Publication team

[DOSGuy]

I've noted in the past, in various media (mostly the defunct newsletter) that I purchased a house in late 2011 and started a much more difficult job shortly afterwards, and ever since then I've found that my job and my home responsibilities eat up the majority of the time that I once spent working on the website. Instead of playing games on weekends, I was mowing the lawn and trying to create order in the basement. I attempted to make it possible for the community to help me by creating a page where anyone could submit a game review, but that really didn't pan out.

Well, at least a few games were still being added to the site, though not at the pace I wanted. Now no games are being added at all. The reason is that, a few months ago, the site started failing in spectacular fashion. People were complaining that the online games weren't working, and I noticed that the screenshot thumbnails would stop loading after a consistent number of them. I suspected that my webhost, HostGator, had placed a limit on the number of HTTP requests per page hit, but their tech support denied it. They instead provided me with information about how to improve page load times, suggesting that I had gotten away with large numbers of database queries in the past because I had less visitors. I spent months studying the issue of page loading time and completely rewrote the site's source code to combine multiple small database queries into a small number of complex ones. Reducing the number of database queries sped up page loading time, but didn't fix the broken games and thumbnails. I eventually came to believe that the online games were broken because the thumbnails were loading before the game disk image, and I was running out of HTTP requests before it got to the disk image. I then added lazy image loading, so that images are only loaded when you can see them. This fixed the online games (I think), but I would still be unable to display all of the thumbnails if I scrolled the page down too quickly, so I kept studying. I read a master course on .htaccess files and turned on Keep-Alive (which is supposed to help with large numbers of images), moved JavaScript to the bottom of the page so that page content would load first, and enabled every .htaccess and performance tweak I could find to try to get pages to load faster and resolve the problems that were breaking the site. Having done all of these things, I now firmly believe that the culprit is what I always thought it was: HostGator has reduced the resources they make available to their shared server customers. I'm now trying to run a site with the resources of a dedicated server/VPS hosting on a shared hosting plan. I can't afford a dedicated server/VPS hosting plan, so I've had to squeeze out every last bit of performance I could get with my existing hosting plan. The short version of this story is that every hour that I would have otherwise spent on adding games to the site (which was already much less than it used to be) has been spent on learning and implementing everything there is to know about improving site performance. I haven't played a DOS game in months.

In the meantime, I'm in awe of the research that people like MrFlibble, Litude, Hallfiry and leilei have been doing in finding new games, as well as new versions and cataloging their differences. I see this and realize what I am: a programmer. For those who don't know, I create database-driven websites for the Government of Canada. I apply what I learn at work to this website and, to a lesser extent, I apply what I learn developing this website to the websites that I create at work. I'm a professional website developer; gaming is only a hobby, I'm not a content expert. I should be developing the site, and the content experts should be creating the content. My past attempt to resolve this problem by letting people email me game reviews as a one-shot deal didn't go far enough: people didn't take the time to write a thorough review and do the necessary research to ensure the game could be legally distributed, find all of the versions, take screenshots, and... you know, the hard work. I need to hand over the duty of creating content to a dedicated group of people who have the passion (and the spare time) that I once had. Coding the site is eating up all of the time that I once devoted to trying to make myself an expert on classic games. You guys, the nerdy elite who post in this forum and remain dedicated to this site and its mission despite the lack of new content, are the experts that I aspired to be. If we're going to keep this going, I need your help.

I'm looking for volunteers to write reviews, upload files, and do the foreground work while I handle the background work. I'll help you, but I just don't have the time to spend hours on each review like I used to. If you think you can help, and you think you understand the high standards that I've developed for confirming the legal status, completeness and accuracy of information that has made it so time-consuming to add to the content of this site, let me know and we'll create a publication team.

[MrFlibble]

I need to hand over the duty of creating content to a dedicated group of people who have the passion (and the spare time) that I once had. Coding the site is eating up all of the time that I once devoted to trying to make myself an expert on classic games. You guys, the nerdy elite who post in this forum and remain dedicated to this site and its mission despite the lack of new content, are the experts that I aspired to be. If we're going to keep this going, I need your help.

I'd say this is a good idea, and I totally support it.

What about you guys?

My past attempt to resolve this problem by letting people email me game reviews as a one-shot deal didn't go far enough: people didn't take the time to write a thorough review and do the necessary research to ensure the game could be legally distributed, find all of the versions, take screenshots, and... you know, the hard work.

My experience with user-submitted reviews suggests that it only works when every review is very thoroughly checked by website administration, and even then there's a lot of space for mistakes left.

[Hallfiry]

I'd surely like to be part of such a publication team.

[DOSGuy]

I'm going to be on vacation in Nova Scotia all of next week, but we'll chat more about this the following week.

[DOSGuy]

After long weeks and months and sleepless nights, I'm finally done rewriting the server-side code and modifying the database. The publication team should be able to start editing the site soon!

[MrFlibble]

That's certainly awesome news! Great job! ^_^

[MrFlibble]

While the team contribution system is (apparently) still in the works, maybe you'd do a few quick fixes for existing entries?

