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Thread: Is it so hard to keep the prefs, FC?

  1. #1

    Is it so hard to keep the prefs, FC?

    Should we really work our a**es off just to keep some of the settings we've tailored to our own needs over the years? And should we really lose all of our BP names as well, because "it can't be saved along with the merge"?

    You guys at FunCom have the best possible insight into the way client-(prefs)-server communication works, so why can't you do it automatically along with the merge? It obviously is possible, just look around:

    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...3&postcount=20
    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=603454

    Regular players have found a way to do it. Without even taking a peek into your "legacy" code.
    And you would probably know how to do it automatically. Hell, when merging, just put an old CharID in a temp DB, compare it with the new one and run those scripts... voila!

    As you said, there is only one chance to do this server merge without failing terribly. You should really consider saving character prefs as a "release-blocking" issue.
    Solweintraub - Engi - 220/30/70
    Byteflush... - Advy - 150/04/14

  2. #2
    No thanks.. I think most players rather want someone to play with instead of having the backpack names saved. This would derail the merge even further and that's a bad thing.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Pennypacker View Post
    No thanks.. I think most players rather want someone to play with instead of having the backpack names saved. This would derail the merge even further and that's a bad thing.
    5 Accounts, 8 chars, average of 5 hotbars with 10 actions each -> 2000+ Actions to redo + All the backpacks & inventories .. NO THANKS!

  4. #4
    Only 3 accounts here, but the thought of having to re-do all of that some day.... sigh

    Does not make it any easier returning to AO for sure
    Mekhdoc 220/27/70 Equip | Mekh 220/28/67 Equip | Shadesch 220/21/70 Equip
    Mekhkeeper 220/22/70 Equip | Roflmao 220/15/50 | Fixyaself 200/23/64 Equip

  5. #5
    No, sorry, can't be arsed with this. This just makes it even harder to play the game so I don't think I'll bother. This coupled with the loss of global research is the final nail in my apathy coffin.

  6. #6
    Can't you just move your prefs folders to %appdata%?
    AO - JukeJoint "Nuhmudiira" Jezebel - 208/18 Trader - Omni

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by IonButterfly View Post
    No, sorry, can't be arsed with this. This just makes it even harder to play the game so I don't think I'll bother. This coupled with the loss of global research is the final nail in my apathy coffin.
    Global research isn't lost but whatever, see you.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nuhmudiira View Post
    Can't you just move your prefs folders to %appdata%?
    No.

    Playing just a few characters is a boon. Indeed, you don't get total burnout fanboybrain, and you have just a few things to fix this way. Plus cleaning your things up once in a while can help optimize better, instead of being stuck in the old ways.
    Last edited by Mastablasta; Feb 2nd, 2013 at 17:50:08.
    Thor Mastablasta Hammersmith - Level 220, AI 30, LE 70 Clan Atrox Nano Technician - Setup
    The Red Brotherhood

    I'm a Nano-Technician, don't ever expect me to fight unbuffed, alone or fair.

    Means: about f'ing time :P
    Satenia: heresy <3
    Znore: Mastablasta <3
    Kinkstaah: I have agro from many mobs ;(
    Madarab: we are aoe class, we are supose to use pistols
    Marxgorm: the NT toolset does not fit into my raiding tactics

  8. #8
    bump!

    As far as I can remember you will not loose your hotbar actions if you copy over the prefs folder.

    But: backpack names & nano sorting are gone.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Antinoos View Post
    bump!

    As far as I can remember you will not loose your hotbar actions if you copy over the prefs folder.

    But: backpack names & nano sorting are gone.
    Well then maybe what we need is a new nano system and better hotbars.
    AO - JukeJoint "Nuhmudiira" Jezebel - 208/18 Trader - Omni

  10. #10
    I still do not understand why "prefs" aren't stored somewhere server-side. Yeah, legacy code, sure... But if you were able to unpack the blob that dates to early Cro-magnon human developers, you can surely do something about the awful prefs-saving system.
    Solweintraub - Engi - 220/30/70
    Byteflush... - Advy - 150/04/14

  11. #11
    Well, I'm happy with prefs being client-side, lets me copy them around as I wish, have my own backups in case I do modifications I didn't like and such. As well as edit by hand if needed. I've moved some chat windows from config file.

