GreenAsJade Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 As you all no doubt know, The Scenario Depot disappeared in a puff of smoke when its ISP vanished. This is a massive hole in our community's resources. Many people have indicated they are willing to help fix it. Let's coordinate in this thread. Current ideas: 1) Adm Keth & COG work together to rebuild something like TSD at cmmods.com 2) Build on The Proving Grounds to make it a home for finished as well as under development scenarios. 3) Over at We Band Of Brothers they are talking about building a WeBoB scenario repository. Personally I think that one "one stop shop" should be replaced by another "one stop shop", and would prefer to see all efforts behind the best "one stop shop" we can come up with. What next? GaJ [ August 04, 2005, 02:42 AM: Message edited by: GreenAsJade ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philippe Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 I think there are two different issues here, and we need to keep the distinction in sight. When we lost the Scenario Depot we lost two things: a) a collection of over 3000 scenarios for the three CM games; and a powerful sorting tool that was essential to making sense out of the collection. I've frequently found myself using the Scenario Depot for getting a handle on scenarios that I knew I already had. The database sorting provided by the Depot was at least as important as the preservation of the scenarios. I'm worried and, in fact, quite certain that something like this is going to happen again. That is why I would eventually hope that the successor site, in whatever form it takes, gets some kind of sponsorship from BFC. In the meantime the first critical issue that needs to be addressed is basic preservation. All the existing (unsorted) scenarios could at least be posted in several large files for each game. This could be updated by normal CMMODS methods until (and perhaps even after) the successor site is established. Working out the design intricacies of the database will take weeks, at the very least. The mass of scenarios which need to be preserved, assuming that someone actually has the entire collection (and I know that's a big if), should take priority from a preservation standpoint. The posting of the unsorted collection of scenarios (sorted only by game) could be done in a couple of evenings, provided that the raw data is there. I'm not sure that CMMODS is the best venue for the ultimate successor site to the Depot. It may be, but there might be other approaches that should be explored. In the meantime, while solutions are being explored, we need to preserve the scenarios, and CMMODS is ideal for that. I would like to see an additional set lodged at CMHQ because of its guaranteed longevity, but that's another story. The gestalt of the Proving Grounds does not seem to be about maintaining Encyclopedias, and that is what we are talking about here. It might prove to be a very good site for this in the end, but would require some careful rethinking by those who run it. What follows comes under the rubric of intermediate interim solutions (as opposed quick and dirty interim solutions). I wonder if there is some kind of quick and dirty relational database that could be bundled into the CMMODS downloads. It would be nice to be able to do a scenario search off-line. The idea being that if there were a common program (a bit like My Mailing List) that the scenario data could be keyed to, updates to the scenario dump and updates to the database could occur at about the same time. The result would be that CMMODS would not be swamped by bandwidth traffic when 2000 users decide to search for scenarios at the same time. I suspect that the majority of us still use dial-ups, and uploading and downloading from CMMODS is slow enough as it is. The reason I mention this is that just deciding how a new database will work will be very time consuming (but very important). But in the meantime there are some quick fixes that would put a temporary bandaid over the hole while a better long term solution gets worked out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzman Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 Originally posted by Philippe: I'm worried and, in fact, quite certain that something like this is going to happen again. That is why I would eventually hope that the successor site, in whatever form it takes, gets some kind of sponsorship from BFC. Considering how events have happened in the past, I don't see BFC having anything to do with it. Matt cannot even keep things going at CMHQ, let alone have them involved in such a site such as SD. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richie Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 I've been forwarding a push at We Band Of Brothers. Simply because there's over 300 commited CM gamers there who love to play and such a fabulous resource has just vanished, regardless of who designed the scenarios or where else they may be hosted, if we lose the concept of The Depot, I fear CM as we know it will suffer. I'm not pushing for a scenario library just available to BoB members. I just want to save the resource and scenarios we ALL have for ALL CM players. Wherever, whoever can host the new library I will gladly help sponsor it for the community as a whole. I think it's time for the community to consider some sort of pooling of resources to save what we have? Without a tool like The Depot we're all a little lost. Something has to be done soon. BFC will not sponsor anything like this IMO. It simply isn't in their interests as far as I can see... