The shsforums dot net down. Up. And down.

[argent77]

To satisfy the BWS installer, mirrors should also provide ways for direct downloads. I don't know if this can be easily done with all those file hosting services.

For mods that are still being actively developed it's probably better to use a repository hosting service instead, such as GitHub or Bitbucket.

[ugur51]

To satisfy the BWS installer, mirrors should also provide ways for direct downloads. I don't know if this can be easily done with all those file hosting services.

 

For mods that are still being actively developed it's probably better to use a repository hosting service instead, such as GitHub or Bitbucket.

 

yeah right ..

 

We can also use google drive too

[subtledoctor]

 

To satisfy the BWS installer, mirrors should also provide ways for direct downloads. I don't know if this can be easily done with all those file hosting services.

 

For mods that are still being actively developed it's probably better to use a repository hosting service instead, such as GitHub or Bitbucket.

yeah right ..

 

We can also use google drive too

 

Why not? I'm hosting my mods on GitHub: it's free, it saves all versions, it is very BWS-friendly, and it's been up consistently for the last year while very single other IE mod site has had at least one outage.

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

I was considering making a torrent.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I was considering making a torrent.

There's already one... it's not worth a thing. It's too old and stuff, and illegal. As you just can't update the torrent file system files that easily.

Why not? I'm hosting my mods on GitHub: ...

Cause not all people use the xyz, they have to learn the system and stuff.

 

*to give context to the above, replace the word stuff with a good curse word like shi...

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

 

There's already one... it's not worth a thing. It's too old and stuff, and illegal. As you just can't update the torrent file system files that easily

 

I appreciate your desire to help, but I think I'll do it anyway.

[Roxanne]

Regardless of where you put your files, you will still need a forum like SHS or G3 to publish the download links. For mods still in progress you also need the forum to exchange bug discusssions, feedback for improvements etc.

The file maintenance and hosting is a different issue and can be made independent of the forum.

I am now using dropbox to upload my mod files (since SHS download system seems to be permanently unuasable). All you need to do there is add ?dl=1 to the link the system gives you and you have a direct download without people interested in the mod needing to log on or something - the extension just starts your download. I do not know if that feature works for other file hosting systems as well.

 

PS I tried torrent some time back, but the problem here is to maintain updates - aside from the fact that some ISPs think that P2P is something illegal (the method itself is not but a large amount of the data exchanged that way is) and some users mistrust it.

[lynx]

downloading from github is as easy as from any other site, the developer just needs to make a release. The main benefit is that it's easier to contribute fixes and maintain the mod in the long run.

[khelban12]

Why not? I'm hosting my mods on GitHub: it's free, it saves all versions, it is very BWS-friendly, and it's been up consistently for the last year while very single other IE mod site has had at least one outage.

+1

 

GitHub (or even better gitlab which is completely open source) is free, it has huge bandwidth for fast downloads, has backup and failover capabilities so that it will never have outages as subtledoctor said (there was one incident this year with a massive ddos from chinese IPs but other than that it is always up).

 

It also makes collaboration much easier because anyone can make a bug fix and then issue a pull request. IE mods are text files (mostly) and change frequently so they are perfect target for a VCS like git.

 

I was considering making a torrent.

The only problem with torrents is what Jarno mentioned. Unlike older p2p systems like emule, etc it makes changes more difficult because you will have to create a new torrent for every mod change and there will not be a standard url for getting the latest version. Users will need to search for the torrent.

 

Regardless of where you put your files, you will still need a forum like SHS or G3 to publish the download links.

There is a robot github account which hosts every script for the VIM editor (5K+ scripts) and auto updates when the original github repo updates. There could be a mirror like this for IE mods so everyone will know that he can find mods there and not need to search the forum for links (of course the forum would still have the links). If one has a GitHub account, he can also "follow" the account and be informed for mod updates.

 

I am now using dropbox to upload my mod files (since SHS download system seems to be permanently unuasable). All you need to do there is add ?dl=1 to the link the system gives you and you have a direct download without people interested in the mod needing to log on or something - the extension just starts your download. I do not know if that feature works for other file hosting systems as well.

With Github, you can find a link for downloading the latest version in zip format in the front page of the repo and also there is a link for releases.

 

BWS or automated downloaders in general can append in the repository url the string "archive/master.zip" for getting the latest trunk or "archive/tag_name.zip" for getting a release. For example, if you want to get the 1.11 version of subtledoctor's Might and Guile repo then you can concatenate "https://github.com/subtledoctor/Might_and_Guile/" which is the repo url with "archive/1.11.zip" (what the tag name will be depends on the mod author of course).

[AL|EN]

i think that mods on the gibberlings3,baldursgatemods,shs or other sites like them also be mirrorred on mega.co.nz(or something similar but i think mega is the best solution to this topic , you can add up to 50 gb of files for free , you can make folders and be selective at downloading ,it even has a application to upload or download from their servers).