    Still, going to have to redo prefs for 7 accounts... No good. Its shown its doable, can't there really be some decent soultion from FC? Having couple weeks more to wait for the merge is likely not going to change much anyway, its been pushed back some anyway.
    Mireiawen Rose, 215/30/70 neut fixer, setup RK2
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    +bunch of others in Rose family...


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  12. #12
    I'd say, yes, sadly, it is so hard to keep the prefs, because what happens on server side is a lot more complex than what most of you think. While I'm not a game developer, I do have experience with such database migrations, as I've worked on a few in my professional career.

    It involves, among other things, a conversion between two largely different database formats, which prevents keeping or restoring the old entity ID-s which define the relation between local and server side data; only the content is migrated into a partially/entirely different structure. Entities have to, and will, get new IDs, because they will be stored differently from now on, even the way they are linked by them will change; theres no way around that. This means, the old relation between local and remote data is inevitably lost.

    To restore it, the merge/conversion process would have to create and attach a conversion helper table to each and every character that undergoes the conversion process (this means database work, designing and linking additional data structures to each entry which will only be used once, which is inefficient), which lists all the old and the new IDs of each entity that will have one assigned (and any additional data/information that might be required). Additional functions would have to be added to the client, which could determine if/when a character is first accessed (additional one-off flagging/checking mechanism), would fetch this helper table from the server, then look up the old prefs fileset, and attempt to recreate it into a new instance by updating all associations listed in the table. An added difficulty in this process would be all the small issues and inconsistencies the prefs files may, and usually do, contain, for which any number of exception handling and error correction functions would have to be devised and added.

    The most that could be done with relative ease is to provide the old and new CharID for each character migrated, so that at least a partial merge could be done manually based on that. The rest would take a lot of additional work which, while undeniably would make the migration as painless as possible for the users, especially in light of the news in the past few weeks, could easily mean the merge will never actually happen.

    I only have two accounts, with 5-6 chars each, some of them with full banks of named backpacks storing assorted items. I'm not looking forward to redoing them either, and of course would prefer if I didn't have to. Except I also have a little perspective on what would it take to convert/update the client side data too, and thus I don't really expect them to do so.
    Last edited by Honorbound; Feb 3rd, 2013 at 10:34:21.

    "All things point to that they didn't play to win, but for the game itself and to play well. ... Later in their evolution, they forgot all about playing and having fun. When their corrupted minds only cared for what new ways they could gain power, there was no room for the simple things in life."
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  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Mastablasta View Post
    Global research isn't lost but whatever, see you..
    Obviously you know more than me, there's a surprise. A pointer for your evidence?
    I just have this:
    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...lobal+research

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by IonButterfly View Post
    Obviously you know more than me,
    obviously.

    A pointer for your evidence?
    I just have this:
    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...lobal+research
    is this good enough?

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by IonButterfly View Post
    Obviously you know more than me, there's a surprise. A pointer for your evidence?
    I just have this:
    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...lobal+research
    Log on to testserver. I'm sorry for any inconvenience learning this might cause you.
    Thor Mastablasta Hammersmith - Level 220, AI 30, LE 70 Clan Atrox Nano Technician - Setup
    The Red Brotherhood

    I'm a Nano-Technician, don't ever expect me to fight unbuffed, alone or fair.

    Means: about f'ing time :P
    Satenia: heresy <3
    Znore: Mastablasta <3
    Kinkstaah: I have agro from many mobs ;(
    Madarab: we are aoe class, we are supose to use pistols
    Marxgorm: the NT toolset does not fit into my raiding tactics

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Antinoos View Post
    bump!

