipation for the new BF2SF mod, has anyone tried this, and what are your impressions?

[Chicane]

ea's equivalant to steam tbh.

[Afty]

YAY! Another Steam like application.

When will these guys understand that I want to find it on their website, I want to download it from there, and they will lose my business by instigating this crap?

[Freelance]

that's what it sounds like, and seeing as EA are now the retail publisher for valve it would make sense, but i've seen no other references to valve, or anything at steampowered to suggest that. if it's a good program, i just hope they use it to it's full potential, and hook all their games into it like valve did with theirs

How EA Downloader Works

1. Make your purchase.
2. Download EA downloader to your computer. (EA downloader is only 6MB, as small as a music file.)
3. Install EA downloader. Your purchased games will be displayed when you open EA downloader.
4. Download your game by selecting "download now" button.
5. Install your game on release day to begin playing. A system tray reminder will indicate when game is ready for installation.

Download Time
EA downloader file size: 6MB. Estimated download time: 1 minute. Game File Size: 1.2GB. Estimated download time varies by your connection speed.

* T1: 2 hours, 25 minutes
* Cable: 2 hours, 25 minutes
* DSL: 5 hours, 32 minutes

certainly sounds similar to steam

[Steadders]

I like this kind of thing, mainly because i always end up losing cd's, or i can't find them when i want to quickly install a game. I don't mind paying for a game, but i hate all this cd auth stuff, if i've paid for a game, i want to just be able to play it.

[Tsung]

A different steam app for every publisher, thats the way it should go. Every app should autostart when you start your pc and immediatly start downloading games to your machine, even the ones you don't want (yet). That way if sometime in the future you do want a game, you just buy it and it unlocks, no waiting for downloads, no getting wet going to the shops and finding they are out of stock. No messy boxes or cd's that might get scratched. The perfect system. :rolleyes:

Of course, the way EA are going, it might only be one "steam" program, EA's one.. All the other publishers are pushed out or bought up.

[Gunsmith]

you got to admit tho, EA's history of releases is a little bit more (and better) then valves so i can see why they did it, I'm sure as hell not installing it tho.

[Zenith]

I remember the hoo-hah about Valve trying to sever the publishing rights from Vivendi Universal. I also remember EA becoming a partner in some way to do with Steam.

Sounds like they're starting to make good on their partnership.

[Afty]

Yeah, downloading all these mods and games and adverts and promotions and marketing materials and publicity vids and logo-infested freebies in the background while I'm not doing anything is a good idea.

If each publisher has one that would rock. If one of their games is started up, the system will stop downloading stuff - but if one of their competitors games, or an independent game starts it will carry on downloading regardless. But hell, who needs low pings when you're patched up to the latest version all the time - even when you're not playing?

Oh, and don't forget about when you're doing your work, or checking your email, or downloading something... You might want to watch that film you're downloading in an hour over tea, but don't worry about it too much, the 13 different auto update programs are all vying for your bandwidth in the background, and the best bit is, they're peer to peer so they saturate your outbound pipe to the point where your movie takes 6 days to download, your ping is 1845 with packet loss of 28% but ***** MAN* none of that matters because you're FULLY PATCHED. ALL THE TIME!

Is it just me, or is patching manually not hard. Or even more of a compromise, a patch-check when you start the game? Or maybe an email to let you know? Or maybe plan the patches so you can tell people a day or so before they are released? Or maybe write more reliable fricking games that don't require patches larger than the game codebase at ship date. Or maybe don't force content on people that they don't need...

This is awesome - I'll even lay money that this software is so well written that there are no bugs or memory leaks whatsoever. It won't make your system unstable, none of them will download adware and/or spyware, and your system will startup JUST as quickly with 13 different, independently developed systems running as it will clean!

WHERE DO I SIGN?

[Steadders]

Yeah, why try not making a game that needs a tiny update every single week?

[Tsung]

Originally posted by Steadders
Yeah, why try not making a game that needs a tiny update every single week?

Amazingly they do, look at the VAST collection of console games out there. However dont look @ future ones, as it appears the inclusion of a HDD means to developers they can released unfinished game code and patch it in the future. I'm not saying patches are bad (nor is Afty), its the chosen method of delivery which is bad. Steam this weekend gave me grief, suddenly deciding I had no games installed and proceeded to download HL2/CS:S again (yeah thanks!).

