Tutorial: sv_progs: specify the "progs.dat" to run

[Baker]

[goldenboy]

good, is it also possible to have a command line switch?

[Spirit]

AS usual +sv_progs should work?

[Baker]

[Team Xlink]

[Downsider]

[Baker]

After a lot of consideration, I think sv_progs is a *bad* idea.

A save game saves to a gamedir. A save game does not know what progs created it.

We currently have a circumstance where aside from DarkPlaces, an engine can't save or load a multiplayer game. So the argument can be made that sv_progs is useful for multiplayer (you could have DM, CTF, CA, Rocket Arena, etc. all as different progs.dat in the same dir).

However, the fact that multiplayer games cannot be saved currently by very many engines is shortsighted. And may not persist as mainstream for any future length of time that will be relevant.

The proper way to re-use content would probably be:
1) Multiple gamedir support where the first gamedir represents the mod and the second gamedir represents the progs.
2) sv_progs if such were stored in a save game file. However, someone would have to devise a backwards compatible save game.
3) This is ignoring the fact that demos don't even know what gamedir or mod they are. Well --- maybe Quakeworld demos do?

[mh]

Not too certain what the purpose of saving a multiplayer game is - there is just so much that can go wrong on reload that it seems quite a hairy process.

That aside, my humble proposal: instead of a user-settable progs (which may still be retained as an option for modders to switch between progs while testing and without needing to restart the engine - maybe only allow it if developer 1) try for <mapname>.dat, if you don't get that fall back on progs.dat. That seems to make all of the problems go away - the save game knows what map it used, so by default it also knows the correct progs to use, and likewise for demos.

[mankrip]

[Spike]

multiplayer saving is nice for coop (especially hexen2 with levels and stuff).
fte loads multiplayer games just fine (after I last fixed the thing). it matches players by names, and has to reorder player slots to match the mod to ensure nothing is broken. it is quite hairy (hence why it was broken), so really its only worth it if you support hexen2, but it is possible.
its pointless for deathmatch.

there's a lot of cvars that are easily broken by cvars when saving the game. all those for-the-gamecode cvars will all break over the course of save+quit+newgame+reload.
'sv_progs' really isn't special in that regard. imho my opinion is that the only real issue is that you refuse to change the saved game format. the question is which other cvars do you save?

[r00k]

I would thinK loading a saved multiplayer game would help dev teams bug test
Another task would be to load a demo and run through the measures to test for cheaters
But that would be more in depth...

Typed this only iPhone sorry forteh typoz

[Baker]

[Spike]

ktpro restores disconnected players. pauses the game and everything. though it is still subject to a timeout (clones the player in clientdisconnect and restores them again if they reconnect. the pausing part is a nasty painful hack though, as the server isn't technically paused).
that doesn't require saved games of course.

[Baker]