PROPOSAL - ESF Open Beta Distribution method

[Zeonix]

What's the diff between the two?

 

[esf-w | Max2]

do you really think the team will just pick 1 host ?

and something else, if esf-w sucks that much why we have 119k downloads for esfb 1.2.3 ? host it where ever u want i guess there will be a esf-w mirror too if the svn thing isnt working...

 

[Basslover722]

Just do HL2 files its much better.

 

[Mist]

esf-w | Max2 has somewhat of a point ... the team will just put it on more than one host ... probably something like hl2files esf-world maybe a torrent etc etc ... so don't worry everyone will get it XD ..... now enough with this i'm going to play "n"

 

[sub]

Bit Torrent would be infinitely superior to ESF-World. Yeah, you only have to wait 20 minutes at ESF-World, but they also cap your download limit to like 20kb per second. It's horrible.

The only thing bad about bit torrents would be getting people to keep them up after their finished downloading.

 

[KarrdeKNR]

Right, that's why I was thinking we should BT everything for a while first, then let sites like ESF World and HL2Files have the files, that way we can maintain the first distro push and keep the torrents alive, then preserve access to the files as needed.

 

[Yoruichi]

Akatsuki Community (www.akatsukiclan.net) will also help in any hosting if needed.

 

[markg85]

do you really think the team will just pick 1 host ?

and something else, if esf-w sucks that much why we have 119k downloads for esfb 1.2.3 ? host it where ever u want i guess there will be a esf-w mirror too if the svn thing isnt working...

no offense to you or your site but esf-w just isn`t the best solution for this and that`s mainly because the caps and waitings.. and your wondering why oyu have 119k downloads on 1.2.3... the reason is simple.. you have the only living esf resource center. (but you must update your files)

What would be the best thing (my opinion) is one SVN (and i`m doing my best to get it) and several mirrors who have a build of the latest svn online (esf-w, hl2-files softpedia perhaps?) but weekly`s that are placed on esf-w by the esf team just doesn`t soubnd right.. just when you have that weekly downloaded from there another weekly is avalible

 

[Adaptus]

do you really think the team will just pick 1 host ?

and something else, if esf-w sucks that much why we have 119k downloads for esfb 1.2.3 ? host it where ever u want i guess there will be a esf-w mirror too if the svn thing isnt working...

It's because ESF-W has the most files.

And because it's the one ESF resource that's been around longest and is most well-known, because everyone refers to it.

It's not because of the great download speeds.

No offense intended, just being honest here.

ESF-W's reputation is better than its server strength.

 

[markg85]

lets not make this a topic about esf-w, but a topic about my proposal!!

 

[Imaginate]

I suggest that the betas be packaged in self-extracting archives, using WinRar or equivalent. Downloads should be offered both in torrent and direct download forms, as some are unable to use torrents well ( like me...even with my ports fowarded I only get 0-3kb/s, which is pathetic ). While SVN could be useful, it has the disadvantage of requiring a server, and the fact that everybody would need to download a client such as TortoiseCVS unless it was coupled with a webserver ( if possible ), and this would be bandwidth-intensive, especially because it couldn't be hosted by a high-bandwidth server such as MegaUpload's servers or **********'s servers.

So, in my opinion, that leaves torrents, and direct downloads hosted on third-party websites.

 

[Hibiki]

It's because ESF-W has the most files.

And because it's the one ESF resource that's been around longest and is most well-known, because everyone refers to it.

It's not because of the great download speeds.

No offense intended, just being honest here.

ESF-W's reputation is better than its server strength.

Things can be uploaded to more then one place. It doesn't just have to be on ESF-W or where ever.

 

[Spunky]

Things can be uploaded to more then one place. It doesn't just have to be on ESF-W or where ever.

Exactly. There are hundreds (hmm, thousands?) of other places to mirror it from. Just to name a few:

R-a-p-i-d-s-h-a-r-e (why the hell is that censored?)
Megaupload
Sendspace
Filefront
Fileshack (with a "Shackspace" account, that is...)
Gigasize
Sexuploader (don't judge me!)
Upload.com
Yousendit

All I can think of for now. But yeah, there are a hell of a lot of upload sites to mirror from.

 

[Pemalite]

Torrents are the way of the future, Hardly any server costs, easier to update and maintain, Good speeds...

 

[Spunky]

Torrents are the way of the future, Hardly any server costs, easier to update and maintain, Good speeds...

HAHAHAHAHA-aha-aha-ha... Ohh, that was good.

Torrents are quite possibly the most primitive way to obtain data that exists today. P2P usually fails, as it's difficult to receive data at a fast enough rate, than if you were pulling it directly off a server (aka "direct download", aka "HTTP download"). I remember 1 year ago when I used torrents, and I could never get a download rate above 150kb/s. Pathetic. I'm on a 10MBit connection, so I should not have that problem. But sadly, that's the case with almost any P2P program. When downloading via an HTTP link, I can get anywhere up to 2MB/s, and that goes even higher on Usenet.

