To Torrent or not to Torrent

Development directions, tasks, and features being actively implemented or pursued by the development team.
Post Reply
safemode
Developer
Developer
Posts: 2150
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:17 am
Location: Pennsylvania
Contact:

To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by safemode »

I think the penetration of bittorrent is pretty good now for it to be fairly accurate to assume that almost everyone playing games has a client already. I'm wondering if we should primarily offer binary pkgs via torrent rather than hosting it on sourceforge.

This isn't to say that we aren't going to continue work on getting a proper updater going and what not, but for distributing the initial data pkg (which i think we should separate out from normal bin releases by 0.5.1), and all the bin pkgs, we could offer torrents as an alternative to downloading from sf.net.

We'd have a data.torrent, mac.torrent, win32.torrent, tarball.torrent, deb(s).torrent, rpm(s).torrent

I wouldn't mind seeding that. Something like that.
Ed Sweetman endorses this message.
bgaskey
Elite Venturer
Elite Venturer
Posts: 718
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:05 pm
Location: Rimward of Eden

Post by bgaskey »

I like the idea. I can seed sometimes when I have the computer, but my internet isn't so fast.

But I agree with the concept.
loki1950
The Shepherd
Posts: 5841
Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 8:37 pm
Location: Ottawa
Contact:

Post by loki1950 »

It would ok but my ISP who owns most of the infrastructure here in Canada and is a traffic shaper and only sells shaped bandwidth it's before regulators ATM with even google calling them bad boys in an official submission to the CRTC :D

Enjoy the Choice :)
my box::HP Envy i5-6400 @2Q70GHzx4 8 Gb ram/1 Tb(Win10 64)/3 Tb Mint 19.2/GTX745 4Gb acer S243HL K222HQL
Q8200/Asus P5QDLX/8 Gb ram/WD 2Tb 2-500 G HD/GF GT640 2Gb Mint 17.3 64 bit Win 10 32 bit acer and Lenovo ideapad 320-15ARB Win 10/Mint 19.2
safemode
Developer
Developer
Posts: 2150
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:17 am
Location: Pennsylvania
Contact:

Post by safemode »

On a similar notion, I think everyone is aware that VS is no lightweight when it comes to download size. I was wondering if it would not also be prudent to looking into "official" dvds of VS. You figure a dvd costs 20 cents or less, then the label costs roughly the same we'll say after ink and such is considered. Then mailing a cd costs at most a buck. We could pack all the OS bin installers (which would be modified to install the separate /data pkg), have the manual on there in pdf or some more open format and with any room left over (likely 3GB), we can pkg up an svn pull of either VS and data or just one or the other, depending on how much we can compress things (since the overhead of the svn trees are duplicate data, this might be doable).

So we could sell the dvd of VS release for say 2.50-3 bucks for the convenience of not having to download it. That's not a lot of money and it wouldn't take a lot of time to do once it's initially setup, people might go for it, and there is a little bit of profit to be had. Might get to put the money back into VS web hosting ...maybe even buy some off-sf storage just in case :)

edit:
there's still a lot of people without crazy broadband, and the prospect of downoading VS puts them off. At least by offering this option for getting VS, we're not alienating potential users simply because they can't access the game. Keep in mind, they're not paying for the game, just the dvd and time / resources used to make it and ship it. I wouldn't be comfortable selling it for any other reason other than to just provide some users who can't download it, the ability to play it. The price would only allow for a small profit which wouldn't really be profit since it would go back into the cost of running VS's web services (maybe some backup svn server in case SF decides to enact a limit)
Ed Sweetman endorses this message.
ace123
Lead Network Developer
Lead Network Developer
Posts: 2560
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2003 9:13 am
Location: Palo Alto CA
Contact:

Post by ace123 »

We used to sell CDs of 0.4.1.

I think we could manage a single CD download--they are probably cheaper than DVDs.

We just need a compressed archive and include programs to extract/install it for each platform (linux shell script, windows installer and a mac installer/script).
safemode
Developer
Developer
Posts: 2150
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:17 am
Location: Pennsylvania
Contact:

Post by safemode »

i dont know, the price difference is very small and the size difference is extreme. If it only adds a dime to the cost, but you could add an SVN repo on there then it would be more than worth it.