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richie Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 A ONE STOP SHOP is the go! But it needs to be for everybody! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolf66 Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 The Depot finally is down for good - for nearly 4 Years now I visited almost daily and boy will I miss it!! I hope this is not off topic, but since I have been frequently downloading from the depot I have 600 additional Scenarios/Ops for CMBB and 300 for CMAK in WinRar Archives. Because the demise of the depot is twice as hard especially on relative new players I would like to help them by offering to email my downloaded scenarios from the Depot. If anyone is interested in getting either one or both of this compilations - email me at Wolfberg@rito.com I will try to send it to you asap and excuse my poor english 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 Originally posted by Philippe: Working out the design intricacies of the database will take weeks, at the very least. The mass of scenarios which need to be preserved, assuming that someone actually has the entire collection (and I know that's a big if), should take priority from a preservation standpoint. There are some designers, myself included, that are happy early design efforts will not see the light of day again. Either designers will need to be contacted prior to putting the scenarios back up, or else you will have to give the designer first right of refusal once the new site is up and running with the ressurected scenarios. But really, who is going to go back and rerate all the scenarios they hated the first time? Especially CMBO ones? I say start fresh - bright eyed designers can resubmit, and the peer review process can start from scratch also. In the meantime, while solutions are being explored, we need to preserve the scenarios, and CMMODS is ideal for that. I would like to see an additional set lodged at CMHQ because of its guaranteed longevity, but that's another story. I don't perceive a "need" to preserve them. I think third parties should be encouraged to submit their favourites to the "new" site in the event that the original designer has moved on. That in itself is a form of peer review - liking something enough you want others to enjoy it. As for CMHQ having guarantted longevity - who has really bothered visiting CMHQ in recent months? When SuperTed was running the news section it was worth a daily visit, but is there anything to see now? You may have a point about BF.C hosting it, but they would need to find another volunteer - another SuperTed - to take the time to administer it. And if all of this will be undone when CMX2 comes out (which may or may not be the case - CMX2 may be a completely different type of game judging by some of the hints) then it may have been little worth the effort. Although, the historian in me does agree with your sentiment of documenting the scenario creations, I have to believe that in two years time, our list of fav CMAK scenarios will be about as relevant as my running list of CMBO PBEM wins/losses. I stopped keeping track years ago. [ July 30, 2005, 10:05 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
junk2drive Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 MD may have a good idea. After playing CMAK only for a long while I started playing some CMBO. There is a big difference in design IMHO from the early BO BB to the recent ones. Designers have matured so to speak. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emar Posted July 30, 2005 Share Posted July 30, 2005 I agree with Michael about not wanting some of my early efforts put back up. A fresh start sounds good to me as well. I am however very worried about what type of sight will be available to host and download scenarios from now that the Scenario Depot is gone(a sight I visited on a daily basis). As a designer I am currently kind of worried that my creating efforts and those of many others will never see the light of day other than on the creators computer . There are of course some other sights out there and some of their stuff is good but they include only scenarios from in house design team groups. The TSD was the only place that the average Joe like me could host and have ops and battles reviewed and played. Speaking of reviews, a lot of players put a lot of effort and thought into reviewing scenarios at TSD for the benefit of other players. I guess all of these reviews have vanished as well (not the Admirals fault of course as he went well above the call of duty for the CM community) I would hope that someone else will step forward and take up the hosting torch. CM is a lot less appealing to me without the ability to find and play the battles and ops that appeal to my own tastes. Not sure that asking the guys at CMMODS or TPG to take on an extra burden is the way to go either. From what i have seen these guys are already giving up a good bit of their lives for the CM community. Don't think it is at all fair to ask more unless we are all going to pay them a salary Any way I hope it gets sorted out somehow as there is no shortage of folks making ops and battles to be played by the CM community. