Back to Basics

beserene wrote:

cabal wrote:To get to the downloads on MSFC you have to make an account, post an intro thread, and have some activity. There will also be a Dropbox link posted tomorrow.

No offense, but you gotta be kidding me.

No offense taken, I own and operated MSFC and have so for the past 8 years. We introduced the restrictive download policy after input from the MSFC community as for many years there was a wave of abuse by downloaders, who used others content claiming it as their own. Some even sold the content on Ebay. It drove many modelers away from the community. The majority of the MSFC community agreed to this policy, it wasn't a one person thing and to be honest you only need to post (15 posts) and get involved in the community, it doesn't take long.

Myles wrote:

beserene wrote:No offense, but you gotta be kidding me.

yeah, msfc has well known restrictive policies, it's a tightly run ship.

tbh it would take so long (at least a week) to get download rights on msfc, so if you aren't a member there, you might as well just wait until the public link goes up. kinda pointless making this thread here until the public DL is available, as anyone who is a member on MSFC should have seen the thread there (i'm assuming it has a thread there).

May I ask where the week timeframe came from? Does 15 posts take a week? You only need to have to be registered for 2 days (and the 15 posts) to be eligible for the automatic promotion. Obviously spamming doesn't count towards the 15 post limit and is frown upon, by most sites to be honest. But there is enough viable threads and topics that one doesn't need to spam to access downloads. The idea behind making people post is to help build a community, we like to get to know the people who register and many who come to download find they like the community and stay despite the downloads available.

cabal wrote:

beserene wrote:No offense, but you gotta be kidding me.

MSFC was created partially in response to A2Files policies; they wanted members who actually interacted rather than just download stuff.

The file policies were created due to A2Files and how (at least before they were bought by BreakMedia, don't know about now) they basically claimed ownership of a uploaded file and the authour has very little rights once it was up. It was one of our founding principles that an author/artist/modder etc should have the right to say what can and can't be done with their work including if they want to remove it from our hosting services, without any form of debate or argument. In fact I have removed several files over the years because of disgruntled artists who for one form or another no longer wanted to host files with us.

Sorry about the thread jack Cabal, I just wanted to clear this up.

Majestic wrote:May I ask where the week timeframe came from? Does 15 posts take a week? You only need to have to be registered for 2 days (and the 15 posts) to be eligible for the automatic promotion. Obviously spamming doesn't count towards the 15 post limit and is frown upon, by most sites to be honest. But there is enough viable threads and topics that one doesn't need to spam to access downloads. The idea behind making people post is to help build a community, we like to get to know the people who register and many who come to download find they like the community and stay despite the downloads available.:

MSFC site rules:

Downloads
To be eligible to download files, the user must be a participating member of the community and is required to post an introduction thread in the introduction section of the forums and post at least 15 posts of decent size (mass amounts of single or 3 worded posts within a very small time frame will be deleted as this is noted to rapidly increase your post count just to gain access to downloads and is also considered to be spam), be active for 7 days and have made some contribution to the MSFC community and have a reputation count of 30 which can only be gained by other members giving you positive reputation for great posts . No excuses will be accepted for not knowing, because if you are unaware, then you have breached the site rules by not reading and abiding by them and will be subject to the warning procedure outlined at the bottom of this page.

emphasis addded by me.

the "made some contribution to the MSFC community" is vague, i don't know what counts as a "contribution", it sounds like it means upload something (eg a mod or a picture), but i don't really know.

and the "reputation count of 30" means that 15 posts isn't enough, people have to actually upvote your posts.

Myles wrote:

Majestic wrote:May I ask where the week timeframe came from? Does 15 posts take a week? You only need to have to be registered for 2 days (and the 15 posts) to be eligible for the automatic promotion. Obviously spamming doesn't count towards the 15 post limit and is frown upon, by most sites to be honest. But there is enough viable threads and topics that one doesn't need to spam to access downloads. The idea behind making people post is to help build a community, we like to get to know the people who register and many who come to download find they like the community and stay despite the downloads available.:

MSFC site rules:

Downloads
To be eligible to download files, the user must be a participating member of the community and is required to post an introduction thread in the introduction section of the forums and post at least 15 posts of decent size (mass amounts of single or 3 worded posts within a very small time frame will be deleted as this is noted to rapidly increase your post count just to gain access to downloads and is also considered to be spam), be active for 7 days and have made some contribution to the MSFC community and have a reputation count of 30 which can only be gained by other members giving you positive reputation for great posts . No excuses will be accepted for not knowing, because if you are unaware, then you have breached the site rules by not reading and abiding by them and will be subject to the warning procedure outlined at the bottom of this page.

emphasis addded by me.

the "made some contribution to the MSFC community" is vague, i don't know what counts as a "contribution", it sounds like it means upload something (eg a mod or a picture), but i don't really know.

and the "reputation count of 30" means that 15 posts isn't enough, people have to actually upvote your posts.

