Language Files as FLC

Averath#4228

I saw this suggestion on reddit and thought it'd be worthwhile to highlight here.

Would it be possible to make language packs an FLC rather than built-in to the game? It is incredibly rare for someone to need more than one language pack installed on their computer. If you speak Russian, you're unlikely to need the French or Chinese localizations. Likewise for French and Chinese not needing the Russian localization.

A lot of these can increase the filesize bloat for a game, and it is not at all limited to Creative Assembly or the Total War franchise. But, as you can freely delete the localization files you're not using after they've been downloaded without having any impact on the game, wouldn't it be easier to just make them optional?

Some people have smaller hard drives, so saving any amount of space can be a lifesaver.

steam_164511187489dRDwv8F

This was an incredibly poor decision by CA. Nobody should have to download all of these huge files unless they need them. Deleting the useless 'update' gained me over 20 gigs. This is a massive amount of storage, and it's really unfair to the users to clog it with junk they don't need. They showed a shocking lack of respect to all of us, and especially to people with limited storage available, and/or those with slower internet. A lot of people had to delete other games, download this useless bloat patch, throw the language files away, and reinstall the other game.

Averath#4228

steam_164511187489dRDwv8F said:

This was an incredibly poor decision by CA. Nobody should have to download all of these huge files unless they need them. Deleting the useless 'update' gained me over 20 gigs. This is a massive amount of storage, and it's really unfair to the users to clog it with junk they don't need. They showed a shocking lack of respect to all of us, and especially to people with limited storage available, and/or those with slower internet. A lot of people had to delete other games, download this useless bloat patch, throw the language files away, and reinstall the other game.

Well, as I said above, it's hardly restricted to CA. Most companies do it this way, but they probably shouldn't. With game file sizes getting larger and larger, and large SSDs still being pretty expensive for budget rigs, saving space can be important.

I'm not trying to shame CA for doing this, because it feels like it is standard business practices for the industry as a whole. But I think it'd be a step in the right direction if they made them optional downloads. Some other games have made features similar in scope as optional downloads, such as high resolution texture packs.

steam_164511187489dRDwv8F

I'm happy to shame them for such a thoughtless and lazy way to handle this. They should be shamed for practices like this, and they better realize it's with good reason. There's no excuse.

Just on a whim, I deleted all the language packs from my Paradox games. They did the same thing in Stellaris and Hearts of Iron, but it took up less than 100MB in each. Far less inconsiderate of customers bandwidth and disk space.