Perhaps blues name database should be carried over to green?

[DMN]

Short term we have no impostors, and long term no issue if the server is later merged with blue.

[Octopath]

Agreed

[DMN]

Hopefully they can actually do it. They might not be able to. Ideally the servers should share the same name database so we can make it future-proof, too.

[loramin]

Hopefully they can actually do it. They might not be able to. Ideally the servers should share the same name database so we can make it future-proof, too.

Servers share databases all the time (in fact, the standard setup on any sufficiently advanced site is to have your database on a completely separate server from your application server, and then have multiple application servers since you tend to need to scale them up faster than you need to scale database capacity).

So while I know nothing about P99's setup, I'd be amazed if there was any technical reason preventing it. But whether this is actually the staff's vision for Green is an entirely separate question.

[indiscriminate_hater]

no way, I need to squat on as many names as possible when green drops

[Halox]

Blue needs to purge names badly. There are tens of thousands of lvl 1 names in reserve that need to be freed.

[Vexenu]

*Shakes a stick while mumbling something about how if you really care that much about your character names on a 20 year old elf simulator you need to re-evaluate your priorities in life*

[DMN]

*Shakes a stick while mumbling something about how if you really care that much about your character names on a 20 year old elf simulator you need to re-evaluate your priorities in life*

it's all fun and games until someone's reputation is ruined by the acts of their evil twins. There is plenty of bad blood and ill intent in the p99 community that would love to troll everyone with that sort of thing.

[Balimon]

This would actually create an interesting side effect of people deleting their blue characters to 'transfer' the name to green. Like this idea the more I think about it.

[romomike]

it's all fun and games until someone's reputation is ruined by the acts of their evil twins. There is plenty of bad blood and ill intent in the p99 community that would love to troll everyone with that sort of thing.

I'm fairly sure people will be able to differentiate between names on two separate servers. You have a forum handle, that nobody can take from you. You'll be fine.

[DMN]

I'm fairly sure people will be able to differentiate between names on two separate servers. You have a forum handle, that nobody can take from you. You'll be fine.

What the hell does the forum name have anything to do with? And it will be quite easy for people to confuse names and to claim they are person "x" from blue.

it goes both ways, too. If you made a character on green with anything similar to the name bvmmy/bummey you'd spend the rest of your days responding to "book up?"tells.

[Jimjam]

I'm Spartacus!

[Izmael]

Servers share databases all the time (in fact, the standard setup on any sufficiently advanced site is to have your database on a completely separate server from your application server, and then have multiple application servers since you tend to need to scale them up faster than you need to scale database capacity).

So while I know nothing about P99's setup, I'd be amazed if there was any technical reason preventing it. But whether this is actually the staff's vision for Green is an entirely separate question.

Red and Blue don't seem to share their databases. Most likely Green won't share its database with anything else, either.

I'm not even sure sharing databases or even just tables between servers is even that practical. EQEmu uses MySQL and there must be some amount of locking going on, most likely not meant to be shared between servers at all.

[Bardp1999]

Name trolling in game is already VERY prevalent

[kotton05]

I’m actually not playing green other than I have about 10 accounts ready to make every name I can remember.

[ZiggyTheMuss]

What the hell does the forum name have anything to do with? And it will be quite easy for people to confuse names and to claim they are person "x" from blue.

it goes both ways, too. If you made a character on green with anything similar to the name bvmmy/bummey you'd spend the rest of your days responding to "book up?"tells.

Weird, it’s almost like it’s a different server.

[DMN]

Weird, it’s almost like it’s a different server.

Weird, it's almost like you had a point.

[Freakish]

When you make dumb names like I do you don't worry about people stealing them.

[Jibartik]

We'd all be named variations of Jibaner! I am 100% ok with this! I hope they do! It would honestly be cool cus all the new players with guises would be named Xiiltith meanwhile all the old timers be own the names like Ruby Breastplate and Tunnel Rattattat

[loramin]

Red and Blue don't seem to share their databases. Most likely Green won't share its database with anything else, either.

I'm not even sure sharing databases or even just tables between servers is even that practical. EQEmu uses MySQL and there must be some amount of locking going on, most likely not meant to be shared between servers at all.

Again, I can't speak to P99's specific setup, but what I can say is sharing databases (and every table in them) between multiple other servers is extremely practical, whether it's with MySQL, PostgreSQL, or any other database (even NoSQL ones like MongoDB).

Again, the standard setup for any small to medium sized website you visit (ie. not gianormous ones like Google or Amazon) is:


multiple application servers (the servers running your app's logic ... the equivalent of Blue, Red, and Green)
multiple web servers (servers that just serve static files like images and HTML)
some load balancers to distribute the traffic between them
a single database server

Crucially, you want to avoid having multiple DB servers as long as possible, because multiple DB servers are a giant PITA (you noted "locking" issues; multiple DB servers have much more of that kind of problem). Even that's doable though (there are ways to split DBs between multiple servers), it's just a hassle you want to avoid as long as you can.

So again, all the major (but not super-major) websites you visit work by sharing a single database server (quite possibly with a MySQL database) between multiple application servers ... unless of course they're so small they only have a single app server. Speaking in generalities, there's no technical reason why P99 can't do the same.

[Jotei]

Name trolling in game is already VERY prevalent

I find this deeply concerning.

[DMN]

If they can't link the databases, perhaps they can just download all the names currently on blue and upload it on green. It won't be future-proof but I think it will help immensely and it's far better than nothing at all. This way also won't have the benefit of keeping the names unique if the servers ever merge.