There is a perfectly good way to deliver patches, it's been around for years, you download them to your PC and run them. Why change this to a system which takes control and doesnt download them as quickly as you would normally?

[Chicane]

its due to the way the industry and indeed the target market is changing.

i believe the introduction of such downloaders / steam programs is because some ppl are just to thick to run patches, then complain to EA support etc that their patches ****ed up their machines. tbh if i was in their place i'd do the same, it saves on so much hassle, not to mention the marketing possiblities.

ea for instance could sell pixel space on a patch update that allows people to watch adverts while the patch installs, which i suspect will be 100% slower than it should be.

i'm afraid its all going to go downhill very quickly from now on.

[porsche]

I understand that some people are on 'pay as you go' or limited broadband connections. If patches/games/mods/etc are downloaded automatically then I imagine there may be a few court cases being filed.

Mmmm infact I think I may switch to a pay as you go provider, let them run up a bill and then as they're an american firm I can sue them for 'stress' totalling $10million or whatever silly sum of money it's worth these days.

-Porsche-

[Afty]

But you clicked on the "I Agree" button...

[Freelance]

so noone's tried EA's one yet then?

no?

you may continue.

[t!mo]

I totally agree with Afty. I'm f**ked of with all this autodownload my arse type ********. enough is enough.

[rick_2k]

god there is some steam haters and general just haters of eveything on the planet on here..

no offence but chill and gets some facts :P

for steam for example .. it downloads updates when a update is released, sometimes months apart sometimes days. It isnt P2P o.o! all data comes from the steam servers and you never share or upload. When you enter a game and happen to be downloading a update it stops it.. so you dont join a game with huge ping etc

Steam also stands as a good platform to release many other games on.. it makes sence and IT WORKS!

simple as :)

if every major game developer etc had a prog like steam id be very happy.. steam .. keeps CS:S DOD:S hl2 etc all of that crap updated allways.. i dont EVER see a impact on my bandwith as it downloads very few patches and there never large. A large amount of this i hate steam, i hate halflife/ i hate programs that need to connect the internet is spawned from moronic people who LOVE to hate :)

if EA's downloader is based on the same principles il be very happy and im shure the rest of the gaming comunity will be.. beacuse it makes things easyer.

:)

[Mingtea]

Yeah cool.

But the question still is, what's wrong with downloading the patch manually?

Or better yet, give us the option.

[Cabe]

Originally posted by rick_2k
IT WORKS!

just about, anyone remeber i20/21 when they started the preloading content for one of the mods, it was released on the friday and essentially crippled the valve content system in totality.

With the added Brucie Bonus of taking down the authentication servers, the CS 1.6/Source tournaments very nearly didnt run.

[Er00]

Steam is a good idea, it means that wherever you are, you can install games that you've bought (as long as you can wait long enough for them to download... :p ), the problem isn't with the concept, it's with the implementation, so I'll be interested in how well the EA one works.

ps. Steam *doesn't* start on startup if you untick the little box in options ;) Nor does it automatically update the games if you tell it not to. It is not the spawn of the devil, really it's not. It's a useful way of keeping everyone up to date with the latest patch etc.

pps. Does the EA one have a friends list? That works...? :p I can't go to the site at school, interestingly it's blocked

[GeeDee]

The problem is the two opposite ends of the game market.

All you guys posting here have been gaming for years and are totally au fait with the concept of where to get patches, when your game is out of date and what to do when it is.

My little cousin likes to play games, but the only game he usually manages to get going for online play is CS via Steam, because it "just works". He even knew his other games needed patching but it took longer for him than it was worth to try download and install the patches - especially when download sites have so many different patches for older versions, different languages etc etc. I could be wrong but I think the latter of the two types of gamer are the mass market that bring in the cash for the developers / publishers.

Now that games are going mass market Steam-esque apps are going to become more common - people expect these things to be a couple of clicks to join a game with no messing, just like on the consoles. I'm sure the publishers are fully aware of how much the seasoned gamers hate their new content delivery systems but I don't think that feeling is shared by the average gamer who just wants to join a game whenever he feels like it with as little hassle as possible. :)

[Afty]

I disagree.

Gaming has been mass market since befoe Steam appeared. Gaming has been outgrossing the Box Office for a couple of years now. It doesn't get much more mainstream than that.

