Subject: The idgames Archive hits 1 Gigabyte
From: [email-masked] (Frans P. de Vries)
Date: 23 Jun 1996 23:58:26 +0100
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.doom.announce,rec.games.computer.doom.misc,rec.games.computer.quake.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,alt.games.doom

One DOOMed Space Marine, and the Terror He Spawned
               The idgames Archive hits 1 Gigabyte

  California, June 23, 1996--A remarkable point in the history of games
was reached today: the primary Internet FTP archive of add-ons for the
wildly popular 3D action games DOOM, Heretic, Hexen and Strife (all
based on the DOOM-technology) reached the 1 Gigabyte milestone.

  This archive, to be found at ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames/ but
commonly known as just "ftp.cdrom.com", carries the collective results
of over two years of developing, hacking, designing, programming and
building add-ons by game fans throughout the Internet community.  No
other game family has spawned such a large collection of add-ons, and
it still keeps on growing.

  And what could be more appropriate than this event coinciding with,
and being invoked by, the release of Quake shareware, id's next game? :)

                               ()()

A short history of the events leading up the current milestone:

Dec 93 - DOOM is released; add-ons appear at various FTP sites, such as
         wuarchive.wustl.edu and ftp.uwp.edu.
Mar 94 - First DOOM FTP archive at ocf.unt.edu, maintained by Barry Bloom.
May 94 - UNT administrator pulls plug on ocf.unt.edu as DOOM FTP site.
         Backup infant2.sphs.indiana.edu (Jim Pitts) now becomes primary.
Nov 94 - Infant2 goes belly-up.  ftp.orst.edu is temporary DOOM FTP site.
Dec 94 - Walnut Creek (ftp.cdrom.com) becomes primary DOOM FTP site and
         joost schuur takes over maintenance.
May 95 - Jeff joins to maintain the 'lmps' section; the archive is 400 MB
Dec 95 - Frans joins after he can't take the 600+ files backlog in
         oldnewstuff anymore ;)
Jun 96 - The cleaned-up archive makes the 1 Gigabyte watermark at the
         instant Quake shareware is released.

                               ()()

  What is the current contents of the archive?  This listing shows the
amount of Kbytes occupied by each directory in the archive (some subtrees
snipped for brevity):

6052	deathmatch
3515	docs
35047	graphics
20918	idstuff/doom
2183	idstuff/doom2
153	idstuff/dwango
9054	idstuff/heretic
23180	idstuff/hexen
6611	idstuff/idsirs
1866	idstuff/imagery
10	idstuff/misc
24212	idstuff/quake
988	idstuff/source
89177	idstuff
3	incoming
19310	levels/doom/deathmatch
137353	levels/doom
170949	levels/doom2/deathmatch
348242	levels/doom2
5444	levels/heretic/deathmatch
15565	levels/heretic
3551	levels/hexen/deathmatch
11061	levels/hexen
592	levels/reviews
1	levels/strife
512821	levels
13245	lmps/COMPET-N
1899	lmps/H2HMud
19010	lmps/dht-exams
12	lmps/dmk
2517	lmps/doom
22633	lmps/doom2
4	lmps/forms
5	lmps/heretic
17	lmps/hexen
462	lmps/incoming
2	lmps/newstuff
59809	lmps
1553	misc
15732	music
12989	newstuff
9806	roguestuff
107056	sounds
5654	themes/TeamTNT
32298	themes/aliens
4186	themes/apt
4046	themes/barney
12140	themes/bnb
1537	themes/chook
5009	themes/drwho
7374	themes/mm
3546	themes/omf
6101	themes/simpsons
4858	themes/startrek
20631	themes/starwars
3718	themes/twc
3604	themes/university
2259	themes/wtf
25329	themes/x-rated
4019	themes/xmas
146311	themes
7359	utils/exe_edit/patches
8350	utils/exe_edit
10162	utils/frontends
3524	utils/graphics_edit
18976	utils/level_edit
3456	utils/misc
1041	utils/network
687	utils/randomizers
1444	utils/save_edit
2561	utils/serial
1443	utils/sound_edit
6202	utils/unix
2215	utils/wad_tools
60063	utils
1060722	.

The total number of files in the archive is 13962.

                               ()()

  Of special interest might be the number of level files (left columns)
and the total number of maps in those files (right columns):

        CountLevels v2.0, files & maps in the idgames/levels tree
                  (c) jun '96 by FPV ([email-masked])

 Doom           Doom 2         Heretic        Hexen          Regular
 ==========================================================  *******
 0-9   24   57  0-9   25   48  0-9    2    2  0-9    0    0
 a-c  169  371  a-c  216  430  a-c   10   16  a-c    8   13
 d-f  135  375  d-f  161  369  d-f    8   28  d-f    1    1
 g-i   93  149  g-i   93  148  g-i   25   34  g-i   24   34
 j-l   54   82  j-l   70  124  j-l    4    6  j-l    3   17
 m-o   96  231  m-o  126  293  m-o   10   26  m-o    2    2
 p-r   81  122  p-r   86  180  p-r    9   13  p-r    0    0
 s-u  172  259  s-u  176  332  s-u   12   18  s-u    1    2
 v-z   47  181  v-z   43   56  v-z    3    3  v-z    1    6
     ---- ----      ---- ----      ---- ----      ---- ----
      871 1827       996 1980        83  146        40   75   1990 4028 (grand)

 Doom           Doom 2         Heretic        Hexen          DeathMatch
 ==========================================================  **********
 0-9    9   17  0-9   49  284  0-9    1    1  0-9    0    0
 a-c   50   77  a-c  303  581  a-c   24   25  a-c    5   14
 d-f   60  112  d-f  315  819  d-f   16   28  d-f    9    9
 g-i   18   27  g-i  197  434  g-i   29   46  g-i   48   55
 j-l   31   35  j-l  110  260  j-l    7   10  j-l    4    4
 m-o   30   31  m-o  165  250  m-o    6    6  m-o    2    2
 p-r   27   77  p-r  144  336  p-r   14   18  p-r    2    7
 s-u   45   65  s-u  246  416  s-u   12   12  s-u    6   21
 v-z   13   45  v-z   89  165  v-z    9    9  v-z    2    2
     ---- ----      ---- ----      ---- ----      ---- ----
      283  486      1618 3545       118  155        78  114   2097 4300 (grand)

                               ()()

  But perhaps most impressive is the sheer volume of data that is being
transferred in and out of the archive each month:

    Month		Files		Megabytes
    =============================================
    August 1995		892,560		108,557
    September		747,047		 99,521
    October		669,028		184,132
    November		802,803		161,312
    December		710,606		125,095
    January 1996	770,969		130,160
    February		712,700		151,331
    March		969,110		227,530
    April		803,054		192,327
    May			687,285		156,299

                               ()()

  In closing, the archive maintainers would like to thank:

- Walnut Creek for their support and the disk space to keep the archive
- All FTP sites around the globe that mirror the archive
- id Software, Raven Software and Rogue Entertainment for developing the
  games we all enjoy so much
- All Doom/Heretic/Hexen/Strife fans that made this archive into what it
  is today, and who keep us from having a life ;-)

We hope to continue this service, and expand it with the idgames2 archive.
--
[email-masked] (joost schuur)    [email-masked] (Jeff Makaiwi)
                 [email-masked] (Frans P. de Vries)