While your suggestion bears merit, there are players on here with computers that barely support running CoH on minimum settings (until a recent new computer purchase, I considered myself among this group). The devs usually do whatever they can to accommodate those players, and besides, packaging another feed under the CoH loader will throw up red flags on every firewall and protection program. While completely harmless, security concerns over the game and questions of "what else is being passed along this mystery feed?" will begin popping up, causing controversy the game truly doesn't need.
Beyond this, if someone is bored by their experiences in the game, I honestly don't think the City Vault will keep them here. It's really the community that keeps us all here, since the novelty of the game easily wears off in a year or two, if not less.
Global- @SailorET, Justice Server
Sheryl Fiero, 50 AR/Devices Blaster
Louise Fiero, 50 Merc/Traps MM
Various assorted alts
Proudly serving in our military so you don't have to.
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What about an "Export character to XML file" button? Don't allow loading of the file into prevent cheating. It wouldn't have to be real time, it would take minimal system resources, doesn't pose the firewall problems, the user could upload at their convenience, and given a default file structure add-on websites could read the files via upload.|
Originally Posted by SailorET
While your suggestion bears merit, there are players on here with computers that barely support running CoH on minimum settings (until a recent new computer purchase, I considered myself among this group).
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Save a picture at the same time and it would be almost everything users/websites could ask for.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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This is honestly a great summary as to the cons of my proposed idea. However; What I gave was an outline not necessarily how it should be done. It would honestly be something along the lines of what Snow Globe is saying.|
Originally Posted by SailorET
While your suggestion bears merit, there are players on here with computers that barely support running CoH on minimum settings (until a recent new computer purchase, I considered myself among this group). The devs usually do whatever they can to accommodate those players, and besides, packaging another feed under the CoH loader will throw up red flags on every firewall and protection program. While completely harmless, security concerns over the game and questions of "what else is being passed along this mystery feed?" will begin popping up, causing controversy the game truly doesn't need.
Beyond this, if someone is bored by their experiences in the game, I honestly don't think the City Vault will keep them here. It's really the community that keeps us all here, since the novelty of the game easily wears off in a year or two, if not less. |
It wouldn't be a mystery feed, it would be an official underlying HTTP/1.x send to a Web Service (like the one we use for CIT via HeroStats http://www.cityinfoterminal.com/titan/titanvault.asmx) or secure catch scripts that does equivalent checks and balances.
The great thing about these are that any network monitor (for instance Fiddler2) can catch the send in clear, human readable text/xml, so the less trusting users can verify what exactly is being sent. Also, if the devs explored into this feature at all... it would most likely be triggered by a simple on/off flag in the options in-game, making it fully optional.
Also, the idea isn't to send anything but your a handful of information in real-time. This would most likely include; super's name, arch, and online status. Where as the rest (badges, merits, souvenirs, inf, etc) would be sent on logout, via an option. (As Snow Globe originally assumed how it should be).
And since it would be sent via HTTP/1.x it would be no different than hitting "submit" on an online form as far as resources go.
Believe me, this is FAR from additional resources... it's simply designed to take the weight off the game-server.
You would be amazed what kind of interest an offline stats system would do for the community... I mean Titan Network has 10,000+ users using its sites and services... which granted is probably only a fraction of the whole userbase... but if that ~10,000 users found what we provided useful and helpful, I don't see why the rest of the community who is unaware that this is even possible, would love to see something like it provided by the game instead of a bunch of bored power-users seeking to make the game more interesting/fun outside of the game itself.
~Steiner
Titan Network
(Co-Owner & Lead Mids' Developer)
Looking for an easy PHP COH/V server status script? Check This Out!
Actually I was proposing an alternative to your suggestion. With an "Export character to XML file" button I figured that it would save the file to the player's computer, just like a costume file or settings file is currently done (thus minimal impact on the development team). Perhaps a better name would be "Save character info to disk". Let the user then upload when they choose, which would eliminate all firewall issues.
The down side is that websites that were going to use this information would have to do error checking for corrupt files.
To rephrase:
- Press save button or enter save command.
- File is saved to local computer.
- When player visits helper site, player can upload saved file.
* Eliminate the need to tie up NCsoft's servers.
* Eliminate the need for helper websites to have to scrape the information from herostats/etc.
* Need minimal developer time to code. (Basic code already exists to export XML files from the game.)
* Doesn't trigger firewalls.
* It is an "on-demand" setup so that it would be accessible to all users as long as they can run the game (not a resource hog).
* Provide a standard format for all helper sites to use.
The few cons that I see:
* It relies on the players honestly sending the file to the helper sites. I have no doubt that some players will try to alter the files before uploading to a helper site.
* While it would take minimal coding, it will still take coding to do.
* Helper websites would have to have a higher amount of error checking due to possible corruption.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
I've been told and read for myself that plans for the CityVault are being shelved due to "unplayable lag". Which is honestly understandable being there is a lot of information to send back and forth between game server and httpd servers...
However I have a solution that might be worth exploring. Use the player's computer for the resources! Create a widget or even a XML table within the client's running memory for either your own widget or existing classes/libs like Hero Stat's dll can read and shoot off to a web service of the user's choice as well as the CityVault.
Having the resources use the player's computer would keep the game servers and probably the httpd servers from getting any, if at all, additional lag. And it would make more sense these days, being a basic $300 machine has like 2-3GB of Ram and a dual-core processor... meaning it would be exceedingly easier for computers these days to support 3rd party instance tools. (Even if the tool isn't 3rd party by definition, lol as I'm hoping it will be in-house developed by Paragon Studios)
I only bring this up because the people behind all the great things in COH that aren't dev related... are getting bored and "taking a break" or just have too much going on personally to keep their ideas going/active.
For instance, Mids' left the active COH community not too long ago, No one has heard hide nor hair of RedTomax... in addition the other 3 original founders of Titan Network (SuckerPunch, Maverick X, Voltaic Shock) went into retirement (though truthfully it's more like semi-retirement because they still help when time and family permit, lol).
Things like HeroStats, Titan Network and even Mid's Hero & Villain Designer make the game worth playing after the in-game interest has run dry. I can't mention enough how many times I just got bored and starting asking myself... "I wonder what my average damage output is on Blaster is...?". Just to load up HeroStats and find out... which then upward sprials into, well I need to make this guy better... ok what badges do I still need for my accolades (check City Info Tracker); ok well I'll use HS or TNT: Glycerine to track my progress on the badges... oh well; now I have my badges, let's open Mids and see what I can do to tweak my build.... and so on and so on... lol.
I don't know of many people that haven't gone through that scenario or something like it... so I know most of you can understand where I'm coming from.
I just really don't want the interest in this game to die out, as it is a great game... and obviously has plenty of great things that are coming our way while we patiently wait... but this would be a great feature in-its-own to have in the next big release for the game ( or sooner if possible, lol).
~Steiner
Titan Network
(Co-Owner & Lead Mids' Developer)
Looking for an easy PHP COH/V server status script? Check This Out!