Wow account and character retention time?

"Aboo" <jhemphill DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1178140275.101822.82750@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

> I played WoW via dial-up for the first 6-8 months that I played, it's
> entirely possible to do it with a fairly modern computer setup. (I.E.
> 1.5GB+ of Ram and a honkin video card).

Yes, I know WoW is well playable on dial-up, but I simply will not have the
spare time to play. At all.

/MarcusB
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

On May 2, 8:23 pm, "Mr Murloc" <n....RemoveThis@none.com> wrote:
> > How long was that again? 12 months or less for unused characters/accounts?
>
> I don't think they will ever delete a character because you haven't used
> them. They know people may come back even after a year and thats worth the
> little bit of hard drive space used to keep your account.

correct.. as of yet.. they claim character retention is "permanent".
That may change in the future. but for right now, you're good.
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

> How long was that again? 12 months or less for unused characters/accounts?

I don't think they will ever delete a character because you haven't used
them. They know people may come back even after a year and thats worth the
little bit of hard drive space used to keep your account.
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

They promise six months after your paid time runs out. However at this time
they are not deleting any characters. For more current information check out
the official website and forums.


"M. Brunberg" <marcusb.TakeThisOut@remove.the.obvious.kolumbus.fi.invalid> wrote in
message news:2Z6_h.157583$5T4.33038@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi...
> How long was that again? 12 months or less for unused characters/accounts?
>
> I really hope they keep my account and the pally Mcblade for least a year.
> I won't be playing at all until hopefully sometime next spring, as I will
> be very very busy doing something completely different[1].
>
> /MarcusB
> Mcblade lvl64 pally on EU Hellscream
>
> [1] Last week I bought a 117 year old house and piece of land out in the
> countryside, complete with my own river beach, lilac trees, garden and
> all. I'll spend a whole year and painful amounts of cash
> rebuilding/restoring it all to former glory. The DSL line and network
> infrastructure will be among the last things installed so no online gaming
> before that (I'll get my non-gaming Internet fix from work in the
> meanwhile).
>
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

On May 3, 11:16 am, "JohnR" <repro....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "M. Brunberg" <marc....TakeThisOut@remove.the.obvious.kolumbus.fi.invalid> wrote in
> messagenews:2Z6_h.157583$5T4.33038@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi...> How long was that again? 12 months or less for unused characters/accounts?
>
> > I really hope they keep my account and the pally Mcblade for least a year.
> > I won't be playing at all until hopefully sometime next spring, as I will
> > be very very busy doing something completely different[1].
>
> You're a potential pay cheque. I doubt blizzard will delete any inactive
> accounts until the user base drops to levels where the cost of maintaining
> the infrastructure becomes an issue, which is unlikely to ever be one.

Yep. I seriously doubt that storing a char takes more than a few KB of
data. When you could literally store a few thousand characters on a
CD (not that they're using CD's, but just for comparison), they aren't
going to worry about keeping them around.
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

"M. Brunberg" <marcusb RemoveThis @remove.the.obvious.kolumbus.fi.invalid> wrote in
message news:2Z6_h.157583$5T4.33038@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi...
> How long was that again? 12 months or less for unused characters/accounts?
>
> I really hope they keep my account and the pally Mcblade for least a year.
> I won't be playing at all until hopefully sometime next spring, as I will
> be very very busy doing something completely different[1].
>
You're a potential pay cheque. I doubt blizzard will delete any inactive
accounts until the user base drops to levels where the cost of maintaining
the infrastructure becomes an issue, which is unlikely to ever be one.
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

On May 3, 7:45 pm, "mbga...@gmail.com" <mbga....DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 3, 11:16 am, "JohnR" <repro....DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > "M. Brunberg" <marc....DeleteThis@remove.the.obvious.kolumbus.fi.invalid> wrote in
> > messagenews:2Z6_h.157583$5T4.33038@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi...> How long was that again? 12 months or less for unused characters/accounts?
>
> > > I really hope they keep my account and the pally Mcblade for least a year.
> > > I won't be playing at all until hopefully sometime next spring, as I will
> > > be very very busy doing something completely different[1].
>
> > You're a potential pay cheque. I doubt blizzard will delete any inactive
> > accounts until the user base drops to levels where the cost of maintaining
> > the infrastructure becomes an issue, which is unlikely to ever be one.
>
> Yep. I seriously doubt that storing a char takes more than a few KB of
> data. When you could literally store a few thousand characters on a
> CD (not that they're using CD's, but just for comparison), they aren't
> going to worry about keeping them around.

