What about an Otland Cloud?

[Damon]

The Otland Cloud - Power comes from within!

Latest update: https://otland.net/threads/what-about-an-otland-cloud.234386/#post-2296752

Beta Testers:
@Tarek1337
@HalfAway
@president vankk

Special Thanks to:
@president vankk (for the awesome logo!)

Okay, so everyone here probably knows about cloud storage. If you don't: Cloud Storage lets you upload files to some kind of online storage - consider it an online hard drive - and also let's you, or anyone who you are giving access to it download those files. You could even make your friends upload their own!
Alright, back to the topic. Within the past years we had quite some great contributions from various of our community members, but alot of links unfortunately tend to die, or simply expire, which is sad. No contribution should be getting lost. So my idea was, that we would have an own Otland Cloud, where anyone from Otland can download the contributed files. This guarantees long time availability of your contributed works is even easier to navigate as we would keep a clear structure in the cloud, seperating Distributions, Datapacks, Resources/Talkactions/Actions.... as we already do on the forums. Of course, to prevent fraud or other kinds of exploit (e.g. modifying or deleting files) not everyone, but rather a small trusted party should be the only people who are allowed to upload files to the cloud or modify (edit/delete) them. If someone was to contribute something he would simply create a thread on the forums in the appropriate contribution section and post his contribution there with a download link. The job from the trusted team of the Otland Cloud would be to scan these files and, if they are safe, upload them to the Otland Cloud in the appropriate location. From that time on, anyone on Otland can simply access the Otland Cloud to get the file once the previous upload link dies. Of course we would also try to get as many contributions as possible in the cloud, thus we would also be checking on old contributions and uploading them to the cloud, given they still are available.
I'm curious if you guys are interested in this and if there are any (trusted/known) volunteers who would be willing to help managing this project

Kind regards,
Damon

 

[ghettobird]

The Otland Cloud - Power comes from within!

Okay, so everyone here probably knows about cloud storage. If you don't: Cloud Storage lets you upload files to some kind of online storage - consider it an online hard drive - and also let's you, or anyone who you are giving access to it download those files. You could even make your friends upload their own!
Alright, back to the topic. Within the past years we had quite some great contributions from various of our community members, but alot of links unfortunately tend to die, or simply expire, which is sad. No contribution should be getting lost. So my idea was, that we would have an own Otland Cloud, where anyone from Otland can download the contributed files. This guarantees long time availability of your contributed works is even easier to navigate as we would keep a clear structure in the cloud, seperating Distributions, Datapacks, Resources/Talkactions/Actions.... as we already do on the forums. Of course, to prevent fraud or other kinds of exploit (e.g. modifying or deleting files) not everyone, but rather a small trusted party should be the only people who are allowed to upload files to the cloud or modify (edit/delete) them. If someone was to contribute something he would simply create a thread on the forums in the appropriate contribution section and post his contribution there with a download link. The job from the trusted team of the Otland Cloud would be to scan these files and, if they are safe, upload them to the Otland Cloud in the appropriate location. From that time on, anyone on Otland can simply access the Otland Cloud to get the file once the previous upload link dies. Of course we would also try to get as many contributions as possible in the cloud, thus we would also be checking on old contributions and uploading them to the cloud, given they still are available.
I'm curious if you guys are interested in this and if there are any (trusted/known) volunteers who would be willing to help managing this project

Kind regards,
Damon

I wouldn't use it, even though I need it. Why? Simply because I know others will have access to it, and by others I mean the people who are hosting the cloud

 

[Damon]

I wouldn't use it, even though I need it. Why? Simply because I know others will have access to it, and by others I mean the people who are hosting the cloud

I see you point there but I don't think services like Dropbox or Google Drive would be used so frequently (even by buissnesses) if they were leaking or stealing their customers data. Additionally I think the interest in stealing OTS related content for DropBox/GoogleDrive is close to zero. Needlessly to say that by contributing files you imply to be willingly let others (in this case the otlanders) use those
files, wouldn't you agree?

 

[ghettobird]

I see you point there but I don't think services like Dropbox or Google Drive would be used so frequently (even by buissnesses) if they were leaking or stealing their customers data. Additionally I think the interest in stealing OTS related content for DropBox/GoogleDrive is close to zero. Needlessly to say that by contributing files you imply to be willingly let others (in this case the otlanders) use those
files, wouldn't you agree?

If your point is to make it so everyone can have access to it then I couldn't agree more, however if your point was for everyone to keep their ots safe then not really, if they use drop box then it's safe for sure, but if it's a new service like drop box (the one you want to make) then there's an entrepreneur having ultimate access to each & every file on his host, which means having access to the OTs, which allows him to steal sources, steal scripts, or even the whole OTs...

 

[Damon]

If your point is to make it so everyone can have access to it then I couldn't agree more, however if your point was for everyone to keep their ots safe then not really, if they use drop box then it's safe for sure, but if it's a new service like drop box (the one you want to make) then there's an entrepreneur having ultimate access to each & every file on his host, which means having access to the OTs, which allows him to steal sources, steal scripts, or even the whole OTs...

I was gonna say we'd use one of the trusted established ones (dropbox/googledrive/msdrive). Anyone from Otland will be able to download the files and those who are allowed to upload and modify (edit,delete) files are restricted to a small trusted party of Otlanders.

