While waiting for the latest oops client patch to download, I've been scanning the WoW forums.
Ran across something interesting.. but I'm not sure it would be a good idea to implement.
apparently with 5.3 if you submit the who query with the zone z- parameter, if that zone has been enabled as Cross realm on the the server the results returned are all the characters from all servers in the CRZ grouping.
The problems I'll need to check are how do you tell if the zone in question is in a CRZ grouping. I could envision a lot of time taken doing -Z queries that wouldn't pull up any new off realm characters.
what do you think? Should I take the time to build this into CensusPlus and would you be willing/happy to have census runs take potentially take much more time for possibly little gain?
I know that as I process through the 50 realm/factions I'm currently doing census runs on that I have realized that I'm seeing the same characters on multiple realms since a number of the realms I hit are in the same CRZ grouping. I tend to put my census taker in a local inn (usually in the same room/location) for faster log out and when logging in on the next realm in my list I find the same suspects in the room with me.
CRZ census possible
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bringoutyourdead
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Padanfain
I think for the casual census takers the extra time wouldn't really be noticed and it would add to their results which is nice for the database.
For the hardcore census takers it would not be as effective a use of time. Considering maybe that those that census multiple realms might census at least a few realms that are in that CRZ, they will census those toons anyway. I know for my part I census about half of one data center worth of realms and most of those share the same CRZ's so I'm going to see those toons anyway.
Could you make it a check box option? Enabled by default with a note about disabling it for those that do not want it? Would the results be worth your time to add, test, troubleshoot, etc the functionality?
I will do some /who's on a couple realms I usually do and see what I can see just for kicks and guestimates.
For the hardcore census takers it would not be as effective a use of time. Considering maybe that those that census multiple realms might census at least a few realms that are in that CRZ, they will census those toons anyway. I know for my part I census about half of one data center worth of realms and most of those share the same CRZ's so I'm going to see those toons anyway.
Could you make it a check box option? Enabled by default with a note about disabling it for those that do not want it? Would the results be worth your time to add, test, troubleshoot, etc the functionality?
I will do some /who's on a couple realms I usually do and see what I can see just for kicks and guestimates.
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Padanfain
Of the dozen or so zones I did both /who's on the CRZ results were many times the realm only results. This was a medium population PVE realm but I could see doing a census on a low to medium pop realm taking much longer but returning 8~10 times (W.A.G.) the results for just about all the leveling zones and a few main cities. High or above pop realms might have fewer CRZ's and not take that much longer?
One downside I noticed though is that CRZ who queries return no guild name even for realm only players so multiple returns for individual players guilded in one census and unguilded in the next might make a bit of a mess when looking up players on the website. When you see a player in game and highlight a CRZ player, click on the player, their guild name is recorded to the database currently.
One downside I noticed though is that CRZ who queries return no guild name even for realm only players so multiple returns for individual players guilded in one census and unguilded in the next might make a bit of a mess when looking up players on the website. When you see a player in game and highlight a CRZ player, click on the player, their guild name is recorded to the database currently.
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bringoutyourdead
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the lack of guild info you noticing is only an artifact of how Blizzard displays data in the friends window. In reality the underlying api does return the guild info..Blizzard just doesn't show it.
My biggest concern about adding z- queries to the stack of queries is that I don't know of an api call that will tell me if the zone in question currently runs in CRZ mode. Since we don't have much info about which zones CAN be in CRZ mode, I would have to do queries for almost all zones... and z- queries would have to be treated as top level queries assuming more then 50 returns.. so it would require the full set of sub-queries.
At this time, without better information.. I don't think the cost in coding and in usage is worth the gain in census information. The same information can be gathered without additional time costs by running census on each of the realms. It isn't like you can abandon running a realm census just because you caught a number of characters who happened to be in CRZ status.
My biggest concern about adding z- queries to the stack of queries is that I don't know of an api call that will tell me if the zone in question currently runs in CRZ mode. Since we don't have much info about which zones CAN be in CRZ mode, I would have to do queries for almost all zones... and z- queries would have to be treated as top level queries assuming more then 50 returns.. so it would require the full set of sub-queries.
At this time, without better information.. I don't think the cost in coding and in usage is worth the gain in census information. The same information can be gathered without additional time costs by running census on each of the realms. It isn't like you can abandon running a realm census just because you caught a number of characters who happened to be in CRZ status.
