Castle Paradox

phyrfox · Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2005 7:35 pm Post subject: Counting files...

If you have the space, I would recommend a history-style counter. A simple counter would have, say, a daily count, a weekly count, a monthly count, a yearly count, and a lifetime count. So, for example, today being Sunday (at least where I am, for the next hour or so), the daily and weekly count would have been reset to zero, and the downloads that occurred today would be equal in week and daily counts. On April 1st, the monthly would also be reset (as well as weekly if you wanted the numbers to "look" right). And on January 1st, the yearly would reset as well. Having the lifetime counter would allow all the current games to keep their lifetime counters (which is, in effect, the counts they have right now). Of course, the yearly and so on would have a skewed effect until the next whole cycle (monthly would be off until April 1st, yearly until January 1st), but it would give visitors and users alike a better idea of "what's hot right now" and "what's popular over time." To fix the download accelerator "problem", I'd have the script keep a running IP log of, say, a minute, and not increase counters for a duplicate IP address for the same file. Also, automatically not increase counters for a "HTTP resume" request, which I presume is a detectable situation. Just some thoughts. I can try and help out, although I'm more of a Perl person rather than a PHP person.

~= phyrfox =~

Cube · **Dimensional Traveller** Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 294

Yeah, the total hits will most likely be kept if this were to actually happen. However, like I said in my previous post, games would never be shown by their total hit count, where the count would be kept just for informative purposes.

For example, the only way you'd be able to view it would be click on the game's name itself, and viewing that information (Same place you view the description about it). The reasoning behind this is so that games will continue to get hits by word, rather than numerical numbers.

A good example of this would be a game like FF6. People will play it and love it even today, and new people are constantly discovering it. You don't really find it in stores anymore, besides the PS1 version that is, but it still continues to generate interest and a small fraction of money.

Now, hit counts are similar to money on CP, basicly. If a game was truely good and people still hold interest in it, it will remain on the top 25 list every week because it will continue to get hits. If not... Well, I suppose it'll be forgotten. Sad in some cases, but nothing is wrong with people promoting their old games in some form either Wink

.

phyrfox: Yeah, I was just talking to IM about this and he had a similar idea like that. I'd say it's safe to say that if this does get implemented, it'll be like that.

rpgspotKahn · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 5:18 am Post subject:

This is a great idea. But we must still show and owe respect to those golden games there who got the top slot.

I doubt FF6 is making any money. Interest yes, but no money. People just download it or lend it from a friend. Squaresoft/Enix aren't generating any income.
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The Wobbler · Joined: 06 Feb 2003 Posts: 2221

Setu_Firestorm · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:08 pm Post subject:

Speaking of which, who the hell keeps downloading .hack//OHR? No, no, no...

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Moogle1 · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 12:21 pm Post subject:

It's still on the first page of the gamelist. Bots and webspiders.
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The Wobbler · Joined: 06 Feb 2003 Posts: 2221

Sephyroth · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:19 pm Post subject:

Moogle1 · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:03 pm Post subject:

Because it doesn't link to a ZIP file, it links to another PHP file.
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The Wobbler · Joined: 06 Feb 2003 Posts: 2221

Moogle1 · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 6:56 pm Post subject:

It affects the most easily accessed ones most. The front page of the gamelist has the first ones alphabetically (Adventures of Billy the Gnome, .hack//OHR).
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RedMaverickZero · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 7:42 pm Post subject:

I don't understand this too much myself. How did Halloween Quest get so many downloads so quick?! And then how did "A Wizards Life"?! The game looks like hell. So it must be some odd force of the internet downloading these games...
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Cube · **Dimensional Traveller** Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 294

Ah, IM figured out how to block the search engines from checking the download script for the games.

He also wanted me to post this: http://www.castleparadox.com/BillyGnomeRequests.txt

This shows who's been requesting the file. You see the occasional user in there (Those would be the things that say Mozilla and whatever), I saw Google and Yahoo! once, but it's mostly the MSN search engine bot. IM says the records he has on hand only go back to about December or so, but this clearly shows search engines play a large part in the download count up until now. IM says accellerators don't even play a role in it at all but... I still kinda think they do, even if it's a small part Raspberry!

. *shrug*

But anyhow, problem solved, and there you go. Search engines were undoubtedly the largest culprit in this case, and IM says he's discovered a way to block them while researching this

. /cheer