While it will not roll out together with patch 2.3 we are putting this testlive cycle to extra use by previewing and testing the Funcom Launcher. It will run by default for anyone playing on testlive using the Conan Exiles - Testlive Client instead of the testlive branch of the main Conan Exiles install.
There are mainly two pieces of functionality we wish to bring with the first version of the launcher:
Mod management prior to starting the game (we’ll get some instructions for it prior to full release)
A “Continue” button option which skips the intro video (edit: once assets are loaded) and start menu, taking you directly into the game on the server you played on last - or your solo or co-op game if appropriate
Additionally there are some useful links provided, such as patch notes, these forums, and our social media channels, and we of course aim to have interesting and frequently updated news/content.
Please do try it out and share feedback and suggestions with us, and of course any bugs you happen run into with it. We will work on tweaks and additions both before and after we eventually release it for everyone some time after patch 2.3.
Seems like a small thing but being able to jump straight into the previous server I was on (as it saves me putting in my local IP via Direct Connect) and skipping the intro makes testing things out that much easier.
Ran Test Live stand alone at least 5 times and closed down in various ways. No crashing or unusual behaviors on my end. Tested the continue feature each time without incident. I took time to click every link on every game listed in the panel. All links are in working order. All previews are working, purchase options showing up and the like. Until mod info comes out, this looks good! Thank you for the bypass of the intro and start menu! A real QoL improvement.
Hide and Shriek and The Longest Journey Series both miss several Social Media links in the upper right corner of the UI.
“Continue” - Awesome little things like that make me not mind getting the advertising for all the other Funcom games that I have no interest in. Hopefully the launcher code is very small.
Happy to hear the continue functionality is a welcome feature! I also uses the same mod mismatch check as is already in the game, for those times your or the server’s mods may have changed since last time you played.
We will look into that. It might be that these games don’t have all channels, or we missed them in the current version. Thanks for the full check on all the links!
Nice electron app! Last time I’ve seen another electron app it was using huge chunks of my memory. Looks like they optimized the framework well over the years.
This is a really good and useful feature, thank you for that. Just to explain for everyone else: With “Continue” the intro is not immediately skipped, but it begins and is then automatically canceled, just as if the player had pressed the Escape key.
This and the offline Single player mode are small but very good additions to this game.
As an admin I am looking forward also to the “Server Transfer” feature, which should come with the next but one update. Is there any thread here in the forum that deals with this feature and where we can leave our suggestions?
Aye, their Try to save as much Memory as possible or clean up unused stuff from the PC Client, would benefit them on the Long run with Consoles, too
So, please FC. Please try to reduce memory usage and clean up stuff that are not used anymore. It’s a Win-win-win (tripple win. PC,FC(rollout Patches),Consoles)
Of course you could save the old bulky version in your Local Backups. But the “Live” Version should be as tiny as possible. This also goes out for the Modders, the Server “RAM” Admins would thank you
The launcher only runs until it launches the game. As far as I could tell, it doesn’t run in the background.
Links work fine.
The continue button works well even with modded servers. As mentioned earlier ThomasJ, it seemed to even remember my mod list after the initial mod mismatch window. If this was not just a fluke, it would be a nice QoL feature.
As far as I could test, the mod ordering for single-player works fine but on TestLive the mods work a bit differently (I had to place mine in the mods folder in order for them to be listed).
The continue button skips Funcom’s intros, you still get to see the NVIDIA and UE videos. For me those were skipped fairly quickly as well but I assume this would depend on the loading time.
Notes:
I still feel that the content tab should read DLC unless we get something else listed in there in the future.
Mod Directory is linked to the mod list folder not to the actual content folder where the .pak files are located. I would rather have 2 buttons, one for the content folder and one for the mod list folder.
If I use the launcher in offline mode, it starts the game automatically for me i.e. I don’t see the launcher window at all which means that I can’t use any of its features. It loads the game until the “you are offline, you can only play single-player” warning and upon pressing ok, you get to interact with the main menu where you choose single-player manually.
Will the launcher support the use of a different mod set for different maps?
For example, mod list A for Conan Exiled Lands (single player), mod list B for Conan Isle of Siptah (single player), mod list C for Conan Exiled Lands custom map (like AOC, EEWA, etc), mod list D for Official Server 1212, and mod list E for Private Server “Wrath of Exiles”?
(I just made up the names of servers, but you get the idea)
Some kind of feature like that would be something I would like to see from the launcher (if its going to be useful). Maybe the launcher keeps a list of where I’ve been so I can check a box next to a name and hit “Continue” or give the option to delete one (if I’m not going back) to manage those “servers.” This is especially important to me for the single player games as I’d like to run two different “mod” lists for the different maps.
Definitely something on the wish list, having the Continue button support multiple servers each with a distinct mod list pulling from your installed mods. Once we have the core functionality fully tested, tweaked and rolled out we will investigate work vs. value of each of the suggested additions and get to work on those.
If you hit the “continue” button and the server that you previously connected to is no longer available, the client just sits on the server screen with the “Attempting to join game” window open. I gave it several minutes, tried a variety of keys or mouse clicks nothing let me get back out and it didn’t want to time out either. Had to kill the game client altogether
Yep, the skipping to join the server/game happens as soon as all assets are loaded in the background. Whether that is during the Unreal or nVidia video or some way into the cinematic depends on the assets load speed.