• Add the music and video add-on to the Command & Conquer demo page. The file adds mission briefing videos and two themes from the game's soundtrack (and also enables the main menu and intro themes), and can be downloaded here: cc1demo2.zip
  Also please note that the Command & Conquer demo is not shareware, and the term "shareware" has never been used by Westwood Studios (unlike Blizzard who do call their demo versions Shareware).
• Add the v2.0 shareware of Radix: Beyond the Void. It was found at the 3D Action Games' Archive (Wayback Machine copy), which is no longer accessible, but I uploaded the shareware version here.

[Litude]

Hey, guess I've kind of forgotten about this thing. I would be interested in joining the publication team as far as adding missing versions of games to the website. Many of the links I had in that old post of mine are since broken (as I no longer have those webspaces), but I think it would be important to get these obscure versions preserved here.

I know we had some debates regarding the originality of .ZIP archives in the past. In my opinion, it is close to impossible to verify whether some specific archive is exactly as released by the company. As an example, Apogee Software uploaded most of their releases to the SWCBBS but the BBS actually tagged all their .ZIP files with comments yet I don't think I've encountered many Apogee game archives here with the SWCBBS comment intact. Furthermore even if one was to find a .ZIP file with all original files present, no comments and no extra BBS ads as files how are we to know that someone didn't just simply clean up the archive themselves after getting it from somewhere else? And honestly, I think a .ZIP without the BBS comments looks more professional.

The point I'm trying to make is that I think the more important goal here should be to preserve the contents of the .ZIP file itself (i.e. the game version and its accompanying documentation etc.) as trying to track down the original .ZIP file is a tedious task and you will most likely end up with a few different "clean" .ZIP files with no way to tell which one is the original as distributed by the developer/publisher. In cases where it is apparent that one .ZIP file is the original that one should naturally be preferred, but most of the time it is very difficult to tell.

Also, there are plenty of distributions currently available on your website which are not quite the originals either, e.g. here, here, here and so on...

tl;dr: I think the focus should primarily be to add missing game versions and if the original distribution is found later on, the archive being distributed should be replaced.

[MrFlibble]

The point I'm trying to make is that I think the more important goal here should be to preserve the contents of the .ZIP file itself (i.e. the game version and its accompanying documentation etc.) as trying to track down the original .ZIP file is a tedious task and you will most likely end up with a few different "clean" .ZIP files with no way to tell which one is the original as distributed by the developer/publisher. In cases where it is apparent that one .ZIP file is the original that one should naturally be preferred, but most of the time it is very difficult to tell.

<...>

tl;dr: I think the focus should primarily be to add missing game versions and if the original distribution is found later on, the archive being distributed should be replaced.

I agree completely with you on this. However, it's still interesting to hunt original, unmodified files whenever possible. It's just that I think it should be an optional goal of increasing the quality of the files even further, whereas the main concern is to bring the games to the users.

I know we had some debates regarding the originality of .ZIP archives in the past. In my opinion, it is close to impossible to verify whether some specific archive is exactly as released by the company. As an example, Apogee Software uploaded most of their releases to the SWCBBS but the BBS actually tagged all their .ZIP files with comments yet I don't think I've encountered many Apogee game archives here with the SWCBBS comment intact. Furthermore even if one was to find a .ZIP file with all original files present, no comments and no extra BBS ads as files how are we to know that someone didn't just simply clean up the archive themselves after getting it from somewhere else? And honestly, I think a .ZIP without the BBS comments looks more professional.

Well, there are ways to verify the authenticity of the files. Very certainly, in the early 90s the originality of ZIP archives wasn't an issue at all, as evidenced by, for example, the shareware distributive of The Catacomb Abyss which supplies a list of all necessary files fort he sysops, with an option to exclude the non-interactive preview of the other Catacomb Fantasy Trilogy series games to reduce the size. Back then everyone would probably welcome whoever could repackage the files with an even greater compression rate than the developers, in order to reduce the size of the download.

Later on though, download size would become less of an issue, and also PKZIP v2.04g apparently became a de facto standard, with RAR being much less popular in spite of greater compression rates that it could achieve. Also many users/sysops/shovelware compilation authors probably did not concern themselves with the originality of the archives.

On the other hand, from mid-90s onwards we have the possibility of the files having been uploaded at websites, rather than FTPs, and there are chances that such files are still available there via the Wayback Machine. Also websites would sometimes indicate the exact file size in bytes, helping to identify authentic archives that can be found elsewhere if the original is unavailable.

There are some general considerations that may provide further evidence for file authenticity. For example, certain sources are known to not modify the files in any way - such as some CDs available at cd.textfiles.com (Mega Games/Giga Games to name a few). This CD also seems to include original, unmodified ZIP archives (some can be verified to be authentic from external sources that indicate the exact file size).

That said, I suppose that any ZIP archive that does not have any external comments and/or extra or modified files should be considered authentic for all intents and purposes, unless another version of the same file that is more reliably authentic is found.

Hey, guess I've kind of forgotten about this thing. I would be interested in joining the publication team as far as adding missing versions of games to the website. Many of the links I had in that old post of mine are since broken (as I no longer have those webspaces), but I think it would be important to get these obscure versions preserved here.

