Using cloud storage for game data?

[IrradiatedJake]

Hey all!

I had an idea and I'm not sure how it would work or how to go about it. I have two computers that I routinely play on at different houses. The problem is that the games I start on them are stored locally so I can't play on one server with both computers.

My idea was to store this data in a cloud service and when the game launches on either computer it should read the information and load up the server, regardless of what computer I'm on. Any ideas of how to do that or which files I would need? Is this possible? I don't want to ruin the servers but I would like to try testing this out.

Thanks,
Jake

[....]

You simply need your savegame folder. (its in APPdata roaming) - i will never understand why on earth any DEV on this planet would put savegames there ...

You could probably do it if the cloud service can be used like a hard-drive with folder links etc.


Im not an expert but i dont think that this would be a good idea since the game reads the whole map from that file - so i dont know if this could lead to performance issues due to the connection speed (probably depending on how the game uses saves).



I would suggest the following:
a)
Simply save your Savegame-Folder on your cloud after everytime you played and download it to the PC you play on. But you could achieve the same thing cheaper with simply having a 7daystodie USB-Stick.

b)
You could rent a dedicated server or set up a dedicated server on your own pc - but that pc would have to run whenever you want to play.

c)
I wonder if you could use an USB-Stick (USB3.0) for your savegame - give the usb-stick a permanent drive-letter and set Folder Links on each PC so you just would have to stick in the USB-stick to play. (but even USB3.0 is not as fast as a real internal HD so i wonder if this would also lead to performance problems)

[Sedushi]

You should be able to do it with a symbolic link directory. It's basically a directory that points to another directory in another location. This allows you to store your saves in cloud storage and then have the game save directory point to that cloud storage location.

A bit more info on what symbolic links can be found here here[docs.microsoft.com] and here[docs.microsoft.com]. It's pretty technical but if you want to understand what's going on you can read up on it.

I haven't tried this with 7 Days to Die, but I've done this same process in other games.

So let's say I have Google Drive and it's folder is synced here:

C:\Users\Sedushi\Google Drive\

I'd copy the current 7 Days to Die saves folder to that directory so that directory might be under here now:

C:\Users\Sedushi\Google Drive\7DaysToDie\Saves

It may be a good idea to copy those saves into another location as well in case anything goes wrong while you're doing this.

Delete the saves folder in the appdata location, if you press the WinKey+R and type %appdata% into the box that appears it'll open that folder for you. So you'd delete the saves directory found here (this is so the command you'll run below succeeds):

C:\Users\Sedushi\AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie\Saves

Now open command prompt and make sure you run it as administrator (Right click on command prompt -> Run As Administrator).

Then run this command to create the symbolic link directory:

mklink /d C:\Users\AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie\Saves C:\Users\Sedushi\Google Drive\7DaysToDie\Saves

That basically says "I want this directory to point to this other directory". The file it creates will look like a normal shortcut but most applications will see it as just another directory.

Hopefully that all helps you out. I tried to explain it as well as I could.

[Sticky White Stuff]

Every game should just use Steam Cloud. It would make the world an easier place.

[Trooper Bri]

GLUE님이 먼저 게시:

Every game should just use Steam Cloud. It would make the world an easier place.

The world and save files for 7D2D are way too big.

[IrradiatedJake]

Wow! Thanks for all of the input guys! I'm going to try a couple of these methods out and see how they work!

[JimmyIowa]

Sedushi님이 먼저 게시:

You should be able to do it with a symbolic link directory. It's basically a directory that points to another directory in another location.

Yes, it works fine, with one change to your explanation. I think a junction rather than a link would be needed for network storage. /J instead of /D

I use a junction to point my \AppData\Roaming\7DaysToDie folder to a ramdisk. That worked wonderfully to eliminate all micro-stutters. (And yes, that means I have to copy it back off the ramdisk before shutting the machine down.)