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I have a horde of lvl 1's called CensusH or CensusA, but I never play them, so usually I check out forums, hear podcasts or just walk away to watch tv for 15 minutes at a time.

I have questions for you guys

1. Do you follow a certain naming convention for your census alts or just randomize it?

2. Any certain class/race/gender that you stick to? I usually roll a female warrior either Orc or Human just to whomp on anyone that wants to duel

3. Do you have alts dedicated just to censusing and if so what do you do during censusing?

xoxo

1. Census, if that's taken, Censusii, if that's gone, Censusi - actually had to use Censuse on one server where all 3 were gone, but that's a first for me!

2. Nah, just whatever tickles my fancy really, sometimes I'll take one relevant to the server name, otherwise, just random really!

3. Got about 65 census alts Generally tab out and read forums, websites, or play on my other account

Worst thing with playing one account and censusing on the other is stupid realID chat keeps forwarding messages to the census character (who has verbose on so doesn't even see whispers) instead of the one I'm playing. Thankfully I only have one realID friend but usually have to give up and stop censusing when he's on

I was being retarded about it, had to change my addons folder to JUST Censusplus so that way i dont have to do extra mouse clicks... before that I was contemplating the installation folders just to census (lite versions)

Hybuir wrote:I have a horde of lvl 1's called CensusH or CensusA

Mine are called CensusHorde and CensusAlly..

I've levelled a few of them, but the are all sub-10.. I really just CBA to do starting zone again and again...

cba?

I'm running census on trial account(s), so I don't need to worry about purging my local database or sending redundant info to Rollie. One of my reasons for doing this is that I really don't have the resources (time-duration/etc) to play on my live account (doing dungeon runs etc.) so until my local situation changes it doesn't make much sense to give Blizzard money just to cycle through realms while the add-on counts characters.

If I feel like playing a specific combo (race/class/realm), I'll select them first then check and recheck the most needed list/submissions pages and populate the account with about 20 characters. The only selection I make in the character creation screen is to make sure I have the right faction (either one of each or only the one that isn't getting census love. Which means that I end up with Blizzard provided random(?) class/sex.

Normally I name them Census{A/H}(class related name)
ex: CensusAmag, CensusHunter, CensusALoc

I try to remember to get my last day's run in then delete the characters from the account.. so I can reuse the names again if and when the realm census run numbers drop back down into the most wanted list again.

I'm using a Vista 64bit system and I've found that after I did a full reinstall I'm not getting the focus retained on the wow window if I tab to my browser... even if I elevate the process priority for wow. While I use to be able to place a character into the world and then switch to working my email or browsing the web.. now I can't if I want the census to actually run at any reasonable speed.

But since there is plenty of things to do that don't use the computer.. I can get lots of census runs done while working on other things.. I just listen for the end of run sound or failing that I check the computer every so often or not . When I have the computer on I typically get 3 or 4 census runs on the realms per day unless I'm actually using the computer for other purposes.

When I first start census runs on a realm/faction I typically have no clue what the population might really be so I spend a little time playing the character through the starting zone(s) {skipping anything the might bore me}. Once I know how long census runs will take.. I'll either say a) I'm having fun with this character so keep playing (larger pop realms) or b) run the character to the nearest inn to minimize the log off time and just ignore the character (quick census run realms). Playing a character that takes longer to log in and out then to do the census run isn't very fun or effective.

Which means after the first day or so on the account I ignore characters in Inns and play them if they out and about the world. Though Play is a rather loose interpretation of the actual events, I've been know to 'Play' a ghost character for more then one census cycle while it does/doesn't wander around looking for the corpse.

I upload my data either after a full cycle of all the realm/factions or whenever I know I'm going to be away from the process for an extended period of time. While I do use the Uniuploader program to send my data I do the uploads manually and not with the automation in the program.

Hybuir wrote:cba?

Can't Be Arsed

bringoutyourdead wrote:I'm running census on trial account(s)

Since when have Blizz enabled AddOns for Trials??

bringoutyourdead wrote:I'm using a Vista 64bit system and I've found that after I did a full reinstall I'm not getting the focus retained on the wow window if I tab to my browser... even if I elevate the process priority for wow. While I use to be able to place a character into the world and then switch to working my email or browsing the web.. now I can't if I want the census to actually run at any reasonable speed.

May not help, but try setting the game to windowed mode, fullscreen - a lot of people have issues with things not working right when tabbed out if you're not in windowed mode, but it's usually fine when it is.

At least more then a year ago.. I've never had problems with that since November of last year when I turned off the credit card on my live account.

You can even accept guild invites as of 4.03a (I'm sure that is a bug and will go away)

The one thing you can't do with Trial accounts is chat anymore. I use to be able to chat and help new players but sometime this year Blizzard put a supposed x chats/minute timer on chats.. and then set trials to 0 for the x number. Every time I forget I get notified about that.

Trial accounts could use addons when I made my 2nd account as well, that'd be middle of Burning Crusade kinda time so 3.5 years ago (I recall it being about May I started that account) Was happily running Censusplus then, so not sure they've ever been disabled!

Thanks Balgair that suggestion of yours seems to be fixing my out of focus census problems.

Balgair wrote:Trial accounts could use addons when I made my 2nd account as well, that'd be middle of Burning Crusade kinda time so 3.5 years ago (I recall it being about May I started that account) Was happily running Censusplus then, so not sure they've ever been disabled!

I started playing roughly a week before v2.3 came out..
At that time, AddOns was not possible on my train account..

1. All censusing alts have names beginning with Cen. What follows mostly composes of partial server name or class or race and most horde side names add an "h" at the end.

So, Baelgun has an alt called Cenbael, Terrorar Centerro, Ulduar Cenua, etc.

2. Not really, but through random picks, most "permanent" alts are either trolls or gnomes. Temporary alts often end up as orc warlocks, tauren hunters, gnome rogues or night elf druids, often, but not always female. Random DKs forcibly changed to something else, so they don't inflate the database with non-existing characters.

3. Yes. As to what happens during, varies widely... can be anything from watching TV or writing e-mails to peeling potatoes or cleaning up.

EDIT: Typos.

Anyone else notice that sometimes the census doesn't start unless you open up the C+ window? I zone in and just open up the C+ window to make sure queries are going in

Hybuir wrote:Anyone else notice that sometimes the census doesn't start unless you open up the C+ window? I zone in and just open up the C+ window to make sure queries are going in

Been like that for me in a LOOOONG time..

make sure you have set the census timer to less then the default

I use /census timer 25

this always auto starts the run for me.. If I have verbose on then I never open the C+ window for the run, and if I don't have verbose on.. then I only check if I'm unsure if the run has finished or not.

I have my timer set to .01 shhhhhhhhhh