Monthly Development Update – Nov 5th 2012

[Gatester]

I've been trying to understand this Char ID debacle in the same way I am trying to understand the so-called fiscal cliff that the US is supposedly about to face, but since it is hard to follow I have been wondering:

Do these char ID's apply to more than just characters? If so, what is an example of something else?

When doing the server merge and characters are being "moved" could they not be given a new char ID when a character is activated starting at the beginning, maybe giving a bit more time to prepare a fix?

I am expecting a brief "no" to the second one lol, but I would like to understand the issue a bit more since my programming knowledge is limited. If I am not mistaken, char ID's for deleted characters are still taken/used up. I can just imagine how many slots are simply taken up by no longer existant or never to be logged in again characters.

[Misat0]

From my understanding the migration process basicly needs to keep track of the relations of character, container and backpack old and new IDs while working on a character.

Wouldn't it be possible to log these (what would be adviseable anyway for later resolving of possible issues) and/or send that mapping information to the character (ingame mail comes to mind) or the account holders email? At least the ingame mail method shouldn't slow the process down very much.

With that data prefs could be converted manually or the community comes up with a script for that.

[Traderjill]

In relation to the CharID thing. If I have accounts that are currently not active, how will I obtain the mapping for them later on down the line to even be able to copy prefs over? I'm looking at my AO prefs folder and I have roughly 15 different accounts, 5 of which are paid accounts, most of which are full on RK2 side at least. Is there something in the Prefs folders for each charID that I can reference that will tell me the character name associated with the character ID or will I be left scrambling to figure it out?

I guess a suggestion.. when you grab your charID info from shift F9 it would be nice if it showed you not only your current charID but the legacy charID as well.

[Antinoos]

My advice would be do it now before migration. Log in all your chars and hit F9. Write down chars name + char Id.
After migration your only way to copy old pref folder to new char Id is by trial and error.

[Datch]

Just 1 thing about the bots. When they log in atm they have to say D1,D2 etc for dim 1 or dim 2 will this matter with the new server? If so do we need to set the script files to D1 for them to log in?
In budabot you have a line :
// Enter 1 for Atlantean, 2 for Rimor, 3 for Die Nueue Welt, 4 for Test
$vars['dimension'] = 2;
what happends to this?

[Byste]

Just 1 thing about the bots. When they log in atm they have to say D1,D2 etc for dim 1 or dim 2 will this matter with the new server? If so do we need to set the script files to D1 for them to log in?
In budabot you have a line :
// Enter 1 for Atlantean, 2 for Rimor, 3 for Die Nueue Welt, 4 for Test
$vars['dimension'] = 2;
what happends to this?

Budabot developers update their bot and you use the update instead, which won't have this confusion, I would hope. In either case, it's a question you should be directing to them: http://budabot.com/

[Misat0]

In relation to the CharID thing. If I have accounts that are currently not active, how will I obtain the mapping for them later on down the line to even be able to copy prefs over? I'm looking at my AO prefs folder and I have roughly 15 different accounts, 5 of which are paid accounts, most of which are full on RK2 side at least. Is there something in the Prefs folders for each charID that I can reference that will tell me the character name associated with the character ID or will I be left scrambling to figure it out?

I guess a suggestion.. when you grab your charID info from shift F9 it would be nice if it showed you not only your current charID but the legacy charID as well.

If you still have access to the game you can use Helpbot to get the ID of your chars (/tell helpbot whois XXX). It lists the character ID in the window found by clicking "More information".

[Traderjill]

If you still have access to the game you can use Helpbot to get the ID of your chars (/tell helpbot whois XXX). It lists the character ID in the window found by clicking "More information".

Brilliant, thanks I'll get that done this week then

[Liwa]

If you still have access to the game you can use Helpbot to get the ID of your chars (/tell helpbot whois XXX). It lists the character ID in the window found by clicking "More information".

Brilliant, thanks I'll get that done this week then

Be careful with character ID information from chatbots, helpbot, etc. I noticed a couple days ago that they do not always match the shift-F9 character ID. Make sure what you get from helpbot matches the character ID's on the folder names in your preferences folder. If they don't match or if some don't match then you will need to login to get the shift-F9 information.

Kinnik

[Traderjill]

Fair enough.. really seems like the easiest remedy to this would be to include legacy character ID information in the new shift+f9 post-server merge/migration. There are accounts that I will not be able to just log in and check their char ID that I may play later on down the line. I don't want to have to redo my prefs on those toons.

[Vhab]

Be careful with character ID information from chatbots, helpbot, etc. I noticed a couple days ago that they do not always match the shift-F9 character ID. Make sure what you get from helpbot matches the character ID's on the folder names in your preferences folder. If they don't match or if some don't match then you will need to login to get the shift-F9 information.

Kinnik

Helpbot should give you the correct ID.
The issue you were experiencing likely was a bot reporting negative character IDs due to incorrectly treating IDs as signed integers.

[Tiralee]

A question, since I really don't know a lot about how the Prefs folder works:

After the server migration will the Prefs folder contain both the old character ID folders (inactive, since the char ID won't be the same after that) and the new character ID folders?

