UT-Files down

Thanks for the response, Skillz. They didn't listen to me, I doubt they'll even listen to you.

Good luck with everything.

P.S. Bringing up Baiter brought back good memories of games with him on his SDA servers. Great times.

Al said:

Thanks for the response, Skillz. They didn't listen to me, I doubt they'll even listen to you.

Good luck with everything.

P.S. Bringing up Baiter brought back good memories of games with him on his SDA servers. Great times.

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Yeah I seen. Thanks for that, at least I know their is hope for this community.

Baiter was a cool guy for sure, I used to keep in touch with him but I haven't talked to him in a while. Might see if I can dig up his email address since my day is ruined on account of the thunderstorms.

It might not seem like a lot of people appreciated your work, Skillz, but I know many people who were very thankful for your site. I used it myself to get some files that I couldn't find anywhere else, so even though I didn't download from it more than a few times, it was great to have. I don't have the slightest idea about what I would have to do to host a server like yours, but I'm hoping that if you bring it back and I get a better job, I could donate each month to help with the expenses.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

So gopostal deleted files that will never be recovered, and he has the gall to complain about UT-Files closing? There's something very, very wrong about that. No wonder you didn't want to deal with him. Anyway Skillz, I used UT-Files only once in a while, but if there was something I had a hard time finding elsewhere, I could usually count on it being on your site. I definitely appreciate all the work you've done with it, but I understand why you would close it when it costs so much. It was great while it lasted though, and thanks again for all your hard work.

Spending 14k over 10 years to support a game - now that is dedication. I doubt the people crucifying Skillz would be willing to spend that much money themselves, let alone help with donations.

AlCapowned said:

It might not seem like a lot of people appreciated your work, Skillz, but I know many people who were very thankful for your site. I used it myself to get some files that I couldn't find anywhere else, so even though I didn't download from it more than a few times, it was great to have. I don't have the slightest idea about what I would have to do to host a server like yours, but I'm hoping that if you bring it back and I get a better job, I could donate each month to help with the expenses.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

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Thanks. I hate asking for anything, especially donations to pay for the things I host. Maybe if I was more vigilant about asking for financial help/support the site might still be running until I get through this.

The site will be back, I can assure you that. I've spent way too much time and money on it to just let it go quietly into the night.

Teridax said:

So gopostal deleted files that will never be recovered, and he has the gall to complain about UT-Files closing? There's something very, very wrong about that. No wonder you didn't want to deal with him. Anyway Skillz, I used UT-Files only once in a while, but if there was something I had a hard time finding elsewhere, I could usually count on it being on your site. I definitely appreciate all the work you've done with it, but I understand why you would close it when it costs so much. It was great while it lasted though, and thanks again for all your hard work.

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Yeah, talk about ironic that he wants people to remember me/my site in this time of despair, yet he doesn't mention any of the wrong doings he's done in the past. Even where he admitted to it right here. UTrustedPlayer is Gopostal. He causes so much mayhem and drama on UT forums that he's been through more names than most people go through a pack of underwear. Go figure, right?

It's between paying rent, utilities, bills and putting food in my stomach/on the table or continue to pay for ut-files. Anyone who thinks I should still foot the ut-files.com bill at this time is mental.

Skillz said:

The site will be back, I can assure you that. I've spent way too much time and money on it to just let it go quietly into the night.

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Really good to hear it. The .uz2 redirect had a lot of awesome hidden maps in it. Who knows what else could be lurking in that treasure trove.

I think someone spoke too soon about it being down and not coming back, everyone jumped on the bandwaggon without thinking about it. This is why I didn't enter the dicussion until now, especially since Skillz finally did reply. I just wish that Delacroix would listen to me and not doubt me all the time. We had a lengthy argument about this and other stuff (and he left the channel now cowardly), but I am obviously "conspiracy theorist" "anarchist" or I just plain "fucked up" like after I released upsx rework and he said i fucked up regarding the difficulty and other stuff, when he had whole year to tell me his thoughts and he tested it multiple times. He never believes what I say these days and only goes by his feelings based on what others say and lets himself be manipulated and fooled. Well...don't think I'll see him soon especially after this post </endrant>

Skillz, I don't know if you are still reading this thread, but I had no complaints about anything. I did rip your site over the course of a few months and that finished about a month before you needed to close it. I fully realize that you were paying for this and I don't think I abused the privilege you provided, which was the reason for my post earlier; I guess I felt bad for gaining at your expense.

Anyhow, you had to do what you had to do and I think your replies - the non-personal stuff - explains it all clearly and succinctly. I was grateful for your being there, as your collection makes up a big part of mine now.

