timo

It's really straight forward. Every game ever has solved these problems already. You have a base version and a continually updated roll-up patch binary. People can still pay for it on Desura and still be able to have an alternative patch system. I think any extra hassle(if any) would be far outweighed by the fact that using Desura infuriates people like me(and others judging by this and V16 thread) who are willing to donate time to test. I for one am now just going to skip playing the Alphas and Betas and just wait for the full version; because I don't want to use Desura or download 2G every week. I would have been happy to test, log bugs and generally contribute but I refuse to use a broken system like Desura. I'm honestly not sure which is more Alpha; Xenonauts or Desura. I suspect that the testing plan for this project is entirely based on community testing. I also think the longer people are forced onto a broken and generally non-functional content management system like Desura the more likely it is that the available testers pool will diminish. Which is sad because having a large community of testers can turn a something from "ok" to "great".

1) A stand-alone Patch binary doesn't have to be the whole thing, just the difference. Most stand-alone game patches are just bundled into a windows installer anyway. 2) Not really; It could be a VPS host with some bandwidth, an EC2 instance or even Dropbox. I'd be inclined to run a torrent as well since I bet a majority of the people here know how to use it. As for being unprofessional, this is for an Alpha/Beta version. The software is going to be buggy anyway so I doubt reputation is based on the download method. They are going to make it all nice via Steam when it goes Gold anyway as I understand it. Just seems to be there are more disadvantages and hurdles than there are advantages.

I'm not even sure why a game in development would need a Steam-like distribution platform like Desura. Why not just provide direct downloadable windows executable patches for everyone? Then once the game is finished, push it out to a distribution platform. Seems like Desura only provides a lot of extra headaches for everyone.