Suggestions for updating process

[Ustice]

Currently the updating process is a night mare. I tried to attend the Town Hall Meeting the other day, but since I had not updated my Risia client it had 8000+ files to update. The updating process took several hours, and ultimately I was unable to attend.

There is no reason for this process to take this long, and here are some suggestions on how this could be improved.

• Use something like BitTorrent to help with download speeds - BT is a VERY WELL documented protocol so it should take only a light effort to set up a BT system so that when everyone updates the servers are not slammed, slowing us all down, and making your servers scream. I have plenty of bandwidth, and if someone needs the updated files that I have, well I don't mind them going out over my connection. (As long as it is just those files of course.)
• Separate the downloading from the installing threads - Currently the system downloads one file, processes it and installs it, and moves on to the next. By threading this process so that some the files can be installed while others are downloading we can increase the speed of the process possibly by a factor of 2.
• Provide update packages for download - Like Windows Updates where we can just let it update itself, it would be nice if we could download the equivalent of the service packs. When there is an update, it would be nice to have an installer that we can download and run locally that will install all of the updates necessary. Of course you will have to check to see if the game is at the right version beforehand, but that is easy. By providing this package, we will be able to reduce over-head since it is a single file, and install at leisure.

I hope that you will consider some of these suggestions or come up with other ideas as this process is quite painful, and it doesn't have to be that way.

Thanks guys!