Monthly Development Update – Nov 5th 2012

[Ekarona]

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.

Some dirty job even by hand in update might be preferable.

One option could be to add a file with character's name in individual pref folder for each character as they are logged in pre-merge and then backup old prefs in migration patch.

[Phargus]

bots is not high on our priority list.

Ok, who are you and what have you done with Vhab?

[Graftmage]

This does mean addressing a one-time inconvenience particularly for bots is not high on our priority list.

Semi-manually merging 5k or so characters (as in, trying to find out if the new player 'XXXX' on server 'Z' is actually old player 'XXXX' from server 'Y' and from server 'X') is not something I would call 'inconvenience'. Especially if XML lookups won't work in first days after merge.

It is all, of course, matter of opinion, but I think that in a game, that is practically run by bots, on all servers and level ranges, helping to mitigate damage of a change that breaks all of them, should be a priority. You know that better than others =p

Solution is quite simple, make a new chatacter stat, when server merge occurs, put old char ID there (hell, you can even do that now). Then, use this stat to fix prefs on client, and put it on character bio XML (not like there's gonna be any merge after this one).

[capncaveman]

question:

someone on rimor has the same name as my character on atlantean. how will you deal with this? do i get to keep my name? does he get to keep his? is it by level? /played? /created? i REALLY don't wanna be lazyfixer-1 because some froob logged in before me...

lazyfixer on rk 2 is an old character I do see her log in once in a while but not often

[Ekarona]

Semi-manually merging 5k or so characters (as in, trying to find out if the new player 'XXXX' on server 'Z' is actually old player 'XXXX' from server 'Y' and from server 'X') is not something I would call 'inconvenience'. Especially if XML lookups won't work in first days after merge.

It is all, of course, matter of opinion, but I think that in a game, that is practically run by bots, on all servers and level ranges, helping to mitigate damage of a change that breaks all of them, should be a priority. You know that better than others =p

Solution is quite simple, make a new chatacter stat, when server merge occurs, put old char ID there (hell, you can even do that now). Then, use this stat to fix prefs on client, and put it on character bio XML (not like there's gonna be any merge after this one).

Not sure if making updating character map from old servers to new one would be too complicated.

Basicly bots could probably be supported just by collecting info as characters are processed. It's small thing to add in processing accounts, but shouldn't be impossible or hard in anyway.

Just make a list with server, old id, new id and name.

Up date this list every hour or so or make way to query it.

1+4+4+13+1 equals 23 bytes for every character including a separator.

[Tiralee]

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.

Does this mean that our characters will have new IDs and the information from our current character folders won't be carrying over (backpack names, hotbars, and the like)? If so:

Would I be able to keep that information if I wrote down the current character ID for each character, saved the old prefs before the migration, then copied the contents of the old character folder to the new character folder after the migration?

[Lazy]

pointsbot maintainers are gonna flip tables ovver this...

[Ekarona]

Does this mean that our characters will have new IDs and the information from our current character folders won't be carrying over (backpack names, hotbars, and the like)? If so:

Would I be able to keep that information if I wrote down the current character ID for each character, saved the old prefs before the migration, then copied the contents of the old character folder to the new character folder after the migration?

I think at least for containers this might be impossible as they have unique ids I think...

Not sure about chat and hot bars.

[Nanostratege]

Solution is quite simple, make a new chatacter stat, when server merge occurs, put old char ID there (hell, you can even do that now). Then, use this stat to fix prefs on client, and put it on character bio XML (not like there's gonna be any merge after this one).

This. This sounds like it's the probably the most reasonable solution to it.

[Phixalicious]

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.

Of course, maybe some dev who used to, you know, write and maintain bots when he was just a lowly player might, in moments of downtime or boredom, write a useful fix.

Or something.

[Gunforhire]

It would be nice to know how many extra new slots paid accounts will be given so we can start planning now which characters on each server we want to keep. I have a full compliment of 8 on each server.

[Ophiuchus]

The thought of having to redo prefs... All of them, on all of my chracters. All the hotbars and UI customisation and bank bags - all the bank alts too. Oh god

[Tanisthonus]

Would you have to redo all the prefs? Can't they be copied into the new folder?

[Marijke]

Would you have to redo all the prefs? Can't they be copied into the new folder?

They can.

[ByLogic]

Would you have to redo all the prefs? Can't they be copied into the new folder?

They should really make player prefs server storage. Its not like its hard to make a new database table. You see every mmorpg stores player pref not only on client. This would save allot of work for players. With some smart programming this doesn't have to stress the server.

[Raggy]

In Closing

We have a big month ahead of us! We're closing down the Server Migration work, and Q1 next year you'll see the New Player Experience and Engine Upgrade Beta. Now it's just about keeping our heads down and getting it all done.

With the increased scope of supporting both clients a Christmas launch is becoming less and less likely…but a Q1 2011 launch seems relatively certain.

This seems familiar.

[Ocene]

Fun times ahead

[Gaveup]

Question about the new server coming up, there will be some that will place there toons at certain locations such as high level tower sites or unique mob spawns. Is there anything in place to deal with this?

[Windguaerd]

Question about the new server coming up, there will be some that will place there toons at certain locations such as high level tower sites or unique mob spawns. Is there anything in place to deal with this?

People do this before a patch, and it has never been a problem.

[aramsunat]

big thumbs up for this update!

confirmed: AO servers are really going down