this is really nice. did you do all the labeling? this is the kind of thing that needs to be done. you know, a file-hosting site like rpgmaker.net et al is convenient, but even a big (hyperlinking, maybe wiki-styled) text directory would be very desirable. i hope you can come up with people to assist you in a torrent or a massive host, but even having this list up somewhere and organized by author, format, etc. would rule.
additionally: i would host a big game torrent indefinitely.
but also consider: a torrent or direct-downloaded comprehensive archive of everything on your list that houses the rpg_rt, map files, readmes, and saves for all of these games, omitting resources (the things that take up space). this would be a fraction of the file size.
here is where i bring up a tool that i can no longer find through google search. i know people have used it, i know that even i have mentioned it on these forums a long time ago. this guy named WhoopA (who i think, unfortunately, is dead, unless it was a hoax) made a "dependency scanner" that you could use to scan your rpgmaker games to make sure that all the files they required were actually present in the game directory. so before you uploaded your game, if you were missing grapesoldier.png from your CharSet folder, it would let you know. i cannot count how many games i downloaded in the past where a file ended up missing halfway through... usually what i would do is just replace whatever it asked for with any random charset, midi, or anything else from my computer, just to get the game continuing again.
in old games where you cannot ask the author for a fix, or where multiple things are broken (the existence of the very misguided "RTP 1.32" that many people used as a replacement of their RTP folder really exacerbated this), the dependency scanner would prove to be very useful. i could see that there were 3 facesets, 1 battle background, and 2 midis missing, all at once, and replace them instead of doing it through trial-by-error.
digression over with now: what i mean to say is that use of a similar tool could create lists of the resources needed for every game, and a program could be created that could download them on a game-by-game basis. given the nature of resources in rpgmaker projects, this would eliminate a significant number of duplicates (you only need to host Mac & Blue chips once). you could even make the program be a frontend for loading up this same constant resources torrent and selectively downloading the needed resources within it.
this is MAYBE(PROBABLY) a stupid idea but i am just trying to suggest a method that would make this easier for everyone involved. if there is one thing i know about rpgmaker sites, it's that they regularly die/dissolve/implode/cause severe depression in the owner. being solely responsible for maintaining a navigable website (with forums lol), paying for bandwidth, etc... nobody really wants to do that (and the people who do are weirdo rpgmaker narcissists :O). it would also ensure the preservation of ~the game itself~ for hundreds and hundreds of games. without resources, sure, but those can be filled in later!
helping people in far corners of the internet......... and now, i'm off~~~
Yeah bort. I did all the labeling myself. That is why this has been such a time sink for me and I am tired of working on it alone. If I just downloaded a bunch of stuff and kept it unorganized, it wouldn't be a problem, but then I have no idea what I have.
Let me discuss what I label it like that though. Used to, I would keep all my rpg maker games in folders. So, my directory would be something like RPG Maker\2000\Author's Name, yada yada.
The problem with that approach is you have to keep folder changing when you are downloading, and, if you are unsure of what RPG Maker version the game is, you have to keep an unknown folder. Well, what if you have already downloaded the game though and you have no idea? Well, if you keep them all in one main game folder, when you are typing out the name, you know immediately what you have. Maybe there are some downsides to that approach, but it works out good for me.
Also, people hate on megaupload and ddl sites and want the hotlinks... I think the people who do that are downloading the hard way. Use a program called "mipony". Basically, it will detect all ddl links on a site and put them into a queue. With some ddl sites, a captcha pop-up window will appear where you have to type something in. But, with megaupload, you don't have any of that and you have unlimited downloading every, I think hour, of up to 3GB.
Also, your idea of having a program that detects what resources are missing and downloads them is not a bad idea. But, I believe with the current affairs of things, that it isn't that viable. The main problems being, getting together the resources that are missing, making lists of what the games need to have, having a server to host everything, then of course the coding of the program. I mean, if people would actually work together on it, then I guess it wouldn't be so bad. But, the two or three people doing the whole thing is overkill.
Personally, I have no interest in resource gathering. Maybe, if someone else cares about that, they can work on that project. Game gathering for me is enough of a time sink as it is. So far, it has been a solo job, and it looks like it still is a solo job. The only other person that actually keeps a quite decent collection that I know of is SegNin.
Anyway, that is enough of my train of thought at the moment. I'll try to check back in later tonight and see if there is something else I need to answer.
