Guild Launch News
ANNOUNCE: Sigs Back Online w/ Changes
Ahota wrote:
You can't move the Avatar.
-Stephen
Hi , cant figure how to move the avatar under the text, insteed of beside.. some help would be nice
You can't move the Avatar.
-Stephen
It seems like the quality of the background color blend has gotten really grainy. I tried to update one of my toons for a respec and it was clearly different from the toon that I didn't update (so I just kept the old version). Anyone else notice this? Or am I messing something up?
asynonymforme wrote:
At this time our bandwidth for the sig server is starting to get expensive. There are millions of sigs in the database, and we're serving quite a few of them per second.
So, I'm experimenting with 8-bit PNGs. The file size is about 1/3 the size of the others, but the fade in some cases isn't as nice. I'm looking into ways to fix that.
-Stephen
It seems like the quality of the background color blend has gotten really grainy. I tried to update one of my toons for a respec and it was clearly different from the toon that I didn't update (so I just kept the old version). Anyone else notice this? Or am I messing something up?
At this time our bandwidth for the sig server is starting to get expensive. There are millions of sigs in the database, and we're serving quite a few of them per second.
So, I'm experimenting with 8-bit PNGs. The file size is about 1/3 the size of the others, but the fade in some cases isn't as nice. I'm looking into ways to fix that.
-Stephen
If Blizzard is blocking us, then the sigs don't auto update. It seems that were still sending too much traffic, so their just not getting updated with anything close to predictability. This change was made to keep the sigs from displaying garbage. Instead, they just don't update.
To give you an idea of the traffic we are talking about, our sig servers are currently serving more than 60 signatures a *second*. We've got to do some more reworking to get some amount of updating going on and to play nice with Blizzard's requirements for how much data we retrieve from their servers.
You should be able to recreate your sig manually. I'm not sure why the one you created today has the wrong info. That most likely is the Armory having incorrect data. A manual update should work fine.
-Stephen
To give you an idea of the traffic we are talking about, our sig servers are currently serving more than 60 signatures a *second*. We've got to do some more reworking to get some amount of updating going on and to play nice with Blizzard's requirements for how much data we retrieve from their servers.
You should be able to recreate your sig manually. I'm not sure why the one you created today has the wrong info. That most likely is the Armory having incorrect data. A manual update should work fine.
-Stephen
I understand the bandwidth thing, but it still does not quite explain why sigs arent being regen'd for months at a time (my sig has NEVER regen'd).
I would expect the logic to be something like this:
ON FIRST generation, retrieve armory data and CACHE it (not the image, the armory data!).
Every week, re-request and CACHE the armory data (ie. one request PER WEEK per sig for armory). With good enough staggering of requests, this should keep bandwidth manageable. Re-gen the image only once the new armory data has been cached.
On manual sig regen, use cached data, but provide a button to FORCE re-requesting data.
Disallow forcing re-requested data if the data in the cache is <24 hours old.
Another idea would be to not do it per-sig, but to do it per realm/character combination - so you can create 5 sigs for the same toon if you like, but it will all use the same source data. This will also cut down the requests to armory since many people will re-create new sigs for the same toon to get updated data.
I would not expect all of this to be too hard to code, but the key here is not specifically caching the sig files (though that is good too), but caching the raw armory data. And of course the staggering of re-requests (basically figure out how many unique realm/character combinations you have sigs for, divide that by how many seconds or minutes in a week, and send that many per minute).
Yet another idea would be to track how long since a particular sig was requested, and if a sig has not been requested (by any means, image, php, whatever) then drop it from the database. And of course, when you do this, drop the associated realm/character data if there is no longer a sig associated with it.
Chaldan
C++ programmer by trade ;)
I would expect the logic to be something like this:
ON FIRST generation, retrieve armory data and CACHE it (not the image, the armory data!).
Every week, re-request and CACHE the armory data (ie. one request PER WEEK per sig for armory). With good enough staggering of requests, this should keep bandwidth manageable. Re-gen the image only once the new armory data has been cached.
On manual sig regen, use cached data, but provide a button to FORCE re-requesting data.
Disallow forcing re-requested data if the data in the cache is <24 hours old.