 

[Xikini]

Ghetto stop being ignorant and read his post.
A small group of individuals (aka 'support team') would handle all requests for uploading the content to the servers. Checking the files for integrity and validity.
Members/Posters on OtLand ask for their content to be uploaded to the server, so that the many many sites that allow hosting do not need to be used as there is almost always a timed wash-out, whether that be a year or a week.
With this service all resources freely submitted onto the boards could be accessed by the community at a later date, instead of useful files being dropped away as the various host sites are shut-down or wiped of older content.
As you stated it's kind of like Drop-Box, except the only thing you can do is download and view content, you can't upload it, unless it get's screened by the support team.

 

[kokokoko]

As much as I like the idea, my concern is that we very likely won't have many active contributors nor a significant enough amount of people who would be interested and/or benefit from such a service. Furthermore, assume we would actually get a small amount of contributions; who would take on the responsibility of the logistics, i.e. scanning and uploading? Even though we might have volunteers that would be okay with managing this, I still think that we are unfortunately too small of a community to reap any meaningful benefits from a "central storage" location.

 

[Damon]

Well we already have ALOT of old contributions which just need to be downloaded and uploaded to the cloud again as they are meant to be used by Otlanders anyway so there would be quite some contributions. However if the interest stays as low as it currently is it's not worth the effort.

 

[Deleted member 49793]

Well we already have ALOT of old contributions which just need to be downloaded and uploaded to the cloud again as they are meant to be used by Otlanders anyway so there would be quite some contributions. However if the interest stays as low as it currently is it's not worth the effort.

Yea i mean i'd be willing to help, but I find the interest seems to be very low

 

[Damon]

Yea i mean i'd be willing to help, but I find the interest seems to be very low

Yea thats also what holds me from taking action^^ It's really sad that the community has died like this :/ If a possibility like this existed in Open Tibias Prime it would have boomed surely..

 

[Deleted member 49793]

Yea thats also what holds me from taking action^^ It's really sad that the community has died like this :/ If a possibility like this existed in Open Tibias Prime it would have boomed surely..

Yep.... 99% of servers are real maps. how many servers on first page are none evo none real map? I think 1.

I dont think the issue is even so much the amount of players custom servers get, but more the fact that people donate alot less to custom projects... So hosters cant afford to pay dedicated costs/advertising costs. This is what I'm afraid of for my project.

 

[Evan]

I see you point there but I don't think services like Dropbox or Google Drive would be used so frequently (even by buissnesses) if they were leaking or stealing their customers data.

I stopped reading here because it has lost all legitimacy.

 

[Damon]

I still haven't completly abolished this idea yet so here a quick update:

- 3 User types:
1. Users/Members: Can view&download all files and folders but do not have permissions to edit, delete or upload.
2. Admins: Can view, upload, edit, delete, add files and folders.
3. Super Admin = Super rights = only me (hoster)

- Possible Server Location(haven't decided on that one just yet):
1. Roost, Luxembourg
2. Las Vegas, US
3. New Jersey, US
You can test the servers speed by downloading Looking Glass test files from here.

- Files will be forwarded by Site Admins
prior to uploading them to the cloud. In order to submit a contribution people would need to post their files in a thread which will be created when the project goes live.

- Sharing the Files
Once a file has been approved and uploaded by the admins you will be able to download them through your account interface or generate a download link to e.g. embed them in your thread (so ppl who are not registered can dl the files)

- Fast Network (1000mbps UNMETERED)

- No waiting time for downloads. Downloads don't expire.

- The Cloud will feature an "Anycast IP-Adress"
With a functioning Anycast configuration your inbound traffic will be routed to the VPS that is nearest to each visitor (i.e. European visitors will go Luxembourg, United States visitors depending on their location will go to either Las Vegas or New Jersey, Asia visitors will go to Las Vegas, etc.).

Note: This only applies to inbound traffic (= uploading files) so it just helps the Admins who are uploading the file.

- Responsible Theme (optimized for phone and tablet usage)


- Image preview feature!
If the contributor has attached images to his datapack in order to give people an idea of what the server looks like users can simply preview them

- Sortable items by name, date and size.

- Encrypted passwords and encoded download links.

- Quick Search module.

- Order&Easy navigation
There will of course be some order in all this like in the Otland Download section (e.g. seperating between RlMap, Evo, Custom datapacks, various types of .lua scripts...)

- Supports various languages

Feel free to leave feedback and give suggestions of what could be improved @Xikini @ghettobird @Sir Knighter

 

[Damon]

Thinking about adding an API for an Otland Cloud App and perhaps integration to otland ifStaff approves

 

[president vankk]

- Supports various languages

Portuguese? :/

 

[Damon]

Portuguese? :/

Might add it when i find time. Isnt spanish very close to portugese?

 

[president vankk]

Might add it when i find time. Isnt spanish very close to portugese?

I don't think so, and also I think the host should be in Vegas

 

[HalfAway]

OnT:
Hows the project going?

I don't think so, and also I think the host should be in Vegas

If the cloud will be hosted in Vegas, we won't be able to access the files since.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

 

[Damon]

Vegas is a possible location any reason why?

I don't think so, and also I think the host should be in Vegas

@HalfAway
working on it now and then as im on holidays now acctually

 

[president vankk]

@HalfAway
Dude, hahahaha .-.

@Damon
It's best ping, I think.