What the hell SE

[nasomi]

There's no problems with the existing hardware, other than it's not fast enough. So while they're coding I'm sure they're optimizing hte code to run more efficiently. Take a program you wrote 1yr ago. Then re-write it now without looking at the code. If it hasn't changed at all then you haven't gotten any better at programming. YOu could even look at old code and think "wow, what was i thinking, this is a much better way to do it." I have a document for some personal program code i've written and it has probably over a hundred thousand lines of code, and it's about 600kb. I'd really love to hear where you came up with the 40TB number, because that's simply unrealistic for "code".

[TheRac25]

And you are stupid for thinking its the same as converting a WMV to MP4, these are large complex databases they are converting, when I say large I am talking about at the very least 40TB of data, then they need to run a checksum on every file and every record in the database, because one file becomes corrupt and everyone could loose relics, imagine what that would do to the community.

They know there are problems with the existing server hardware so Mr. Knowitall what would be the benefit of recycling server hardware, they spend millions to rebuild the game from the ground up just to not solve anything? This is FFXIV's last chance, it fails at ARR its dead and SE wants the income.

Your post lacks any logic, if there is any please point it out to me.

so you are saying transcoding video takes less time than pushing some bytes around with a minimal static transformation?
you really got me on that one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEkWH8DB7b0

[Seirra_Lanzce]

As a programmer, I understand the complexity of hte task. However character files are merely that, files. No one in their right mind would store character information in a database. What, a new table for every character? Or one table, with a billion columns with an x for every flag/item/etc? They're stored in files. So, if you even went with a new database, it wouldn't be that hard to write a script to re-write the character files for hte new database format, because new file format for storing character data is very reasonable. However a batch job to convert what, 20,000 character files to the new format? far from difficult.

I'm all about having 2.0 be as great as it can be. However to toss people out is pretty brutal. They are trying to stay afloat, this stuff costs money, and that comes from subscriptions. So as much as folks may want to say "do away with the nay-sayers".

Sometime is easily to say as a programmer to fortify any claims or so what ever, but really. Business.

[Icehunter]

As a programmer, I understand the complexity of hte task. However character files are merely that, files. No one in their right mind would store character information in a database. What, a new table for every character? Or one table, with a billion columns with an x for every flag/item/etc? They're stored in files. So, if you even went with a new database, it wouldn't be that hard to write a script to re-write the character files for hte new database format, because new file format for storing character data is very reasonable. However a batch job to convert what, 20,000 character files to the new format? far from difficult.

I'm all about having 2.0 be as great as it can be. However to toss people out is pretty brutal. They are trying to stay afloat, this stuff costs money, and that comes from subscriptions. So as much as folks may want to say "do away with the nay-sayers".

There will be downtime. You can't convert 427k+ accounts in a day or two to the new format.

I work for one of the largest CRM provider's in North America and we had to convert our customers to the new version. It took three months in staged releases and testing.

As a programmer worth your salt you would know the limits of such. If this is the be-all end-all for you; and it will cause you to quit; I hope you find a game worth your time.

SE wants money; but really what they want to is to honor the FF franchise and build a quality product above all else. If it means shutting down some of the game for it; so be it.

[Nero]

20,000 character files to the new format? far from difficult.

Add 410.000 to your 20.000 and you have a correct number. currently we have 50k active characters and 430.000 in total. do you think SE will leave those behind, which didnt play for a while? they have to do it for ALL of them.

beside that saying you are a programmer and still dont understanding system integration made me giggle. being a programer and system/database integration are 2 seperated things. basic knowledge.

[Starlord]

Add 460.000 to your 20.000 and you have a correct number. currently we have 50k active characters and 480.000 in total. do you think SE will leave those behind, which didnt play for a while? they have to do it for ALL of them.

beside that saying you are a programmer and still dont understanding system integration made me giggle. being a programer and system/database integration are 2 seperated things. basic knowledge.

Well for the Betas sake, they may transfer the Active accounts first before the non-active, so that we can play as our character in zee beta. but in Total they will be transferring 500k subs all together ( Active and non-active).

[Seirra_Lanzce]

Well for the Betas sake, they may transfer the Active accounts first before the non-active, so that we can play as our character in zee beta. but in Total they will be transferring 500k subs all together ( Active and non-active).

in the end is going to take more time.

[Nero]

Well for the Betas sake, they may transfer the Active accounts first before the non-active, so that we can play as our character in zee beta. but in Total they will be transferring 500k subs all together ( Active and non-active).

We dont know how they do it, but im pretty sure they will do it the most efficient way.

[Keres]

As a programmer, I understand the complexity of hte task. However character files are merely that, files. No one in their right mind would store character information in a database. What, a new table for every character? Or one table, with a billion columns with an x for every flag/item/etc?

I, uhhhhhh...don't take this the wrong way, but if you can't figure out how to sketch out a simplistic diagram of how an MMO's player data could theoretically be structured in a database, you're probably not a very experienced programmer. The two "issues" that you mentioned are easily avoided via simple normalization (which most database books teach you about in chapter 2), and flat files offer no useful advantages over a relational database for this sort of task (and a significant number of disadvantages).

MMO player data is not inherently any different than a large datastore of customer data, marketing data, or other such things. Relational databases are more than able to easily handle the amount of information FFXIV would need to store and then some, and do so every day all over the world.

Claiming no specific knowledge of how SE structures their data here, obviously, but to suggest that flat files are somehow more likely than a database structure is, I think, a little absurd. Migrating all of that data from 1.0 to 2.0 will be no easy task, and the team wants to give themselves as much leeway as possible to migrate, test, verify, and -- if necessary -- fix any issues that come up during the migration. I can't blame them for it; we'd all (understandably) be extremely upset if our character data got messed up in any way due to a rushed migration, and they want to make sure that they have enough time to make sure it gets done right. I'm all for that.

[indira]

As a programmer, I understand the complexity of hte task. However character files are merely that, files. No one in their right mind would store character information in a database. What, a new table for every character? Or one table, with a billion columns with an x for every flag/item/etc? They're stored in files. So, if you even went with a new database, it wouldn't be that hard to write a script to re-write the character files for hte new database format, because new file format for storing character data is very reasonable. However a batch job to convert what, 20,000 character files to the new format? far from difficult.

I'm all about having 2.0 be as great as it can be. However to toss people out is pretty brutal. They are trying to stay afloat, this stuff costs money, and that comes from subscriptions. So as much as folks may want to say "do away with the nay-sayers".

these guys have custom inhouse special tools i bet money its not as easy as a batch file, then it wouldent take a month or more to do a few thousand characters/profiles, they would also have to stay inside the TOS & licenses of the software there using you cant just do what ever you want or a lawsuit is gonna happen.