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[jg007]

feel free to blast me as I've never really done anything like site hosting and I'm not really sure how popular this would be but would there be anyway to create a random url address for each download and then send a link for it in an email to people requesting to download it ,and then remove the link after a day or something?

i'm not sure how possible this would be to do and would obviously make an extra stage for people looking for downloads so might be an irritation

just a thought

or for another unpopular sugestion what about requiring a minimal payment for any downloads ie: 10p or something and paid via paypal as he is doing , I would certainly not be put off by being asked for 10p a download.




just found this site -

http://www.dlguard.com/dlginfo/index.php

this site is about digital download protection , and copied from their text -

'' With both types of memberships, DLGuard allows you to display secure download links to your customers, as well as limit the number of times they try and download products within your member area.

The membership site is completely flexible. You simply add a small snippet of PHP code to your existing webpages, and they become automatically protected. ''

the product seems to be mainly related to paid for products but seems like it can be setup for membership , as it costs £127 it's not that cheap but then neither I would guess are your bandwidth costs

[Japo]

I didn't intend to blast anyone, besides my opinion doesn't count more than other person's. I guess I should have added a or something. A solution much like what jg007 suggests has been discussed in other topic, and it was seemingly very simple and satisfactory not requiring email or anything, the service would be the same as now for users. But I don't even know if it was tried by the admins.

[TheChosen]

Its a shame that this guy doesnt have a forum. Otherwise, we could make an invasion and start spamming, with U-Boat Commander Dave leading the spam army....

[Japo]

No wonder he doesn't have a forum. I don't think he's interested in filantropism and promoting socialization, rather in reaping as many bucks as possible in the minimal amount of time, with the least effort and with no regards to morals. I bet he dedicates to his site like a tenth of the time dedicated by the average admin here.

[KillerTomato&Ketchup]

Apart from the moral dimensions of this guy's actions, isn't there some kind of written agreement between Abandonia and the original publishers of the games offered here for downloading?

Usually there's an explicit paragraph permitting free personal use and forbidding commercial exploitation of the concerned object, something like the GNU licence for Linux and similar freeware.

It's definitely no nice feeling that the people here are putting in all this hard work for fans like us and some such a..hole is making a few fast bucks from that!

Apart from that, here's a whole lot of compliments to the Abandonia team from a newbie to these forums (but not to this site! I have looked by on occasion over the years - this is quite an improvement in the design!). Keep up the good work! k:

EDIT: Hey, here's an idea which just might work: Why not add a line to the starting page and/or to the credits in each game, mentioning that the game is being offered for FREE download by Abandonia and forbidding charging for further distribution? I mean, it's like the colour 'tabbing' added to heating oil to prevent the cheaper fluid being misused in diesel engines... All one would have to do is to add the statement in such a way that it's not deletable in any simple manner!

What do the admins opine?

[The Fifth Horseman]

EDIT: Hey, here's an idea which just might work: Why not add a line to the starting page and/or to the credits in each game, mentioning that the game is being offered for FREE download by Abandonia and forbidding charging for further distribution? I mean, it's like the colour 'tabbing' added to heating oil to prevent the cheaper fluid being misused in diesel engines... All one would have to do is to add the statement in such a way that it's not deletable in any simple manner![/b]

That's one idea which is just about technically impossible. Doing such a thing would require major programming knowledge, and would be far from easy in most cases.

An easier thing would be including a tag in the archive itself, informing where does the archive come from.

[Taskmaster]

Actually, maybe you can a little "runme" type Windows application and include it with each compressed file. If the games were not DOS based you could have the "runme" application launch the game, which would mean most folks would see it. Obviously once they see what it is it is easy enough to just start the game without seeing the "intro" application.

If nothing else a fancy - fancy being relative to how much work you want to put into it - logo around 640x480 (maybe 800x600) splashed up for a few seconds should suffice. Yes, it would increase the size of the ZIP file by a few KB (depending on the size of the image, etc.

So not exactly what was being requested, but this is doable, could reflect positvely on the site if done respectfully. If you have a small WAV file for music/message, that could be included also, but again increases the size.

I might be able to assist in this area if it is decided that this would be a good thing.

[Taskmaster]

Since I had some free time I managed to code a small example of what I was talking about. It isn't the greatest, but it does illustrate the idea.



It turns out that the EXE is much larger than I was hoping for, but it is beacuse of the graphics and sound.

The EXE is 1.83 MB, of which 428 KB is the short musical score, but compresses to 767 KB when ZIP at maximum compression. A shorter WAV file would reduce the size. Also this example randomizes some of the graphic elements each time it is run meaning it has extra graphics over just a static scene. This is a cool effect, but if size needed to be reduced, using a static scene is another way I could do it.

I caution you that my artistic skills are not great so I created a simple "Abandonia" logo (text) but it looks pretty nice. I would hope that some one here could enhance it, if this is something that Kosta wanted to pursue. Again this is just an example.... go easy on me.

You can download the example Windows EXE right here...

http://www.jesustaxi.com/mikel/Abandonia.zip

Application is stand-alone, Windows-based, and should work for Win 95 and up. it doesn't require DirectX, Microsoft DLLs, or .NET framework.

Give it a try and let the group know what you think.

[win98]

I like the look ofthe program but it is a bit large in a way. But the graphics and stuff are good for it though.

[gregor]

or if all games (as it was already discussed) had an installer that would be easy to use and user friendly. similar like Classic gaming archive has. that way you know here you got it and that is free.