the character data is stored by variables in a database..
how much space the data will use depends on how the db is designed..
but i'm pretty sure
each char will only use a few KB of DBspace... max 5 KB
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

d|s|a wrote:
> On May 3, 7:45 pm, "mbga...@gmail.com" <mbga....TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On May 3, 11:16 am, "JohnR" <repro....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> "M. Brunberg" <marc....TakeThisOut@remove.the.obvious.kolumbus.fi.invalid> wrote in
>>> messagenews:2Z6_h.157583$5T4.33038@reader1.news.saunalahti.fi...> How long was that again? 12 months or less for unused characters/accounts?
>>>> I really hope they keep my account and the pally Mcblade for least a year.
>>>> I won't be playing at all until hopefully sometime next spring, as I will
>>>> be very very busy doing something completely different[1].
>>> You're a potential pay cheque. I doubt blizzard will delete any inactive
>>> accounts until the user base drops to levels where the cost of maintaining
>>> the infrastructure becomes an issue, which is unlikely to ever be one.
>> Yep. I seriously doubt that storing a char takes more than a few KB of
>> data. When you could literally store a few thousand characters on a
>> CD (not that they're using CD's, but just for comparison), they aren't
>> going to worry about keeping them around.
>
> the character data is stored by variables in a database..
> how much space the data will use depends on how the db is designed..
> but i'm pretty sure
> each char will only use a few KB of DBspace... max 5 KB

the size a "char" has is actually quite not the point. It's not only the
char info, but also all the stuff you wear, the enchantments on your
stuff, all the quests you have done, quests you have, quests you have
partially done, your reputation, the stuff in your bags, in your bank
etc. Friendslist, ignore list is also on the server btw.

Let's see for my shaman:
- knows about 40 factions and has some kind of reputation with them
- has 92 bag slots on him, mostly only about 20-30 free of them
- has all bank slots with a 28 mining bag, 2-3 18-slot bags and the rest
16-slotters (4*7+ 28 + 3*18 +3*16=158 slots full of something, most
stuff somehow stackable)
- has done nearly all quests at level 60 and is now down to about 20
quests on 70, meaning has completed 2000 quests?

I'd guess this to be the size of some 1-2 Megabytes or so actually.

Which still is not much when it comes to size.

the actual problem is rather the total amount of data lines in a table.
Which adds to the search time everytime you access that table. I'd guess
they delete much of the stuff not needed anymore of a char (you need
name, race, class, guild, guild standing at least) on an inactive
account from these tables and backup it externally (and can restore it
in a matter of minutes).

But then again, maybe with a fast enough system not even this may be a
problem. When the armory is a bit older, this may be checkable there,
but atm all my colleagues who stopped playing are off line under 1 month
or off line so long they're not even in the armoury

Urs

--
Manotroth@Dun Morogh EU - Orc Shaman 70 - Mining & Axesmith
Blackhorns@Dun Morogh EU - Tauren Druid 65 - Skinning & Herbalism
Shadowblack@Dun Morogh EU - Tauren Hunter 36 - Leather & Alchemist
Ratoma@Dun Morogh EU - Troll Rogue 26 - (Dis)Enchantress
Melony@Scarshield Legion EU - Human Mage 16
Blackhorns@Sunstrider EU - Tauren Druid 30
Kickaha@Perenolde EU - NElf Hunter 35
and various others
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

On May 4, 9:56 am, Barry Freeman <b....DeleteThis@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
> On Fri, 04 May 2007 12:00:59 +0200, Urs Steiner <inva....DeleteThis@darkstone.ch>
> wrote:
>
> >I'd guess this to be the size of some 1-2 Megabytes or so actually.
>
> I really doubt that.. All items are stored by Item ID, what 4 bytes?
> Enchants the same, Bag slots is just an array 92 slots with 8 bytes
> each (being generous) is less than 800 bytes.
>
> I'd be surprised if an entire character description comes to more than
> 2kb - 3kb.

