Wondering if ORK is well-equipped to handle a game that is Live Service. As in a game that is supported throughout its life with DLCs, Content Updates, Patches, etc...

ORK comes with an encryption option for saves, which is great for including additional info like Premium currency and such by In-App purchases. My only worry is the save structure that ORK uses and whether or not the saves are still compatible after a game update. Not only do Game updates add content, it could involve changes to existing combatants, stats, enemies, AI, events, etc.

Is it feasible for ORK to adapt to a Live Service model? Can I implement a custom save system for ORK to use instead of its default system?
  • ORK supports custom save systems, e.g. you could use it to send your save game to a server and save it there. Save to Custom in Menus > Save Game Menu and you can define a class and (static) functions that'll be used to forward the save stuff to. The help texts of the settings let you know how the functions should look like (e.g. attributes).

    As for general updates with DLCs, etc. - that should be handled like with any other Unity game, so new stuff is added or replaces old stuff. Changes to things like combatants will require you to have the ORK project asset in the update to add the new data.
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  • Let's say in a scenario that a release of v1.0 where couple of Stats have been defined(STR, INT, AGI, LUK). In the v1.1 update, the game designer could think of changing those stats and expand them further like (STR -> ATK and DEF, INT -> MATK and MDEF, AGI -> SPD, LUK - > CRITRATE).
    How would that affect the v1.0 saves? Do we have to prepare some sort of a save migration system to convert v1.0 saves to v1.1 or does ORK handle the conversion automatically?

    It's an extreme example but it's worth discussing.
  • Some changes can be an issue, but as a general rule: Don't delete things or change the order.
    E.g. if you want to turn STR into ATK and DEF, either change STR to ATK and add a DEF, or set STR to be hidden and add ATK and DEF.
    Also, the save games will naturally have the stats saved, so if you change STR to ATK, it'd have the previous STR value.

    ORK 3 will be better in that regard, as things aren't saved by their index, but by their GUID, so even removing or changing order doesn't impact it.
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  • Okay, so the data is being sorted by index not GUID. That means conflicts are bound to happen. Is it possible to create a system where upon loading a save, check if it's the old v1.0 save. If so, extract the values out of the old v1.0 saves then reassign them into newly created v1.1 saves?

    In regards to ORK3 , would there be any leftover unused data if this same scenario happens?
  • That's something you could do in your custom save game handling.

    In ORK 3, naturally the data is still in the old save file, but it'd not be used (e.g. deleted status value), next time saving over the same save game will no longer contain the data.
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