Guild Launch News
ANNOUNCE: Sigs Back Online w/ Changes
Sigs is Back Online
As you may or may not know we recently had issues with our signature generator and access to the WoW Armory site. We believe that Blizzard, not knowing we were a legitimate user of the data, saw the amount of traffic we were requesting and blocked our access.
We now have the signature generator back online but we have had to make certain changes in order to do it in a manner that will reduce our traffic to the Armory site while still providing the service. The changes that we have had to make are as follows:
1. The sig script is now a different page. It is now wsig.php instead of sig.php. Users with old sigs will need to recreate their sigs because of this. We'd rather have not had to do that, but it couldn't be helped.
2. Sigs will be automatically updated every 6 days. Automatic updates are currently spotty. They may require manual update.
3. However, you can manually recreate your sig with new armory data every 24 hours.
4. You can still modify the choices for color, stats, etc. that you make for your sig as often as you like. So if you like to go through all the colors before picking one, you can still do that.
The reasons for these changes are the following:
1. If we were to use the old sig.php page and leave it as it is we would send hundreds of thousands of Armory information requests to Blizzard all in the course of the next few hours. Probably leading to them blocking us again.
What we are doing now is caching the old signatures on our own servers forever. The old sigs are the ones who use the old sig.php page. When you create a new sig it will reference the wsig.php page instead. This will mean that the old sigs don't die, they just don't update.
2. Signatures have 2 updates methods the first is on demand and the second is automatic. The automatic update occurs even if nothing has changed on the Armory site. Due to this, when the number of sigs in our database got very very large the daily update requests climbed right along with it. Reducing the automatic updates was of primary importance in returning the service to operation so we have turned our file cache up to a 6 day period.
3. We've decided to treat on-demand updates to sigs differently. If you know something has changed and you *have to have it* on your image signature then you can recreate your signature manually from fresh armory data every 24 hours.
4. When you are creating your sig you can still modify colors, change stats as often as you like, etc. It is just the Armory data that will not update if it has changed within the 24 hours.
So how does this effect you and your sig?
If you have a sig now and you like it and don't need auto updates you can leave it as it is. If you want automatic updates you will need to either recreate the sig by going to http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/ and getting the new HTML for the sig or change the "sig.php" in your signature HTML to "wsig.php". In regards to updates, new sigs will now automatically update once a week and can be manually updated every 24 hours.
We are well aware that everyone wants the shortest update time possible with no manual updates. Unfortunately, due to the popularity of the service that is not an option if we want to stay in Blizzard's good graces. Our service does have other advantages though that I think make it a better choice over other sig generators regardless of our long update time.
1. They look nice, and now that it's back operational Vicki will be working on other stylized backgrounds.
2. We support any game with our "Any Game Sig Generator"
3. We use an in house file cache to serve sigs instead of Coral Cache or other methods. Our sigs load quickly because of this.
4. We will be continuing to make updates to the signature generator.
Thanks for bearing with us during the downtime, we're very happy to be able to bring the signature generator
back and we hope you all enjoy it!
Thanks,
Stephen
As you may or may not know we recently had issues with our signature generator and access to the WoW Armory site. We believe that Blizzard, not knowing we were a legitimate user of the data, saw the amount of traffic we were requesting and blocked our access.
We now have the signature generator back online but we have had to make certain changes in order to do it in a manner that will reduce our traffic to the Armory site while still providing the service. The changes that we have had to make are as follows:
1. The sig script is now a different page. It is now wsig.php instead of sig.php. Users with old sigs will need to recreate their sigs because of this. We'd rather have not had to do that, but it couldn't be helped.
2. Sigs will be automatically updated every 6 days. Automatic updates are currently spotty. They may require manual update.
3. However, you can manually recreate your sig with new armory data every 24 hours.
4. You can still modify the choices for color, stats, etc. that you make for your sig as often as you like. So if you like to go through all the colors before picking one, you can still do that.
The reasons for these changes are the following:
1. If we were to use the old sig.php page and leave it as it is we would send hundreds of thousands of Armory information requests to Blizzard all in the course of the next few hours. Probably leading to them blocking us again.
What we are doing now is caching the old signatures on our own servers forever. The old sigs are the ones who use the old sig.php page. When you create a new sig it will reference the wsig.php page instead. This will mean that the old sigs don't die, they just don't update.
2. Signatures have 2 updates methods the first is on demand and the second is automatic. The automatic update occurs even if nothing has changed on the Armory site. Due to this, when the number of sigs in our database got very very large the daily update requests climbed right along with it. Reducing the automatic updates was of primary importance in returning the service to operation so we have turned our file cache up to a 6 day period.
3. We've decided to treat on-demand updates to sigs differently. If you know something has changed and you *have to have it* on your image signature then you can recreate your signature manually from fresh armory data every 24 hours.
4. When you are creating your sig you can still modify colors, change stats as often as you like, etc. It is just the Armory data that will not update if it has changed within the 24 hours.
So how does this effect you and your sig?
If you have a sig now and you like it and don't need auto updates you can leave it as it is. If you want automatic updates you will need to either recreate the sig by going to http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/ and getting the new HTML for the sig or change the "sig.php" in your signature HTML to "wsig.php". In regards to updates, new sigs will now automatically update once a week and can be manually updated every 24 hours.
We are well aware that everyone wants the shortest update time possible with no manual updates. Unfortunately, due to the popularity of the service that is not an option if we want to stay in Blizzard's good graces. Our service does have other advantages though that I think make it a better choice over other sig generators regardless of our long update time.
1. They look nice, and now that it's back operational Vicki will be working on other stylized backgrounds.
2. We support any game with our "Any Game Sig Generator"
3. We use an in house file cache to serve sigs instead of Coral Cache or other methods. Our sigs load quickly because of this.
4. We will be continuing to make updates to the signature generator.
Thanks for bearing with us during the downtime, we're very happy to be able to bring the signature generator
back and we hope you all enjoy it!
Thanks,
Stephen
Last edited by GL_Support on Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:02 am; edited 2 times in total
Been getting a flood of people just pasting the HTML code into the editor. I think it would be prudent to put a message on the My User Page Forum Signature area along the lines of:
- Code: Select all
"If using the Guild Launch Signature Generator and have the HTML code, press the "<>" button to paste the HTML code into the editor, then click "OK" and "Save"
We've set the signature width max to 500 pixels in order to keep the signatures from blowing the page out.
-Stephen
-Stephen
Was able to get one of my toons working with the sign. but my mage just has no data. I checked the armory everything loaded fine.
Hamond wrote:
What, you mean you don't have 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 spell crit?
Was able to get one of my toons working with the sign. but my mage just has no data. I checked the armory everything loaded fine.
What, you mean you don't have 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 spell crit?
How do you get hte custom avatar to work?
I'm trying to use this image, but i can't get it show up when I'm trying to create it.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/2231224697_549dcc0845.jpg?v=0
I'm trying to use this image, but i can't get it show up when I'm trying to create it.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/2231224697_549dcc0845.jpg?v=0
You should just be able to put that URL in there. Unless the site you are trying to get it form isn't allowing the image retriever to get it.
Try using this URL:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/2231224697_549dcc0845.jpg
-Stephen
Try using this URL:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2216/2231224697_549dcc0845.jpg
-Stephen
Bazzek wrote:
I'm getting a similar result, but that used to happen before also sometimes so we'll have to wait a bit and see.
-Stephen
Could it be that the connection to the armory is blocked again?
I am trying to make a new signature, but nothing happens.
I am trying to make a new signature, but nothing happens.
I'm getting a similar result, but that used to happen before also sometimes so we'll have to wait a bit and see.
-Stephen