Oh, it's a pity that those files that you had hosted are not available for download anymore... They certainly should be preserved to be publicly available somehow.

[Litude]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with what you said. Authentic .ZIP files should be used when available, but considering that some versions of games are very difficult to find just as is, verifying whether the archive is authentic is pretty much impossible in these cases. And I have to just make it clear once more, I'm talking about the .ZIP file itself and not its contents.

[MrFlibble]

I know we had some debates regarding the originality of .ZIP archives in the past. In my opinion, it is close to impossible to verify whether some specific archive is exactly as released by the company.

<..>

The point I'm trying to make is that I think the more important goal here should be to preserve the contents of the .ZIP file itself (i.e. the game version and its accompanying documentation etc.)

It has just occurred to me that the ZIP (or any self-extracting archive or other type of installer) originality issue could have a very simple workaround: if we find files that are clearly not original - for example if we know from the original website or other sources that the distribution should be an installer/SFX archive, but we have a plain files ZIP, then an extra readme file can be added with an explanation that the distribution is not original, and if possible with a brief description of the differences. That way we can preserve the game and make it accessible whilst recording explicitly all information about the original distribution which has not been found so far.

I tried to do something like that with the updated Tyrian 2000 demo.

[Litude]

I think it might be a better idea to add a note next to the download link or a comment into the archive. IMO if the original archive is unavailable, the aim should be to try recreating its contents as closely as possible and adding an unofficial readme would take it further from this.

[MrFlibble]

I think it might be a better idea to add a note next to the download link or a comment into the archive.

If the information about an archive's (lack of) authenticity is not directly linked to it, but presented on the website instead, it might become lost - especially if the file in question is a shareware demo distribution: anyone may upload the file elsewhere if the distribution license permits it, and there's no guarantee they will reproduce the information on the web site where they got the file too.

As for the comments, that would be better but comments are not always easily accessible to the end user (depending on the archive manager programme).

IMO if the original archive is unavailable, the aim should be to try recreating its contents as closely as possible and adding an unofficial readme would take it further from this.

I think that once we openly and explicitly admit that a distribution is not authentic, adding an extra file - which is marked as an extra file - does not further compromise the integrity of an archive. Such a file could contain the list of original files in the archive, complete with file size in bytes and date stamps, and comments explaining which of the files are not authentic, and for what reason.

I would like to emphasize that I'm not suggesting to use this method for "simple" cases, such as when all original files are essentially intact, but the archive contains a third-party comment, an extra FILE_ID.DIZ, NFO or other files which were not originally part of the distribution. In these cases, it is sufficient to repackage the original files with all the extra stuff removed.

If however we have a missing file (or a modified file), then an explanation document might be in order. The shareware version of The Catacomb Abyss provides a good, if somewhat rare, example. Version 1.3 of the game actually contains a list of all files in the package (with an indication that some of the files constitute a non-interactive preview of the other episodes, and as such might be removed to reduce the archive size). Many versions of the archive do contain this preview (and some contain an extra FILE_ID.DIZ), but for some reason a text file with game descriptions to be used by vendors is omitted. Even if no intact versions of the shareware distribution were preserved, we would know that an archive was incomplete from the supplied file list.

[DOSGuy]

This has taken a lot longer to come together than I had hoped, but we're finally there. On March 8, the first game was added to the site by an (unofficial) member of the publication team! MrFlibble wrote a review, took screenshots, and located files for The Terminator: Future Shock. All of his work was fantastic, and this is exactly what I had hoped the publication team would do.

Without further ado, I would like to officially invite applications to join the Publication Team. Just send me a PM or an email to apply. The site now lists who added each game to the site (I have a bit of a lead, since it was just me for the first 10 years), so you get credit for your work, but I reserve the right to make edits for spelling, grammar, and overall quality control. Basically, if the site is a newspaper, the Publication Team are the writers and I'm the editor.

I spent most of last weekend trying to track down a bug that was messing up the CSS on the site, and I have a plan to cache infrequently updated content to reduce the number of hits on the database. I still spends hundreds of hours working on the site every year, but that work has been almost entirely about programming in recent years, and that's probably not going to ever change. I think that, for the site to go on, it needs new people to take up the task of adding games, and I know that there are many dedicated members of this forum who have proven that they understand the site's mission and could -- and should -- have been adding content to the site for years.

So, if you're interested, I'd like to see something like this in your PM/email:

Hi, I'd like to join the Publication Team. I think I could devote enough time to add about x games per year to the site. I'd really like to add the following games:

• . Here's a review of [game] to give you an idea of what my work would look like. Included are links to copies of the game and a zip file with some screenshots I took using DOSBox. I recommend using IMG_00xx.

If MrFlibble approves, I think we should add a forum group for members of the team, and perhaps a private forum where members can ask for help or submit proposed drafts and that sort of thing. Anyway, we'll see if anyone applies before getting ahead of ourselves.

[MrFlibble]

This is great news! (I'm sorry for catching up this late, I had a very busy week.)