Ah, I haven't updated that in a while, it was at one point 7 days (when I first introduced the policy) but downgraded as I felt it was a little too much. I'll go and update that shortly. The reputation part is with vBulletin you can add reputation to a persons post, there is rep power and points. Rep power is how large your ability to give rep is (for example my rep power instantly gives someone 200+ rep points). Which is gain through rep points. You need 30 rep points to access the downloads which can easily happen by just one member, even a new member giving you rep. I generally give people rep (which jumps people from 0 to like 200+) when I see them posting on the forums and participating rather than just spamming the forums up, or lurking. People have contacted me about the rep thing, generally a PM to me is all it takes if you haven't received rep, though I must emphasize that just joining MSFC to access downloads isn't what we are after in community members, we are after people who want to be part of a larger community, make some friends etc.

Contribution is basically posting in threads and participating in discussions, contributing to the community is not uploads, I thought that was very clear I'll need to re-word that.

I agree it's not the best solution, but you can thank certain members in the larger A2 community for that , they caused a lot of trouble (multiple accounts, harassment of members and staff etc.). I know it's not fair for those who weren't involved but it's pretty laxed in the grand scheme of things and very easy to get access if you're willing to put a very small amount of effort into it.

Ultimately I have a responsibility to the MSFC members, to provide them a harassment free environment, safety of their files from the types that would just take and re-release without asking permission or worse, try and sell them etc. I know many in the community see me as hard, maybe even have an ego or something, but they are only looking at it from one side of the issue, that as an member and not as someone trying to do what is best for the community he represents and the people who have chosen to use MSFC as a file host. The fact we are still going after 8 years and are referenced often as one of the major A2 sites says something I think.

@ Myles

The only problem with the policy appears when you release a mod and want lots of people to download it. There is a smaller audience at MSFC for mods due to its requirements for downloads. That, however, is also the best thing about it. If you want to, say upload a beta, like cabal and I did,(SW mod) then MSFC is probably the best place to receive detailed feedback from other modders. There are no trolls there, and everybody is quite friendly. (when we aren't talking about STO that is ) If you want to reach a large group of people, A2files or some kind of direct download is your best bet.

Plus, there is nothing to stop you from posting your minimum and downloading everything you want. It isn't encouraged and doesn't usually happen, but for people who just want access to the downloads, it is an option. That was my original intent when joining MSFC, but it has proved an excellent resource over the years. It is not as though they force you to stay active, it is just a screening process so that we know who is messing around with our stuff before it is publicly available.

I don't see anything wrong with what cabal did, advertising for his beta on another site, since it was going to be available here as well. I did the same thing and I don't remember receiving crap for it.

Adm. Zaxxon wrote:Plus, there is nothing to stop you from posting your minimum and downloading everything you want.

There is, my honour. maj has made it clear that msfc is for community members, not leeches. I wouldn't feel right being dishonest like that.

I agree, which is why it doesn't happen often, It is still an option though, if people just can't stand being active in a community they reap the benefits of.

I can't speak for Myles, but I know I'm already active in enough forums to make me think twice about adding another.

However, if the policy achieves the desired quality of community, then I for one won't criticise it.

hi guys i'm new here and i still wanna play a1...anyway i copied entire a1 directory with 1.3 patch in fleetops mods folder... i tried to run a1 and logical - it crashed however do you remember that music from a1? i could hear it...

so i think with some tweaks original armada could be played within fleetops, or with using fleetops we could run it on windows 8!!!! that's what i'm trying...

i understand cabal, thanks...speaking with one member of FO devs team, revival of a1 is possilbe, but when it's hard to say

Is there any progress on mod?

Cabal, it's Darklight from AFC/MSFC, just wanted to let you know to fix the mod download here to have the fix you got me on MSFC with the Klingon Commando Team sound missing.