Another idea would be to not do it per-sig, but to do it per realm/character combination - so you can create 5 sigs for the same toon if you like, but it will all use the same source data. This will also cut down the requests to armory since many people will re-create new sigs for the same toon to get updated data.
I would not expect all of this to be too hard to code, but the key here is not specifically caching the sig files (though that is good too), but caching the raw armory data. And of course the staggering of re-requests (basically figure out how many unique realm/character combinations you have sigs for, divide that by how many seconds or minutes in a week, and send that many per minute).
Yet another idea would be to track how long since a particular sig was requested, and if a sig has not been requested (by any means, image, php, whatever) then drop it from the database. And of course, when you do this, drop the associated realm/character data if there is no longer a sig associated with it.
Chaldan
C++ programmer by trade ;)
At the current time we have too many sigs in the database to refresh them all in a weeks period given Blizzard's DDOS filter rules. Given the current logic, we've turned auto refreshing into the lowest priority refresh, so that on-demand refreshes won't be blocked. This is because the original app was never built with some kind of daemonized cyclic cacher in mind. It wasn't designed that way. I know this all sounds simple, but it isn't. We're serving 60-70 sigs a second, with more than 5 million signatures in the database.
Quote:
The Guild Launch signature generator is a side project of Guild Launch that we very much enjoy and fully support it's operation. However, at this time I don't feel it is worth taking development time away from our core guild hosting product to fix the automatic caching which while the solution is pretty much a known quantity, will still take some considerable coding and testing. The good thing is once we decide to move on it, we pretty much know the solution.
At this time, sigs will auto update, but they are somewhat unpredictable. Forced recreation has always been available so long as you wait 24 hours. Just go to the site and recreate your sig. Manual recreation works for alot of people. Eventually, we'll get the caching and some form of workable, predictable auto update working fully again one way or another.
-Stephen
There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things
— Phil Karlton
— Phil Karlton
The Guild Launch signature generator is a side project of Guild Launch that we very much enjoy and fully support it's operation. However, at this time I don't feel it is worth taking development time away from our core guild hosting product to fix the automatic caching which while the solution is pretty much a known quantity, will still take some considerable coding and testing. The good thing is once we decide to move on it, we pretty much know the solution.
At this time, sigs will auto update, but they are somewhat unpredictable. Forced recreation has always been available so long as you wait 24 hours. Just go to the site and recreate your sig. Manual recreation works for alot of people. Eventually, we'll get the caching and some form of workable, predictable auto update working fully again one way or another.
-Stephen
No you misunderstood me. The one I created the other day isn't wrong. I just created it quickly to show that the old one was not updated.
I understand that there are just too many of us.
couple of ideas(I am not a programmer) :
1. Have an option to pay for the sig service. If you pay a monthly or a one time fee your sigs get priority. I would pay $1 a month for each sig. And whoever decides to pay that fee will get the higher quality background as well.
2. Have an easier way for the sig to be remembered when you go to it. If you have an account with guild launch, and actually use guild launch with your guild, then attach them to the person's account. Not updating it or anything, just the style (colors and what info shows). Then it would be a little easier to manually update them. I would like to click on the sig and have the same style sig once I get to the sig creation screen. Or go to my preferences in Guild Launch and manually choose: update sig, delete sig, or edit sig.
Just some thoughts late at night. I really like the sig generator and hope you can keep it going and improve on it as you do.
Thanks,
Etin
I understand that there are just too many of us.
couple of ideas(I am not a programmer) :
1. Have an option to pay for the sig service. If you pay a monthly or a one time fee your sigs get priority. I would pay $1 a month for each sig. And whoever decides to pay that fee will get the higher quality background as well.
2. Have an easier way for the sig to be remembered when you go to it. If you have an account with guild launch, and actually use guild launch with your guild, then attach them to the person's account. Not updating it or anything, just the style (colors and what info shows). Then it would be a little easier to manually update them. I would like to click on the sig and have the same style sig once I get to the sig creation screen. Or go to my preferences in Guild Launch and manually choose: update sig, delete sig, or edit sig.
Just some thoughts late at night. I really like the sig generator and hope you can keep it going and improve on it as you do.
Thanks,
Etin