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~~~
Your idea would work if RMTool was 100% reliable.
Unfortunately it's not.
1) It only scans for filenames, not file extensions or their MD5 or CRC values. So, it can't tell which of the hundreds of different resources all named "fire1" is supposed to go with a particular game.
2) It can't scan games that have been locked with Rast's project locker or have been hacked in a similar manner to prevent being loaded in the editor.
3) It does not recognize the resources in the Battle2 folder that comes with most RM2K3 games. So, when you scan RM2K3 games it will show that those resources are missing even when they aren't. Therefore, if you use the Import, it will fail to add any of those missing resources that belong in the Battle2 folder.
4) It doesn't always correctly recognize whether a game is RM2000 or RM2003, so if you Import, it will try to import from the wrong RTP.
5) Occasionally the scan will fail because there are map files that are not compatible with the tool--noticed this happens, for instance with large map files that contain events with a lot of #Comments when you view them in the editor.
6) If any resources have filenames that use foreign letters/characters, then it will show them as gobbledygook, making it impossible to Import or even tell what those resources should be.
7) Occasionally, it will fail to notice when a resource is missing, or falsely report that one is needed when it's not.
8) For RM2000 games that have been hacked to play mp3's, if an mp3 is missing but the fake .wav file** that points the exe to that mp3 is in the Music folder, then RMTool will fail to recognize that the mp3 is missing.
**(that fake wav file is actually a text file with a wav extension)
The only way your idea is feasible is if someone creates a new scanning/import tool--one without all these flaws.
Just so we're clear, your idea bort is an
awsome idea. Unfortunately, right now we don't have the tools we need to make it work.
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