Thrive Content Library

Okay, it's been kind of taken for granted that we'll have a content library in the game, a bit like Spore's "Sporepedia". However, it really hasn't been discussed. So now I'd like to bring in the discussion about how we run it, what it does, how it's updated, etc.

Earlier Alaska and I were chatting about this, and we came to a few obvious conclusions.

1- No auto-DL like in spore, because we don't have servers
2- We want people to share their content, which means creating a fan-forum once we get to a stable build (be good, because I will be wanting admins and mode for it from the Devteam)
3- The Library will be accessible from main menu in-game, and should probably be able to be viewed on the fly through the pause menu
4- We want to be able to encode content into a .png, like spore did, it offers several big advantages over creating our own fle type:
-it can be easily hosted
-it' can't be a virus in disguise
-it makes visual search easy
5- The library must have a catchy name that is not Thrivepedia
6- This content library is important, and will contain pretty much everything in your game
7- Players can manually add other players' content to the library through a folder in your game files
8- The library needs to be searchable

Discuss.

1- Agree

2- Agree

3- Agree

4- Not sure if .png is the best format, a lot of space in that file takes the picture and our creatures will surely be far more compex than Belgium Spore ones.

5- I quite like the Thrive Content Library, but I think not many people will like this title.

6-Agree

7-Agree

8-Agree

I think a good name for the Thrive content library would be...

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY!

Or

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE (THRiVE) GALAXY

(THRiVE) being the logo.

Commander Keen wrote:

4- Not sure if .png is the best format, a lot of space in that file takes the picture and our creatures will surely be far more compex than Belgium Spore ones.

5- I quite like the Thrive Content Library, but I think not many people will like this title.

4. The best way to store it is wrapped up in an image file, because images are very easy to host, and we won't need for people to have accounts on anything other than their chosen image hosting provider.

5. For now that's god, it could just be the TCL.

@uteen- Douglas Adams himself had an extremely hard time getting the copyright for that back, and he invented it.

~sciocont wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

4- Not sure if .png is the best format, a lot of space in that file takes the picture and our creatures will surely be far more compex than Belgium Spore ones.

5- I quite like the Thrive Content Library, but I think not many people will like this title.

4. The best way to store it is wrapped up in an image file, because images are very easy to host, and we won't need for people to have accounts on anything other than their chosen image hosting provider.

5. For now that's god, it could just be the TCL.

@uteen- Douglas Adams himself had an extremely hard time getting the copyright for that back, and he invented it.

I'm okay now.

Maybe...
Hmmm...
My mind's blank today...
I''l let you know if I have a brainwave.

We do want something catchy, don't we?

Normal files are as easy to host as images, but they are much smaller (size will be a problem when longtime players will dump their 10000 creations on net). Some file hosters don't even want registration on users. Also, .rar files are much easier to handle, not needing to copy over 9000 files each time.

Wait, I'm confused. if we're not going to have a server to host these creations, then how are they gonna be accessible in-game?

Player will download them from game forums.

Commander Keen wrote:

Player will download them from game forums.

Okay, so no in-game "Thrivepedia".
Speaking of names, what about:

-(The) Thrive Depot
-Thribrary ( )

Thrive (Creations/Things/Whatever) Depot could be useful for a name for forum section to upload creations to.

Thribrary = ,but seriously, its bad.

Commander Keen wrote:

Thribrary = ,but seriously, its bad.

Yeah, just an impulse name I guess!




I really don't think we need a catchy name for it. A simple one like The Thrive Depot or Thrive Shack or something is all we need.

Well, depots and shacks make me think of warehouses, but we want it more like library/museum, no?


For me, Thrive Content Library does perfectly well.

I'm good with the Thrive Content Library.

And it is worth looking at having an option to browse the TCL in-game, like piggybacking the player's browser or something. I don't know if it's possible, but it's worth looking into.

I'm perfectly fine with the TCL, though Thribrary is awesome!

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I'm good with the Thrive Content Library.

And it is worth looking at having an option to browse the TCL in-game, like piggybacking the player's browser or something. I don't know if it's possible, but it's worth looking into.

Actually, The in-game TCL is for content you already have or have downloaded. See, I magine it'd work like this: all of your creations go to a creations folder, inside which are folders for techs, orgs, planets, cultures. When you save a creation it gets saved in one of those folders as an encrypted .png. Now, you can simply go online and save other people's .pngs into those folders, and the game can open them up. It's similar to modded content for The Sims.

~sciocont wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I'm good with the Thrive Content Library.

And it is worth looking at having an option to browse the TCL in-game, like piggybacking the player's browser or something. I don't know if it's possible, but it's worth looking into.

Actually, The in-game TCL is for content you already have or have downloaded. See, I magine it'd work like this: all of your creations go to a creations folder, inside which are folders for techs, orgs, planets, cultures. When you save a creation it gets saved in one of those folders as an encrypted .png. Now, you can simply go online and save other people's .pngs into those folders, and the game can open them up. It's similar to modded content for The Sims.

Ahkay. That makes sense. Still, may be worthwhile looking into?

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

I'm good with the Thrive Content Library.

And it is worth looking at having an option to browse the TCL in-game, like piggybacking the player's browser or something. I don't know if it's possible, but it's worth looking into.

Actually, The in-game TCL is for content you already have or have downloaded. See, I magine it'd work like this: all of your creations go to a creations folder, inside which are folders for techs, orgs, planets, cultures. When you save a creation it gets saved in one of those folders as an encrypted .png. Now, you can simply go online and save other people's .pngs into those folders, and the game can open them up. It's similar to modded content for The Sims.

Ahkay. That makes sense. Still, may be worthwhile looking into?

Yeah, definitely.

Well it holds animals dosen't it? How about The Thrive Arc or ThArc.... no not ThArc, that sounds painful.

All good ideas but... how are we going to save the real data inside the .png? Why not just come up with our own file?

roadkillguy wrote:

All good ideas but... how are we going to save the real data inside the .png? Why not just come up with our own file?

Exactly. Saving/loading a (nearly) useless picture will take up much more HD and mainly memory space, and we can't afford to waste these.

We could do something like:

.tplt (Thrive Planet)
.torg (Thrive Organism)
.trce (Thrive Race)

I don't think these are taken, and if they are they're not common enough to conflict.

I think storing it as an image was just a way to kind of preview the object before downloading it.

Commander Keen wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

All good ideas but... how are we going to save the real data inside the .png? Why not just come up with our own file?

Exactly. Saving/loading a (nearly) useless picture will take up much more HD and mainly memory space, and we can't afford to waste these.

Images are much easier to store, and can be uploaded to many different sites. Plus, they give you an image of your creation.

..Then I'd like to know how exactly we encode data inside a png. I've never heard of that before...

There are two possiblt ways to do it.

1. Watermarking.

2. storing data after the image.

the header on the image tells the program reading the image when to stop reading data. if you store data after that, it is not seen. you dont encode it into the image itself.

Having said all that, we are NOT Spore. using that format is Spore's idea, not ours. I reallly don't see what is wrong with a proprietary format of some sorts.