Thoughts on ending the update contest early?

Post by **Rollie** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 7:49 am

So I have to concede that announcing the contest achieved the goal of getting more data. What I did not foresee was the inability to keep up with so many submissions. I went from typically getting 400 or so submissions a day to sometimes as many as 1000. Not to mention that some more zealous members have been working really hard on covering multiple servers so that many of the data submissions contain as many as 70k characters (the norm is like 5k).

I have a few more tricks up my sleeve to speed submissions up, but it will require more intensive database work that will require data updates to be turned off while I make the changes.

With all that being said. What are your thoughts on ending the contest early so that things can potentially get back to normal and I can make some additional database updates and optimizations?

When I say early, I mean like maybe on the 21st or so, doing the drawing and announcing the winner when the last of the updates has been processed, probably on the 24th?

Thoughts?

gendril · Post by **gendril** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:11 am

Personally I'm all for ending the contest early. I'll go the distance of the entire month if necessary to keep my lead, but it does get time consuming and tiring to keep up with the update process.

I'd prefer the contest end sooner rather than later. Even as early as the end of this week. Something more like September 17th. But that's just my personal opinion.

Also you are given the provision to end the contest early as per section 10 of the contest rules:

Sponsor reserves the right to change these Official Rules at any time, in its sole discretion, and to suspend or cancel the Contest or any entrant's participation in the Contest should viruses, bugs, unauthorized human intervention or other causes beyond Sponsor's control affect the administration, security or proper play of the Contest or Sponsor otherwise becomes (as determined in its sole discretion) incapable of running the Contest as planned.

Banzai · Post by **Banzai** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:39 am

I say do what you feel is best. I haven't really stepped up my submissions for the contest anyway. I play, I have the census+ running, when I'm done playing, I upload. I'll stick with the way I do things from here on out as it's easy enough for me, since I upload to other sites for various things when done anyway.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 1:44 pm

Don't matter to me, being 3x ahead of the majority of the pollers really isn't giving us 'high rollers' that much more of a chance at the 'prizes' (I was playing with the averages last night, and thinking you'd have to have a vast submittal difference to give yourself some sort of 'overwhelming' chance of a win). I wasn't really interested in that as much as the contest gave me a chance to do something productive while I checked out a range of characters and servers. I wanted to see what the servers really looked like after a hard pounding month of updates. (Maybe we've already accomplished that in a few weeks time?)

Hardware taking a pounding? Need more memory? I'm in a position to get my hands on server hardware of all sorts, maybe I can donate something..

Dreadicus · Post by **Dreadicus** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 1:45 pm

That was me BTW..

Forgot I had to login to the forums too. (argh!)

Post by **Rollie** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 2:06 pm

I'm kinda leaning towards going ahead and ending it early. I am happy that things picked up during the contest and I think given a few tweaks here and there, that the updating will once again be blazing fast like it used to be.

Thank you for the offer on hardware. At this point, my next hardware setup step would be to expand to 2 servers with one being the dedicated database server and one for the webserver. I do know running both on the same server isn't the optimal solution.

Of course, doubling my hardware will double my hardware costs, and is something I only want to do if I absolutely have to. I'm not convinced of that just yet and want to do some DB tweaks before I concede that I need more hardware.

My current server has
2 X AMD Athlon MP 2600 Processor
2GB Registered PC2100 Memory
2 X 80 GB Hard Drive
and is running Redhat Linux

Hero · Post by **Hero** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 3:01 pm

Rollie wrote:I'm kinda leaning towards going ahead and ending it early. I am happy that things picked up during the contest and I think given a few tweaks here and there, that the updating will once again be blazing fast like it used to be.

Thank you for the offer on hardware. At this point, my next hardware setup step would be to expand to 2 servers with one being the dedicated database server and one for the webserver. I do know running both on the same server isn't the optimal solution.

Of course, doubling my hardware will double my hardware costs, and is something I only want to do if I absolutely have to. I'm not convinced of that just yet and want to do some DB tweaks before I concede that I need more hardware.

