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With BCG having so many issues, and many rumors of it potentially closing before all of the DDoS stuff got started, are there any other game sites that even exist that can compete with BCG?
It seems to me that the scene is devoid of any alternative in this niche. Often when something goes down there is a decent alternative out there, in this case I am not aware of any so I am hoping someone else is
Ggn, playbits and some other small trackers are out there.but only ggn can compete bcg.playbits have potantial because its sister site of hdtorrents but still far away from bcg and ggn.
You have Steam to thank for that. Piracy is really a response to high prices and consumer-unfriendly policies and Steam solved almost all of that. Constant sales, an easy to use centralized interface where all your games are easily accessed, and cloud saves synced across all your computers are incredibly useful. In addition, you don't have to deal the constant technical issues from pirating, patches are automatic and easy, and you don't have to have 2 copies of the game on your hard drive (the files you're seeding and the installed game files). It's a small price to pay for all the convenience you get.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazardous
It's unfortunate that gaming torrent sites are on the decline, but the reasons they are are excellent.
Seems like not many are giving much of fight to BCG leading BCG to not to change in terms of content there is none other than BCG but design wise will pick GGN it's so easy to upload on GGN. You can check ncore has lot of games
so BCG is really not comming back? :(
It will come back the way it has been doing over but stoi is just lazy nowadays :P
Quote:
Originally Posted by RartYou have Steam to thank for that. Piracy is really a response to high prices and consumer-unfriendly policies and Steam solved almost all of that. Constant sales, an easy to use centralized interface where all your games are easily accessed, and cloud saves synced across all your computers are incredibly useful. In addition, you don't have to deal the constant technical issues from pirating, patches are automatic and easy, and you don't have to have 2 copies of the game on your hard drive (the files you're seeding and the installed game files). It's a small price to pay for all the convenience you get.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazardous
It's unfortunate that gaming torrent sites are on the decline, but the reasons they are are excellent.
I really couldn't disagree more. The fact that prices are good (sometimes) and there's always sales (on questionable quality games mostly, we rarely see the truly great games go on crazy sales) is all fine but that client and interface STILL face the same DRM stemmed problem that these types will always face. If the email server goes down, and you try to login from another PC, GG for that account for however long it takes to fix it. It's also buggy a lot of the time and inconsistent as hell with it's community services.
Now let's take a hard critical look at the "Valve TOS policies" that truly subvert it's customers. They have complete totalitarian right to remove games from your library for a multitude of reasons, and never notify you, especially in the case of a delisted game you paid money for, and will never reimburse you that money. They do not have to go through any kind of legal dispute resolution to basically take away all kinds of services like trading, buying games, restricting your account and so on. The very fact that if a person let's say gifts you a game, and you play it for let's say 20+ hours and then one day see it's been removed and your account restricted (no trading, buying, selling on market, activating keys, no nothing) and contact Steam support, and they tell you that gift was purchased using a fraudulent means...then you are being essentially punished for the criminal act of somebody else. If your account is logged in by say a family member out of state to add money to your Wallet, and when you login you say by accident it wasn't you who accessed the account from the PC, you are immediately restricted and presumed of being hijacked. And must now prove through all types of stupid means (including photo ID, and even bills for address proof) that you are the owner of that account. So the whole system is set up in a very non-user friendly type of way, they can remove your games at will bypassing any legal dispute resolution, they can cut access to trading simply by logging in from a "different device". All the things I've listed have actually happened to a number of my Steam friends. So Steam ain't no knight in shining armor. You can dismiss this if you choose to by saying "well, Origin and GOG do the same thing, as well as other sites and companies", but that still evades the core principle that it should NEVER happen and is fundamentally unethical to consumers and their rights in the digital world. So yes, that lack of core ethics and caring about your customers' rights and sovereignty of their account has a lot of company, and Steam is right in the thick of that cesspool.
Then that brings us to customer support. Steam support is by far the WORST of all companies distributing games to resolve issues of any kind, worse than Sony, EA, GOG, Nintendo, and MS combined. Often people can wait a week or more for a answer to a support ticket, while of course their account is restricted for a Valve bank fuck up while one of those great Steam sales you mentioned goes on. It's just atrocious, you can't call them for support anymore, you can't live chat. Only a support email ticket and a prayer they will answer within three days. That is NOT indicative of a company that values it's customers and their issues, considering this is a private company worth billions, that instead of hiring a competent support team and implementing live chat and generally improving and adding more features to the client. They just spend that on Twinkie money for Gabe Newell and build a Steambox that will go precisely nowhere. And can someone explain to me why Valve see's the need to TAX trading cards from games you already spent the damn money on, that really have zero value, it isn't like selling a digital card is a profit made, so why tax them at all?
