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By Stewart Spink
October 3, 1998
note: This is The Column, a part of Apolyton where Markos and Dan write whatever we want 
. Well, not just Dan and me. The Column is open to everyone. If you feel like writing submit your article to us.
| PREVIOUS ARTICLES |
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#7 FAN APPRECIATION DAY This week Dan congratulates the gaming community for embracing fan-created websites. |
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#8 ARE CIV2 SITES MATURING? Markos comments on the latest news about civ2 sites. |
| COLUMN ARCHIVE |
As a designer of my own Civ2 site, I understand the massive problems many site owners have with hosting files from Civ2. Many scenarios, the ones where music and graphics are altered, take up so much space that on an average server, only ten scenarios at most can be held. there is a solution.
THE SOLUTION
It would be very handy for all Civ2-website designers came together and agreed on a universal scenario-hosting pact. One scenario would be placed on one site and all the other websites could link to it. This way, files wouldn't be repeated all over the Internet just for the sake of a website owner being able to change it at will.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE SOLUTION
However, if I were to place a scenariop on my server, on which incidentally I have 15Mb of space, and let other sites link to it, I would be bound to keep the scenario there for an eternity, at least until Civ2 became less popular (2100 A.D.?) and sites were diminishing fast. I could then contact other site owners and inform them that the scenario is about to disappear and should they want a copy, to download it fast.
One thing I see happening in a year or so is the disappearance of famously great scenarios from the internet due to lack of server space or just different interests in website owners. If we establish a standard for scenario (and modpacks, maps, etc.) hosting, this would be fixed and scenarios would be more available to visitors.
GO IT ALONE
Of course, some of the very best scenario-designers, the real experts (you know who you are Jésus, Harlan, Andrew, Allard and the rest), might prefer to keep their own creations on their specific sites, instead of let all-and-sundry link to them. This might not be too bad because the Civ2-heads like those I mentioned are likely to stick with Civ2 and not be distracted by other upstarts from the gaming world. Their scenarios would be around for quite a while.
CONCLUSION
We website owners need a way, or several, to cut down on usage of Mb on our servers. By reducing the replication of scenario-hosting we can enable visitors greater choice at every site for scenarios and certain famous scenarios would not disappear.
The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily express Apolyton CS or GameStats.
It is just the personal opinions of the writer.