Hosting mods - possible solutions?

[Manx]

After another site has bitten the dust, we really need to think of ways in which we can help those who want to setup CM mod hosting sites.

I've been out of the CM website "loop" for a while now, but i know how difficult it is to run these things. I imagine that things are much worse now, what with CMBB reaching the high street and increasing it's fan base.

We need to find ONE hosting option (so things aren't scattered all over the place) that is reliable and easy to use. My vote goes to "Yahoo Groups" -- Each group has approx. 20MB of storage space, and AFAIK (could be wrong), you can set up as many as you like, so larger releases can be stretched over multiple groups. Once you signup (you only need to do it once), you can access any group via normal links on CM websites and this forum. Each group does have a daily bandwidth limit, but this gets reset each day i believe.

This is just one option out of many that could be used.

Whats your opinion?

[ October 19, 2002, 04:00 AM: Message edited by: Manx ]

[Hensworth]

Better get some good anti-popup software...

[Soddball]

When people get a dial-up or internet account, they usually get web space assigned to them - be it 5, 10, 15 or 50MB. Why don't we use that?

I like the Yahoo Gropes idea, but I've always found it to be slow and cumbersome when I've used it before.

[Pvt. Ryan]

How much bandwidth is needed for a useful site? 50 GB/month? more?

[phil stanbridge]

Manx et al, IMHO Yahoo Groups won't work in our favour. In principal the idea is good, but you get a very common time out issue when downloading, especially for guys in my situation with analogue modems, and when the downloads are popular. Plus there is a limit on what you can download and when. It's a nightmare.

What we really need is a 'friendly resource' with a server and a broadband connection..

To add, I gave up downloading the T34's hosted on Yahoo Groups. One timed out and the other said it had reached it's limit.

[ October 19, 2002, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: phil stanbridge ]

[Scipio]

Well, why does not BFC host the stuff? The mod community is pure and (relative) cheap advertisment for their top seller. They don't even need somebody to care for it - not more then for a forum - some kind of filedepot script can do the same. Qualtiy control of the mods will be done by the customers anyway.

[mchlstrt]

Can anyone give an overview of 'The State of the 'Net' regarding Sites? I understand that 'Free' space is getting less common while Files are getting larger. What does it take/cost to have an 'unlimited access' Site? Please elaborate.

strt

[Redwolf]

In my opinion Yahoo groups fundamentally suck in almost every aspect.

As said on the other thread, I think we could try to open our own dynamic sharing mechanism with people's home machines for the zipfiles and a central site maintaining links to them.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Scipio:

Well, why does not BFC host the stuff? The mod community is pure and (relative) cheap advertisment for their top seller. They don't even need somebody to care for it - not more then for a forum - some kind of filedepot script can do the same. Qualtiy control of the mods will be done by the customers anyway.

I seems that BFC has the bandwidth but not the staff to maintain the links and the website around the zipfiles.

If that is true then that could be solved by a privately operated nice website pointing to zipfiles hosted by BFC, if BFC selects some people who get write access to the download dir (which is already the case AFAIK).

[Alkiviadis]

My views are congruent with redwolf re: yahoo groups.

In addition I don't like BEING FORCED TO JOIN any group, for any reason.

[WWB]

The bottom line is that someone, somewhere is going to have to pony up some significant cash.

I gather that serious mod hosting requires data transfer in the range of 300 GB/Month. I did a cursory search and hosting costs seem to be at least $200 a month, a figure far too high to ask any individual to support out of pocket. For that amount, one could also get a beefy partial pipe and host the thing themselves but that entials alot of work keeping the server up and secure.

The question then becomes how to pay for such a service, and the more I think about it, subscription is the way to go. 200 modsluts paying $9.95 a year could easily cover the costs for such a service.

WWB

[Redwolf]

wwb, that's the reason why I want to distribute the mods over http or ftp servers that people can offer on their home machines, or on lower-bandwidth hosted machines.

Somebody with a regular webserver might not be able to host 100 mods which cause 10 GB/day, but he might be able to host 2 or 5.

[ October 19, 2002, 03:25 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Krazy Canuck]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

[QB]The bottom line is that someone, somewhere is going to have to pony up some significant cash.

The question then becomes how to pay for such a service, and the more I think about it, subscription is the way to go. 200 modsluts paying $9.95 a year could easily cover the costs for such a service.

==================================================

That thought crossed my mind but it also creates a potential minefield. Who uses/who pays? How do you pay? Who do you pay to? etc. :eek:

KC

[Pvt. Ryan]

Yeah, I was thinking of donating the cash to pay for the necessary bandwidth, but that is just too much. The subscription idea seems the best, but it seems a bit unfair to those modsluts who can barely scrape enough cash together to buy the game. Plus, someone could subscribe and then pass the mods around freely, which wouldn't be fair to those who paid. Or would anyone even care if that happened? I'm willing to pay more than my fair share because it would be for the good of the whole CM community and we might get a good site would otherwise be too costly for any one person to support. I suppose CMHQ will again be a useful resource once the patches for CMBB are done. Matt would obviously need some help keeping things organized and updated. Perhaps someone who would otherwise be willing to do this on his own but for lack of bandwidth could volunteer his services to Matt.

[aka_tom_w]

How does free downloading of warez or music mp3's work??

I know there is alot of free bandwidth out there I'm just not sure how to get at it?

There are all kinds of folks out ther running Hotline/Limewire/gnutella/Kwaza servers in their baesments and they have much great file transfer needs than a mod server.

I wish I know more about how guys that have 10 gigs of free software, videos and MP3's keep their sites up for free while allowing unlimited downloading with all that bandwidth??

:confused:

again I wish I know alot more about how hosting a MP3 free music site worked?

Was there not a fan of CM here that was going to host a Hotline server with only CMBO mods on it.