And of course we could go into the fact if Valve REALLY CARED about getting ALL the best content they could, they just don't and have zero proactive-ness in getting the PC versions Day 1 by being at the barginning table for those games with money on the table. Not to mention older games or compilations they could easily make a killing on they don't seem to go after (Mega Man Anthology, MGS HD Collection, Silent Hill Collection, OG ResiEvil series HD anybody?). Many of which are already on PC and have already been ported. Where's Planescape Torment, where's Ultima Underworld 1 & 2? The fact is, Valve isn't proactive for games on their market, they simply sit back and just hope and wait a PC version comes, they don't go after them aggressively like they could. If that were true then there would already be word of Valve in talks with Platinum Games to bring over Vanquish seeing how well Metal Gear Rising sold, but no. So Valve is what Valve is. And honestly, with the stuff I've just laid out PC gamers deserve a far better platform and company at their back for them, imo.
So, in closing, we need BCG, I hope they come back soon, sooner than later. Because until we see a totally consumer friendly company, that actively fights for it's customers and their content and respects the ethical sovereignty of that individual's account, we need piracy. Especially for delisted games and games available nowhere else or so old only available at extreme prices.
But what about console derps for me , MS keeps pissing them off.
There are plenty of sales constantly throughout the year, and plenty of them are on AAA games as well as indie games. Theres an Autumn Sale , Holiday sale, Summer sale, among others. They last weeks and practically every game goes on sale. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to find a game that isn't on sale during one of those sales. Of course those big blockbuster games that came out in the last month or two aren't going to have massive discounts, but I've never found it really worthwhile to purchase those. Pirating is their if you really want to play the latest blockbuster and don't want to pony up the ridiculous prices they charge for rehashes of old games (ie COD).Quote:
Originally Posted by bamboo
That certainly is a disadvantage. While there is an offline mode, it won't work until you've authenticated the computer once before online. Then again I don't constantly move around from computer to computer when I play video games, so that doesn't really concern me. I feel like it's an incredibly obscure problem outweighed by all the advantages that come with steam.Quote:
is all fine but that client and interface STILL face the same DRM stemmed problem that these types will always face. If the email server goes down, and you try to login from another PC, GG for that account for however long it takes to fix it.
I haven't had any problems at all with Steam in recent memory. No glaring bugs from what I can tell. Not sure what you're referring to here.Quote:
It's also buggy a lot of the time and inconsistent as hell with it's community services.
I'm sure somewhere in the TOS it gives them that much power. However there are two things to consider here: if Valve really was doing that, there service wouldn't have gotten popular in the first place. Steam had to start somewhere, just like everyone else, and wouldn't have gained this much popularity if it did that. The more important thing though, is this: just because you agreed to it in the TOS, doesn't necessarily make it legal. There are things that aren't legal, even if you put it in a contract and make someone sign it (ie you can't have someone sign a contract giving someone permission to kill them, it's still illegal). If Valve actually decided to start taking away games without reason there would be a shitstorm of legal and regulatory issues that would come up, and it would promptly get shut down. It's not happening.Quote:
Now let's take a hard critical look at the "Valve TOS policies" that truly subvert it's customers. They have complete totalitarian right to remove games from your library for a multitude of reasons, and never notify you, especially in the case of a delisted game you paid money for, and will never reimburse you that money. They do not have to go through any kind of legal dispute resolution to basically take away all kinds of services like trading, buying games, restricting your account and so on.
Sounds like you have been heavily invested into trading through Steam and TF2 or the like... I don't really see this as a problem. If the purchase is fraudulent, the game should be rescinded. You aren't the one being punished for it, you didn't even purchase the game yourself. So steam should just start giving away free copies of games now?Quote:
The very fact that if a person let's say gifts you a game, and you play it for let's say 20+ hours and then one day see it's been removed and your account restricted (no trading, buying, selling on market, activating keys, no nothing) and contact Steam support, and they tell you that gift was purchased using a fraudulent means...then you are being essentially punished for the criminal act of somebody else.
Also I'm not saying it's definitely true but this reeks of you being burned by Valve in someway and you now have some sort of a personal vendetta against them. Your post seems to have a lot of personal bias stuck in it.
That just seems so obscure. How often do you have out of state family members log in to your steam account to add funds to your steam wallet? Why don't you just do it yourself with their payment info since you're family? Something tells me you're not telling me the entire story here. Even if you are, I think that the case is rare enough that it certainly justifies Steam being suspicious about whether your account was compromised.Quote:
If your account is logged in by say a family member out of state to add money to your Wallet, and when you login you say by accident it wasn't you who accessed the account from the PC, you are immediately restricted and presumed of being hijacked.
