tropic summit
I run a TCG and I have a TTS version of it. I sometimes need to update cards in the game to reflect reprints and improvements made to the cards. But it seems like the cloud management of TTS tries to make this impossible to do efficiently.
The very first time I tried this, I thought it would be as easy as opening Cloud Manager, mass uploading the new files with the same names as their predecessors and letting them overwrite the old files. I figured that TTS would reference these new files in the cloud and all the cards would all be simultaneously updated. But even after overwriting the old files in the cloud manager, nothing changed (even after some troubleshooting). It raised some confusion for me. How are the card objects still showing the old art? What file are they even referencing for their images now? If not the cloud, where is this coming from?
One thing to note is that I have a lot of card images from my first set that no longer appear in the cloud manager but are still functional in game. Once again we have an issue of "Where are these even being stored?"
I turned to the Program Files, since I know there is a folder there connected to the cloud. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata[Redacted][Redacted]\remote
There, I could see all my files that are in the cloud. They all have big number strings added to their filenames, which is naturally how a cloud would store them. This folder is written to "by" the cloud, not vice versa. Changes I make here are overwritten when steam syncs. Looking at the files, I can see all those ghost files from before. The early cards and the cards that appeared to be overwritten earlier. Its all here.
As far as I can tell, this is what was going on earlier.
I upload all the new files in cloud manager
The files (appear to) overwrite the old ones in cloud manager since they had the same file names
LOL JK. The old files aren't actually deleted.
The cloud actually gave the new files a totally different name (string of numbers before filename) and just hid the old files from sight without deleting them.
The card objects in my game will continue referencing the old (now hidden) files.
The new files I added via TTS Cloud Manager do literally nothing unless I manually connect each one of them to the hundreds of cards.
That explains my early question, but it raises more.
- Why doesn't the cloud manager just actually overwrite the files in the cloud with new ones instead of tricking the user into thinking it did that?
- How can the cloud manager have literally no way to truly delete files? That is not a minor flaw in the program.
- Why isn't there an option to simply swap out an image in the cloud with a replacement file? Even if it only worked one at at time would still be better than having to edit object by object, in-game.
- Why has this not been addressed in the 10 years TTS has been out? This could be seriously bloating storage space on Steam's Cloud system.
And most importantly
- What tools will allow me to actually manage this cloud? The one in TTS isn't cutting it. It is going to literally run out of space eventually because of this.
- How do I access these ghost files that no longer appear in the TTS cloud manager?
- Is my original goal remotely attainable? Is there a way to mass replace the files directly and save myself a bunch of tedious work?
tender pike