As soon as they bring the two announced realms up that are being connected (aka merged), I'll start testing to see if my guesses on the code changes were valid.
Check back later this afternoon or evening.. there may need to be another fix patch for CensusPlus... or we might be lucky.
1st connected realms goes live today
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bringoutyourdead
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bringoutyourdead
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...and they have gone to the 3rd extension of the down time while the database updating continues.
Unless they have finished that and they are in internal test mode of the realms... considering that they have dropped from Offline to just not listed any more.
And this is really a fairly simple database update... unlike trying to change the whole underlying character set of the database.
Even with the new hardware.. if Metalbeast were to decide to go ahead and make the database ready to handle the non-Western European character set... it probably would take a whole week just to do the conversion including rebuilding all the indices.
Speaking of Metalbeast I've had an email update from him... showed me screen shots of the admin panel for the database that seemed to indicate that all data is getting into the database.... but after much thought.. I sent back a note indicating that he isn't seeing what he thinks he is seeing.. and it is my fault. (I could be wrong) but my thinking seems to fit the situation more closely then what he was showing me.
I turned off my auto-census and purged my CensusPlus and then ran around StormWind City and Gold Shire and did a little questing...
This was on US Bleeding Hollow... with no active census ever run... the output file ended up with 175 characters from 18 different realms. I emailed that file to Metalbeast so he could play with that data if it would help him.
It is a real pain to figure out what stuff is doing when you take over a project cold... and probably with little if any documentation.. (Programmers are notorious for failing to document their code... they know what they were doing.. why document?)
Unless they have finished that and they are in internal test mode of the realms... considering that they have dropped from Offline to just not listed any more.
And this is really a fairly simple database update... unlike trying to change the whole underlying character set of the database.
Even with the new hardware.. if Metalbeast were to decide to go ahead and make the database ready to handle the non-Western European character set... it probably would take a whole week just to do the conversion including rebuilding all the indices.
Speaking of Metalbeast I've had an email update from him... showed me screen shots of the admin panel for the database that seemed to indicate that all data is getting into the database.... but after much thought.. I sent back a note indicating that he isn't seeing what he thinks he is seeing.. and it is my fault. (I could be wrong) but my thinking seems to fit the situation more closely then what he was showing me.
I turned off my auto-census and purged my CensusPlus and then ran around StormWind City and Gold Shire and did a little questing...
This was on US Bleeding Hollow... with no active census ever run... the output file ended up with 175 characters from 18 different realms. I emailed that file to Metalbeast so he could play with that data if it would help him.
It is a real pain to figure out what stuff is doing when you take over a project cold... and probably with little if any documentation.. (Programmers are notorious for failing to document their code... they know what they were doing.. why document?)
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bringoutyourdead
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Well.. CensusPlus isn't totally broken... but it isn't working as I had hoped.
so far... the only realms seen are the two connected realms.
I be thinking they dropped it out of CRZ for now.
mousing or targeting a character you won't be able to tell which member realm unless you check the tool tip where you will see character-realm.... you don't see any # marker.
Doing census run counts all the characters... but the final summation only sees your own local realm members... so I ended up seeing 500 new 250 updated. give or take.... so realm character counts will be correct but activity recording won't be.. and we can't yet do a single run for both realms at the same time.
This says the relationship functions aren't working as advertized... I need to do more testing... and checking to see what other (better) programmers have found.
so far... the only realms seen are the two connected realms.
I be thinking they dropped it out of CRZ for now.
mousing or targeting a character you won't be able to tell which member realm unless you check the tool tip where you will see character-realm.... you don't see any # marker.
Doing census run counts all the characters... but the final summation only sees your own local realm members... so I ended up seeing 500 new 250 updated. give or take.... so realm character counts will be correct but activity recording won't be.. and we can't yet do a single run for both realms at the same time.
This says the relationship functions aren't working as advertized... I need to do more testing... and checking to see what other (better) programmers have found.
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bringoutyourdead
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Ah interesting...
As the Grail Knight says in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
"He chose poorly"
Interesting... in Orgrimmar... only the connected realm... but in Thunderbluff all 3 relationships. later as more got on... it was all three in all the normal locations.
The relationship API is working... but it isn't returning the same values as I was told.. things got changed..
What was presented as 1,2,3 got released as 3,2,1 sigh.
relationship 1 = same server
relationship 2 = coalesced
relationship 3 = connected
there is also something else not right... but I can't yet put my finger on it.
I captured a lot of chat log... with debugging on .. that is going to keep me busy the rest of the night.