 

Lol if anyone interesting to mirror the mods of all ie games (or nwn ) i can help too . I have downloaded lik 450 of mods for my big world installation and can start uploading right now

 

mega.co.nz/mega.co.nz download links cannot be used with wget/comandline because the site operates via HTML5 storage - such links cannot be used for BWS. Those are requirements for BWS links: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/58006-big-world-setup-mod-request-template/

 

 

To satisfy the BWS installer, mirrors should also provide ways for direct downloads. I don't know if this can be easily done with all those file hosting services.

 

For mods that are still being actively developed it's probably better to use a repository hosting service instead, such as GitHub or Bitbucket.

 

yeah right ..

 

We can also use google drive too

 

No you can't because it forces people to use web browser interaction/chapas etc

 

All you need to do there is add ?dl=1 to the link the system gives you and you have a direct download without people interested in the mod needing to log on or something - the extension just starts your download.

 

Unfortunately, you can't use dropbox.com because when you update you mod, the link will change from:

https://dl.orangedox.com/Var8nOznEx3AbQB5fj/SandrahNPC_V109b.rar?dl=1

to

https://dl.orangedox.com/Var8nOznEx3AbQB5fj/SandrahNPC_V1011d.rar?dl=1

which leads us to broken download link for BWS. Also, dropbox links can be dead after a month. No, the "so you should update it for BWS" is no longer the option because of various reasons.

 

I agree with everything which khelban12 sad, in addition I want to point out that "official" download links for mods which are hosted at G3/SHs can be downloaded from github/bitbucket - it's only a batter to enable "provide custom link for download file" inside administration panel of the forum.

[AL|EN]

Guys, It's great to see that there is some kind of discussion about broken mod hosting sites which directly affect BG players experience and mostly, those hosting problems makes BWS appears as "shitty tool!" Long time ago I've started discussion about this matter and give some ideas how to fix them:

 

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/56645-updating-big-world-setup-does-community-needs-it/

 

advantages of GitHub/BitBucket

 

 

Some of them:

- no more dead links or dead hosting

- no more changes of download links, ever!

- since there is universal link, you can "add/change/fix every little thing that I've mising in the last update" without needing to repack, uploading and other things that you do when you release mods on SHS/G3

- if someone will find a bug, he will send you a pull-request and if you take look at it and say to yourself "That's brilliant!" you can then accept such changes with one click, and from that moment all new players will have such fixes for every new installation

- people can add missing readme's/translations and they are instantly available, not after two years of waiting for an response from original mod author

- translations can be updated/added without having to wait 2 years for mod update

- BWS maintainers can introduce many, many minor but important fixes for mods

 

but despite my greatest efforts, there was no contact/continuation of this topic. I would love to see a mirror at BitBucket/Github. Maybe G3 admins are willing to try my ideas?

[lynx]

Many mod authors already host their work in version control systems, so it would be more about rounding things up. I too dream of a day when things like the BWS fixpack are redundant.

 

I'm not sure people would be for your "unchanging master link" idea though, since they'd have to use separate branches if they wanted to develop and not release immediately. And that's a hurdle for some. It would also inevitable cause problems for BWS, if it tracked upstream blindly.

[AL|EN]

I'm not sure people would be for your "unchanging master link" idea though, since they'd have to use separate branches if they wanted to develop and not release immediately. And that's a hurdle for some. It would also inevitable cause problems for BWS, if it tracked upstream blindly.

It's not a problem. They shouldn't push to online repo, that's all. They don't have to use "developement/feature branches" - just stick to the local commits before testing and then push a release. If they will push some unfinished commits with broken code, someone will at least spot in by playing the game and report bugs.

[Jarno Mikkola]

They shouldn't push to online repo...

This is all good for those willing to op into the system, but there is likely others that are not. Will see. I am not saying people shouldn't listen to you, I am hoping that they do actually, just that there's also those of "us" that do not.

The SHSforums is up again. It was down the last 2 days I checked a few times. But there was postings, so it is still up' and down's.

 

PS I tried torrent some time back, but the problem here is to maintain updates - aside from the fact that some ISPs think that P2P is something illegal (the method itself is not but a large amount of the data exchanged that way is) and some users mistrust it.

It's not really the amount of data or what things think about it, but the fact that you cannot distribute the game itself within the package.

And technically the other mods too are partly at least illegal ... because you do not own them, and distributing them from an outside source can be seen as bad. As, it's in the legal gray zone. Much like most of moding by the way.

[lynx]

If you don't push your stuff regularly, then you miss out on the backup and the whole "developing in the open" paradigm shatters.

 

Sucks from a QA point of view. Or imagine wanting to share a rc with testers.

 

It's simple to let github let you know only about new releases, so I don't understand the pushback.