I'm not really a fan of requiring another login for downloads...
Maybe an alternative could be adding a text file to each torrent describing where its from and how to support the service?
(I've also sent a couple of beers your way, to help the service running)
OH MY GOD, i was trying to figure out who it was. You're too generous, are you sure? Idk what to say.
The account thing as it stands is basically meaningless, we don't validate the username or email. We just need _something_ to tie torrents to via a passkey. It completely kills sites that leeches the torrents because we can revoke the passkey.
Just to add some context to this, when it started happening I emailed all the sites that were doing it and I asked them to instead link to the game page. What I got back was two "fuck offs", one guy offered to pay me $100 to "shut up and leave them alone" and the others ignored me. Honestly, I do have a bit of a vendetta.
If it doesn't work out, and by that I mean usage drops way off then we can revert it. Nothing is set in stone, I've made wrong decisions in the past and this might be one of them, we'll see. There was a little short of 1,000 registered accounts yesterday though so I think it'll go okay. I'm hoping the admins will let me link to the torrents here so everyone is happy but I'll understand if they don't.
With all that said, thank you - you completely blindsided me with the donation. You've sent enough to get a second storage node (badly needed) and pay for 2 months of it. I'm a bit speechless.
Ok, thanks for the explanation.
1. Why not link people with F95zone accounts to rpdl? That would solve the problem of externally available torrents.
2. You are sending mixed messages. I was seeding a bunch of torrents I downloaded from rpdl, but you personally said it's NOT necessary to help seed. Now you are saying you cannot handle the traffic. This confuses me. I'm used to seeding things for a month or so, but removed the torrents because of your comments.
3. My biggest gripe BY FAR is that you EXCLUDE people for arbitrary elitist reasons. Blocking people's chosen torrent client is just a terrible move. Although I (purely coincidentally) run a torrent client that you whitelisted, I'm really against excluding people.
4. I absolutely LOVE your service. I never understood why F95zone was dicking around with Mega and such annoying websites. Simply seed at a fairly low upload speed so that there will be a lot of initial leechers who automatically seed.
1. It's not feasible. I did float the idea of an F95 SSO to Sam but they've got a whole lot of work going on with the site ATM and it'd be super low priority. It might be a thing in the future, who knows. I think it'd be a great solution.
2. Yeah, I definitely gave mixed signals on this. I tend to act in the spur of the moment sometimes so I might say everything's fine for 3 weeks out of the month but then for the last week when everyone releases updates stuff goes on fire and I flip-flop. Sorry, I'll try work on it. My initial goal was to act as a repository, anyone can download what they want and just play the game, no seeding. The service is me doing the seeding. That's always the way I looked at it. There's absolutely no denying though that when things got busy, the users seeding took a notable load off my back and to be fair, the users here _are_ very good at seeding.
3. This is actually something I kind of "stole" from private trackers. I've been in torrents a long time, I've seen all types of cheat-clients etc. With that said though, the new setup _does not_ enforce a whitelist _yet_. I'm kindof of the opinion that having accounts does-away with the need for the whitelist so it mightn't be something that returns. Honestly I've just been so busy with working on the site lately that I haven't had time to think about it.
4. I can't speak for the staff here but if I had to guess, it's because there's a negative stigma associated with torrents. There's quite a big difference between a links-site/forum and a torrent tracker. They might have found it harder to get advertisements, or maybe it was against their MO to incorporate torrents. Either way, I can't say for sure. There's absolutely no denying though that torrents are the ideal solution.
Thanks for the feedback, regarding #3 if I had to give you an answer right now I think it won't come back. But... the hard part was getting everyone to switch to good clients so it'd be a little wasted if we reverted. Either way, I'll do another poll beforehand and we'll do whichever the people decide. I'll also try and be better about #2, promise