"Downloadable" RS?

[XioClone]

I've been wondering (And yes, this is a dream, not a reality) About the possibility of a RS "Download Version."

 

Not like a full blown new game, but one where you download it and basically opens up RS straight to world select and it takes out map loading every ten feet because it's all downloaded, and with an optional full screen mode (for p2p, I guess f2p could get something different..Window enlargement, perhaps?)

 

And maybe for the downloaded version add-ons, such as those for Firefox.

 

This is all a HUGE idea, and I know it's probably never gonna happen, just want to put it up for discussion.

[mmmcannibalism]

As I recall, jagex has said they will never do this due to security and other concerns. If a large portion of rs was put onto disk then they would run the risk of modding and other problems. Secondly, I believe they have always said they never want to make a disk version as a key part of rs is being pure client non downloaded.

[Pythonic]

Well obviously one of the things that makes RuneScape so popular is that it is web-client game. Some people don't have the time, patience or money to deal with download-pro games, so no download is a plus. Not to mention the various security flaws that could be exploited if RuneScape were to be put on a disc. I just don't see it happening and personally I think it is a bad idea.

[archimage_a]

Not sure, if it was purely graphical then I would assume there wouldn't be a major problem...What I mean is if the Landscape was downloadable(and updated whenever the the game was) then you could run without the game freezing for 2 seconds every so often...other players, armour and all that would still be based on the servers.

 

 

 

Probably be a little too complicated to do a rewrite for a small increase in a few people's gaming experiance....since there would have to be a whole seperate system. Maybe if it was just one server...

[go2guy]

don't think it'll work mate sorry.

[klankaos]

don't think it'll work mate sorry.

 

 

 

Why not? What's wrong with it? Be specific, man, we're in debate club, not general.

 

 

 

As for me, I think it would be interesting, and if they could figure a way to work it while still keeping it feasible with respects to security and the amount of time they work on it vs. the amount they get out of it, it would be awesome, especially the ability to configure your UI the way you can in other games. However, I just don't think it would ever be feasible for TB@JT financially - it's a lot of work to put into something that nobody will buy, meaning it has to be up for free, and that's a TON of work to put into something you're not gonna ever market for more money. It's impossible, but it would be awesome.

 

 

 

The ability to preload the entire world and not have to freak your computer out every ten minutes to load something new would be really awesome as well. However, even then there's only so much benefit you can get out of anything like that, and again, I'll say it - it could never work.

 

 

 

This isn't going to be much of a debate, tbh - it's going to be a case of everyone going 'it's nice, but it'll never work'. =P

[archimage_a]

Who knows that the debate will hold, just discussing it could give someone a revolutionary idea...or it could just fade away quietly

 

 

 

Sides, I wouldn't says it wouldn't make any money. One of the key things that stopped me joining RS when it first came out was the fact that my computer may have predated life on Earth, hence the graphics card frequently gave out, as did the internet connection. It would have been a God Send if I had been able to download the graphical stuff.

 

 

 

I also know that recently (how commonly I don't know) whole areas of RS have been lagging out, typically because too many people were doing too many things in one place. Places like the Grand Exchange for example have upwards of 100 people congregated, which cannot be good for the server, especially when they are all shouting 'Selling clay on the GE.' because thats....70 Bytes in (per shout) and 7,000 Bytes out (7 Kilo Bytes).

 

Now, no expert, but I assume that the graphical element would be in the region of 20/30 Kilo Bytes per person, per second?

 

Now lets say 1000 people on a server, thats 20/30 Mega Bytes of information transferred(Since it is a one way trip, the feed back would be negliable), ever second.

 

Compared to this 7 Kilobytes isn't a lot. But now say that 100 people all say something like 'Gonna Crash RS', all in one area. That is 7,000 Bytes in and 700,000 out. Totalling just less than 1 Megabyte. So there is approximately a 5% increase for a second.

 

 

 

Now say that people were doing it over and over and over, and using the Grand Exchange at the same time, and Banking....A pretty vast amount of data being accessed and transferred and you are talking another few...3 maybe...if you say each item in your bank is 5kb and you are shown what? 60 items at a time. Thats 300kb for 1 second. So if people were accessing it, fairly at random, you are talking between 300 and 30,000 Kb being accessed. Practically doubling the Megbyte requirements.

 

RS is designed for 2000+ people so 40/60 Megabytes per second is a lot, but not masses...but running with a bandwidth like that (I am only speculating based on lagging out recently) there are cutbacks to save money.

 

(While 40/60 Megabytes does not seem a lot to me or you, it is only part of the big machinary of the game...The program that organises all of the data must be much larger than I can imagine, and the banks of graphical and alphanumerical data would be substantial. The 40/60 Megabytes is a drop in the ocean compared to that, but it is that 40/60 that lets us access the vast program.

 

You might not say that a drawbridge was a very large part of a castle, but it is pretty important.)

 

 

 

With the system being pushed to points of stress like this, it makes sense that Jagex would want to cut their costs by providing less information per second from their servers. Therefore providing some data (As they have already done with the downloadable client) to be stored on the computer and accessed by the client with much simpler commands, would save an terribly large amount of money. Not to mention helping people without the amazing internet connection(although increasingly uncommon) and without high resolution machines(also increasingly uncommon), it would also mean that High Defination could be played on lower spec modems.

 

 

 

So I believe it is not so much a question of if they will bring out a more complete client, its a question of when....and as for people who point at Jagex and say 'They said they would never do that' I say that they also said they would never work with fansites, and times have now changed.

 

 

 

(All figures are based on my limited knowladge of computers and may be significantly higher or significantly lower, it could simply be that the servers are getting dusty or even a dodgy fuse at the server place. Though I am sure you know about certain times in the past where very foolish people decided to type '1' repeatedly in an effort to crash the server, and apparently succeeded on occassion, either that or Jagex simply shut them down.)

[Karvinen]

It already exists. It is called "signed applet". It is the default option of loading RS. It will install 91,5 megabytes of data to C:\.jagex_cache_32\Runescape. The previously used installation path was %windir%\.file_store_32.

[Owned_Nex]

Wouldn't datamining the RS map be extreamely easy if this were the case?

[Deathmath]

Yeah but you only get bits and d/l others as you go. Security is really good.

 

 

 

It's a good idea to improve performance for those with ironically slower internet (like me) but in practice it'd be very difficult to execute due to various constraints, not the least of them being modding.