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BirdGunner Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Hi, When it comes down to getting all the scenario's that were at the Depot, and plus a lot of others that were not, it has been my passtime between playing, work and school to download all scenario's that I can get ahold of. So I have almost everthing available from whatever sites, past and present, there have been. I also have records in excel format for each scenario that I have. So if someone can set up a new Depot and requires all the scenario's and the excel lists drop me a line, I have them all. My last download from the Scenario Depot was a day before it went offline so I have all the latest from there. Hope someone is interested!!!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BirdGunner Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 By the way, a quick message to the administrators. I finally remembered my password and updated my profile. So you can disregard all my emails from the last two days. Thanks 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richie Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 BirdGunner, How large are all the scenario files when added together? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BirdGunner Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 It rounds out to about 90MB for all the scenarios and operations. I have all the scenarios broken up into folders for each version the largest folder being about 28MB 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richie Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Would you please email me? My address is in my profile. LtRoss over at We Band Of Brothers has some web space. He will host scenarios, although we'd need to check with legalities first. This was Admiral Keths ballgame and we need to do right by him! Richie 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzman Posted July 31, 2005 Share Posted July 31, 2005 Frankly, before you post anyones scenarios you should be asking scenario designers. If you can hunt them down that is. The battles are as much theirs as they were Admiral Keths. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenAsJade Posted August 1, 2005 Author Share Posted August 1, 2005 I'd suggest that before starting a new repository, a few things be done: 1) Check whether GKJ is willing to add a "finished scenario" section to TPG. Why make a new hosting site if there's one that will already do the job, with a track record of stability. 2) If TPG is not going to be the place, address these issues: a) How stable is the new site going to be? Where is it hosted, under what conditions etc? How is it going to be backed up? c) Are the basics of the design right? This one is fraught with peril because we can debate till we're blue in the face about how the new Depot should work. However, just chucking all the scenarios up ASAP is unlikely to bear the fruits we're after. Probably stating the obvious, but someone needs to do a bit of site design. That person obviously gets to decide what it looks like while the rest of us argue how it should be GaJ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richie Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 Originally posted by Pzman: Frankly, before you post anyones scenarios you should be asking scenario designers. If you can hunt them down that is. The battles are as much theirs as they were Admiral Keths. Without a doubt! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 Originally posted by GreenAsJade: I'd suggest that before starting a new repository, a few things be done: 1) Check whether GKJ is willing to add a "finished scenario" section to TPG. Why make a new hosting site if there's one that will already do the job, with a track record of stability. 2) If TPG is not going to be the place, address these issues: a) How stable is the new site going to be? Where is it hosted, under what conditions etc? How is it going to be backed up? c) Are the basics of the design right? This one is fraught with peril because we can debate till we're blue in the face about how the new Depot should work. However, just chucking all the scenarios up ASAP is unlikely to bear the fruits we're after. Probably stating the obvious, but someone needs to do a bit of site design. That person obviously gets to decide what it looks like while the rest of us argue how it should be GaJ I'd like to see some new categories in place rather than just see a 90 Meg data dump take place. Being able to fully search via multiple data fields would be good - theatre, scenario size, the usual, but also maybe night/day (some people refuse to play night actions, for good reason), weather, exit type scenarios, number of tanks, number of vehicles, etc. Scenario designers wouldn't be forced to enter all that data but would be a nice option to have. We need to ask ourselves - what is the end goal? A simple warehouse, a historical database, or a useful tool for finding scenarios we enjoy - recognizing some enjoy balance, some enjoy playable in a short period of time, some enjoy historical immersion regardless of play balance, etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alsatian Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 