    As far as I can remember you will not loose your hotbar actions if you copy over the prefs folder.

    But: backpack names & nano sorting are gone.
    also by copying anything you might get loads of deprecated junk interfering and slowing down the game.

    if devs wants to clean up old junk, they propably have a good reason. and by modifying game files & data, you may put your system at risk where it might not work optimally.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mastablasta View Post
    Log on to testserver. I'm sorry for any inconvenience learning this might cause you.
    test-server, the horn of all truths and facts!
    Quote Originally Posted by Vhab View Post
    It's a test server. We test things on the test server.
    Everything on the test server is subject to change and may not represent how it ends up on live.
    so, you have some insight that global research will be like it is on test, even when its pretty clearly stated test server is not 100% proof something will happen.
    I suggest you to log into test server once a while, to see how much things actually change before they get to live.
    Last edited by Otansaanpas; Feb 3rd, 2013 at 15:48:39.
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  17. #17
    @Matablasta
    So you don't know any more than me then, thanks for clarifying. I assumed by the unequivocal tone of your first answer you actually knew something but of course, you didn't.
    Another surprise .
    Good condescension though, does someone asking a question really threaten you so much?

    @Lazy.
    Thanks, is the 'no mechs part' cleared up? What about people who bought an obsidian with real money? (I didn't personally, but I like to think of others).

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by IonButterfly View Post

    @Lazy.
    Thanks, is the 'no mechs part' cleared up? What about people who bought an obsidian with real money? (I didn't personally, but I like to think of others).
    as far as i can tell it's all the same research, they fixed research huds so as not to break toons, mechs should be fixed in time for live patch. however, this is my speculation and there hasn't been any official word from fc staff as to whether or not mechs will have to be rereseached.

  19. #19
    Actually, has there been *any* official response from FC as what the go-live plan is for Global Research? They changed TEST to have all done except mechs, yet never (at least that I saw) said anything about it. So, for all we know TEST is broken from what FC wants to go LIVE.

    Seriously, is this such a difficult question to answer?
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by IonButterfly View Post
    @Matablasta
    So you don't know any more than me then, thanks for clarifying. I assumed by the unequivocal tone of your first answer you actually knew something but of course, you didn't.
    Another surprise .
    Good condescension though, does someone asking a question really threaten you so much?.
    What is it that you're saying here? That I don't know that it's been said that the research for hud items was unintentionally reset and that it's been fixed on test?

    There shouldn't be any surprise in having your condescending tone responded to with one Lazy already posted everything I knew, and then alerted me that someone was daring to question my knowledge of everything in the universe, so I came here to condescend you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Utopian View Post
    Actually, has there been *any* official response from FC as what the go-live plan is for Global Research? They changed TEST to have all done except mechs, yet never (at least that I saw) said anything about it. So, for all we know TEST is broken from what FC wants to go LIVE.

    Seriously, is this such a difficult question to answer?
    No. Nothing other than "it's intentional" and that the hud items stuff was not intentional. Might just be something that is borked because the unlock XP numbers were different pr. server, so they will have to reset it back and forth for the new server.
    But apparently that's a hard question to answer. Maybe it's not why, but that they want to make a new thing out of research. Who knows. We might never get a response, since it sounds like the whole dev team has been laid off, and the ones that weren't didn't want to move to Bumsville, North Carolina.
    Last edited by Mastablasta; Feb 3rd, 2013 at 20:00:52.
    Thor Mastablasta Hammersmith - Level 220, AI 30, LE 70 Clan Atrox Nano Technician - Setup
    The Red Brotherhood

    I'm a Nano-Technician, don't ever expect me to fight unbuffed, alone or fair.

    Means: about f'ing time :P
    Satenia: heresy <3
    Znore: Mastablasta <3
    Kinkstaah: I have agro from many mobs ;(
    Madarab: we are aoe class, we are supose to use pistols
    Marxgorm: the NT toolset does not fit into my raiding tactics

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