[OT] What exactely changed in dats that hindered datamining and much more?

[Sechs]

As per topic, pardon my naive question, but can anybody explain to me in the simplest possible way what exactely happened?

We used to have datamining threads here on BG regularly created before the patch, yet we haven't been getting them for a while.
Datamining over the last patches has always been pretty sloppy/slow, coming in bits and bites and there was always something missing.

As a consequence (I assume?) of this the update of FFXIAH and GW database has always been very slow.
Like one month has passed since last patch, and FFXIAH still doesn't have all of the new items/stuffs.


So... what is the real cause behind this? It's been happening for a while, especially on FFXIAH which is also missing the news feed updates etc.

[Byrthnoth]

.dat mining has always been done by a fairly small handful of people, many of whom have been banned or quit. Toss in minor changes in .dat structure that break existing tools and that's pretty much all your answers.

[Sechs]

I guess I can understand that.
But have GW and FFXI become so not-profitable that the guys in those websites (Scragg and Stanislav, I think?) do not even bother to try to fix it? It's been like that for several months, yet those two websites seem to still generate quite a bit of traffic (hence money from commercials), paypal free donations, premium memberships and for GW there's also monthly fee for premium guild services (which aren't cheap at all).

I seriously doubt these guys are getting rich thanks to those websites lol, but at the same time seems to me they should still be interested in being bothered with them?

[Byrthnoth]

I don't know about Stan, but Scragg has a real job where he makes real money. I'm sure the money he gets from ads on FFXIAH is a nice supplement, but I'm guessing he isn't particularly hard up for cash or doesn't notice a decrease in traffic when the items are a little out of date.

[Snprphnx]

It's not just the recent items that are outdated on ffxiah. The news feed on the front page has been showing the same old news since the January Version Update.

[Sechs]

Yes, altough I don't really care much for the newsfeed.
Missing items on the FFXIDB is pretty big issue instead.

[Imoq]

Yes, altough I don't really care much for the newsfeed.
Missing items on the FFXIDB is pretty big issue instead.

I wonder how we could approach Scragg and offer him help with that. I talked to Stan, he told me all items for GW depend on FFXIAH updates, so, if AH does not update, neither will GW.

[Sechs]

I always got the impression through the years that he was (rightfully so, probably) kinda scared on letting other people help him with his little creature.
So unless it's someone he really knows who's offering to help him, I doubt he'd be accepting any help.
(he sure is still accepting money for premium membership and free donations though)

Given how he has a new very rewarding job and also children and given how FFXI is going to "end" soon, I doubt he cares more than he currently does for FFXIAH =/


tl;dr, doubt anybody can do anything, unless possibly people who are really close to him already.

[Imoq]

(he sure is still accepting money for premium membership and free donations though)

Are there premium memberships for FFXIAH? I wasn't aware of it. Or do you refer to GW ones?

[Sechs]

Oh, you're right, technically it's a GW one I suppose!
(free donations are an FFXIAH only thing though, but I suppose it's a really negligible amount of money that, alone, couldn't even keep up with the costs of the infrastructure behind FFXIAH)

[Spicyryan]

I always got the impression through the years that he was (rightfully so, probably) kinda scared on letting other people help him with his little creature.
So unless it's someone he really knows who's offering to help him, I doubt he'd be accepting any help.
(he sure is still accepting money for premium membership and free donations though)

Given how he has a new very rewarding job and also children and given how FFXI is going to "end" soon, I doubt he cares more than he currently does for FFXIAH =/


tl;dr, doubt anybody can do anything, unless possibly people who are really close to him already.

Yeah, but when things change in life and you still have people committed, counting on you, and paying. Then you should find someone to take over or help.

It is not like I don't fully understand being busy, I do. I don't understand spending countless hours working on a popular website everyone relies on and then just not doing my due diligence to make sure there is an admin taking care of things. Nothing screams "I don't care anymore" like a four month old news feed.
I don't know, I just personally hold to if I make a commitment to do something that even if I am busy I watch over the situation or at least ensure I leverage someone to do it for me. Otherwise, I wouldn't make the commitment if I was so controlling of a project I couldn't do the right thing and hand it off to someone while maintaining my ownership status and control if I became too busy.