Then you have the "seeding" factor. Most BT clients hog significant memory, so who in their right mind would want to seed 24/7, when they could be doing something else instead?

Think about all of that for a second. No, seriously, let it sink in.

 

[dan_esf_fanatic]

I gotta admit Spunky is right. It would be much easier to host on MegaUpload. It's maximum is 500 MB and you can use a download manager with it if you're a dial up user. It also has much higher speed than torrent, and imagine being the first one to dl from the torrent. No seeds.

 

[markg85]

oke.. here is a new idea in case the proposal on my first post just isn`t possible to become a reality..

Some posts above this one someone mentioned usenet and i completely forgot about that possibility.. so why not upload it to usenet and put a seeding mirror (torrent) online? in my usenet account i have about 3 weeks till the data gets deleted so for me it would be atleast perfect enough to get the latest build and 2 or 3 before them.. and than third party sites can decide what they want to do.. download it from usenet and put it on there site or just leave it as it as and don`t do anything with it. meaning that there only is a torrent to download from and the usenet for the time that your usenet provider keeps the files on.. i think a.t.binaries.games would be good... or alt.binaries.dragonballz (or alt.binaries.anime.bragonballz)

let me know what you think of this second proposal (HarSens?)

 

[Spunky]

oke.. here is a new idea in case the proposal on my first post just isn`t possible to become a reality..

Some posts above this one someone mentioned usenet and i completely forgot about that possibility.. so why not upload it to usenet and put a seeding mirror (torrent) online? in my usenet account i have about 3 weeks till the data gets deleted so for me it would be atleast perfect enough to get the latest build and 2 or 3 before them.. and than third party sites can decide what they want to do.. download it from usenet and put it on there site or just leave it as it as and don`t do anything with it. meaning that there only is a torrent to download from and the usenet for the time that your usenet provider keeps the files on.. i think a.t.binaries.games would be good... or alt.binaries.dragonballz (or alt.binaries.anime.bragonballz)

let me know what you think of this second proposal (HarSens?)

Then we would have the issue of time. You say your service only retains binaries for 3 weeks. Well, that could be a problem. What if someone wants to go back to an older version (for whatever reason), but the binaries are gone? As for using Usenet to seed a torrent, I don't think that's even possible, as the binaries would be encoded. You would need to decode the file AS YOU DOWNLOAD, which would require a lot of CPU power. Not to mention, there's no software (that I know of) that can decode on the go.

So, yeah, bad (or perhaps, impossible) idea.

 

[Zeonix]

HAHAHAHAHA-aha-aha-ha... Ohh, that was good.

Torrents are quite possibly the most primitive way to obtain data that exists today. P2P usually fails, as it's difficult to receive data at a fast enough rate, than if you were pulling it directly off a server (aka "direct download", aka "HTTP download"). I remember 1 year ago when I used torrents, and I could never get a download rate above 150kb/s. Pathetic. I'm on a 10MBit connection, so I should not have that problem. But sadly, that's the case with almost any P2P program. When downloading via an HTTP link, I can get anywhere up to 2MB/s, and that goes even higher on Usenet.

Then you have the "seeding" factor. Most BT clients hog significant memory, so who in their right mind would want to seed 24/7, when they could be doing something else instead?

Think about all of that for a second. No, seriously, let it sink in.

Amazing how much can change over a year. Last time I dled something over BT, I was getting 900 kb/s. It's all dependent on the number of seeds and the tracker. If you're one of many not-so-smart people who want to use public trackers, be my guest, but you're obviously not going to dl anything at very fast speeds. Private trackers? Well, they're obviously better.

If whoever sets up the torrent for 1.3 knows what they're doing, and people aren't *******s and keep seeding, everyone will be dling at blazing speeds.

I should mention that I usually either play PC games while I'm dling, about to go to sleep, or just walk away. I haven't used a client that kept me from doing anything. Ever.

 

[Spunky]

Amazing how much can change over a year. Last time I dled something over BT, I was getting 900 kb/s. It's all dependent on the number of seeds and the tracker. If you're one of many not-so-smart people who want to use public trackers, be my guest, but you're obviously not going to dl anything at very fast speeds. Private trackers? Well, they're obviously better.

If whoever sets up the torrent for 1.3 knows what they're doing, and people aren't *******s and keep seeding, everyone will be dling at blazing speeds.

I should mention that I usually either play PC games while I'm dling, about to go to sleep, or just walk away. I haven't used a client that kept me from doing anything. Ever.

Well, it would obviously have to be a public tracker to seed the open beta, now wouldn't it?

You also have to keep in mind that alot of the people here don't have, or can't afford, high-end machines. So YOU may be able to multitask, but you're not speaking for everyone, and in the long run that's what counts. As for the number of seeds having an affect on the download, you're half right. You'll experience greater speeds if there aren't an army of leechers, with only a few seeds, which would be the case for the open beta.

So everything you've said has been about your own personal preference, and you haven't put a single thought into how this would work for the entire community as a whole.