I don't know if im crazy or not, but the blue text to download all replays isin't there anymore.
found the link in a older forum post to get all wr's "http://www.lfsworld.net/get_allwr.php"
but it downloads an outdated WR pack list, some of the recent wr's are missing in the zip pack (most likely the ones i attached in the screenshot of the Overview page)
maybe this is just me in my end, pls confirm anyone.
I think I removed this as it looked like something that needed some proper updating.
I discovered it as it was one of the things spamming up the error log, which I was trying to bring under control. I didn't ask for the job of website maintenance but I got it anyway, and to my mind, part of that job is reducing excessive server load and error spamming.
My memory may be a little vague but I think it was recreating this world record pack every so often (can't remember exactly but... too often) and each time it did, there were many errors. I thought, this large file can't really be downloaded that often so why is it recreated so often. It seems like a "sledgehammer to crack a nut" type of solution and I really would prefer the web server to run more lightly, not constantly creating large files that people rarely want.
It seems to me that if there is really demand for such a file, there must be a better solution, that could be implemented at some point. Maybe some kind of solution that creates something more relevant, when required.
Anyway, although I am veering off topic a bit, after my recent efforts I am quite happy that there is around 10 KB of error text each day, quite an improvement over the 30 MB per day I inherited.
Hey gu3st, please use the "REPLY" feature instead of "QUOTE". It's usually the best as it just includes the first line, up to about 80 chars I think. Obviously we don't need to read my whole post again!
The REPLY has proved a popular feature and I'm so happy it is used because it means these pointless "whole post" quotes are seen less often.
I don't know if such demand exists, but it would be cool to have an archive or a way to archive WR's, that's the main reason I wanted to download the pack.
I mean it could still be done, manually, but thats 1284 clicks a one person has to manually do .
I just feared the possibility of all lfsworld record laps being wiped after the update and not having a way to actually preserve and see them, my plan was (if the wipe were to happen) to upload some of the laps or all laps into youtube or something... Which could be quite the task already, but I found it worth it since there's a godly amount of laps that are not only impressive, but old and valuable for me and probably others.
Of course all of this came on the assumption newer updated tracks would replace existing ones wiping lfsworld record laps, which you never confirmed or not, but i thought it was obvious.
About the purpose you describe, I won't delete all those hotlaps without some kind of preservation, at least of the world records, I guess.
I certainly would have to discuss with the hotlappers what to do.
When the new version is first publicly available, it will be in alpha or beta so uploading hotlaps will not be allowed at all, until a new table is in place.
I don't know yet how to preserve the old hotlaps but there could be one archive file of WRs like you say. I guess we shouldn't try to preserve all the hotlaps ever done, but I am just guessing that as it sounds too much, though I haven't actually looked into it. E.g. what is the actual data size and if a full archive could be kept online.
A vague memory suggests that Victor kept an archive of old hotlaps the last time something changed... not sure if anyone knows about that, and it it is true, how it is accessed?
A separate thought about clicking on hotlaps. I think it would be nice if at some point it could be changed to work more like the "Test a mod" button. So clicking the hotlap link would request LFS to play that hotlap. LFS would check if it already exists locally and play it from there if it does, or download it if it doesn't. It sounds like a better system but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort. I wondered if it would reduce one of the use cases of the WR pack? But I still think the WR pack is not often wanted. You are the first to mention it since I removed it some weeks ago.
The file size of that outdated zip folder is 34,7 MB - I think in the past you were only able to download either all WRs, or just all WRs from selected track environment. I don't think you were able to download all SPRs at once from LFSWorld.
About displaying them as an archive page: one thing that did come to my mind, is that it should be relatively easy to display LFSW stats/WRs in a website. Victor posted a guide about this: https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/14480
What did I think in LFS Discord, would be that just before the new version is released, one would take a copy of the hotlaps/WRs and display it somewhere as an archive and make sure it stays like that so that the newer version and the data from it wouldn't overwrite the one that archive would have
EDIT: About your other point:
In the previous versions, if older hotlaps were removed, that removal only applied to just one track environment at a time (e.g. walls at South City, new Westhill, new Blackwood). Because of that, I didn't have that much of an interest of having older WRs as an archive.
However, in the new version, as all tracks will be updated, the current hotlaps will become obsolete. The fact that all hotlaps will become obsolete has given me some interest too of having a WR pack as an archive in the future. After all, we do have the older LFS versions and that league megapack torrent - which can be found from the archive page
.