I very much disagree that early or imperfect scenarios should be filtered out of any SD Revival. They may not be great, they may be embarrassing to designers, but they represent the history of the game and even in their mistakes could teach a future scenario designer what not to do. Or also, an imperfect scenario is better then nothing and a future designer could start from there, instead of at point zero, to make a great scenario. What if historians, libraries and museums only kept Thomas Edison's final patented light bulb, and threw out the 100s of imperfect experiments before it? I'm sure other inventors learned from Edison's failures. I'm sure sure Edison learned from his own failures too. If as a community we throw away our failures, we throw away the lessons and wisdom gained through them as well. Inevitably, that means some future designer would just repeat the mistakes of the past....doomed to repeat it and all that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 Michael did you really say this? ""There are some designers, myself included, that are happy early design efforts will not see the light of day again. Either designers will need to be contacted prior to putting the scenarios back up, or else you will have to give the designer first right of refusal once the new site is up and running with the ressurected scenarios."" Speak for yourself Michael, I love those retched CMBO scenarios! I did more than a few myself. I mean there are some REAL gems of bad design in amongst the rare good one. Actually I agree with you a number of the earlier efforts should die unmourned but by mid CMBB the community was puting out a much improved product and about 6 months ago the CMAK scenario production was quite mature. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted August 2, 2005 Share Posted August 2, 2005 Thank God for BirdGunner : ). I like obesessives - they are important in society for such emergencies. As for re-asking all scenario designers regarding posting I think that is a ridiculously tough bar to add at this stage. Get a site up and running and the designers can go to it if they really feel that bad about it. As a raw archive it is still better than nothing. We have the ability to use the CM Scenario forum to post comments on scenarios if nothing else is set up. Archive searches would allow reviews to hauled up and added to. I would suggest that all reviews are titled by scenario full name, designer and version number so that the search engine can be utilised to best effect. Whether CMX2 makes this a little redundant really depends on whther it has the gameplay and PBEMability of the current games. So lets play safe and get another haven set up pronto. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColumbusOHGamer Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Originally posted by GreenAsJade: Current ideas: 1) Adm Keth & COG work together to rebuild something like TSD at cmmods.com I sent talked with Keith about this last week. He is super busy right now. I asked him if he had plans to bring back TSD because if he didn't, I would build another database for scenarios. He said he would get back to me when things calm down for him. As far as performance is concerned, adding a scenario db is just a drop in the bucket compared to the GB's of d/l that happen on the mod side of the house. 90MB for over 3000 scenarios is equal to only the 2 biggest mods just in CMAK! Searching is not affected by bandwidth since it runs on the server, and designing it is easier than the mod databases. Hell, I actually started to do this a long time ago, but stopped because I didn't want to compete with TSD. I'd really like to pull the trigger on this, but I'm waiting to hear form Keith first. TSD was his baby and if he has any thoughts of bringing it back, I don't want to rain on that parade. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Hrmmmmh... now, the problem is... we'd be putting EVEN MORE eggs into one and the same basket! Other than that, sounds good. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philippe Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Birdgunner's collection of CMBB scenarios and operations, along with his Excel spreadsheet, have been posted to the CMBB section of CMMODS under the title Scenario Depot Salvage. A very temporary stopgap measure, but at least it's a start. Now we just need to have the same thing done for the CMAK collection and the CMBO collection. All three sets, of course, will become out of date fairly quickly -- think of them as a large, unsorted map collection that just happens to have scenarios attached. We really need the Scenario Depot Phoenix -- I know there is at least one Blue Division scenario I'd be curious to take a quick look at, but I'll never have time to find it without a search engine. Having too much is almost like having nothing. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenAsJade Posted August 4, 2005 Author Share Posted August 4, 2005 Whoa - there's another thread on this topic in Scenario Talk I think that's the right place for it, so PLEASE TAKE DISCUSSION OF "THE FUTURE OF SCENARIO HOSTING" to that thread. If its discussed in one place, there's less chance of duplicate efforts wasting everyone's time! GaJ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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