Offline Beta version please

[cvb]

Hi,

i would appreciate if you could offer offline versions for the beta (OSX and Win) as well because if you're connecting to the net via a mobile tethering connection redownloading the content each time you want to play the game is slow and adds to your traffic. Secondly, depending on your browser, the Plugin can cause issues.

Thanks,

cvb

[dislekcia]

Hi,

i would appreciate if you could offer offline versions for the beta (OSX and Win) as well because if you're connecting to the net via a mobile tethering connection redownloading the content each time you want to play the game is slow and adds to your traffic. Secondly, depending on your browser, the Plugin can cause issues.

Thanks,

cvb

Unfortunately at the rate we're patching the beta, you'd have to download the exact same amount of content for the offline mode to work - it's just not feasible for us to keep everyone up to date in an offline situation. I mean, look at how much trouble big studios have with offline patching (the Blizzard updater causes huge issues here, for instance, and don't get me started on LoL).

The full game will be full downloadable and playable offline. It's just the beta that isn't.

[cvb]

Hi,

i would be happy if you just offer one beta offline version. It doesn't has to be updated at the same rate as the online version. I just want to have a version i can enjoy during the beta phase. Of course i can't report bugs this way but honestly my main motivation wasn't reporting bugs and more enjoying the game.

How much sense this makes obviously also depends on how long the beta phase will be.

Beside of this: There is something you're somehow doing in a rather unelegant way in DesktopDungeons because once the focus is on the game it utalises my CPU with 100% and after a short time the fan(s) start to spin up. I have no idea if this happens due to your game logic or if it's more an Unity issue, like for instance the famous draw call bottleneck Unity's GUI system causes. There are tricks how you can workaround this. Their roadmap says that the GUI system should be rewritten for 3.5 but nevertheless. I'm primary using my notebook these days so the longer my battery runs the better.

Thanks in advance,

cvb

[dislekcia]

Hi,

i would be happy if you just offer one beta offline version. It doesn't has to be updated at the same rate as the online version. I just want to have a version i can enjoy during the beta phase. Of course i can't report bugs this way but honestly my main motivation wasn't reporting bugs and more enjoying the game.

How much sense this makes obviously also depends on how long the beta phase will be.

Beside of this: There is something you're somehow doing in a rather unelegant way in DesktopDungeons because once the focus is on the game it utalises my CPU with 100% and after a short time the fan(s) start to spin up. I have no idea if this happens due to your game logic or if it's more an Unity issue, like for instance the famous draw call bottleneck Unity's GUI system causes. There are tricks how you can workaround this. Their roadmap says that the GUI system should be rewritten for 3.5 but nevertheless. I'm primary using my notebook these days so the longer my battery runs the better.

Thanks in advance,

cvb

Well, that rather goes against the whole point of the beta for us, doesn't it? I mean, we could spend time on supporting a standalone version (which would quickly then turn into a "supply both a Mac and PC version" with hordes more bugs right now) or we could make sure that the game is balanced and solid before we start provoking Murphy's technical wrath.

I'm afraid the best I can do is say that if you want the full game experience, you're going to have to wait until it's done to play it like it's a full game. Sorry

Regarding CPU usage, I doubt it's the Unity UI, we only use that in the login screen. It is still a 3D engine, so that could well be why your CPU is being used so much on your notebook. We're obviously going to be focusing on optimisation later, maybe we can frame-limit the game for lower hardware specs or something.

[cvb]

I understand your point as well and from your side it obviously makes sense.

Generally it doesn't matter this much if it's a 3d engine or not as in the end there are all just triangles for the GPU to deal with but of course it differs where the architecture of the engine is optimised for a different purpose. Maybe it would have made sense using a tool like BlitzMax or Monkey for such a type of game as well. I suspect you also wanted to target the consoles at some point. The way forward rendering works had been changed for V3 and you best combine different graphics in textures where it's possible in order to reduce draw calls. If you don't do it already, it also could help using different timing codes for the game logic and the screen updates. And so on... hard to say, if you don't know how the code looks like.

[dislekcia]

I understand your point as well and from your side it obviously makes sense.

Generally it doesn't matter this much if it's a 3d engine or not as in the end there are all just triangles for the GPU to deal with but of course it differs where the architecture of the engine is optimised for a different purpose. Maybe it would have made sense using a tool like BlitzMax or Monkey for such a type of game as well. I suspect you also wanted to target the consoles at some point. The way forward rendering works had been changed for V3 and you best combine different graphics in textures where it's possible in order to reduce draw calls. If you don't do it already, it also could help using different timing codes for the game logic and the screen updates. And so on... hard to say, if you don't know how the code looks like.

We're already lumping textures together to save memory and the rendering cycle is uncoupled from game logic That's probably your issue, actually - if the game were running at fewer FPS it wouldn't be as CPU-heavy.

The main reason we went with Unity was the multiple platforms and iOS/Android support. That's the big one for us.