Having an svn pull of /data for instance would be advantageous to developers. Starting from a high rev is always better than from scratch. Though, it wont really help it when we touch every image :)


edit:

btw. This simple installer need to be nothing more than a program that takes a dir path and untarballs the required pkgs into that directory. It doesn't have to do anything else.

We can save the fancy smancy installer for when we get our cross-platform installer setup all finished. And then follow that up with the "updater" program.
Ed Sweetman endorses this message.
Minthos
Atmospheric Pilot
Atmospheric Pilot
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 6:54 pm
Location: Norway
Contact:

Re: To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by Minthos »

I endorse this thread. I see no reason not to make torrents of everything big. As for CD/DVD - personally I have no use for it and mailing it to Europe would cost more than a buck and take longer than downloading on a 14.4 modem, but if someone wants to go to the trouble and do it, that's fine by me.
Vanity stats:
Workstation: Intel-Q6600, 8GB RAM, 8800gt 1GB, triple-boot Gentoo 2008.0 amd64 / Vista 64 / XP 32
Laptop: Intel-T8300, 4GB RAM, 8600M gt 512MB, dual-boot Gentoo 2008.0 amd64 / Vista 64
Web/file server: AMD-A64 3000+, 1GB RAM, Gentoo 2007.0 amd64
MPD server: AMD-Geode 500MHz, 256 MB RAM, Voyage Linux 0.5.2 i386
MC707
Venturer
Venturer
Posts: 555
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 5:18 am
Location: Quito, Ecuador.
Contact:

Re: To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by MC707 »

I was thinking about this the other day while I was doing a P2P and bittorrent essay. Bittorrent for such a large file sounds like a lot of help for bandwidth allocation, while the new Web Seed feature would be used if there are very few or no seeders, increasing the lifespan of the torrent (and consequently VS) to almost infinite :wink:
My Machine: OS: Ubuntu 8.10 (intrepid) 64 bit in a 500GB Maxtor HD @ 7200 RPM, Windows Vista PsyChoses Edition 2009 32 bit in a 500GB Samsung HD @ 7200 RPM CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz GPU: nVidia GeForce 9400 GT @ 1024 MB RAM: 3891 MB
Earthlings|The End of the Internet?|FreeWebsite
arvliet
Atmospheric Pilot
Atmospheric Pilot
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 4:52 am

Re: To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by arvliet »

I'd thought this would have been a go by now - has it died out? Need a helping hand?
charlieg
Elite Mercenary
Elite Mercenary
Posts: 1329
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 11:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:

Re: To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by charlieg »

The developers are MIA. :(

Currently nobody with any authority (or perhaps even rights on the SF.net project) seems to follow or respond in the forum.

This happens though, so they'll be back, I expect. Just no idea when!
Free Gamer - free software games compendium and commentary!
FreeGameDev forum - open source game development community
Deus Siddis
Elite
Elite
Posts: 1363
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:42 pm

Re: To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by Deus Siddis »

Charlieg, maybe you could hound some of the lost devs by email to try and get them to appoint someone or post and supervise a sticky requesting/offering an interim project management position (hopefully with some code skills)?
www2
Venturer
Venturer
Posts: 537
Joined: Sat May 14, 2005 10:51 am
Location: milkyway->the sol system->earth->Europe->The Nederland->Soud Holland->Leiden
Contact:

Re: To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by www2 »

The main developers (hellcatv and ace) are not MIA but work on the sirikata that become the base for the next manger release of vega strike for hellcatv's PhD phases.
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
Deus Siddis
Elite
Elite
Posts: 1363
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:42 pm

Re: To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by Deus Siddis »

Yeah, but doesn't that mean the whole game will have to rebuilt on top of this Sirikata engine and only after the Sirikata engine is built itself? How many years will that take? If content creation for VS will continue in that time, who will direct it?

If there is going to be a long time between now with the project adrift and the point in the future when the lead devs begin to build Vega-Strike-Specific code onto Sirikata, we should have a plan for what to do during that long time in between.
charlieg
Elite Mercenary
Elite Mercenary
Posts: 1329
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 11:51 pm
Location: Manchester, UK
Contact:

Re: To Torrent or not to Torrent

Post by charlieg »

Perhaps they can at least give somebody who cares the requisite privileges to maintain the existing version?
Free Gamer - free software games compendium and commentary!
FreeGameDev forum - open source game development community
Post Reply