Day Seventeen: Preparation

38 comment(s)

Posted by Nicolas (permalink)

A lot of people are currently asking us that kind of questions:
Given Valve's recent announcement about hosting fan created mods on Steam, is the Portal: Prelude team going to request permission to do the same for its planned Oct 10th release?

And of course not. This kind of decision should not be taken too lightly. We would need a lot more than a week to integrate with Steamworks. Plus, if you take a look at this page, they clearly say :
It is appropriate for use in broad release commercial games, but we don't think it and our support infrastructure is ready for Mods or games [...]

They started giving it out for mods in secret, it started only a month ago and these mods aren't even released yet (with Steam support). It's up to Valve to take that kind of decision, and if I were them, I'd wait to see the game, before making any move. Don't you think?

On another subject, preparing an international launch is really not something easy. We must finish, build and clean the game, build a final version, make sure that everything is OK and that nothing is missing. We must also build an executable installer and upload it somewhere. We must make sure that every mirror owner that purposed its services know about this installer soon enough to make a copy, but we also have to make sure that no one of these people will try to release the game before the given date. So it must not be too early nor too late...

For the moment, the release date is still planned for october 10th, but we can't exclude any surprise =) We'll probably send a few demo versions to every important websites and magazines that supported us during this "marketing campaign". But it won't be before the 6th or 7th for sure.

Anyway, to summarize what's left to do:

1. Compile a final version of the game
2. Do the last tests and checks
3. Clean the mod folder
4. Build everything and finish details
5. Build an automatic installer
6. Upload it somewhere safe
7. Send it to a few people, magazines and websites
8. Make it available one day before the release to every mirror owner via a server to server transfert
9. Release everything
10. Take vacations

Let's get back to work!

38 comment(s)

Comments

 October 1, 2008 9:15 PM,  Louington said :
Very Cool Guys.

Cannot wait for this to be released.

Good Luck and Rock on!

 October 1, 2008 9:28 PM,  FreakCERS said :
May I suggest that you distribute the game via bittorrent (obviously not to give out the few copies before launch) - that way you could take advantage of all the users sharing it, and not have to provide all the bandwidth yourself and through mirrors...

 October 1, 2008 9:43 PM,  Nicolas said :
We don't know how to setup a bittorent tracker, and we're not willing to know. If someone want to do it and send us the link, feel free, but we really don't have the time to do that for the moment..

 October 1, 2008 10:08 PM,  Stick said :
You don't necesarily need to set up your own tracker, but just upload it to a common tracker like the pirate bay, or mininova, or something like that. I think it would be a good idea, because you won't have to worry about bandwidth, and the more people download it, the faster it gets for other people.

 October 1, 2008 10:10 PM,  jamesNET said :
But if it was a torrent, people would need to have a piece of software to download it - which many people may not have, and so it would be an extra download step for them.

 October 1, 2008 10:40 PM,  Nicolas said :
I'll try to setup a bittorent mirror via Mininova. Thanks for the advice Stick, I thought they were charging money for this.

 October 1, 2008 10:49 PM,  SNaG said :
I could hep make your guys distribute it.

I can make a custom Installer so people would not have to manually do anything.

 October 1, 2008 11:08 PM,  Darky said :
You should make two options of download: Direct download, or Torrent download. I hope you do it, because some people will prefer Torrent, because the more people download it, the faster others will download it, but some people will also prefer direct download, eighter because BitTorrent is a kind of black magic for them, or eighter because they have LAN IP (like me :/). [lan ip closes all ports to ip's outside lan web, and this really slows down the torrent download].

BTW. SNaG, you'd do anything, just to see the game before the actual release :>

 October 1, 2008 11:13 PM,  Nicolas said :
Of course we'll do both, regular download and bittorrent. And by the way SNaG, we perfectly know how to do an installer, but thanks ;)

 October 1, 2008 11:40 PM,  The Mu said :
I think having a BitTorrent mirror might be a good idea, especially if you are looking at >500MB of game here to download.

The only concern I had looking at this post was, are you sure you can trust all your mirrors to release it on time and only on time?

 October 2, 2008 12:30 AM,  Nicolas said :
@The Mu:
Of course not, that's why we got a really big amount of mirrors and also a few badass ones that should never ever fall down.

 October 2, 2008 12:30 AM,  bd_ said :
One of the nice things about a torrent release is you can roll the metadata a day early; everyone can connect their clients and idle on the torrent; then when it's released, you just start seeding, and everyone will just begin downloading automatically.

 October 2, 2008 12:32 AM,  Matt said :
Only ten days to go! W00t!

 October 2, 2008 12:56 AM,  ED said :
@Darky:
If you have access to router configuration, you can set up port forwarding on the port used by your BitTorrent program, to forward traffic on that port to your local IP (on the LAN) so that the torrent traffic gets through.

And remember, release day is also Talk Like a Turret Day!

 October 2, 2008 1:17 AM,  SNaG said :
Whoa, that was Utterly Cruel, And my intention was not to Get it first, i Just wanted to help, theres many other things i could also do to.

 October 2, 2008 1:44 AM,  Cammeron said :
I was surfing valves website looking at the "valve pack" when I thought of something is there any chance you guys are going to try to get a metascore? I'm not sure whats required to get one but I figured hey i'd toss it out there. Anyways looking forward to the game!

