Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Gate of Storms (GoS) is a metaserver (lobby) for Myth II Soulblighter multiplayer where you can play online with friends and strangers alike for free.
Giant Killer General
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Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by Giant Killer General »

I am sure this was thought about / talked about already at some point, but how feasible is this? This would be a massively beneficial feature if everyone could upload their older films into the GoS archive, and it would show the stats / download the recording just like any other GoS game. This would allow a centralized location for archived films, and preserve / share the history of some of myth's most important matches that are currently scattered about on everyone's computers. Many important films have been lost over the years, we need a solution to stop the bleeding at some point. If stats is too difficult, even just a centralized location to upload / download and organize them in an archive would work just fine. That part should be easy enough, I am surprised we didn't think to do it sooner given the low cost / high benefit of it.
punkUser
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by punkUser »

I've considered this in the past, but the issue here is not technical, it's logistics. It's easy enough to just dump files somewhere (anyone can already do that cheaply/free these days for stuff the size of Myth recordings), but how do you want to index it all?

Generating stats would be tricky... the stats the metaserver gets come from the client directly, not from the films (hence why you have stats for all games, even ones without films and before that feature existed). It's technically possible to script a Myth client somewhere to run through films to generate the end-game stats and add them to a database, but it basically has to simulate the whole game again though, so this is a non-trivial computational cost for a large number of films. It would require a decent amount of scripting work in the client as well.

But there's a deeper problem - even if we added these games to the metaserver "Games" page, how would you want to find them? It might not even be possible to reconstruct metadata even as simple as date/time, let alone know anything about the users playing in the games. Certainly we'd have no information about tournaments or accounts or players or anything like that. Everyone would effectively be "guests" with just the raw stats and game type/mode. Any other metadata that makes it actually potentially searchable (date/time, tournaments, etc) would all have to be added manually.

This seems like a huge manual undertaking for the broader set of myth films that people just have lying around on their machines. Without additional context, it's not really that useful to just dump them all together in a directory somewhere or equivalent.

I think the cases where it probably does pass the cost/benefit ratio is if someone wants to gather all the stats and metadata for some of the bigger tournaments - MWC's of the past or similar - then we could certainly add those games and tournaments here manually for archival purposes. I can provide a template for folks to enter all that information into that will make it easier to import into the database, but it's going to be a pretty manual, time-consuming process so it'll need eager volunteers :)
Giant Killer General
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by Giant Killer General »

Punk, you are being a real debbie downer lately. Lost that twinkle in your eye when you were a young whipper snapper already?

I think you are being a little overly pessimistic here. It is really simple - forget about stats. Those aren't that important anyway. I agree it doesn't pass the cost / benefit analysis. So yes, we just need fields.

Yes, we need to manually input the fields. But this is well worth it for many of the most historic matches. I am volunteering to do it, so that part is not an issue. But restrict access to me for now, at least in the beginning to get it started, so we can test it and ensure the manual data entry is clean and consistent. People can just put in a request somewhere, attach the film, and provide all the necessary information about the film (completing the template below). If we get a massive backlog of film archival requests for whatever reason (a good problem to have more than anything) then I will recruit additional volunteer help as needed, request that you grant them access, and then train them accordingly. Later on we can think about if we want to open it up to everybody, but recognize that we may then open ourselves up to poor quality data, or even trolling.

All I need from you is a template with the following searchable / filterable fields:

-Year - an integer between 1997 and 2100
-Competition Type -a drop down menu with options of: Tournament Match, Grudge Match, Ranked, Unranked, or Other. When selecting other, grant an additional text field for a short description (up to 40 characters). Other is just a catch-all here.
-PvP / PvE Type -a drop down menu with options of: Large 2-team (5v5+), Small 2-team, 1v1, FFA, TFFA, Co-Op, Other, or N/A. When selecting other, grant an additional text field for a short description (up to 40 characters). Again, other is just a catch-all.
-Tournament Name - a drop down menu with options of: Myth World Cup, The Winter Series, Other, or N/A. When selecting other, grant an additional text field for a short description (up to 40 characters). "Other" text field is needed here as it would be used more often.
-Match Name / Description - a text field for a moderate-length description (up to 200 characters or so).
-Players - entry field to add a collection of player names (up to 16 player names).

If I am missing any other easy and useful fields, by all means include them. All fields should be filterable / searchable to navigate through the archive.

The only other thing I would request is some way to delete and edit for ease of use, and so no one needs to bug you for help for these situations.

The rest of the details I of course defer to your expertise. You may want to provide all of these in an entirely different archive separate from GoS-era films or not, whichever way you want to do it.

