GameFront is making changes to their filehosting on user accounts beginning July 19, 2012 (submitted files aren't affected).
Any files not downloaded within 60 days will be deleted. This is not good news for us since we are already battling broken links regularly on this site and this change will only make it worse.
I urge everyone to upload their files on other file hosting sites as a backup, especially for files that aren't downloaded frequently. We don't want or need more files to disappear forever.

Read more about these changes here:
http://www.gamefront.com/file-hosting-faq/


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If the files sit in your personal account for more than 60 days without a download then they will be deleted. If you submit the files to Gamefront then they are safe and immuned to deletion. Anonymous uploads will be deleted after 7 days of consecutive inactivity.

Immuned to deletion:



If you upload a file without logging in or being registered then that file is considered an anonymous upload and is subject to the 7 day inactive rule:



If you upload a file while logged in then it will go into your account and is subject to the 60 day rule:


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Also, we should make a list of reliable file hosting sites for us to use.
At this time i'd personally recommend Mediafire, SkyDrive and Dropbox based on personal experience. Google recently started to host files while giving users 15GB of free space on Google Drive but I have no experience with that one, you could give that a try also. If you guys have any other suggestions then feel free to post them.

Thanks for the heads up Ace. Not that I use Gamefront (Dropbox all the way), but people need to know this kind of stuff. I'm already "hosting" some SWBF2 assets in my Dropbox, and I'd be willing to host some more. I have the room. Only 62.5% of my 4GB are used.

Dropbox is the best overall in my opinion. It requires to least amount of clicks to download for one thing. It doesn't have a file size cap, other than your storage cap.

I like MediaFire the best of those (and in fact it's what I use for almost everything I need to share, filewise) - despite Dropbox (and other similar services) being much more reliable, their reliability is tied to the owner of that account. With a handful of users, I'm okay with turning that responsibility over to them, however in 95% of the cases, I'd rather depend on a third-party website.

And a couple other caveats re: GameFront - the files can be made immune to the deletion queue by uploading them to the network site (SWBFFiles) or uploading them through the (GameFront) user page for submission. I don't really know what the 'approval' process is for that second set of files; it's not tied to anything I see.

I personally use mediafire, I used to use Gamefront but then someone (Marth?) Recommended Mediafire to me and I use that, so much better cause I have everything on there I upload in one place, it's very easy to find.

This is unfortunate, we lost Megaupload and now Gamefront files are gonna be killed.

I'll be happy to upload any assets to my mediafire account if you guys want anything saved.

Wait. What about all the new files on starwarsbattlefront.filefront.com? They'll be safe, right?

We don't need to re-upload all our stuff to another site though, right? If I read correctly, this will only effect files after July 17th. So all the current stuff is unaffected.

P.S. Google Drive works pretty well. I heard that it didn't work for non-Google users, but I signed out of my google account and could download one of my hosted files just fine. It does work pretty well though.

yuke5 wrote:Wait. What about all the new files on starwarsbattlefront.filefront.com? They'll be safe, right?

Maveritchell wrote:...the files can be made immune to the deletion queue by uploading them to the network site (SWBFFiles)...

yuke5 wrote:We don't need to re-upload all our stuff to another site though, right? If I read correctly, this will only effect files after July 17th. So all the current stuff is unaffected.

I recommend backing up everything in your user account. The 60 day deletion queue starts on July 19th for all files in your user account regardless of how long they've been there. Be sure to read the article about this on Gamefront.
You could submit your files to Gamefront but you'll have less control over them, you'll likely have to jump through hoops to get something deleted as opposed to simply logging in and deleting. No one should be submitting files which aren't theirs.

Just an idea, but what about using Torrents?

Heh, I'm actually experimenting with torrents for my mod. First thing's first: we have to find some reliable trackers.

Torrents is a good idea but I don't know if many users would like to keep their PC on 24h/24h... because if you close your torrent app, the seeding process ends. Anyway I can recommend these trackers: http://www.trackon.org/ contains a list of open trackers, which is regularly updated.

The Gamefront files longevity rules always have been uncomfortable for me. I already lost 50 files in one week. I'm currently moving everything to SkyDrive, because of the 7 GB and the possibility to make folders (my FF page has become a garbage).