I had to install a new main drive and I lost savegames in the process. Does anyone know where to get PC savegames for:

KotOR -- the end battle --- light and dark side
LEGO Star Wars --- completed
Battlefront II -- near complete (I was on Hoth) on anything but hard.

Try going to gamefaqs.com (that's with a Q, not a G) and see if you can find any save games of cheat codes for your game.

Nope, unfortunately not. I tried googling pc savegames, but it never works

I wonder if it's worth starting a site to store those. I wonder if it's illegal to host savegames?

Why would it be? You need the game to play them.

I doubt hosting SGs is illegal since you need the game to play them... I think it's a good idea.

Gamefaqs.com wouldn't host them if it were.

Wanna start a site for it, Brian?

I'm in for starting such a website :p

Yeah. It would be relatively easy. Just have a user submit form. They can select a game, or enter a new one. Upload the file. Then a small description

But you'd need to at least virus scan the savegames and you'd ideally want some installation instructions at least the path to where they should be put.

Brian, you should start a sub-site for savegames. Just think, it wouldn't take up much space, since saves are small usually.

I've heard of people saving their GTA 100% games online for people to download.
It shouldn't be illegal? I say give it a shot.

Sub-site?

Why the hell would he relate it to massassi. Its a dead jk editing site and star wars related. Come on now. :p

Both of these issues can be easily solved.

For the virus issue: We can have the server immediately scan all uploaded files using ClamAV, and then if it detects a virus, the file is immediately shredded and the user IP banned from uploading anymore files.

In addition, we could add a moderation system, where all files must be approved by trusted members (sorta like now, where files submitted must be approved).

As for the installation instructions, we could have a standard installation guide for each game. They would detail how every savegame file is to be installed.

Finally, to make sure savegames are valid, when a game is added to the database, there would be a standards system for the savegames. A specific game will have an extension for the savegame file, so all uploaded files must be of that extension. Also, savegames rarely change sizes more than a few KB, so we could make sure that the files fall within a set site limit, or else be rejected as invalid. (An override could be possible via alerting a moderator that the file is indeed okay, which would need to be checked by the moderator of that specific game.)

Moderators would have to own the game to be able to moderate that game, so that they can check files if need be.

That's my ideas so far.

[QUOTE=Cool Matty]Both of these issues can be easily solved.

For the virus issue: We can have the server immediately scan all uploaded files using ClamAV, and then if it detects a virus, the file is immediately shredded and the user IP banned from uploading anymore files.

In addition, we could add a moderation system, where all files must be approved by trusted members (sorta like now, where files submitted must be approved).
As for the installation instructions, we could have a standard installation guide for each game. They would detail how every savegame file is to be installed.

Finally, to make sure savegames are valid, when a game is added to the database, there would be a standards system for the savegames. A specific game will have an extension for the savegame file, so all uploaded files must be of that extension. Also, savegames rarely change sizes more than a few KB, so we could make sure that the files fall within a set site limit, or else be rejected as invalid. (An override could be possible via alerting a moderator that the file is indeed okay, which would need to be checked by the moderator of that specific game.)

Moderators would have to own the game to be able to moderate that game, so that they can check files if need be.

That's my ideas so far.[/QUOTE]

The only problem is that some games will require more than one file just to get a savegame working. For example, look at Need For Speed Underground. You need a profile file, a folder and the savegames for that profile. And, for some reason the savegames couldn't be copied across profiles.

Each game is going to be different. Size based validation would also not work for some games. Looking through my Freelancer saves directory there are files between 80 and 200kb. What's more they could get even bigger.

Checking them by hand would work but would require:
-Time
-The moderator to have the game, possibly the correct version of the game.

The only way you could really do it is to let all files on the site (provided they pass virus scanning and are not of obvious incorrect extensions, and are not excessivley large. 1mb should be loads. Could be set per game.) obviously it would need to be moderated to check people aren't using the site as a filesharing service but then you could let people rate and/or comment on the savegame once it's been downloaded.

Also, sometimes you may want a pack of savegames rather than a single file. For example you might want a save at the beginning of each level so then you'd need to allow for rar/zip files and let them be slightly larger.

You guys honestly can't find a site?

[url]www.gamewinners.com[/url]

[url]www.cheatcc.com[/url]

Theres like 500 more sites to choose from.

Sol, we're not looking for cheat sites. They're a dime a dozen. We're looking for PC savegame sites.