 October 2, 2008 1:51 AM,  Cammeron said :
Oh by the way even if SNaGs purpose was to get it a day early who cares? And if he can actually help with the installer more power to him I mean i'm sure that if I had the chance to get it a day early by doing some work i'd probably do it (I would ACTUALLY do the work too) my point is just if its sitting on your desktop do you really think you wouldn't sneak a peak? ;) I know I would and i'm sure everyone who's worked on it already has enjoyed playing it. So lets leave the decision up to the creators of this amazing mod shall we?

 October 2, 2008 2:26 AM,  SNaG said :
I Agree with Cammeron. I actually have ALOT of things that could increase productions if anyone was willing to allow me, I could care less if I had access to actual Files, i just wanted to help in some way thats important, not even for credit. I do have certain qualities alot of you don't, not an insult but a fact.

 October 2, 2008 2:45 AM,  Mikel S. (madcat1030) said :
I like bd_'s "day early idle time" thing for the torrenters, that way it'll be sitting in the stables for a day, and hopefully zoom out at full speed.

 October 2, 2008 8:16 AM,  Z said :
don't use mininova/piratebay! use http://www.gameupdates.org other mods use it.

 October 2, 2008 8:56 AM,  Cammeron said :
I know this will be my third post for the day but.. when was this forum get titled "What torrent to use" I'm sure most people that use torrents already know what there doing and how they want to do it... Can't anyone think of anything about THE GAME to talk about (btw this comment doesnt include the comment saying it should be hosted by torrent that may be nice) i'm just saying lets keep it referred to the game =D

 October 2, 2008 8:57 AM,  Cammeron said :
when did this forum get titled*

 October 2, 2008 9:01 AM,  Cammeron said :
I just came to see that comment i sent was stupid. I thought you were suggest we (the other people waiting for the game) use gameupdates... I just figured out that you were suggesting it to the mods. anyways I take back what i said :)

 October 2, 2008 11:22 AM,  Nicolas said :
Gameupdates.org looks promising. I'll investigate in this direction instead of mininova.

 October 2, 2008 11:43 AM,  Noth said :
http://games.on.net/ will happily mirror the installer, mate.

They're an actual ISP, all someone would have to do is make a free forum account, and goto the file server, and "Suggest a File" with a link to the download, and it'll be put up within (usually) 48 hours

 October 2, 2008 12:20 PM,  kurasul said :
On the same way we can imagine to put the game on rapidshare , megauploade , etc.. for a large distribution with the best bandwidth possible

 October 2, 2008 1:28 PM,  SNaG said :
Would you really want it in Parts?

Portalprelude.rar
Portalprelude.part2
Portalprelude.part3
Portalprelude.part4 et cetera

 October 2, 2008 6:44 PM,  Cammeron said :
Personally I don't like the idea of parts something about it just screams problem. ;) Just giving my two cents as usual :) Best of luck to you guys

 October 2, 2008 7:08 PM,  uNCLEsAM098 said :
Having multiple parts causes no problems. I've done multiple parts before (zipping and unzipping), and it works just fine.

What bugs me though, are when people upload a torrent, the 1 file being downloaded is just many many smaller (like, 5 megs each) files. It makes no sense.

Unless you're allowing downloads of each individual file separately from your website.

Either way, I'll be looking forward to the Torrent option.

 October 2, 2008 9:17 PM,  vecima said :
personally, i don't want an installer. i like just unzipping and dropping a folder into "SourceMods". whenever i use an installer, there's extra information saved on my computer. they add to my start menu, and they fill up my "Add/Remove Programs" list, even after i delete them (because i usually just delete the folder from "SourceMods" when i want to uninstall a mod).

 October 2, 2008 9:53 PM,  Nicolas said :
@vecima:
We're not planning on doing anything else than an installer. Because we don't want people to download an archive version and then come here whining because they don't know what to do with it. Our installer doesn't add anything else than the files in the right folder. No start menu, because it's already inside Steam, and no shortcut if you don't want it.

 October 2, 2008 10:05 PM,  jeroen said :
I think if youd open up the metadata for a torrent a day early and let it rip when its complete, you would get alot of advantages.
for instance i would let my pc run an all nighter just to let it seed/leech, and alot of other people will do so too beacause of different time zones. therefore a torrent will gather quite a bit of speed.

Just my 2 cents

 October 2, 2008 10:10 PM,  HikariMisako said :
Oh and btw, wich timezone will it be released?
i hope the French time, because im dutch :D

 October 2, 2008 10:52 PM,  Nicolas said :
Oct 09, 2008 at 23:59 (GMT+01)

 October 2, 2008 11:21 PM,  Liam said :
May I suggest that you distribute the game via bittorrent (obviously not to give out the few copies before launch) - that way you could take advantage of all the users sharing it, and not have to provide all the bandwidth yourself and through mirrors...

 October 2, 2008 11:39 PM,  Cammeron said :
I like the idea of an installer less hassle. looks like i'm going to have to fix the old game machine my brother wrecked tho my laptops going in under warranty the audio is having issues. I'll figure something out tho the tenth is gonna be to good to miss ;) but yeah torrents sounds real good :)

 October 5, 2008 9:54 PM,  Nitro said :
Afterwords I'd recommend you to take a look at Steamworks again. Just today they are now hosting several mods to Source games, so after releasing Prelude, please do take a look at it.

 February 11, 2009 7:58 PM,  Anonymous said :
Very useful files search engine. http://Indexoffiles.com is a search engine designed to search files in various file sharing and uploading sites.

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