Or will this be more of a fresh start and the Prefs folder will contain only the new character ID folders, and the old character ID folders will be gone?


Edit: I ask because if the Prefs folder will contain both new and old char ID folders, it won't be necessary to copy the Prefs folder (or just applicable char ID folders) before the migration. The information will still be there to copy/paste. But if it contains only the new ones, anyone that doesn't do that copy before the migration won't have a chance to get their information from the old char ID folders after the migration.

[wyldebeast]

I've made it a custom when I create a new character to shift+F9 and note the char ID, then go to the respective prefs folder and create a new file that I simply name the name of the character in question. This way I always know which prefs folder corresponds to which character. It takes no more than a minute at most and saves a lot of time and trouble later on.

[Honorbound]

Edit: I ask because if the Prefs folder will contain both new and old char ID folders, it won't be necessary to copy the Prefs folder (or just applicable char ID folders) before the migration. The information will still be there to copy/paste. But if it contains only the new ones, anyone that doesn't do that copy before the migration won't have a chance to get their information from the old char ID folders after the migration.

Nothing in the prefs folder ever gets deleted. Not even if/when you delete the associated char on the server (IIRC, I only deleted 1 char so far ). So the old IDs will stay and the new ones will be added as if they were newly rolled chars, since the client will not find any folder existing for the given CharID yet. You only need to know which is the old and which is the new, and copy the content from the old to the new.

[Liwa]

Helpbot should give you the correct ID.
The issue you were experiencing likely was a bot reporting negative character IDs due to incorrectly treating IDs as signed integers.

Thanks for clearing that up ...

I had assumed, incorrectly, that our org-bot accessed helpbot files for the "whois" command. We use Budabot for our org-bot ... I will caution my guildmates not to rely on Budabot-Whois information for character ID's.

Kinnik

[Tiralee]

Nothing in the prefs folder ever gets deleted. Not even if/when you delete the associated char on the server (IIRC, I only deleted 1 char so far ). So the old IDs will stay and the new ones will be added as if they were newly rolled chars, since the client will not find any folder existing for the given CharID yet. You only need to know which is the old and which is the new, and copy the content from the old to the new.

That is great to know. I'll do my best to make sure that everyone I know jots down their character IDs before the migration.

Suggestion for FC:
Post the information about getting old char IDs before the migration, and about afterwards copying the old to new. Put a link in the launcher to that post. Not everyone reads the forums. We're likely going to have a lot of people who log in after the migration to find none of their prefs, and they're not going to know their old char IDs or know about copying/pasting to the new.

[Gaveup]

K I don't wanna read 9 pages of BS for a simple anwer that should be posted/sticked/on homepage by FC arleady if we are really less than a month out.
POST SOME SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE MERGE.

Org ranks?
Org bank?
Prefs?
Character naming?
Org naming?
Extra slots?

Some of you butt sniffers will say it's already been posted but; PUT IT ALL IN ONE PLACE THAT'S EASY TO READ.

So the prefs thing that something we have to do manually? Won't be done by the updater? Is the official way to figure out your CharId's and work some magic moving files around?

This is all so gong show.

[Misat0]

*snip*
Edit: I ask because if the Prefs folder will contain both new and old char ID folders, it won't be necessary to copy the Prefs folder (or just applicable char ID folders) before the migration. The information will still be there to copy/paste. But if it contains only the new ones, anyone that doesn't do that copy before the migration won't have a chance to get their information from the old char ID folders after the migration.

Depending on how the new character IDs are assigned it could in theory happen that a character of yours gets an ID that you also had on that account before. But the likelyhood of that happening should be very, very low and even if should not cause any damage to your prefs.

[Arguru]

Just 1 thing about the bots. When they log in atm they have to say D1,D2 etc for dim 1 or dim 2 will this matter with the new server? If so do we need to set the script files to D1 for them to log in?
In budabot you have a line :
// Enter 1 for Atlantean, 2 for Rimor, 3 for Die Nueue Welt, 4 for Test
$vars['dimension'] = 2;
what happends to this?

We'll simply change that to $vars['dimension'] = "live"; or $vars['dimension'] = "test";.

Helpbot should give you the correct ID.
The issue you were experiencing likely was a bot reporting negative character IDs due to incorrectly treating IDs as signed integers.

You mean like Name-Request?

Anyways, Budabot is written in PHP for a plethora of reasons. If you run Budabot in a 64-bit environment (and come on, it's 2012 ffs, not 1998) this problem doesn't exist. Negative charID's can be returned in a 32-bit environment but unfortunately we have no control on how PHP handles integers.

[Gunforhire]

The character ID's in the prefs folders right now are 10 digits giving FC the capability to assign just under 10 billion character ID's. From what I am reading here with the merge of servers they
will now assign a new 10 digit number to each character from that pool of numbers which will then be in the prefs folder also. Since that is the case then as long as we have a record of our old ID's for each character we can simply copy the old ID data right over the new data and then our prefs will be the same as they were before the merge. I know with all this chatter going on this has probably already been alluded to or mentioned but I wanted to put it in terms that are simpler to understand than some of the tech talk flying around on this thread. Remember please not everyone reading the forum is a programmer or a wannabe programmer.