If there would be a new UT site, what kind should it be?

Post by **Darkelarious** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 1:20 pm

I guess this is the right moment to jump in.

For the past nine years (well, 8 years and 50 weeks, celebration is in 2 weeks) I have been working on a site called "333networks". The name is not of importance right now, but the content is. It started out like any regular clan site, with some info about the players and servers. Later on, we tried to provide information about servers, at that time UTDemo only. The team is mainly me alone, though often assisted with problems by Hook & co and my old clan. We built quite a nice, small community around it, á la "us knows us".

Several years later, we arrived at http://333networks.com/ as it is today: a website that indexes and displays real-time server statistics about Unreal Tournament Servers. Similar to what GameTracker does, but just for UT, made by UT-ers, for UT-ers, and all on a recreational basis. We even made fun of the UBrowser, by making a web version of it: http://ubrowser.333networks.com/! Last week, I completed my brand new, custom version of the MasterServer, something about which you will undoubtedly hear more in the next few weeks. We adapted the site to work with it, and we're planning the release upcoming weekend, just to be sure that all small glitches are fixed.

Apart from showing live server statistics, there are a few other things that have been lingering around the place: working from the server info concept, I started indexing mutators' int files. These can be connected with information about the mutator used in the server. Wouldn't it be nice if we (first made and then) expanded that information with the actual download? And wouldn't we host maps, skins, map music and other things as well? {S.o.W}DeathMask and I already discussed a smaller-scale implementation for TheDataBase of {S.o.W} material, naturally that can be expanded to all of UT's files.

I expect to be busy with the framework for at least a few more months, so do not yet reschedule your vacations. I am hoping to build the same thing that a lot of people want for a long time already. For me, the difficulty is in setting up a proper environment/platform to categorize everything in a very strict and consistent way. After that, it is just a matter of users uploading whatever they have, a moderator or admin approving the upload, and making it available for the rest of the world.

For me, it is a hobby. The site doesn't even look that professional. I do this in my spare time. I may even have missed a few hours at school and later at work for it. But the idea is simple: we all want a repository for all of the Unreal Tournament content. A lot of people have been very close already, a lot of people did a great job in obtaining a large part of the available material. Right now I host this on a simple home connection at the attic. If 333networks can expand to the point where it becomes popular, I consider upgrading it (in terms of bandwidth, server space, features, maybe a premium account that doesn't do anything). For now, I am mostly having the pleasure in making 333networks.

Who's with me?

$carface · Post by **$carface** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 1:49 pm

Sorry a bit off topic here. Darkelarious can you black list the fake player servers from your master server such as
http://333networks.com/ut/103.6.66.44:1112
http://333networks.com/ut/212.83.63.234:7778
http://333networks.com/ut/188.240.220.147:8889
http://333networks.com/ut/217.147.84.102:5556
http://333networks.com/ut/46.249.51.142:2251
http://333networks.com/ut/5.152.199.124:3001
http://333networks.com/ut/91.215.159.191:7778

Also, is the mastersever you provide available for download? I've always wanted to host a master server in case the epic one went offline

Post by **Carbon** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 2:22 pm

Darkelarious wrote:Who's with me?

Nobody isn't.

Post by **Darkelarious** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:01 pm

$carface wrote:Sorry a bit off topic here. Darkelarious can you black list the fake player servers from your master server such as
Also, is the mastersever you provide available for download? I've always wanted to host a master server in case the epic one went offline

Crosspost with http://www.ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=12& ... 110#p61110

I agree with your disgust towards this way of hustling players and I already anticipated that such a function was necessary. However, I just started experimenting with the blacklist function, but there is no possibility yet to either see which servers are blacklisted, or the ability to dispute blacklisted servers.

Right now, 333networks is an observer in the UT world: we are the all-seeing eye, but in the meanwhile we do not interfere. By taking actions, no matter how well-intended, we take matters into our own hands. When we start blacklisting servers without very strict rules and a clear policy, you can imagine the outrage when servers get incorrectly blacklisted. I don't want to burn my fingers on that just yet. The servers are now listed, I'll keep it in mind for when that part of the site is considered "done".

UT99.org · Post by **UT99.org** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:25 pm

billybill wrote:I believe these servers don't actually allow you to play and instead edit your favorites and sometimes send you to a real server. Only purposes they serve is to advertise websites in the server name, and distribute their serverpackages. Using the game to advertise for profit like this is prohibited by epic's TOS. Making money off uengine without licence is prohibited by these tos. You cannot set a server up with logos that are business related if these are profit invovled ie advertise your marijuana seed bank with pictures of the products on the walls of standard maps with their strain names and the URL to your store in the server name. This is where you could justify removing them on terms of illegality

Personally though I believe these servers are generally better unlisted but should be handled by a third party, a proper forum, or even better make it automatic: no URLs in servername (actual join the server and check should ideally be involved). I think you're right standing back and observing. People who's servers are removed from favorites, or opposition servers added or redirected to etc are always going to try and push your hand on this, and you'll have to get used to it I'm sorry to say dude

Censorship of this kind is bad anyway, by doing nothing you are doing what is already being done and there's nothing malicious enough yet to demand a change

Post by **Carbon** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 5:10 pm

Not happy with only one 333 thread!?!?