[Draylo]

It's pretty simple, everyone is being an emo fuck and giving up on anything related to this lol. It's been like that for about a year now from what I have observed.

[Sechs]

Yeah, but when things change in life and you still have people committed, counting on you, and paying. Then you should find someone to take over or help.

It is not like I don't fully understand being busy, I do. I don't understand spending countless hours working on a popular website everyone relies on and then just not doing my due diligence to make sure there is an admin taking care of things. Nothing screams "I don't care anymore" like a four month old news feed.
I don't know, I just personally hold to if I make a commitment to do something that even if I am busy I watch over the situation or at least ensure I leverage someone to do it for me. Otherwise, I wouldn't make the commitment if I was so controlling of a project I couldn't do the right thing and hand it off to someone while maintaining my ownership status and control if I became too busy.

Yeah I share the feeling. I mean it's hard to point fingers without knowing the whole story behind, but I wonder if Scragg could've maybe been looking for a help meanwhile.
Did he look for help but found none? Or are things different?

[Julian]

Could always make your own.

I was thinking of writing my own achievement system a while back because ffxiahs is so shitty, but never really got around to it due to time constraints.

[Spicyryan]

Could always make your own.

I was thinking of writing my own achievement system a while back because ffxiahs is so shitty, but never really got around to it due to time constraints.

But, who actually cares about the achievement system? Similar to those people who care about their gamerscore on xbox.

Yeah I share the feeling. I mean it's hard to point fingers without knowing the whole story behind, but I wonder if Scragg could've maybe been looking for a help meanwhile.
Did he look for help but found none? Or are things different?

If he was actively looking I am sure the word would have gotten around.

It's pretty simple, everyone is being an emo fuck and giving up on anything related to this lol. It's been like that for about a year now from what I have observed.

Yup, and personally for me the game is more alive than it has been in a long time. That is not to say it was not alive the last couple of years, but I am very content compared to January where I would sit and just do stuff on wiki because I didn't care about doing anything once I logged on and just afked.

[Sechs]

Well, I dunno. I'm torn in between for the Achievement system.
I'm not the kind of guy who plays games only to unlock trophies/achievements (and frankly I think that's pretty stupid, but to each his own I guess).
At the same time though I think it's a nice addition.

It's clearly not the reason why I'm concerned about FFXIAH (my main issue is with having an up-to-date database of items, damn it), but still I kinda liked the Achi system.

[Fwahm]

The FFXI achievement system is so outdated that I don't think it's really worth anything anymore. The difficulty of everything it counts has changed dramatically, but the points awarded are still the same.

I mean, does anyone really think that getting two level 99 jobs requires a similar amount of effort and time as a mythic in these days, for example?

[Julian]

My post wasn't about achievements, it was that if you're so unhappy about a product someone else created, get off your lazy ass and make your own. :D

The achievements was just an example, because I think their system is complete and utter shit, so my solution would be to create my own. It really wouldn't be that difficult either, but I don't care that much about it, and my time is incredibly limited. So, since I don't want to do anything about it, my only other option is to deal with it.

[Arcon]

The FFXIDB thing was my mistake. POLUtils broke last update and I semi-fixed it, but work got really busy and I forgot to finish the job. I'll see about getting to it later tonight.

I wouldn't be surprised if FFXIAH uses POLUtils for their datamining, which would explain why the site has not been updated yet.

[Spicyryan]

The FFXIDB thing was my mistake. POLUtils broke last update and I semi-fixed it, but work got really busy and I forgot to finish the job. I'll see about getting to it later tonight.

I wouldn't be surprised if FFXIAH uses POLUtils for their datamining, which would explain why the site has not been updated yet.

Thank you very much for your work. I love FFXIDB.