My current server has
2 X AMD Athlon MP 2600 Processor
2GB Registered PC2100 Memory
2 X 80 GB Hard Drive
and is running Redhat Linux

Two servers is not going ot help you much, if at all.

Serving up the pages is not very hard, it's the call to the DB that is hard.

The question I have is: What is your data scheme?

Post up some tables layouts and some of your most common queries.

I was just looking at a post of the code for Characters table and noticed you don't have the table setup with unique ID's ... don't know how you tie into that table, but whew, every table should have a numeric unique id.

Post up, at miminum, the main table layouts, with a few sample records for each.

Eyeball-Dragonmaw · Post by **Eyeball-Dragonmaw** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 6:40 pm

I am up for ending the contest early. Trying to better my chances of winning the contest has definately cut into my pvp time, and honor pts for this week. If you end this Saturday no hard feelings here.......

I really doubt you need to upgrade your equipment. Once the contest is over I am sure your submissions will go back to normal. I personally know I will go back to just submitting my own server again.

Zimeron · Post by **Zimeron** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 8:48 pm

Well i've created 4 more chars lol! And i've been playing them a little bit (like the pallys

) But other then that, being new and all, i just run them and test out new classes. Quite Fun. If you want to end it, go for it. I'll probably stick to just back to my regular server and posting, i just let it run. The chances of winning aren't that great, i'm sure their are hundreds of people entered, with thousands of tickets.

Also what are other sites that you can upload to? This was the first i knew of.

And question2 have you started taking the Auctioneer Mod Data still? As since i use Uni-Uploader( which i recommend), i only send my char data.

Post by **Rollie** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:55 pm

I am messing with the Auctioneer data when I can, but with the day things have been going, I've had my hands full with trying to optimize the census data!

Zimeron · Post by **Zimeron** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 10:01 pm

So Should I start uploading my Auctioneer data along with my cenus? Or are you just doing it yourself?

Xianna · Post by **Xianna** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:40 am

being as im behind the top 2 heres my 2cp

im a single mom, who doesnt *have* to work, with a wicked case of insomnia. so you guessed it, i got pretty much 24/7 to sit here and wow all i want. so long as the teenager gets fed and his laundry is done he doesnt much want to spend time with me. ive got 2 boxes sittin side by side and 3 accts i can abuse.
to be 100% honest, after the first week of runnin constant polls on one box and playing on the other i got bored. i gave up. ok so i wont win the prize. i still try to nab polls on whatever the most wanted servers are for that day, and im glad the data is helping rollie. i just get side tracked playing with different UI's, helping out newbs, and posting ideas and links to mods and info that i think will help my guild. Theres a slim chance i could catch up to the top two, but i dont think theres much chance of anyone passing me and them at this point. Right now the contest has turned into a monster that seems to be drawing way more attention that was needed.

I will still submit, I will still troll, and if theres anything Rollie needs tested or helped with im here cuz well im bored =P
end the damn contest already.

gendril · Post by **gendril** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 8:36 am

So anything official as to an update to the contest end date? Everybody seems to feel fine about ending it early.

Post by **Rollie** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 11:45 am

Yeah, gonna do it. As of right now, the contest will be ending at 12:00 CST on the night of Tuestday, September 20. This will give plenty of time for all submissions be processed by the weekend. At which point the tickets will be assigned and I will plan to do the drawing on the 24th outside Orgrimmar on US - Bloodscalp.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 1:25 pm

Rollie wrote:Yeah, gonna do it. As of right now, the contest will be ending at 12:00 CST on the night of Tuestday, September 20. This will give plenty of time for all submissions be processed by the weekend. At which point the tickets will be assigned and I will plan to do the drawing on the 24th outside Orgrimmar on US - Bloodscalp.

I leave for a weeks vacation this Friday, and I'm done submitting until I get back (gotta pack, get ready, etc). So what I have is what I have!

Good luck to everyone!

Eyeball-Dragonmaw · Post by **Eyeball-Dragonmaw** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:59 pm

I stopped on the 13th. I have a few more to be processed, and I am done for good.