IGN Interview with Rick Simmons and Jason Murdick

[gopher65]

I also found the unity remark not very uplifting.

Since I decided I would only play again if I get Rhialto transfered with vault, it seems the wait will be long.

I cant understand it really for it only is about 40-50 unity accounts/players. So why dont they do it by hand? 2 players a day.... in one month all unity is transfered and happy!
With so low amount of people to transfer, manual procedures are much more effective and efficient!

I hope the devs will rad and contemplate this simple and effective idea!

ps. I did not even have a plot!

I think they are trying to transfer the entire unity character database over. If they do it manually, then any time someone in the future wants to sign up for HZ they would have to email support, have them search for their character, and then transfer it manually. It might seem like it will take less time in the next month or 2 to do it manually, but it would create a huge headache for them in the future.

Automatic=good
Manual=hard work for years to come

[tramsan]

40-50 accounts is underestimating it by a factor of 10. And yes, that would only be those players who would come back and try, at least for a while. All in all there are probably a few thousand accounts in the Unity database.

Further, even doing it "manually" would incurr the exact same risks as doing it automatically, so in the end a manual approach would simply mean more work.

[Zexoin]

Also, the Unity database is slightly different than the NA ones, right ? So they have to fix that too

[Deth]

No I want to say the databases are the same. I think the billing part was what was different.

[Zexoin]

No I want to say the databases are the same. I think the billing part was what was different.

Thanks for the clarification

[Vahrokh]

@Rialtho

For some reason there's people not posting on the forums but PMing me that they want to come back (1 i.e. was my craft hungry guildmate), and several had multiple accounts (ie me) so the real amount could be 200ish, not counting all those "watching what happens" that are sooooooooooooooooo bored with WoW (or one of the boring clones) and would give the game a second chance.

@database stuff

It's not known (by us users) how much of the database is different. The billing difference could incur in some differences between how the accounts are linked with the characters (this might cause a slight difference between non billing database too).
Another source of difference is that Unity apparently was some deltas behind the US servers, at a certain moment past our merge, "something happened" that made patching our server harder and harder, like it "branched" from the US ones. So, not only we might have an older database structure, but one that diverges from the subsequent versions you got (this last sentence is a guesstimate).

[Chaldor Itieles]

@Rialtho
You cannot do taht by hand in a simple way.
Even if u want to do it by hand, u need to work out all the querys to fetch the data.
And by fact thoses wont be only a few and u would be driven to save them :P

And then u might have the problem that a biote_id in the unity database for item A is already given for an item B in US database... evil thing

so u would have to build a wrapper that changes the conflicting id's from the queried data to match the us version and that cannot be done by hand :P

[Nanain]

could be worse, they could be nudging u on MSN, like mine, and telling me, "I know ur there Nana..." LMAO

And 40-50 accounts? erm when did u start playing? Since 2004, I've made hundreds of mates in Hz. Most left due to GN's screw ups.

[Vahrokh]

And then u might have the problem that a niote_id in the unity database for item A is already given for an item B in US database... evil thing

For the less geeks: everything in game got an associated number (makes up for greatly faster look ups and loading than searching "by name").

So, a piece of bread would have ie number 413 and it is made out of a "stamp" (the template, or model that identifies bread as being bread) number 1891.

But those codes are generated out of incremental counters, so every server has its own items with their own numbers made thru the years of people creating stuff.

So, the EU bread could be number 771 out of a template of generic bread 9553.

Someone has to create a EU 9553 = US 1891 link so that an imported character will have bread and not a gazebo or who knows what's the US number for EU item code 413.

All of this can be made and automated, including those equivalencies but it takes a piss annoying long time and patience.

And this is but 1 of 500 problems they'll have to deal with when importing the database, even if it was identical in structure.

[Sigi]

Not to be taken serious but
It would be a fun experiment to transfer without the number/template thingy converted.

Imagine a silo full of shoulderpets instead of slate bricks etc.

[tramsan]

Yeah - or just as likely, you yourself is a moving node of salt rock.

[Takora Drakan]

Yeah - or just as likely, you yourself is a moving node of salt rock.

Can I be a Saphhire node???

[Chaldor Itieles]

well what may then happen when i harvest u?
will u disappear and somewhere respawn? :P

[Tryagain]

the 3 european based shards at release at the peak of Horizons featured just under 1500 concurrent connections each night. At times those shards were outpacing the North American ones. They were also usually ahead of the NA shards as to finishing events as well.

Unity in its hey day featured maybe 300 during euro peak times.


Those that would come back ? Probably less than that. Either way the extraction process is no easier.

[Goriax]

As far as I'm concerned that whole EI episode was just a bad dream.

Things are definately looking up. I still feel like I don't know much about them and I hope they have deep enough pockets to get this to the point where it can actually support them, but things are sure looking better then they have for awhile.

And here I'd pretty much given up hope. Just goes to show.

Too bad HZ couldn't have been sold to Vi directly instead of letting EI get it's hands on it and trash the subscription base the way they did.

[Vaz]

On the bright side, the gross failure of EI Interactive has accomplished several things:
- Made an example of what not to do in the MMOG industry (and even in general).
- Created an example of an MMORPG that fell into terrible times, yet has risen again phoenix-like.
- Highlighted what people ought to feel lucky about. Inconsiderate complaints can be countered by pointing to what was far worse.

[Takora Drakan]

well what may then happen when i harvest u?
will u disappear and somewhere respawn? :P

INDEED! I always come back! (watch out for running gem nodes!! : P)