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Padanfain
Ah, ok. Must apply to calls '/dump'ed also. Didn't see guild names there either or realm names, only player names. Or maybe I did something wrong (more than likely, lol).
Looks like CRZ is enabled, maybe not in use at the time, on all zones except Orgrimmar, Stormwind and Pandaria. With no API to tell you if a zone happens to be currently CRZ that would mean a little over 100 minimum queries. Yeah, that doesn't sound like it would be worth the work.
Looks like CRZ is enabled, maybe not in use at the time, on all zones except Orgrimmar, Stormwind and Pandaria. With no API to tell you if a zone happens to be currently CRZ that would mean a little over 100 minimum queries. Yeah, that doesn't sound like it would be worth the work.
I believe almost all zones (except Org, SW and all Pandaria zones) will be crossrealmed at very nearly all times, as there will never be enough own-realm players in them to turn it off. Even Elwynn (which usually has tons of people in Goldshire/outside SW gates) and Durotar (ditto for outside gates) never get un-crossrealmed. I believe Northern Barrens is not crossrealm for the duration of this patch, but will likely go back to it after 5.4. Don't forget crossrealm players can be in any zone though, if they've been invited by a friend...
One part of me likes the idea of crossrealm census, the other part makes me think, it will be complex and probably add a big chunk of time onto short censuses. By my counting from wowhead's listings of zones, we're looking at 108 new queries being added to a census (excluding the not-usually crossrealmed ones which may still have visitors in), and that's before you hit any with 50+ people in them. That'll be a massive increase to time on low pop servers, and won't help much on the high pop ones which already take ages. So hmm, I like the more data idea, but it may be a bit much...
That said, it brings me to a feature I'd like to request which probably won't be much work over what you're proposing here; a manual census of a particular zone (including non crossrealmed zones), to see how many are there. It's just a curiosity thing really, but I often wonder how many are trying to kill Oondasta, or are present at some new bit of content where it feels crazily laggy, but of course I can only gather it's "more than 50" - Censusplus would be able to work it out a lot more easily than I can!
One part of me likes the idea of crossrealm census, the other part makes me think, it will be complex and probably add a big chunk of time onto short censuses. By my counting from wowhead's listings of zones, we're looking at 108 new queries being added to a census (excluding the not-usually crossrealmed ones which may still have visitors in), and that's before you hit any with 50+ people in them. That'll be a massive increase to time on low pop servers, and won't help much on the high pop ones which already take ages. So hmm, I like the more data idea, but it may be a bit much...
That said, it brings me to a feature I'd like to request which probably won't be much work over what you're proposing here; a manual census of a particular zone (including non crossrealmed zones), to see how many are there. It's just a curiosity thing really, but I often wonder how many are trying to kill Oondasta, or are present at some new bit of content where it feels crazily laggy, but of course I can only gather it's "more than 50" - Censusplus would be able to work it out a lot more easily than I can!
Thse "Virtual Realms" sound quite interesting, wondering if they may function like a normal realm as far as /who goes, or that'd be too optimistic! If they did it'd be handy to find out the groupings and mark them on the website so those of us who census multiple realms know which are joined together for best coverage (maybe also have them linked on most wanted/server submissions).
I certainly hope /who will cover everyone on the "virtual" realm and not the individual realms or we'll have headaches with crossrealm guilds (from what I understand guilds will be able to have members from all individual realms). If it doesn't, then the crossrealm zone whos may be all the more relevant, as it'll be more predictable which realms will be present at least, and presumably on those who are merged this way, every zone including Pandaria and cities, will be crossrealmed.
Looking forward to finding out more about how these work, and particularly how it'll interact with lopsided realms where, say, one faction could use a merge with another realm or two, but the other faction is so high population that the realm as a whole is already queued at peak times... mine is in that boat and I think Silvermoon is the same in the other direction.
I certainly hope /who will cover everyone on the "virtual" realm and not the individual realms or we'll have headaches with crossrealm guilds (from what I understand guilds will be able to have members from all individual realms). If it doesn't, then the crossrealm zone whos may be all the more relevant, as it'll be more predictable which realms will be present at least, and presumably on those who are merged this way, every zone including Pandaria and cities, will be crossrealmed.
Looking forward to finding out more about how these work, and particularly how it'll interact with lopsided realms where, say, one faction could use a merge with another realm or two, but the other faction is so high population that the realm as a whole is already queued at peak times... mine is in that boat and I think Silvermoon is the same in the other direction.