Today brings about a very new revision of our combined Installer/Updater/Launcher utility for the LOUD Project.
Up until now, LOUD has used a fairly simplistic approach to installation which required us to download many of the support files for Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, in addition to the project itself. As a result our initial install covered some 600+ files. Today, we're pleased to announce our new utility that completely revises the way the LOUD files are loaded -- and as a result -- vastly reduces the number of files we need to install to about 350 -- a significant reduction.
The second advantage of this new installation method will be future support for our Steam users and the matchmaking that Steam provides. Ideally, when complete, Steam users will be able to play using LOUD using the Steam matchmaking services.
A third advantage of this installation method will be that users will now be able to launch various configurations of Forged Alliance (LOUD, Vanilla, FAF, etc) by the use of standard desktop shortcuts without the need for using the launcher at all. The launcher will allow you to create shortcuts for LOUD, both for running the updater, or going directly in LOUD itself.
The final advantage of this new loading mechanism is somewhat easier maintenance for us and eventually, less reliance on our FTP service, and optionally, additional sources for us to use for installation (including GitHub).
OK. That's a mouthful. Now having said that, here's the no so exciting bit. If you currently have LOUD installed, this updater will remove your current installation of LOUD and re-install it in the new locations that we will use. This is unfortunate indeed, but it was a necessity, since we couldn't be sure just where people have their current installations, and we wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page.
Again, thanks for your interest in the LOUD Project.
