It’s  April 6th (just 2 days until my birthday) and I have just returned from a trip to Ibiza. I needed a break away, I booked this trip back in Jan for end of March.

Although time doesn’t stop for someone who runs a business online that works around-the-clock 247, unfortunately. I have my comrades to help me out, like Stephen and Darth, but as you will probably know, work doesn’t just start and stop with providing customer support. There’s a lot of administration work I need to do, like keeping the websites up to date, monitoring the servers and the security of all our network servers.

One of the backup systems failed whilst I was away so I had to spend a glorious 4 hours fixing that, as backups are important. So important infact, we have 8 different backup systems in place at many levels.

GLCV3 Development

Whilst I was away, I was still thinking about GLCV3 almost daily. I am part-way through the next 1.14 update which is a MASSIVE update, almost on-par with releasing a whole new product it’s that big, so there’s many things to always ponder and think about.

Amongst the many updates to come in this one giant update, two stand out; the user-interface overhaul and the AOPS2 rewrite.

As I wrote in my prior dev blog post, the user-interface re-design is very much needed, especially for the plugin developers. You can read more about that, there.

AOPS2 is where the brain juices are at right now. I came off the back of a fully functioning (and fast) runtime I developed for Game Patch Creator. I adapted (and tweaked/improved) the runtime for the V3 patching system (no point in re-inventing the wheel). However, some users (staff too and myself) have come up with some awesome ideas for the patching system. So much so, I just threw caution to the wind and said “I’m going to rewrite it from scratch”.

Now, this is no easy statement to make. The original GPC runtime took me around 6 months to develop (working 12-18 hour days). However, when I wrote GPC, I did that from complete scratch and did it much differently to V2’s AOPS system. So you may think, well it will probably take around 6 months for this update right? Wrong.

The life of a Coder

I feel like it’s engrained into me, the fact when I learn something, mostly through trial and error, you never seem to forget. When I wrote the first GPC runtime for patching, I did it from scratch and solo with the only experience being AOPS from GLCV2 but I didn’t want to take that method, I wanted to use a new method so I was completely on my own.

The stuff I learnt whilst developing the GPC runtime in 2020, is still all up there in my brain. You don’t forget, especially when it’s something all I’ve ever done since (writing GPC runtime, AOPS, AOPS2 and client/custom patch systems). So I am going into this re-write running. I already know the format of what I need to write and the methods, functions and routines I need to write, however there are new features to introduce so it won’t be a complete walk in the park.

GLCV3 will remain our flagship product for many years to come and we have a great userbase using our software, so this needs to be perfect, I want it to be perfect and I’m pretty sure the users do too.

This is also for the greater good beyond Game Launcher Creator though. This system is the next revolution in game patching. AOPS2 is already, hands-down the fastest game patching system in the world. A bold statement to make, but I do it proudly.

Imagine how fast it will be after I’ve rewritten it from scratch with the new methods… I would put it on the line against any other patching system available, anywhere.

Full Control Patching System

I feel, in order to give our Dev Edition users as many options as possible, the entire patching system will be controllable and editable via commandline switches. So for example, you could patch multiple games with one launcher, by simply changing the commandline option. Every single other option should be modifiable via commandline too. This gives game developers complete and full control over everything from design to running pre-patch checks and much more.

The road for Game Launcher Creator V3 is long, there is still a lot of work to do and I’m committed 101% to ensuring it remains my utmost priority every single day until it’s at where I want it to be at. There’s a lot to look forward to and I’m really thankful for our userbase, especially the pre-order users and how patient majority of you have been with us with the release of GLCV3. I promise, it will all be worth it.

New Services

So, along with the monumental task of rewriting Game Launcher Creator V3’s Patching System and overhauling the entire user-interface, I also managed to get the new ByteBox Media website completed.

Alongside this, we’ve also managed to release and launch some new services. We didn’t want to spam everyone with everything we have to offer, but you can see the full list of services here.

Here is a brief of the new products and services we offer that you can order from today…

Custom Software Development – After 14 years of private software development for companies around the world, we have now opened our doors for anyone to get in touch with us to develop your next software application project today. You can get in touch with us, you will be assigned a project manager and we can complete your project from start-to-finish.

Game Development – Utilise our experience and skillset in developing game engines and custom game developments since 2009. We have a fully skilled team of developers and artists that are capable of using UE4/UE5, Unity, Fusion, C++, C#, Java and HTML5.

Web Development – Got a new website, script or project you have in mind and need designing/developing? Look no further.

Code Signing Services – Do you need your launcher, or your game files code signing? You can choose to use your own certificate or use our ByteBox Media certificate. Just upload the files to us, we will certify them and you can re-distribute them. No more warnings for your launcher, patch files or game files.

Custom Launcher Development – Complete, custom launcher design and development from the professionals (myself included). Let’s not beat around the bush, we have been doing this for years and we have a lot of experience, we have the skillset and we have the resources to make your own, dream custom launchers a reality. Just get in touch with us today.

Web Hosting and Patch Servers

We have spent many weeks configuring and setting up some new dedicated servers we have for a brand new patch server and web hosting systems. These patch servers are much faster than our previous ones and they were fast! We even have some special offers on for the new launch. So if you’re looking for web hosting or somewhere to host your game patch files, head over to our special offers page and pick one out. Be quick though, it’s not long until these offers disappear…