Yep, as a programmer, I can guarantee you it's not much more than
that.

As you said, storing items is trivial. Enchants or modifiers on each
item could potentially double the size, but not to much. When you
consider quests: they can literally keep track of if you completed a
quest yet with 1 bit. 1KB is enough to track 8192 quests. You could
EASILY identify each quest for the purpose of storing the quest log
using 2 bytes per quest(enough space to identify up to 65536 different
entities). You could track the character appearance in only a few
bytes as well.

Basically, if a character storage requirement breaks 20KB, somebody at
Blizzard royally goofed up.

Mike
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

This message is not archived
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time? 

mbgaski RemoveThis @gmail.com wrote:
> On May 4, 9:56 am, Barry Freeman <b... RemoveThis @nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Fri, 04 May 2007 12:00:59 +0200, Urs Steiner <inva... RemoveThis @darkstone.ch>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I'd guess this to be the size of some 1-2 Megabytes or so actually.
>> I really doubt that.. All items are stored by Item ID, what 4 bytes?
>> Enchants the same, Bag slots is just an array 92 slots with 8 bytes
>> each (being generous) is less than 800 bytes.



>> I'd be surprised if an entire character description comes to more than
>> 2kb - 3kb.
>
> Yep, as a programmer, I can guarantee you it's not much more than
> that.

I'm also a programmer, woo woo

> As you said, storing items is trivial. Enchants or modifiers on each
> item could potentially double the size, but not to much. When you

items (at least weapons, chest, shield) can also have temporary buffs,
makes three times the size. you also need to save stuff like durability btw

> consider quests: they can literally keep track of if you completed a
> quest yet with 1 bit. 1KB is enough to track 8192 quests. You could

except you need way more than a bit per quest.
You need the following:
- has accepted (i.e. nothing or a silver ? showing)
- is the char able to see the quest (might be done realtime, might be in
the database, might be both) (might be because of level/ side/ rep/
pre-quest/ multiple pre-quests). is he able to see the quest when/ after
talking to the quest giver?
- does he need to talk to the quest giver first before that one shows
him he's got a quest (one of the Qs in Kargath starts that way)
- has finished
- can get some quest item again (i.e. the staff from the violet tower
series in Netherstorm)
- is on a repeatable quest (might be separate quest, might be not),
might be showing or not, depending on level and rep/something else
- has completed part of a quest (I know quests which have you get 4 - 5
items or kill 10/20 mobs of 3-4 types where the server obviously saves
how many you have killed)

then you need some other stuff also, some mobs behave differently after
you have completed some parts of a quest line.

I'd guess you could come easy to at least 20bytes for one quest this
way, maybe even more depending on how you do this.

> EASILY identify each quest for the purpose of storing the quest log
> using 2 bytes per quest(enough space to identify up to 65536 different
> entities). You could track the character appearance in only a few
> bytes as well.

Well, certainly you could. But as usual there's more to it. (hard disk)
Space is cheap nowadays, ram less so but still, processing power a lot
less I'd say. What is the best way to balance this?

> Basically, if a character storage requirement breaks 20KB, somebody at
> Blizzard royally goofed up.

well, we ARE talking about Blizzard.


and again, the point isn't the size of the data, but the number of lines
in a table.

Urs

--
Manotroth@Dun Morogh EU - Orc Shaman 70 - Mining & Axesmith
Blackhorns@Dun Morogh EU - Tauren Druid 65 - Skinning & Herbalism
Shadowblack@Dun Morogh EU - Tauren Hunter 36 - Leather & Alchemist
Ratoma@Dun Morogh EU - Troll Rogue 26 - (Dis)Enchantress
Melony@Scarshield Legion EU - Human Mage 16
Blackhorns@Sunstrider EU - Tauren Druid 30
Kickaha@Perenolde EU - NElf Hunter 35
and various others
 >> Stay informed about: Wow account and character retention time?