Classic CensusPlus

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 11:47 am

Oh and I also confirmed that we will not be able to capture all of the data with a single Census taker on a realm.

Due to layering there are multiple copies of the realms and a player will be in his/her initial layer unless he happens to (via outside of game communications) learn that another player has a character on the realm that can't be seen.
having the two characters join as a party will cause one of the characters to transfer from their default layer to the other characters layer during the game session.

As thing progress and the natural fall off of players happen the layering system will be shutdown and all players on a realm will be in the same layer.

How soon this happens is unknown to anyone at this time... but must happen by the time Blizzard goes to phase 2 for the Classic game.. as that introduces the World Bosses.

killmore · Post by **killmore** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 12:25 pm

Suggestion for the addon, have the option to ignore level 1. They seem to brake the process of scanning.

Also, any news on the opening of wowclassicpopulation.com website ? Or everything will remain on warcraftrealms.com ?

Balgair · Post by **Balgair** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 12:36 pm

bringoutyourdead wrote:I was not able to re-enable the Unit_focus or Unit_mouse_over as I had removed the hooks out of the code right after I had released that version of the addon due to Cross Realms going active.

Does anyone still have CensusPlus V6.0.0 laying around? I can't find my copy of that one.
It was the initial Mists of Pandaria release.

https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/c ... all?page=2 has all the old versions from around that time, should have whatever you're needing

I hadn't realised /who only shows current layer players, it seems to have a fairly high number anyway so I'd assumed it'd cover all, interesting to know population is even higher than I thought! Also explains why a guildie and I have very different figures on the unofficial addon; I'd assumed it was down to time of day but id layers affect it too, then no wonder.

Testing will start later tonight/tomorrow, just home from a long journey so having a rest first

Kanegasi · Post by **Kanegasi** » Wed Sep 04, 2019 6:38 pm

killmore wrote:Suggestion for the addon, have the option to ignore level 1. They seem to brake the process of scanning.

Based on a previous post in this thread by the maintainer, the minimum recorded should be level 10.

killmore wrote:Also, any news on the opening of wowclassicpopulation.com website ? Or everything will remain on warcraftrealms.com ?

wowclassicpopulation.com is not affiliated with warcraftrealms.com.
The currently available CensusPlusClassic is not affiliated with warcraftrealms.com or CensusPlus.
A user forked the addon without permission (although they did attempt to obtain it) and attempted to provide a website that has so far failed horribly.

killmore · Post by **killmore** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 7:22 am

Where can I apply for testing the addon for classic census ?
I'm playing alot and I take this task seriously. I've been around wowace community since 2005.

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 8:53 am

Killmore is noticing that CensusPlusClassic has had issues hanging up at level 1...
This is not a Blizzard issue but an error done with the addon..
The author didn't know of an issue between getting a full list of 50 characters and getting that list and a query completion flag from the server.

It is a bug that was discovered years ago... which is why I actually use the number of 49 results per query.
If your query returned that number or less and also got the completion .. then the server really was done giving you info.

Killmore at this time Beta testing is a limited closed process... I already have too much on my table, and having more then one tester in each region is more then I can handle.

killmore · Post by **killmore** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 9:06 am

bringoutyourdead wrote:Killmore at this time Beta testing is a limited closed process... I already have too much on my table, and having more then one tester in each region is more then I can handle.

that's good, I will wait for the first public version

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 9:17 am

speaking of found bugs.. yup there are a few...
while the guild you have found during census run are listed.
You can't use the guild as a selection limiter as is done on CensusPlus.

Also.. and I think is tied in with the above.. the show characters window is blank.
I will be working on that in the next few days, but real life work takes priority .. after all that is what pays my rent.

BuGsY · Post by **BuGsY** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:40 pm

bringoutyourdead wrote:Oh and I also confirmed that we will not be able to capture all of the data with a single Census taker on a realm.

Due to layering there are multiple copies of the realms and a player will be in his/her initial layer unless he happens to (via outside of game communications) learn that another player has a character on the realm that can't be seen.

From Blue

" /who returns results from the entire realm, not just from your layer, and if the result set is too large it truncates the results before sorting them. This means every player gets different results, but those differences in result set have nothing to do with which layer youâ€™re on."

While each player will get the results in a different order, Blizz is saying the end result will be the same.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t ... /286941/20

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 7:10 pm

Interesting that is not how game developers described layering in a interview shortly before launch.

The sorting comments are not significant.. as that truncation is why we do the multiple levels of sub-setting on the queries.

I have rarely seen the issue (but it does happen) where multiple single key letter sorts on character name fail with too many characters.
This only happened on the most active realms at peak times.

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Thu Sep 05, 2019 7:17 pm

I simplified the character window
Since we no longer need to have Guildname-guildrealm, I could fit everything back into the window

we are back to

Name Level Class Guild Last-Seen

Tomorrow I will see if I can find the Guild window bug.

Oh and Metalbeast has sample census uploads for both US and EU regions.. so he has all he needs to update the site to handle both...
Not that it will be easy.
There will need to be a number of web page changes and new pages created, besides the new database tables for the Classic data.

