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Comment by Thiez | Hacker News Reader

Back in the day (must be 15 years ago?) at lan parties we would share steam game files locally if someone already had it installed. If the files were present locally in the correct forder, the client would be smart enough to skip to verifying the download.

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I remember spawn installs! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spawn_installation - games came with the ability to install multiple multiplayer-only copies so that you only needed one copy of the game to play. This was invaluable for LAN parties but also families - this list certainly dominated the games that I played with my siblings.

It so often feels like things are moving backward <Old man continues to yell at clouds>.

I definitely remember seeing the "spawn install" option from the StarCraft CD and just assuming it was something to do with the comic book character.

Oh the good old days warcraft 2 I believe also did this. Still waiting for the next installation. WC4.

I think WoW is supposed to be WC4 through...10? 12? not sure how many expacs it's had now...

It's a completely different kind of game, just set in the same universe.

Oh, I totally agree; I just don't think it's likely that Blizzard will be making another Warcraft RTS any time soon, and if they do, the story will either be some complete side-story with much smaller stakes, or they'll expect you to have at least some familiarity with the WoW story to understand it.

Moving backwards in usability but forwards in profits for the rich!

I think it was the only reason we played Carmaggedon back then. It had spawn installs.

There's no need to yell at this particular cloud. Similar licenses still exist. For example, "It Takes Two" only requires one player to own the license. ...so does the "Jackbox Party Pack". Also there are many local-coop games that can be played through Nvidia Gamestream. I played "Rayman Legends", and "Lovers in A Dangerous Spacetime" this way.

I remember CD games where it was MUCH faster to copy the install directory over the network than wait for the installed to decompress everything. And then a quick repair and you were good to go.

> If the files were present locally in the correct forder, the client would be smart enough to skip to verifying the download.

It still is; I just replaced the boot drive in my PC, pointed Steam at my already-installed library (on a secondary drive) and installed the games with no downloads necessary (other than updates for some games).

I'm pretty sure that's still the case, I don't recall them making any change that would break it

Yeah, this is just Steam doing it automatically for you

We would ask everyone to have the game installed and updated before they arrive, however inevitably the events would turn into "install parties". I still miss those days, though; if nothing else because I had more time and patience.

Steam is pretty robust. If delete everything but steam.exe and the steamapps dir. Launching steam.exe will basically just reinstall steam in place and have all your Games there.

There is and has been also option to make backups from steam games. And then install those on other machines.

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