Maybe I will do a search for his old (1 yr maybe) post?

-tom w

[Barticus]

How about this;

1) We break the mods down into categories. i.e. Russian AFV's '41 to '45, German guns, Terrain, Special effects. We try to work it that each category is roughly the same size for hosting purposes.

2) People then volunteer to host a specific category

3) We keep one website as a central repository that lists what each category contains, where it's hosted, and by whom. A link to the hosted download site will also be provided.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to a hosted site, nor do I have privileges at work to host such a site. I will, however, look into alternatives.

How's that?

Bart

[aka_tom_w]

this thread:

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=023659

is this guy still around???: :confused:

member number 1699!!!

Author

Topic: new player with ideas

foxtrot

Junior Member

Member # 1699

posted February 20, 2002 08:34 PM

Hey, I'm pretty new to Combat mission. I got the demo and am ordering the full game as soon as I got

some money in the checking account. But in the game I used to play(myth2). The community would set

up hotline servers as places to gather. With hotline I could set up a CMBO server where you could

connect with the hotline client. I'd host files(mods,battles,operations) and it would be extremely easy

and quick to set up games since the client also has chat. I'm not sure how fast my server is(DSL) but

I'd like to give it a try if any others of this community would be interested.

Hotline is free to download at http://www.bigredh.com

[ October 19, 2002, 03:42 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Tarquelne]

Kazaa PtP isn't exactly a paragon of user convience, but I like it better than Yahoo Groups (or bin. USENET), and I think it'd be easier than a host of small h or f-tp hosts.

For me, at least.

In a few weeks, and unless a better solution comes along first, I'll make all mods I can get ahold of avialble via Kazaa ~24/7. I'll post here then, and send the info to a CM website or two.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Tarqulene:

Kazaa PtP isn't exactly a paragon of user convience, but I like it better than Yahoo Groups (or bin. USENET), and I think it'd be easier than a host of small h or f-tp hosts.

For me, at least.

In a few weeks, and unless a better solution comes along first, I'll make all mods I can get ahold of avialble via Kazaa ~24/7. I'll post here then, and send the info to a CM website or two.

Yeah but Hotline is Easy and it works great

But the issue IS bandwidth and lots of it FREE, doesn't matter what flavour of server or client you have or use, we need LOTS of freebandwith somehow.

-tom w

[Shadow 1st Hussars]

I used to run a hotline CMBO server, but no one ever used it so I gave up.

[Alkiviadis]

QUOTE]Originally posted by redwolf:

Originally posted by Scipio:

Well, why does not BFC host the stuff? The mod community is pure and (relative) cheap advertisment for their top seller. They don't even need somebody to care for it - not more then for a forum - some kind of filedepot script can do the same. Qualtiy control of the mods will be done by the customers anyway.

I seems that BFC has the bandwidth but not the staff to maintain the links and the website around the zipfiles.

If that is true then that could be solved by a privately operated nice website pointing to zipfiles hosted by BFC, if BFC selects some people who get write access to the download dir (which is already the case AFAIK).

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Shadow 1st Hussars:

I used to run a hotline CMBO server, but no one ever used it so I gave up.

OK

but did you have enough bandwidth for free?

That is the thing that gets most folks hung up here?

-tom w

[Pvt. Ryan]

What does it take to get unlimited bandwidth? How high up the internet ladder do you have to go where you can control the bandwidth?

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

Originally posted by redwolf:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scipio:

Well, why does not BFC host the stuff? The mod community is pure and (relative) cheap advertisment for their top seller. They don't even need somebody to care for it - not more then for a forum - some kind of filedepot script can do the same. Qualtiy control of the mods will be done by the customers anyway.

I seems that BFC has the bandwidth but not the staff to maintain the links and the website around the zipfiles.

If that is true then that could be solved by a privately operated nice website pointing to zipfiles hosted by BFC, if BFC selects some people who get write access to the download dir (which is already the case AFAIK).</font>

[GJK]

My views:

1. Problem/issues with Kazaa or PTP serving (including Hotline): You have to search for the mod you want and if your search criteria doesn't match the filename, you wont see the mod. We would want to adopt a universal naming system of some sort but searching will still be a hit or miss.

2. Subscription based fee for bandwidth: I could go for this, but the free bandwidth is there, we just need to find the best ways to utilize it.

My suggestion as you all probably know is the newsgroups. I don't see why it hasn't been mentioned. I believe most ISP's provide NNTP service with their accounts and if not, there are newsproviders that cost as low as $10/month for 6 gigs of downloads. I believe you can subscribe to lower bandwidth/rate plans.

Complaints against newsgroups that I forsee:

1. You don't see what your downloading? True, but you don't either with PTP file swapping. On the newsgroups, I can upload screenshot images that can be opened in the browser though.

2. I don't know how to use newsgroups, what are they and aren't a lot of viruses on them? I recommend using Forte Inc's Free Agent (free) for newsgroup reading. It's easy to use and their website Free Agent has a good FAQ and instructions. You can also have any file downloaded route through your anti-virus program. Plus, if you're just going to alt.games.combat-mission to grab mods, I would think you'd be ok. Wonder off to other areas and you might have problems unless you know what your doing. Yes, some hack could discover the group and think that it would be fun to load virus infected "mods" in there, but that group has been there for some time and hardly anybody ever posts there. If you don't recognize the poster, don't download it though.

The websites could also be used as a visual reference for the newsgroup posts. My site for example my list mods that I will post on a regular or per request basis, along with the filename, screenpic and description.

If your curious about the newsgroups, go check out alt.games.combat-mission. I posted about 140 mb of mods there last night. I'll put up the screenshots and/or make the filenams more descriptive if that helps anybody.

My 2¢

GJK