You could also add an open-comment section that anyone can include their own additional / in-depth commentary or descriptions for each film. I am not sure if people would use this or not, but it is a bonus. This might be a nice compromise to allow anyone to provide their own input on films, while still keeping the core fields under some level of control to protect the integrity of the data for everyone's use.
dac
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by dac »

if you are going to do this, you need to add a coop/pve category and the label "spa butthurt" might apply.

seriously though, kirk would probably get off on uploading his MDQ films and a lot of that stuff has value too
punkUser
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by punkUser »

Giant Killer General wrote:Punk, you are being a real debbie downer lately.
My post wasn't downer at all. Your initial post basically said "I want to upload loads of films!" to which I responded that that wouldn't be useful without manual metadata entry, and then offered to provide a template for that... to which you seem to agree that's what you want.
Giant Killer General wrote: I am volunteering to do it, so that part is not an issue. But restrict access to me for now, at least in the beginning to get it started, so we can test it and ensure the manual data entry is clean and consistent.
This is unlikely to ever become a system where people can arbitrarily just upload files and have them hosted... for very obvious reasons :) It may not pass the bar of making a nice interface for vs. just a spreadsheet either, but in any case I can certainly get you a template of sorts.
Giant Killer General wrote: The rest of the details I of course defer to your expertise. You may want to provide all of these in an entirely different archive separate from GoS-era films or not, whichever way you want to do it.
I'll want to integrate and expand the concept of "tournaments" here. i.e. it's basically just a 3 level hierarchy (tournament -> round -> games). Obviously for games with no stats it would need to be expanded slightly, but the same organization could remain with different names in different contexts. It has always been the intention to add description fields to those levels so that integrates fine. Adding some additional metadata and making it searchable is fine too, although I'd probably lean more towards general "tags" than specific sets of options as that is more flexible going forward.

None of this is a trivial amount of work, but it's all stuff that has been roughly on the TODO list going forward. The switch to the metaserver-hosted web site and new accounts will facilitate being able to do these sorts of things more easily myself, so stay tuned on that front.
adrenaline
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by adrenaline »

May be harder to find a lot of old films that you think. I used to have a shit ton but forgot to back them up when I reformatted. I've repeated that process a few times. Probably happened to others, too, I'd think.
Giant Killer General
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by Giant Killer General »

Well speak for yourself. Just because that is what happened to you and some others, doesn't mean it is true for everyone. Some have been more careful than others in saving old myth files. I know at least myself, maybe limp, probably paris, and a few others have collected some impressive historical film archives. Even those without large collections, may have some valuable pieces. I am sure there is plenty to go around to justify a central archive to preserve what is left.
adrenaline
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by adrenaline »

You seek confrontation at every opportunity, don't you?
punkUser
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by punkUser »

Yeah I at least want to get something up for the older tournament games. If it's just "my films from 2010 pack" type stuff arguably that can as easily go on the Tain or similar anyways, but it would be nice to have tournament stuff here.
Giant Killer General
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by Giant Killer General »

Let me ask you adren, ever been the guy who stumbles on another random groups' conversation and tries to pick up the discussion and insert their own personal details into it in an attempt to make themselves relevant, and maybe even the center of attention?

We don't need you trying to convince punk that this isn't a feature worth his time to work on because of your pointless and irrelevant commentary about what happened to your myth films because you are inept with computers and/or don't generally think things through very well (shocker).

Would you like this feature? If so, then maybe talk about that instead so punk would be more motivated to try and find the time in his tight schedule for it. And consider the possibility that maybe someone else who is better with computers and more thoughtful about backing stuff up might actually have some of those important films that you lost.
adrenaline
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by adrenaline »

Hey thanks for proving my point. Didn't realize you were having a closed conversation in a public forum. My bad. Let me ask you, GKG... Ever been that guy who is a complete douchbag in nearly every interaction he has with others in the community?
Giant Killer General
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by Giant Killer General »

Ever been that guy who is an oversensitive little baby?

Thanks for proving my point too. Maybe go look for another thread to hijack with whatever irrelevant personal details you want to share with everyone.
Lord---Scary Owl
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Re: Feature Request for Archiving Pre-GoS films

Post by Lord---Scary Owl »

Has anyone seen a really good myther I forgot his name he usually signs in with the color black. He likes to argue a lot, sounds like a forum asshole, bleeds out of his vagina, and is very egotistical with 0 testicles. He has played with some very good players before usually teaming with that 1 average player that everyone knows. Thanks!


Hey can you guys stfu

you sound like my little sisters
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