As the Grail Knight says in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
"He chose poorly"
Interesting... in Orgrimmar... only the connected realm... but in Thunderbluff all 3 relationships. later as more got on... it was all three in all the normal locations.
The relationship API is working... but it isn't returning the same values as I was told.. things got changed..
What was presented as 1,2,3 got released as 3,2,1 sigh.
relationship 1 = same server
relationship 2 = coalesced
relationship 3 = connected
there is also something else not right... but I can't yet put my finger on it.
I captured a lot of chat log... with debugging on .. that is going to keep me busy the rest of the night.
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bringoutyourdead
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And the bad news is...
"You can't get there from here", "well you can get there.. but you need to take two different roads... at the same time"
The code as released won't be able to do the connected realms correctly, due to security concerns on Blizzards part. (long ago it would have been doable, until the cheaters and hacker got Blizzard to limit certain API functionality.)
The problem is the /who interface doesn't allow me to use the RealmRelationship api calls. There are three different ways to get character information from the WoW client( who api, GlobalUniqueID[GUID], and UnitID) and the new calls are tied to the UnitID way that Blizzard locked down.
At this point I need to do the following adjustments to the code.
1.) toss out all the relationship calls... and build the relationships via the discovery of "-realm" in the who found names. This should always work.. but apparently there are issues.
2.) modify the Target/mouseover code which does use the relationship calls.. to build up the connected realms table.
3.) both 1 and 2 will build the table... now instead of starting this from scratch with each census run (as is done currently), I will need to save that data to the output file so it can be pulled back in with each login. AND include a known connected realms list as a starter set for new start users. Step 1 should be all I really need to do.. but Blizzard has been having some issues about showing -realm or not (when it always should be shown), I think it has to do with their abrupt turn around from '#' to seamless invisible realm memberships.
Both 1 and 3 have been in the back of my mind as alternatives since I started coding the changes for WoW 5.4. so it shouldn't take me more then a few days to have another update ready. This isn't as clean as I had hoped, but Blizzard made it that way... and they are also paying for their not well thought out decisions. See their forums for user complaints and admitted known problems.
I'm still mulling over the process. I may do a release with step 1 and 2... and see if we need to go with step 3... or I'll do it all in a update.
"You can't get there from here", "well you can get there.. but you need to take two different roads... at the same time"
The code as released won't be able to do the connected realms correctly, due to security concerns on Blizzards part. (long ago it would have been doable, until the cheaters and hacker got Blizzard to limit certain API functionality.)
The problem is the /who interface doesn't allow me to use the RealmRelationship api calls. There are three different ways to get character information from the WoW client( who api, GlobalUniqueID[GUID], and UnitID) and the new calls are tied to the UnitID way that Blizzard locked down.
At this point I need to do the following adjustments to the code.
1.) toss out all the relationship calls... and build the relationships via the discovery of "-realm" in the who found names. This should always work.. but apparently there are issues.
2.) modify the Target/mouseover code which does use the relationship calls.. to build up the connected realms table.
3.) both 1 and 2 will build the table... now instead of starting this from scratch with each census run (as is done currently), I will need to save that data to the output file so it can be pulled back in with each login. AND include a known connected realms list as a starter set for new start users. Step 1 should be all I really need to do.. but Blizzard has been having some issues about showing -realm or not (when it always should be shown), I think it has to do with their abrupt turn around from '#' to seamless invisible realm memberships.
Both 1 and 3 have been in the back of my mind as alternatives since I started coding the changes for WoW 5.4. so it shouldn't take me more then a few days to have another update ready. This isn't as clean as I had hoped, but Blizzard made it that way... and they are also paying for their not well thought out decisions. See their forums for user complaints and admitted known problems.
I'm still mulling over the process. I may do a release with step 1 and 2... and see if we need to go with step 3... or I'll do it all in a update.
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bringoutyourdead
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Did step 1, by declaring that anything found via /who has to been a character in Connected realms... this is by definition (at this time) true. But I've seen complaints about missing -realm tags. I don't know if this is true or just misunderstanding by the players. If true that is a bad Blizzard thing.. if the players don't know what they are saying, then it isn't a problem.
Did step 2. but in reality this will only show in the situation of extremely low population realms... where the census run doesn't find anyone from a member realm but a late arrival character(s) from the missed realm get captured.
At this time, I don't think we need to go with step 3... but we will need to see what Blizzard does.
Did step 2. but in reality this will only show in the situation of extremely low population realms... where the census run doesn't find anyone from a member realm but a late arrival character(s) from the missed realm get captured.
At this time, I don't think we need to go with step 3... but we will need to see what Blizzard does.