[HedleyKow]

The other thing I was wondering about is character slots. What happens when the servers merge if you have more than 8 combined characters on blue/green?

[DMN]

The other thing I was wondering about is character slots. What happens when the servers merge if you have more than 8 combined characters on blue/green?

My guess is , first, you'd have to delete all the green characters you don't want and then make sure you have enough slots on blue for the imported characters.

[fadetree]

Red and Blue don't seem to share their databases. Most likely Green won't share its database with anything else, either.

I'm not even sure sharing databases or even just tables between servers is even that practical. EQEmu uses MySQL and there must be some amount of locking going on, most likely not meant to be shared between servers at all.

You can't share a single EQ db between servers. It's all one thing, and the names are part of the table structures, so you can't share just the name tables. Shared DB's are certainly a thing in the world, but not by EQ.

[loramin]

You can't share an EQ db between servers. It's all one thing, and the names are part of the table structures.

It's not "all one thing". By default yes EQ Emulator runs on the same machine as the database. However, you can absolutely configure a separate DB server:


<database>
<host>localhost</host>
<port>3306</port>
<username>un</username>
<password>pw</password>
<db>peq</db>
</database>


Now of course the EQ Emulator software undoubtedly isn't designed to check a separate server out of the box, but again technically there is absolutely no reason why it can't: all it requires is a bit of custom code.

And again, writing custom code to check a database on another server isn't just "not hard" it's "standard operating procedure". The staff here has made massive custom changes to the default EQ Emulator software; I just can't imagine it would be very difficult for them to tweak the software so that the name checking parts use a different DB than the rest.

[Llandris]

Names should be first come, first serve

Edit - or maybe not :p

[Erati]

Names should be first come, first serve

ouch.

Well time for everyone to enjoy “college” style make overs.

[turbosilk]

No reason to rollover beta blue server names when there are people holding names on level 1s that haven't played in over 5 years if ever.

[Llandris]

Or maybe not...

[slowpoke68]

No way dude!

[kotton05]

It’s a mini game to see how many of your friends and enemies names you can steal on a new server

[Cen]

Names should be first come, first serve

Lets all race for Llandris!

[mycoolrausch]

No reason to rollover beta blue server names when there are people holding names on level 1s that haven't played in over 5 years if ever.

I wouldn't be opposed to a very conservative name purge on blue. If an account (not character) hasn't logged in for 3+ years and has no characters above level 10, rename every level 1 on it to something long and random.

[DMN]

No reason to rollover beta blue server names when there are people holding names on level 1s that haven't played in over 5 years if ever.

Oh noez. You can't name your character some shitty trope fantasy name.

[Xaeophi]

Green merging with blue? Ya thats a bad idea.

[romomike]

I wouldn't be opposed to a very conservative name purge on blue. If an account (not character) hasn't logged in for 3+ years and has no characters above level 10, rename every level 1 on it to something long and random.

Funny you say that, cuz I'm going through the old patch notes from live to get a refresh on what happened when and...

*Level 1 Character Purge*

The Level 1 character purge announced several weeks ago will take place
on Wednesday, September 27, 2000, at 7:00am PST (GMT-7). Any level 1
characters that haven't been played within the previous 30 days will be
deleted. If you wish to keep any level 1 characters that you may have,
please log in and play them between now and 9/27.


So that shit is classic. Purge'm.

[Muggens]

What constitutes logging in and play? U just log-in and /camp out? Id be all for that, free up some names. Hard to get a generic cool name nowadays, even hindu names are taken

[DMN]

The main problem with is a wipe is that in Sony's world people who had not logged in characters in many months and who aren't going to get the message about having to log them in, are almost all invariably people who have permanently quit the game. On P99 people constantly come and go, sometimes taking multi year breaks. They won't be happy to find that their bank mule with shitloads of plat/high plat/irreplaceable items vanished so someone could name their dwarf Giimlii.

[Jimjam]

Sounds like a win win.

[Muggens]

Sounds like a win win.

[Mazoku]

Well seeing as red and blue you can have the same character names. There is no reason why the names wont all be NEW on green. Also I don't think they will merge the servers, it would DESTROY all elements of classic. If they merge servers then they may as well release Luclin and Ykesha. Leave the servers alone. Let them all be a standing testament to the work and time it took for EVERYONE to get this far. The fact that Daybreak and Platlord didn't break the game with legal issues is a miracle enough. Now leave classic alone. As it is, I have names on both Red and Blue that are the same. No reason why green won't be ALL NEW NAMES.

[Swish2]

If my name is still available 3 minutes after the server goes live, you've failed as a community <3

#justsaying

[Zalora]

Green is about getting a fresh start. Part of that fresh start is having fresh names. Trying to import old names into a fresh server would be a terrible idea. If you want to continue on your old character, just stay on Blue.

[Rader]

Well seeing as red and blue you can have the same character names. There is no reason why the names wont all be NEW on green. Also I don't think they will merge the servers, it would DESTROY all elements of classic. If they merge servers then they may as well release Luclin and Ykesha. Leave the servers alone. Let them all be a standing testament to the work and time it took for EVERYONE to get this far. The fact that Daybreak and Platlord didn't break the game with legal issues is a miracle enough. Now leave classic alone. As it is, I have names on both Red and Blue that are the same. No reason why green won't be ALL NEW NAMES.

How is allowing duplication of names from blue on green encouraging NEW names? That in fact would be allowing OLD names.

And once the timeline is complete, the server is no longer classic. Migrating the characters to another server (whether it be blue or some 3rd dumping ground server) and restarting the timeline fresh, IS being true to classic.