TheDeamon · Post by **TheDeamon** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 8:59 am

bringoutyourdead wrote:Interesting that is not how game developers described layering in a interview shortly before launch.

There has been conflicting information floating around, but Dev comments aren't the problem so much as interpretations of said dev comments.

Beta and Stress test results also generally back the blue poster's version.

All I've heard the Devs say is that a layer can "hold an entire ('Vanilla') realm worth of player population" which is not to be construed as each layer "being its own realm."

Chat channels can cross layers, this was seen repeatedly during the Beta and the Stress test, and is still a confirm-able thing in live right now.

It stands to reason that if chat can cross layers, and you remain able to "/who PlayerName" without regard to layer, that the generic /who command should be able to cross layers as well.

The sorting comments are not significant.. as that truncation is why we do the multiple levels of sub-setting on the queries.

I have rarely seen the issue (but it does happen) where multiple single key letter sorts on character name fail with too many characters.
This only happened on the most active realms at peak times.

I don't know what peak concurrency is running in retail right now, but on Atiesh(US) Alliance side, I've seen level 2-60 results conclude with upwards of 9,000 results being returned and reported on, as such I think your failure condition is very much in play for many realms in Classic. I suspect many of the Classic Realms are currently higher population than even the highest population realms in regular "Retail WoW" boasts.

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 11:59 am

Since I am currently unable to test during peak play times, I have not yet seen the addon run the full subset routine.
I probably will this weekend.

However years ago I did a study of WoW character names and letter selection keys, it showed that we do a pretty good job of finding nearly all character names.
If a user were to use the minimum name size and only the most common letters probable then yes on a very busy realm there is a possibility that Blizzard might never return that name on a query.
If interested search the forums here for the discussion about subset selector keys.

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 12:15 pm

Having been awakened again during my sleep period this day, I am back at the addon coding. sigh

I have fixed the guild selection issue.. but noticed another

If you click on a race, class, or level then the display changes to reflect that selection.
For example if you select Dwarf.. you only see Dwarven classes and the level and total character count changes.
Ditto for Druid.. where you only see Night Elf and the rest.

But Guilds are not being handled in the same manner.
It was my goal.. but I may never have gotten around to implementing.
If one of the other selectors is chosen then the Guild list should change to only be displayed if a guild member is selected by the selector..
For example select Night Elf. and all guilds shown must have at least one Night Elf Member.
I don't think this is happening. It isn't anywhere near as important... but the symmetry is missing.

Also what should definitely happen but isn't fully, choosing a Guild should change the total character count to the guild character count (this happens)
and change Race, Class, Level displays to reflect what the guild has (this does not happen

)

Oh well back to bed.

Balgair · Post by **Balgair** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 4:52 pm

bringoutyourdead wrote:I was not able to re-enable the Unit_focus or Unit_mouse_over as I had removed the hooks out of the code right after I had released that version of the addon due to Cross Realms going active.

Warning! Do not waste time trying to put that feature back in; I just saw an "Undead mage" in tooltip running around in Wetlands, near the ships where you get turned into an undead by the mobs... a quick /who later confirmed he's really human.

So it seems the tooltip changing your race when you have a costume on made it into Classic, even though it's a far far later addition to the game...

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 6:21 pm

Ah.. good to know

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 6:27 pm

What? Wait. Wetlands? For someone who has been real life busy... you have gotten suck back into Vanilla .. err Classic real deep.

I am resting in the Goldshire Inn.. having barely gotten started into Westfall.

Balgair · Post by **Balgair** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 7:35 pm

And here I am feeling quite slow whenever a lvl 50-something runs past me! I'm taking my time enjoying seeing everything though, at least as much as I can given RL, it's great to be back in the old world

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 12:34 pm

The 2nd RC beta file has been sent out for testing.

known issues
if you select a guild the playerlist (aka characters button) doesn't populate
if you select a guild the race and class displays adjust correctly, but the level display does not.

if you select a level.. the race and class displays adjust to show only that level characters.. but the count of characters in those sub-windows is exactly 1/2 of the total for that level!!!???
The character list also shows the 1/2 of count for that level.

It is possible we have had a problem all along where the sum of all the level bars was 2x the actual count
i.e. one thing wrong.. instead of three things being impacted by the same error.

The good changes.. as you limit the race, class, and or level.. the guild list changes by the selection criteria made.

before the end of the weekend.. I will release to Curseforge.
Either it will be a full release .. or a beta release so you can see what it looks like.
The only difference between the two options is the in game display is correct or it isn't.

I can not recommend starting use.. and possibly stockpiling data files.. (for the major uploaders), since I have no timeline as to when Warcraftrealms.com will be ready for these updates.

Post by **bringoutyourdead** » Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:27 pm

Ok the level bar counts on Classic are doubled where the are not on live.
Which means I am looping back through the display counter when doing the bar height calculations..
easy fix once I find the actual bad code.

so this plus the Guild display issues are the known outstanding issues.