The issue that I have (and many others) is that most of the time we can't just switch this crap off. We can't say "Nah, I'm a big boy, I'll grab my own patches".

Plus, the best compromise is to have the game check for an update when it is LOADED... and if there is a patch, offer to download it. This may mean a small delay before gaming but a widespread system like this would encourage developers and publishers to ensure games are well tested, and that any subsequent patches are small.
Fixes should be available as part of these patches, any "additional content" should be available separately.

Heck, as far as I'm concerned you can put a complete file/patch management suite inside your application - this sounds like a good idea. LIke the old Quake/Half Life "mod choosing" options in the menu, but with more details and linked to an online content server. Just don't give me a freakin trojan and force me to run it in order to play the game k thx.

[Zenith]

I know it is fashionable to knock Microsoft (I'm just as guilty of doing it!), but one thing IMO that MS have got right is their Automatic Windows Updates.

You can either have it fully automatic so that it downloads updates in the background and installs them automatically.
You can have it semi-automatic in that it downloads the update, but you choose when you want to install them.
You can have update notification to let you know when there is an update.
Or you could just turn automatic updates off and do it by running Windows Update once in a while.

The choice is down to the user.
Is it so hard to offer a similar system for Steam and related auto-download programs?
Before anyone flames me for stating the obvious, I don't have/use Steam. If it is a feature in Steam already, I apologise.

[Freelance]

one topic that hasn't been touched on is the authentication that these launcher/downloaders (no news yet on if EAs program is more than a downloader yet) can offer. i'm sure you know how steam's account works, but imagine that for the majority of games. you give the publisher/developer the option of being able to check that every time a program is run, you check that the user is allowed to do so. that, with the fact that available bandwidth for tools like these is only going to increase, would look like it's a very tempting option. over the next 5 years (probably less) more and more publishers will take steps in this direction.

it'll never kill off piracy, but if the only official way to get patches (or the game in it's entirity) is through the official downloader, and held within your own pack file, you make it a whole lot more inconvenient than waiting for a leak from the cd/dvd press, and waiting for a crack for each version.

as with anything, if you don't like it you don't have to install it, but don't be suprised when you can't play the lastest blockbuster game. as i see it, this IS the future.

[Mingtea]

hur hur, semi.

[Silk75]

I like the idea of an auto downloaded, it will bring a different dynamic to the market, but it was there for Valve to throw off the shackels of Sierra, not to then get into bed with the worlds most vicious dastarddly publisher EA.

It would make sense for games to be distributed via Steamesque ways, but only with a limited platform to launch from, not different types per publisher.

And the advantage of the Steam releases, was the fact that it was cheaper than boxed retail copies. EAs release of BF2: SF is the same as normal shop retail.

And another thing... Whats with the split release dates? Dont they learn a thing anymore?

[Optimus]

Originally posted by Silk75
And the advantage of the Steam releases, was the fact that it was cheaper than boxed retail copies. EAs release of BF2: SF is the same as normal shop retail. The basic HL2 package is £24.99 on Steam... If you can still find a non-GOTY edition in retail, it's hovering around the £18 mark...

That's progress for ya!

[Er00]

There is a "keep this game up to date" or not option in steam, but you have to set it for each game afaik. Also, it never used to work, but it might now... ie it used to just download updates regardless of whether you told it to keep it automatically updated or not...

[Freelance]

i'm beginning to suspect it automatically changes that option depending on when you last played a game, which is an annoying thing to do imo

[Ch3m1c4L]

System Requirements

The following are minimum requirements for downloading the product:

" * Installed PC version of Battlefield 2 and one set of Battlefield 2 discs
* Windows XP with Admin rights (ONLY Windows XP IS SUPPORTED)
* you run
* 1.7 GHz Intel Celeron D/Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP/Sempron Processor
* 8x CD/DVD drive
* 4 GB free hard drive space (5 GB hard drive space recommended)
* DirectX 9.0c compatible video card (128 MB memory and NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 or ATI Radeon 8500 chip set)
* DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
* Broadband connection (cable, DSL, or faster)"
i like how one of the requirements is that you run :D (for bf2sf)

[Optimus]

Ok, apparantly EA shot themselves in the foot...

http://www.eagames.com/official/battlefield/battlefield2/us/editorial.jsp?src=eadownloader

The problem only relates to the CD protection included in the non-CD-based EA Downloader version o_O