FWIW, I have about 500 ~ 600GB of files across all games; pretty much all of Skillz stuff plus a whole lot more, and I don't think I am the only one. To say that the files are gone is just silly hyperbole; nothing is gone, just relocated and now we need people to step up and get these files out there once again. It could be me for that matter, though I am not so much financially constrained to do this, my time is very limited. I am willing to provide all of my backups to whoever wants it, so long as they have the means for the transfer.

Anyways, things happen and while looking for blame may be fun for some, it is just a complete waste of what would be well-used energy spent on finding solutions or just dealing with it.

Skillz, thanks for all you did and I am sorry it cost you so much. Ignore all of the finger-pointing, as it means nothing and isn't 'real' in the context in which it exists. You did well by all of us here and that hasn't gone unnoticed.

medor said:

Not the uz but i have utfiles full

10 gigas http://unrealtournament.99.free.fr/utfiles/ with no maps ans skins
110 gigas but no fast download because it's my home server http://medor.no-ip.org/

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Now i ave upload uz files to http://unrealtournament.99.free.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=2162

Carbon said:

Skillz, I don't know if you are still reading this thread, but I had no complaints about anything. I did rip your site over the course of a few months and that finished about a month before you needed to close it. I fully realize that you were paying for this and I don't think I abused the privilege you provided, which was the reason for my post earlier; I guess I felt bad for gaining at your expense.

Anyhow, you had to do what you had to do and I think your replies - the non-personal stuff - explains it all clearly and succinctly. I was grateful for your being there, as your collection makes up a big part of mine now.

FWIW, I have about 500 ~ 600GB of files across all games; pretty much all of Skillz stuff plus a whole lot more, and I don't think I am the only one. To say that the files are gone is just silly hyperbole; nothing is gone, just relocated and now we need people to step up and get these files out there once again. It could be me for that matter, though I am not so much financially constrained to do this, my time is very limited. I am willing to provide all of my backups to whoever wants it, so long as they have the means for the transfer.

Anyways, things happen and while looking for blame may be fun for some, it is just a complete waste of what would be well-used energy spent on finding solutions or just dealing with it.

Skillz, thanks for all you did and I am sorry it cost you so much. Ignore all of the finger-pointing, as it means nothing and isn't 'real' in the context in which it exists. You did well by all of us here and that hasn't gone unnoticed.

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Thanks. No harm done, for the most part I kept an eye on the bandwidth usage and would limit it if it got too close; which has only happened once. I purposely designed the site to make it as easy as possible to not only link directly to the downloads, but to download multiple files at once. Contrary to what others have claimed, I never prevented file leeching.

I too have all the files, if anyone wants to fund the project or provide hosting I will gladly devote my time to it again. I've been having a lot of free time lately. Either way, ut-files.com will be back.

Thanks!

I also downloaded a lot from your site and because of it and my obsession with the UT series have a bunch of files (mostly maps) for UT, UT2003, UT2004 and UT3. Sorry to see the site go, but hopefully it will be back up again one day. In the meantime, I have a bunch of files as others do. Maybe all that can be pooled together into a site someone might want to host.

Also, I'll be back reviewing sometime next month for sure.

I still say that Dr. Flay has the right idea; magnet links and a decentralized pool of files. No, this doesn't help in some aspects, but as far as storing, maintaining and distributing files, it is a great way. All it takes is storage space on your PC and for you to open Shareaza and let it ride.

I am putting together a new system this summer and will have a 2TB drive committed to Unreal-related stuff. Here in Korea, there are no bandwidth caps, good speeds and nobody cares if you host anything. Hopefully I can get something set up.

Using Torrents/Magnet links isn't really the best way IMHO. In order for it to work properly, people need to seed it nearly 24/7 and it needs a bunch of people to do it. Since most Internet connection's upload speed is so little compared to the download, it can hurt their downloading if they are uploading a lot as well. Not to mention majority of the people will be leechers and not nearly enough seeders to make it worth a damn.

As far as doing the same kind of sharing that the Linux community has been doing for years, it's easy to stand on top of a chair and preach. Yet nothing at all is stopping anyone from doing it and sadly, nothing like that will ever get done because the ones who speak loudest, are usually the least productive. Maybe if they put their motives where their mouth is, something will get done. I have no desire to bother with that though. I intend to do it the way I know. Dedicated server where I have full/complete control, fast connection to the Internet in a data center with redundant power and multiple sources to the Internet.

