DescentBB

This screenshot should be self-explanatory:



Having been away from the Descent community for so long I hadn't realized that D3 was unable to auto-download levels when launched from tools such as Kquery and Kali. I was rather annoyed once I found this out (after releasing Forge the other night) and so yesterday I set out to do something about it .

The application is configured with the mission download URLs from known level archive sites. It looks for the mission zip file on these sites, downloads the first one it finds, unzips it, and launches D3. As the screenshot shows this much is working already and I've also verified that Kquery and Kali can both be configured to use it as intended. Basically, you configure your game browser to launch the D3LL executable instead of D3's main.exe and pass it a paramter naming the mission. For example, in Kquery you can do something like d3ll.exe -getmission %map% -rund3 -nointro <etc>.

I hope to release a beta sometime this weekend.

Dude! Sweet!

Yea. It's VERY annoying. I use the Kali browser to join most D3 games.

Thanks!

hey otherone, that looks like a cool tool, but why not just using vortex?



it has ircchat, realtime serverlist, level-autodownload (including check for broken links) and a lot other features already.

get it here:
http://www.slyclan.de/

it looks like a bit more powerful of an autodownloader... checking sites like koolbear (even if the mission doesn't have that autodownload URL) is clever.

Any thoughts on maybe integrating this functionality into Vortex?

or integrating vortex...

or getting with Martin and working on a new solution that combines both developers ideas?


It's great and all that those of you that can code are putting time into the community via software that is made to enhance the overall experience. But the more there are, the more confusing it gets.

Digijo wrote:hey otherone, that looks like a cool tool, but why not just using vortex?

There are a number of us that are hardcore Kali users. (one being me) We started playing descent on line via Kali back when it was a DOS program and not too user freindly Playing Descent 1.

I use both vortex and kali.

Stress, Lothar. great thoughts.

D'oh! That's what I get for being away from the community for so long - I wasn't even aware of Vortex. I was kind of wondering whether someone was going to show up and tell me I've been duplicating something that already exists. Looks very nice though - I think I'll be switching over from Kquery.

It does seem to make my tool a bit less important overall, however I think I'll continue because the original idea was a tool that was usable with the existing game browsers so people who like Kali can continue to use it.

That said, if the developer of Vortex wants to take the idea of hitting known archives instead of (or in addition to) the files from the mission I won't be offended. Should be almost trivial to add since it's obviously already got the ability to check for, download, and unzip missions.

Oh yea. Sup Brian!

Hey Bill. Not much up here. I made a level though - I'm sure you'll love it . How're things in the NW?

BTW, your point about the confusion caused by tool multiplication is spot on (witness how I managed to miss vortex while stumbling around trying to figure out to play D3 online now that PXO is gone). I was already concerned about the likelyhood that someone who can't be bothered to download a level from one of the archives would be bothered to download and configure another tool to do it for them. Probably they would just head back to Stadium or Abend instead. So most likely this thing would be used by people who are already commited enough to go ahead and download the level manually, making it kind of redundant.

Brian: Just so ya know, we're using IRC for descent chat nowadays. Server: irc.gamesurge.net Channel #descent3