Should we turn server downloads into packages like addons?

[VinLAURiA]

Only because downloading files from servers - like using legacy addons - still slows down the initial load time of GMod. I jumped on maybe two or three servers the other day - the [i]first[/i] online servers I've jumped onto since the switch to GM13, mind you - and just downloading the custom models and such as is per the norm clogged up the program so much that the time it took to get to the main menu on launch went from around 15-20 seconds to over two minutes, and likewise for loading a map. Basically all that extra speed I've gained and enjoyed since the GM13 switch was utterly nullified and I had to go in and completely blow out a whole bunch of folders just to get it running smoothly again.

And sure, I could choose not to download custom files, but then going on a server using content I down have is gonna throw a whole bunch of red ERRORs, broken tools and SWEPs, purple checkerboards, and silent sounds at me.

So I thought: if a server has custom content, why not have it pack that content up into something akin to a GMA file before serving it to players? The content could use whatever loading system Garry has in place for GMAs that makes the game so fast to load, and each server's package could have some internal ID tag that only makes it load on that specific server. Each time you reconnect it would check for discrepancies between the client and server-side versions and update the client-side one accordingly; I imagine that - since this wouldn't go through Workshop and thus you wouldn't have to deal with its restrictions - you'd be able to implement a more SVN-like system where it only updates files in the packages that it detects were changed since the user's last visit.

(Hmm, should I have posted this in the Developments section... ?)

[VinLAURiA]

Yeah, maybe I should've posted this in the Developments section. Bump.