My ISP upgraded my Internet connection to a much, much faster speed now for cheaper than I way paying before and my monthly bandwidth is nearly 6 times larger now. Going to see how this works out, I might be able to host the content on my local server. Granted I only have a 2Mbps upload, but back in 1999.. that is fastest than the almighty T1. We'll see though. Doubt I will be able to do the redirects, but the file repositories for sure will be looked into.

I will be moving into a new place next week too, should be cheaper than I am paying now, plus I'm getting a roommate, so yeah.. Looking forward to that. Might even save enough money to comfortably afford a dedicated box next month, but don't hold me to that. I was hesitant to even say it, since it's a long shot.

I hope for the best

Welcome back among us Skillz

medor said:

Welcome back among us Skillz

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still trying to find files only found on his site...oh well i'll move onto another project.

medor said:

Now i ave upload uz files to http://unrealtournament.99.free.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=2162

Click to expand...

KLEPTÖ said:

still trying to find files only found on his site...oh well i'll move onto another project.

Click to expand...

What do you search ?
you can found all here http://www.ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3252

Skillz said:

Using Torrents/Magnet links isn't really the best way IMHO. In order for it to work properly, people need to seed it nearly 24/7 and it needs a bunch of people to do it.

...
Dedicated server...

Click to expand...

Half a loaf is better than none. Torrents do have limitations but Pareto's Law applies - we could get 80% of what we want for 20% of the effort.

For example, I have some 40-odd GB sitting in my torrent upload directory (Fedora & CentOS ISOs, various Linux installers for games, musopen etc.) Allocating another 40GB would be no great shakes. Not a huge amount compared to some but certainly a useful amount of space to cover the basics (I've got about 190GB of U(T)(xxxx)-related material stored locally and backed-up).

Using a torrent-based solution does not preclude moving onto the full-fat solution and also has the benefit of taking some of the load away from any central server (.e.g. reducing bandwidth bills).

Expressing an opinion is easy and all I can offer by way of hard commitment is some disk space and bandwidth for part-time torrent support. Perhaps if enough of us were able to offer that level of commitment, that would be enough to persuade someone to start creating/supporting the seeds?

I don't mind storing popular or unpopular stuff - with a bit of organisation it should be possible to ensure that most material is on a torrent somewhere. No one needs to store everything.

Running a program like UTorrent or Shareaza is easy enough and it doesn't use a pile of resources.

It isn't the best way but it is the only one that doesn't put a strain on one or a few individuals to pony up dough or huge time and resource commitments. The BEST way is to have a site like UT-Files; a fast, well-organized place to store and retrieve files, but that has proven to be a great burden for - as I said - only one person to shoulder.

I wish people would stop comparing torrent delivery to real file-sharing.
Torrents don't help in the long-term, and still rely on a functioning tracker.

Programs like "PeerProject" and "Shareaza" work as generic multi-threaded download managers, but can also fetch or serve files over more than just 1 network.
You don't have to tell these programs what to seed.
Importantly it is no extra effort.
You don't have to organise your files any differently than you currently do.

Most people have a torrent program, and many use tools like FlashGet, so could easily move over to a multi-network program, without skipping a heart-beat.

I have already used Shareaza in the past with UT-Files, so that I could add more sources to large files. I still do this with downloads from Medors slower site.
1) It helps me not to hammer the site while I get multiple files.
2) I get a faster download.
A "win/win situation" for me and the site owner.

If you only want to serve files like Mapraider, you never even have to see the GUI. Just put your files in a shared folder and forget about it. You can still download any way you prefer.

Magnet links can contain links to many URIs and URLs. They are as limited as you make them.
A magnet link can contain HTTP, FTP, G1, G2, e2k, torrent, etc.
A magnet aware program such as Vuse, PeerProject, Shareaza, or browser plugin, will just use the info from the link, that it can handle.
Vuse will use the torrent info, Shareaza etc. will use all of them at the same time.

Mapraider makes it easy, but I would suggest that people use magnet links for posting large files on their own sites.
You can avoid having to upload a torrent stub to a site that may get taken down or blocked, and avoid having to pay for the extra bandwidth or space on your hosts.
If you have a static IP then you can include your self as a permanent link

You can post normal web URLs http://mgnet.me/.UT99_v3
Or you can even just do nothing.
Having it visible to a real file-share program, means you don't have to announce it to the world. It just appears when someone runs a search, or starts downloading from someone else.

It is not the answer to everyones needs, all it does is expand your options while keeping you in control.

When it comes to things like server transfers, I use FXP software exclusively, as I don't need the files at my end.
I often use Igloo to log into both FTP accounts and transfer directly, site to site.
http://iglooftp.com