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Zifrian
Licentia Ex Vereor
Intrepid Crossing
433
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Posted - 2012.12.04 02:08:00 -
[1] - Quote
Today (before Retribution patch) I'm constantly refreshing the data export site trying to find the data dump for tomorrow's patch. Why? Well I have a program (EVE IPH - link in sig) that a decent number of people use to build items and I really wanted to get a patch ready for tomorrow when I get home from work. This is when the servers should be back up and my users would have the latest data. Most times the patches aren't so game changing that they will have an effect on EVE IPH but ones like this have big changes. We have some new items (salvage drones, mining frigs, micro jump drives, and all the cruiser/destroyer/frig mineral changes) that EVE IPH users will want to see. But not just me, there are at least 20 sites off the top of my head that do something similar to what I have and are mainstays of the EVE industry community.
As I've continued to develop EVE IPH I've tried to add easy ways to update the data so that I can deliver an updated product as soon as I get the data dump. Awhile back, I wrote an updater that I run locally to build my database for EVE IPH and it works pretty well. Not elegant but gets the job done. Everything worked great for several months of patches but two things have changed since then.
1 - The patches seem to make more and more changes or add items that are huge in the industry world. As I said above, all the 3rd party programs we have built as a community are mainstays for industry players that work to get the newest items ready for market. These changes suggest that waiting several days after a patch is too late for the community we support.
2 - The database dump is now going to be switched to YAML but slowly over time when changes are made in house. This in itself is a pain, but I think we are fine with it overall. The problem though is that without knowing what changes will come (up until now there have been minor fields replaced that I just comment out of the update because I don't use them), we won't be able to prepare our programs for updates. For instance, if you intend on making a very large switch of data to YAML that affects say killboard data or industry data, those 3rd party programs will be down for some time until they can get the data fixed or some nice dev rebuilds the data for us and posts it for download.
These 2 changes really are making it harder to maintain my program. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Not to mention that sometimes the data dump comes out and it has missing data then takes a few days to get another update. One of the great things about EVE for me as been the ability to build a program that helps the players have an easier time doing industry, and thus add to their overall enjoyment. It's also been fun just to develop. But we are doing this in our spare time. Spending days trying to figure out why the data isn't working when it did last patch isn't really fun. It's also not fun for my users to wait a week till I get time to update my data. I know you really support the 3rd party community, but times I just wonder if this is a "get to it when you can" thing.
Two things I can think of to make this better - 1 - Support the data dump process more formally. Right now it seems like this is a secondary "oh go post this data when you get a chance" job. Outside of the YAML change post, there doesn't seem to be much discussion on it. Either it's me and my lack of familiarity with YAML or it's not as big a deal yet for most of us to care. Also not much real process to knowing when the data is posted or when/how it will be. 2 - Post the data dump 2-3 days before the patch. If the patches are on Tuesdays, any way to get it on the weekend? Or at least the Monday prior? This would go a long way for helping out getting the data out to our users on patch day. Not to mention we have some time to work the YAML changes when they come up.
I'm probably rambling a bit, but the TL;DR - Can we get more support to put up the data dump a day or two before the patch? Can this be a consistent thing that is part of every patch check list so we can count on it?
Thanks!
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Zifrian
Licentia Ex Vereor
Intrepid Crossing
433
|
Posted - 2012.12.04 13:23:00 -
[2] - Quote
Thanks but this is part of what I'm frustrated about. Why do I need to go anywhere else than this forum or the community page to get it? 
Maximze your Industry Potential! - Get EVE Isk per Hour! |
Zifrian
Licentia Ex Vereor
Intrepid Crossing
433
|
Posted - 2012.12.04 15:11:00 -
[3] - Quote
Cyerus wrote:Zifrian wrote:Thanks but this is part of what I'm frustrated about. Why do I need to go anywhere else than this forum or the community page to get it? Simply because it is bigger than that. As explained in this post in a somewhat similar topic, the community is bigger than just the Tech Lab forums and Community page. Quote:You can also join the irc channel '#eve-dev' on irc network 'coldfront' (irc.coldfront.net), note that this channel is not an official CCP channel, but a community driven channel helping out anyone with challenging technical questions regarding the toolkit and EVE in general. Even the Community Toolkit page itself holds an invitation to the IRC channel. It's your loss if you aren't using all means available.
Where do I go to download the data? The community page. Why is it posted through a twitter feed then? If it's available, why hasn't it been updated to the community page?
It's not standardized and that's the whole point of this post.
Maximze your Industry Potential! - Get EVE Isk per Hour! |
Zifrian
Licentia Ex Vereor
Intrepid Crossing
438
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Posted - 2012.12.05 20:50:00 -
[4] - Quote
Desmont McCallock wrote:Would you 3rd party app devs be interested in a tool that will export the SDE from the client's bulkdata folder?
This tool will guarantee that you can have a semi-official SDE (after all bulkdata are the same data the client uses, if you notice the login screen), right after the client patch and you have logged in at least once (so for the client to fetch the bulkdata).
Considering support for MSSQL and MySQL for the beginning.
Thoughts?
I'd be interested in this as long as it's not a heavy lift. You think it would work on the test server data if we were to log in there as well? I'm assuming it's all the same and we could potentially (assuming no last minute changes) get the data early.
Maximze your Industry Potential! - Get EVE Isk per Hour! |
Zifrian
Licentia Ex Vereor
Intrepid Crossing
438
|
Posted - 2012.12.05 23:14:00 -
[5] - Quote
Two step wrote:Dei wrote:Shouldn't this be a CSM issue to bring to CCP's doors? It doesn't seem right to be hacking away at the metadata in our own clients to get the data that CCP promised they would give us. Perhaps you didn't see that pretty little banner over there < ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I bring this sort of thing up with CCP pretty regularly. Producing the SDE should be part of the release process, and shouldn't be something added on at the end
Thanks for the support.
Any insight on their take?
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Zifrian
Licentia Ex Vereor
Intrepid Crossing
442
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Posted - 2012.12.08 15:32:00 -
[6] - Quote
This SDE just supports the need for standardization.
Appreciate CCP Prizim X for his support.
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