I've never had any of that happen to me, nor to anyone else I know. The amount of bs that you seem to be pulling out is getting kind of ridiculous. Any sort of proofs to your claims?Quote:
they can remove your games at will bypassing any legal dispute resolution, they can cut access to trading simply by logging in from a "different device". All the things I've listed have actually happened to a number of my Steam friends.
I will admit that it's rather lackluster. They do have the capabilities to add some sort of decent support structure but all they have are support tickets. Then again I and many others haven't really had too many issues that warranted contacting support due to Steam's reliability overall, but it still is a sticking point. Valve certainly could use better support.Quote:
Then that brings us to customer support. Steam support is by far the WORST of all companies distributing games to resolve issues of any kind, worse than Sony, EA, GOG, Nintendo, and MS combined. Often people can wait a week or more for a answer to a support ticket, while of course their account is restricted for a Valve bank fuck up while one of those great Steam sales you mentioned goes on. It's just atrocious, you can't call them for support anymore, you can't live chat. Only a support email ticket and a prayer they will answer within three days. That is NOT indicative of a company that values it's customers and their issues, considering this is a private company worth billions, that instead of hiring a competent support team and implementing live chat and generally improving and adding more features to the client.
I... really don't understand how this is a knock against Steam at all :unsure:. So you wan't Valve to more proactive in the gaming industry and lay down fat bucks for games to be released on the PC that are console exclusive? This isn't a disadvantage of Steam as a distribution platform, it sounds like you want to be Valves new business manager. Without even considering whether it would be profitable for Valve to do this (it wouldn't) the companies that release games sans a PC version do it for a very specific purpose. When you release a PC version, you release a piratable version. When you release a piratable version, console sales suffer (and that's where most of the money is). Companies would never pull a complete 180 on this policy without a massive amount of money from Valve. Valve is still a private company and not as big as you think it is. They can't just pull money out of their ass to be the idealistic, naive view of a knight in shining armor for the PC industry that you seem to have.Quote:
And of course we could go into the fact if Valve REALLY CARED about getting ALL the best content they could, they just don't and have zero proactive-ness in getting the PC versions Day 1 by being at the barginning table for those games with money on the table. Not to mention older games or compilations they could easily make a killing on they don't seem to go after (Mega Man Anthology, MGS HD Collection, Silent Hill Collection, OG ResiEvil series HD anybody?). Many of which are already on PC and have already been ported. Where's Planescape Torment, where's Ultima Underworld 1 & 2? The fact is, Valve isn't proactive for games on their market, they simply sit back and just hope and wait a PC version comes, they don't go after them aggressively like they could. If that were true then there would already be word of Valve in talks with Platinum Games to bring over Vanquish seeing how well Metal Gear Rising sold, but no. So Valve is what Valve is. And honestly, with the stuff I've just laid out PC gamers deserve a far better platform and company at their back for them, imo.
The steam argument only makes sense for PC games any way. I can get PC games on pretty much any other 0day site or normal bittorrent site. The reason I love BCG and Bitgamer before it are for console titles or android/iOS titles.
Where this whole discussion falls apart is getting all the latest 3DS games or all the other goodies on any console system, like downloadable content or PSN games, even fully games such as Elder Scrolls for PC but with all kind of mods built in. That is where BCG has shined so brightly over the years and where I will miss them the most assuming they don't come back
Maybe Stoi could give us some answers and hope whether or not BCG is comming back...
Add me on Steam, and I can hook you up with a lot of people to back up my claims for "proof". Just send me a PM if you want to add me or me add you. Otherwise. We have very different opinions on these things, let's leave it at that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rart
And BCG, come back soon!!! Get on that shit Stoi!
Just before the latest DDos attacks, I got an Email from the hosts, basically asking.
Who have we pissed off and why are they doing it.
What we would want to do about it if it keeps happening.
I replied
Not got a clue who is doing it, or why they are doing it, but I don't think its just us they have it in for, they have done it to other trackers (if its the same person/s)
Maybe if it happens again, take the server offline for a week, might work, might not.
Then we got hit by the latest attack, I closed the site from our end and the hosts took us offline from their end.
I am going to get in touch with them tomorrow to see what the crack is.
As far as I am concerned though, we are not dead, but the hosts may take that decision out of my hands if it keeps happening over and over and over again. We did manage to get a recent backup before the last DDos, so there is a fallback option, but if they keep hitting us over and over again, will it be worth it?