Those can be handled by requiring the entire thing to be in a .zip file, if there are multiple files/folder structure.



It wouldn't be a system-wide hard limit, it would be set for each individual game. Some games have save files that never change size. Those would have a narrow range. Other games, like you said with Freelancer, would have a much larger range. This would be handled by the moderator(s) of that particular game, who by playing the game (and hopefully beaten it) would be able to see what a proper savegame filesize would be. In addition, this could be disabled for certain games. It's just another way to assist the moderators in their job, not do it for them.



This is obvious, which is why I proposed the earlier methods of validation to somewhat alleviate that. We can always go without moderation, and then if we find it is required, we can enable it. (Even in addition to the proposed methods)


Ratings and comments would definately be an important part, sure. But as I said before, filesizes for games can be specified on a per-game basis.



As I said above, ZIP (RAR isn't as easy to deal with) would definately be required for multi-file or folder submissions.

Sounds like a really cool idea. I'm going to give this some thought before I commit to it, but I have a few questions. First a comment. For any project, the smaller the goal, the higher likelyhood of it actually being finished. So,

1. What is the absolute smallest thing we need to put up to be useful to people?
2. How will the site be advertised?

For a minimum, I would say something like...

1. A nested category structure for sorting games by genre.
2. A good search feature so finding games is easy.
3. A way for users to add games we haven't added yet.
4. An upload system so people can upload games.
5. A user registration system (is this even required...?).

Input?

Most important, IMO, is for users to add their own games. That is the absolute necessity.

I think a user sign-up is probably better than totally anonymous. Cut down on untrusted users and such. You'd probably might be able to match users on the forums with their IPs with the user sign-up for the game saves.

It'd have to be hosting savegame files. The issue would be building content.

Get it out on as many respectable gaming sites as possible.


Definately.

Yeah, search by title in an SQL database, and be sure to check searches for common mistakes.

I think this would need to be moderated, however. It'd be very easy for someone to overload such a script and create a hundred fake games.


I actually just realized a rather simple (but ugly) method of pulling this off for the time being, until a proper system could be put into place. It's sorta messy, but it would work. Basically, we could add an <iframe> tag with a src to an ftp:// url. The username would be the game, and no password required. Only an upload permission would be allowed (not even view listing), and I'm sure there's a way to limit file uploads so only one file can be uploaded.

Using that iframe tag (which unfortunately would only work in IE, like I said, an ugly fix for the beginning, but it would avoid our problems uploading files like we were having here), users can drag and drop right into the iframe, in an interface that a user can relate to easily. And windows would even provide a progress bar! I think it looks pretty nice, considering it's really just a hack instead of a proper upload script written in PHP, or even in Java.

After the user uploads the file, the script would process the file (either by autodetecting it via FTP access logs and matching IP address, or checking file access times to the current time, or even making the user provide the name of the file), using ClamAV to check for viruses, the size detection script, and other things. Once the file was verified, a user would add a description, and whatever else they deemed important for the file. Then the file would be submitted, and the file added to the database. The file would then be locked. Oh, and there would be a cleanup script that would auto-delete files that were not processed in say, a half hour. This would keep people from uploading whatever they like, and just never submitting the file. (Not that they could access the file until it was locked in place anyway)

That's just my idea for it, for now. I'm sure there are many ways to improve upon it.


I would say it's absolutely required. If possible, we should tie it to a forum community account, though. (Maybe via bForum?!!!!??!!111oneone?) Users can download files without registration as usual, but to upload, you would need an account. This would make it far easier to manage foul users, track a User's usefulness (multiple highly-rated savegames would be good grounds for promoting a user to moderator status), give proper credit to a user for their work, and even allow users to find other users who are interested in similar games. (So say, a user sees someone's name on their savegame file. He goes to the forum for that particular game/category, and he can ask questions of that author, assist in a better savegame, or more)

Those are my 3 cents. (Damn inflation!)

Yes, the sites I linked have savegames files.

If they have savegame files, they don't have very many. I checked a bunch of games, all they had were codes and trainers.

Well, thats true, but I alone have over 50+ savegame files for various games on my Media partition. I've never had trouble finding savegame files at all.

IF Brian decides to add a "Savegames" section i have a few i could upload!

This is just an assumption, but if Brian (and any assistants ?) does make this, it'll have its own site.