Tuesday, August 4, 2015

ATTENTION, please!

Why do you guys make me repeat the same things over and over again? If you spend just 2 minutes looking around you can find the answers you're looking for.

But fine, I'll try to explain everything once again. I just hope someone (who needs help) will bother to actually read it.
A TL;DR version will be at the very end.

It is true that how I recommend people to install the mod has changed over time. It started with almost daily new versions on AoE3 Heaven and now it's mostly the patcher's work.
Here's how things work now...

How do you install the mod?

You have a few options here.

First there's the old, familiar, mainstream installer. When new installers are released I recommend using them, but as time passes by and I use the patcher to release updates installers become obsolete.
Some files might be added, others might be removed, and if you install the mod with the installer and then use the patcher it can get a bit messy.

Second, the almighty patcher. The last installer I released was about 2 years ago, since then I've been using only the patcher to quickly and safely deliver updates. The main problem here is that some people don't understand that the version 5.4 patcher (from the version 5.4 installer) is outdated and doesn't work anymore.
And no matter how many times I repeat to get the updated patcher it seems it's never enough...

And finally, manual installation, either by using the manual installation files or by downloading the mod straight from the Github server, where the patcher connect to (the latest version will always be available there). This is the final, ultimate solution for people who can't get the patcher working, because they just have to press download on a link and "copy > paste" the mod into the game.
If they don't know how to do that then it's beyond my help.

How do you uninstall the mod?

Not by having a uninstall option and let me explain why. The same problem as I mentioned before, the differences between the installer and patcher, makes this kinda hard to impossible.

But first of all, having a uninstall option in the installer means the installer needs to be like twice as big, to also contain the original files. I always tried to keep files as small as possible so people can quickly download them, so that's that.

The other big problem is the patcher one, files added by the installer will be removed, but files added by the patcher which you ran after installing the mod (which can be new, different files), how can the uninstall program know how to remove those? Which would make the entire uninstallation process useless.

This is why the most recommended way of getting rid of the mod is to completely delete the game, yes, delete, not just uninstall, there will be remaining mod files from just uninstalling the game.

(Yes, I know how other mods do it but it doesn't work with my system)

TL;DR

Install the mod using the patcher and if that doesn't work just download everything from the Github server and copy everything inside the game's main directory.

To remove the mod simply delete the entire game.

(Remember that I didn't made the patcher so don't ask me for in-depth info about it)

I guess this is a bad time to mention the installation video tutorial I made a few months ago as it seems it didn't help a lot either...

Ah, and remember... "If you have problems with the UI not displaying resources correctly go to "Options" and press the "Restore Defaults" button!"

Outdated, check THIS!