Why can't some Ddos protection be applied
If you are talking about Cloudflare, i can only afford the free one, which does the same protection as the $20 a month one, but the better ones cost $200 and $5000 per month.
I will sign up for the free one when we come back and see if that helps any, but it sounds like the hackers (in general) have found a new exploit which even cloudflare might struggle against, just read about it, something to do with the servers clock and hitting that with a DDos, I couldnt hack myself out of a paper bag, so all this is way above my head, but ours is coming from a botnet (or at least many IPs from all over the world, which i believe is probably one and the same)
Link here about the clock way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26136774
Cloudflare would literally do nothing to mitigate a DDOS attack of this magnitude.
I'm not really sure but BCG can get enough donations to afford that the biggest thing which puts people puts off from coming to BCG is the website design seriously it sucks uploading torrent is such a pain there compared to GGN , though there is no competition within BCG and GGN BCG wins anyways but wouldn't this time be used to make the website more user friendly ? If GGN can get 100% donation can't really understand why BCG wont get
And can host be changed ?
It may not make much sense but throwing out something out there :D
Why is it easier to upload on GGn?
Make a torrent, upload torrent, download torrent (you have to for the passkey, and guessing GGn is the same), seed torrent. If you mean the description, just copy and paste it from somewhere, tech details the same, min/rec requirements for PC games etc.
How is that hard?
Changing hosts is the fallback option i mentioned, but they are not attacking the hosts, they are attacking us, so it will just be another IP to attack but guessing the result will be the same, but something to consider if this goes completely pear shaped.
Well, I guess to each their own. But I definitely find BCG MUCH easier to upload to than GGN by far. I don't like Gazelle for a gaming site at all. Having to deal with all the grouping rules is just tedious and pointless imo. Just let me use a keyword search "call of duty" and get everything related to "call of duty" thank you very much. Pretty damn easy imo and that's what I get when using BCG. Simple, effective and to the point. The site is designed just fine imo and BCG is way user friendly for any filesharer. You don't even have to have a great upload connection. Just find torrent, download torrent, seed torrent and eventually reach 1:1 ratio through data or a short time. Pretty user-friendly imo...Quote:
Originally Posted by absent_today
^ I hope you are joking , the HTML is pretty screwed up see the div tag there the form does not even have name if upload fails and if you go back all data gets lost , for box art you have to download the image and attach it no url uplinking,
I'm just saying these things because i want BCG to improve as its one of my fav tracker.
I may be wrong here. it was awhile ago and i am cream crackered atm, but didnt altinertia change the way cookies and sessions worked last year, $_SESSION is in the code for the form, which should keep that data in case of a failure but it looks like whatever was changed in the global variables has sent that pear shaped, something to figure out when we get back.
As for the images, 3 ways to do it.
Just hotlink from a outside site www.IGN.com/game.img and it shows it from that site unless they go down or take the image down.
I think for a tracker this is a silly way to do it, especially with 1000 of images and 1000`s of views as you are using their BW for a start, and its not hard to see who is using it from logs etc.
User downloads the image and uploads the image to the tracker server.
Safest way all around, but could be a pita if you have a lot of uploads.
user puts in the url of the image, server grabs that image from external source, puts in on our server.
Funnily enough we had this on our old tracker, DKs tracker in 2004/5 http://web.archive.org/web/200506020...ats-games.com/ this one if you remember it. Easy for the user, but again you are grabbing the image from them so they can trace it.
basically ease of use or security for images, and the form is coded properly, its just not working for whatever reason.
Grabbing the image in Boxart the server takes way too long and at times it gets hanged, I spoke to some people on BCG who used to upload but stopped there and everyone said its a pain in the ass to do the upload on BCG , another example would be if you search something then the text disappears from Text Box
Well that made a spectacular amount of sense..... :blink:Quote:
Originally Posted by absent_today
I've uploaded easily to BCG a number of times for DRM-Free copies of games that were waiting on a Greenlight at Steam. I honestly don't see what the issue or mystery of uploading is at BCG...
Removed
He is back :cool:
BCG has a gender now? :blink:Quote:
Originally Posted by absent_today
finally back
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any tracker can improve their system and polish out the bugs and inconsistencies. Always a noble sentiment and endeavor, however, I am not joking when I think BCG is easier than GGN to upload at. That's MY opinion and my own experience...not to be confused with anyone else's experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by absent_today
Furthermore, I personally don't like url linking for torrent images. Too often the links end up dead on older torrents and you get a bunch placeholders and no image. I would much rather take the time to upload an image and make a nice quality torrent than just spam one together for speed sake...