ASLY · Post by **ASLY** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 6:49 pm

OFF
Carbon, please... And your life is not happy without provocation?
Really some guy why here enjoying he's passion?
Now this for everyone: Stop this egoist shit comments, and let's keep alive UT and enjoy the forum.
That's just my viewpoint, I don't care about any criticism, and I don't need conflict.

Tim-_- · Post by **Tim-_-** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 9:46 pm

ASLYE702 wrote:
Tim-_- wrote:
Feralidragon wrote:The kind of site the community needs the most? That's easy: one that has everything.
Everything on that poll, and much more, to the point that using it is almost as fun as playing the game itself and featured enough to create some independence from certain tools such as UEd, WOTGreal, etc, wherever you are (at work, at home, at the country side, etc) and to improve the sharing of things (mods, maps, resources, ideas, etc, etc).
Clans would also need to be fully supported and to organize scrims and tournaments, along with exposure and healthy competition among them.
And a lot more things...

And there isn't a single site with all this afaik, not even concerning modern games, at least not yet...
This is exactly what I'm building!
What? GlobalUnreal? It's just for American ""pro?"" players.

Current site is just temporary and was hacked together as quickly as possible. It takes time to properly implement everything (and more) that feralifragon described!

billybill wrote:I really would hope your 'improve the sharing of things' includes some more info on zero-ping lifts so we can have a try replacing the BT ones with 'em and see how it turns out

LOL. Yeah everything will be open source but the newnet lifts that I've designed won't require replacing anything on any map. It will just work as-is.

Post by **Darkelarious** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 2:41 am

Carbon wrote:Not happy with only one 333 thread!?!?

I lol'd.
Thanks, ASLYE702, it's okay, Carbon and I talked before. I (almost) hijacked the other thread with but one single post too. It's funny how I managed to turn the UT thread into a 333 thread. But your argument stands: I'm doing this for fun, and continue to do so, whether somebody else likes it or not. Besides, nothing wrong with a little bit of positive advertising.

But as said above by various people, the problem with having an UT repository is the sorting. I know from experience that everybody has different way of putting a pen on top of the paper, and everybody has his/her own ideas about sorting UT mods. I think that by the time that I have a draft for my implementation, I'll throw it on the table here. That way we can see whether the design works for everybody-- if it doesn't, there are plenty of people here who can provide feedback.

Perhaps some of you can already think about a proper way to do it? Can we have a shared document or something? Perhaps a shared Google docs spreadsheet with different tabs for different types (skin, voice, mutator) and different properties each item has, such as author, mutator name, contents, description, etc? It will help make it easier to implement everything in a database later on.

Let's do this!

Post by **UnrealGGecko** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 8:49 pm

I don't mind. I kinda flunked the poll anyway by forgeting an "all of the above" option. :loool:

.
Aaanyway... What happened with this site? I couldn't access the forums the whole day.

Post by **Feralidragon** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 10:12 pm

GEx wrote:What happened with this site? I couldn't access the forums the whole day.

Something odd was happening with the server, Shade doesn't know exactly why, but got fixed with a restart.

Post by **noccer** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 11:29 pm

$carface wrote:Sorry a bit off topic here. Darkelarious can you black list the fake player servers from your master server such as
http://333networks.com/ut/103.6.66.44:1112
http://333networks.com/ut/212.83.63.234:7778
http://333networks.com/ut/188.240.220.147:8889
http://333networks.com/ut/217.147.84.102:5556
http://333networks.com/ut/46.249.51.142:2251
http://333networks.com/ut/5.152.199.124:3001
http://333networks.com/ut/91.215.159.191:7778

Just have a look at gametracker also

http://www.gametracker.com/search/ut/?s ... =42#search Blacklist fake player count

Oh and back to topic, what kind of?
One with everything,

Information, Forum, Files ....

Post by **Darkelarious** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 1:04 pm

It is even more dubious when the maximum player count is 9, but the current amount of players is 16. Though 333networks correctly picks them up as bots now.

http://333networks.com/ut/23.227.172.9:7778

heliumcat · Post by **heliumcat** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 9:13 pm

EvilGrins wrote:2 words: Skaarj Porn

Spoiler

Funny how much the skaarj warriors remind me of the avp predators in certain ways.

But I guess the same can be said about the skaarj queen and the avp's alien queen.

KingJosh · Post by **KingJosh** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 11:45 pm

unrealplayground no longer accepts uploads of maps, and it is difficult to upload maps to mapraider. Maybe a map storage / review website would be nice

If there would be a new UT site, what kind should it be?

What kind of UT site would you want the most?

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