Monthly Development Update – Nov 5th 2012

[Shareida]

oi!

[Lazy]

uhh first page

trololol

[Graftmage]

If I'm not mistaken, the server transfer will assign new charIDs to everyone - which in turn will screw everyone's prefs (settings/shortcut bars/inventory/bank/etc...) - do you have plans to mitigate that or is everyone keeping their old charID ?

They probably do it somehow, for prefs.
Problem is, char id change will also mess up all the bots, and this they could not care less about (as if they don't know that game runs on bots ).

[Philty]

I am impressed again by professional and credible way Ilaliya handles monthly updates. Excellent job with this!

If works are managed the same way, my hopes are rising again..

[Ekarona]

They probably do it somehow, for prefs.
Problem is, char id change will also mess up all the bots, and this they could not care less about (as if they don't know that game runs on bots ).

I see it as quite complex issue to solve. There is three ways in my opinion.

1) Assing either server as the server which characters keep their IDs, then at transfer assing new ids starting from this point.
2) Multiply ids by two and add 1 to the end for other server. Very easy and cheap way to do it.
3) At transfer just assign new ids as they go.

As such there is no satisfactory solution for charIDs...

[mawu]

I am impressed again by professional and credible way Ilaliya handles monthly updates.

full ack

[adeptall]

Ilaliya, just something funny I wanted to point out. 1000 seconds is no where near 41 minutes, where in the world did you pull that arbitrary number from lol?

[Ekarona]

Ilaliya, just something funny I wanted to point out. 1000 seconds is no where near 41 minutes, where in the world did you pull that arbitrary number from lol?

16.67 minutes to be exact.

[Graftmage]

1) Assing either server as the server which characters keep their IDs, then at transfer assing new ids starting from this point.
2) Multiply ids by two and add 1 to the end for other server. Very easy and cheap way to do it.
3) At transfer just assign new ids as they go.

char IDs are not just for players, I guess they are shared with mobs (no way there are 2 billion+ characters), so they cannot simply multiply.
They could use some high, still unused bits (possibly making char id longer) to identify server, but it effectively makes char id space 4 times smaller (they are merging 3 servers, not 2). And again, they won't do that because it takes too much time/not a priority.

Easiest solution for all parties would be adding old char id field in PoRK xml, IMO.

[Ilaliya]

Ilaliya, just something funny I wanted to point out. 1000 seconds is no where near 41 minutes, where in the world did you pull that arbitrary number from lol?

whoops good catch. yeah, I was thinking of a bunch of likely scenarios... how many accounts do we roughly expect/hope/fear to login at the same time on server-up, at different times of day. This will impact how long people need to wait, obviously. So I was debating using either 1000 vs 2500 as my example. I seemed to have combined both. It's been fixed

[Ekarona]

char IDs are not just for players, I guess they are shared with mobs (no way there are 2 billion+ characters), so they cannot simply multiply.
They could use some high, still unused bits (possibly making char id longer) to identify server, but it effectively makes char id space 4 times smaller (they are merging 3 servers, not 2). And again, they won't do that because it takes too much time/not a priority.

Easiest solution for all parties would be adding old char id field in PoRK xml, IMO.

RK2: Char2896172847
RK1: Char3571779205

2 896 172 847+3 571 779 205 = 6 467 952 052

No idea about DNW...

There needs to be some clensing obviously... ;D

Or maybe I have missed something about charIDs...

EDIT:
Anyway they are running out of the at rk1 rather soon(fc one). 32bit only get you that far...

Auno gives around 600k characters, which have joined org or added at somepoint...

Clean up is probably in order

[Lazy]

add a 1 to the begining of the charid for rk1 toons and a 2 to rk2 toons. have all freshly rolled toons start with a 3. problem solved.

[Ekarona]

add a 1 to the begining of the charid for rk1 toons and a 2 to rk2 toons. have all freshly rolled toons start with a 3. problem solved.

I believe that fresh start by dishing them in order is best option....

[Misat0]

Thanks for the update.

And please, when doing the final backup before migration, label it "phear me"

[Swifttech]

But A Little question about server minigration is what happens to player's with same name

[Phixalicious]

But A Little question about server minigration is what happens to player's with same name

The same way they did it last time. Whoever had the name first, keeps it.

[Swifttech]

The same way they did it last time. Whoever had the name first, keeps it.

Oki what happens then with the other one? Will he be forced to rename

[Windguaerd]

The same way they did it last time. Whoever had the name first, keeps it.

Actually, before that, there was a cleanup, here is how it worked:

Details of the Cleanup

To do some tidying up of characters and names in the game databases the following will happen next Monday, March 15th:

1. Characters below level 6 on accounts that have not been logged in or paid/active in the last year (12 months) will be deleted.

2. Characters level 173 and below on accounts that have not been logged in or paid/active in the last two years will receive a default name. (eg: Naamez-1) These characters will be able to select a new name should they return. If their original name is still available they can simply request it back through the "/name" command.

3. Characters level 174 and higher on accounts that have not been logged in or paid/active in the last four years will receive a default name. (eg: Naamez-1) These characters will be able to select a new name should they return. If their original name is still available they can simply request it back through the "/name" command.

FAQs

Q - Do I have to log in ALL my characters on ALL my accounts?

A - No. Logging in a single character on an active account should ensure that all names and characters are preserved.

Q - I received a special offer by email during the period of the name cleanup...but it won't work for me. Why?

A - This offer is only available for accounts that might have a character renamed or removed. It is most likely that this mail was sent to you concerning an old account that you may have forgotten.

Q - If I lose my name is it possible to get it back?

A - Yes. If the name is still available you can use the "/name" command to request the name again.

It worked perfectly, I hope they do this again.

[Phixalicious]

Oki what happens then with the other one? Will he be forced to rename

Obviously.

[Vhab]

We can't add "extra data" to character IDs.
The IDs on RK1 and RK2 are using the full range of 32bit unsigned integers and leave no extra room to 'flag' them.

The lack of mapping of old ID to new ID on the client is a concern to us, but unfortunately not a high priority.
We are aware of the concerns and one-time inconveniences this causes and might mitigate some of them.

Unfortunately we do have to balance out the development time vs the gain of addressing this.
This does mean addressing a one-time inconvenience particularly for bots is not high on our priority list.
We only have finite resources to work with.