Ability to download purchased content for offline use.

[EightBitz]

I'm posting this in its own thread so the developers can get a better feel for how many people would want this feature.

I know some of the the plans for cloud services are nebulous right now, but it sounds like the ability to download purchased content for offline use isn't going to be a guaranteed feature. It's going to be a complicated issue, and the amount of work it requires is going to be weighed against how high the demand is.

So, if anyone else would like this ability, please add your vote in reply.

 

[Nikmal]

I think that it will be available through the cloud service and then viewable while off-line as a sync type of thing. Though if it is not then yes I would like it to be available if you can't get on the internet.

While I can get on the internet most places.. I would rather it be available if I can't and I want to show someone something in the realms I download.

 

[EightBitz]

I think that it will be available through the cloud service and then viewable while off-line as a sync type of thing. Though if it is not then yes I would like it to be available if you can't get on the internet.

While I can get on the internet most places.. I would rather it be available if I can't and I want to show someone something in the realms I download.

Well, the quandary is how the purchased content will apply to your cloud usage. If you purchase a huge realm, they don't want you penalized on your cloud usage for that, so they would keep the data in the cloud in its own space, for everyone, and allow you to use it as you needed it.

That's what would make this a complicated issue. It would be different than syncing, because it wouldn't be in your cloud account to sync.

Make sense?

 

[ShadowChemosh]

Well, the quandary is how the purchased content will apply to your cloud usage. If you purchase a huge realm, they don't want you penalized on your cloud usage for that, so they would keep the data in the cloud in its own space, for everyone, and allow you to use it as you needed it.

That's what would make this a complicated issue. It would be different than syncing, because it wouldn't be in your cloud account to sync.

Make sense?

If I understand what Rob was saying it's that even though it does not take up your Cloud space you still maintain a "pointer" to that data base. Which should in no way prevent a download of the data to your local machine. I can't see the design of how RW works being different just because of this added data base. By different being that every time you clicked on a snippet from this "purchased" realm that it would go to the cloud to get the data. It makes more logical sense that it works the same way as now. Download and use it offline once downloaded.

So you would download the whole data base including what you purchased to your local machine. But in the cloud you would not be using up any of your space as the data was in a different section of the server a "shared cloud" in idea. This is some what similar to how all cloud services work for music.

If you upload song "a" to Dropbox cloud and that song "a" already exists in their data base they store your File Name and a pointer to the actual song. They don't actually store separate instances of this song that 100,000 users could have. That is a waste of space.

 

[rob]

Thank you for the well-stated clarification, @ShadowChemosh!

 

[EightBitz]

That's weird. I was skeptical of your post, Shadow, because that's not at all what I thought I read. I didn't want to counter, though, until Rob chimed in. And now that he did, well, I'm confused as to why I read it so differently. Happy that your post is true, though. Make no mistake about that. Just confused.

Thanks, as well, for the clarification.

 

[Vargr]

For me it is important that I can use all content off-line.

At times I spend weeks to months at locations with no internet at all or only very sporadic and slow connection meaning any kind of cloud storage is unlikely to be worthwhile working with. It would be a shame not being able to work on one's realms during such times.

When I get to a proper internet connection I would then like to sync my work back to the cloud.

As far as I am able to tell, we will be able to do this.

If you make a backup of your database I suppose RW will have to download all content to your machine - if all else fails you could use this method in order to be able to work offline. Or not?

 

[Farling]

If you make a backup of your database I suppose RW will have to download all content to your machine - if all else fails you could use this method in order to be able to work offline. Or not?

You always have a complete copy of your database locally on your machine. You only need to sync to copy changes back up to their server.

 

[rob]

One additional suggestion: If you are going to work offline for an extended period (weeks to months), I strongly recommend making backups of your database periodically during that time to a memory stick or external drive. That way, if your drive fails or you have some other catastrophic failure, you don't lose ALL your work. And if everything goes smoothly and you get back to an internet connection without any hiccups, you can sync back to the cloud and throw away the backup.

 

[Vargr]

One additional suggestion: If you are going to work offline for an extended period (weeks to months), I strongly recommend making backups of your database periodically during that time to a memory stick or external drive. That way, if your drive fails or you have some other catastrophic failure, you don't lose ALL your work. And if everything goes smoothly and you get back to an internet connection without any hiccups, you can sync back to the cloud and throw away the backup.

That is a good advice - for any type of work you make on a computer.