Re-Volt and preservation

[607]

Hi. As you'll probably know, I have had an interest in Re-Volt custom tracks for a long time—most of my life, in fact. There are of course thousands of custom tracks, and to me they are almost all interesting. However, it bugs me that there is no proper archive of these custom tracks anywhere. As far as I know, we currently have three sources of tracks, and they all have problems.

First off, Re-Volt XTG:
This is by far the most comprehensive Re-Volt site out there. If a track's not on here, you likely won't find it anywhere. However, I have two problems with XTG: firstly, for modern tracks, AFAIK usually only the first or one of the earliest versions of the track is on there. Nowadays, tracks might get updates one or two years after release, and it'd be a shame if they were lost. Moreover, XTG is run by a single person, and AFAIK nobody else has access to it: if LC were to disappear, XTG would disappear with him.

Secondly, Re-Volt Zone:
This was the default place to look for tracks (and cars) for years. Incorporating RVZT's content, it is also quite comprehensive, although not as complete as XTG. One big problem with RVZ is that tracks released in the past 1.5 years are not on there at all, and ever since the success of Re-Volt World it has been lacking in inclusion of new tracks. It is also unclear what its future is.

Lastly, Re-Volt World:
This is by far the most popular source for custom tracks at the moment. However, it is also the least comprehensive. Many tracks that are on RVZ (and XTG), are not on RVW. I currently have no fear of RVW going down any time soon, but it bothers me that despite there being plenty of reasons for it being as popular as it is, it is the least comprehensive of the three big track sources. Also, whereas RVW (unlike RVZ) supports presenting different versions for download, in most cases only the most recent update of a track is available, which is unfortunate for historians but also for players who preferred an older version.

In my utopia, there would be a resource on the web that contained all custom tracks released for Re-Volt and its fan ports, including author(s) and release date, and including every different version released, in the case of tracks that received updates after its publication. This resource should be set up in such a way that it could be continued elsewhere if the host were to have issues or disappear.
I don't think this will be realised. But I wonder if we cannot get closer to it than we currently are.

My first question to you is: how important is Re-Volt custom content preservation to you? You will notice that I am going on about tracks but do not seem to care much about cars, and this is true. You might care about neither. Would you be okay with XTG going down in a few years and this resulting in dozens if not hundreds of Re-Volt custom tracks being lost to oblivion?

[Adamodell]

I do feel like Re-Volt World's infrastructure and QoL improvements make it the best place to actually work toward preservation. I do care about preservation of both tracks and cars- cars for obvious reason, but tracks because tracks are just more interesting, take more effort and are much more immersive, obviously.

I have my own projects and things to keep me busy, and I probably don't care enough to do it myself. I've done a few website backup/restorations, and I've used XTG's content to fix some lost data in those. It was essential for that. Is anyone keeping backups of XTG? That does seem important.

I don't think my current collection has anything lost to the internet that needs to be archived due to my history of computers and Re-Volt installs... but I should probably do a lookover of this some time.

[Ced!]

As a new track creator, I only upload from re-volt world.
I well remember playing tracks that I can't find today, such as a two-part track set in a mine by the me and me I think.
There are so many creations that your idea seems difficult to realize.
Difficult but not impossible? Here's a Job for 607 (-;

[Ced!]

OK, I've found the tracks I mentioned earlier, on RV XTG. They are ‘Sue&Joe’ and ‘Sue&Joe+’ by fabit. These are ‘very full’ tracks. The second one is more pleasant to play, they're worth a look if you're curious.
Which leads me to say that this kind of site is really interesting. Although it's complicated to navigate.
So with all the updates...
But yes, it would be great if it existed.