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Dev-forced wipe 7/14/16

So far two devs have confirmed a full (map and XP) wipe is coming this Thursday 7/14/2016 .

Assuming this is the case, I wanted to put wipe options to a vote. Options are as follows:

Let me know which you prefer by voting in our side bar!

-Alex

At this point I am planning on proceeding with this wipe despite the well intentioned but unlikely possible alternative mentioned by HelkFP on reddit.

A better means of determining if we will be wiping Thursday will be the Rust Updates Twitter - if the commits mentioning protocol++ , persistence++ , and save++ are not dropped by 11:00am EST Thursday 7/14/2016, we will be following through with the wipe.
I will be taking the server offline when the server patch drops (generally this is roughly 1 hour before the client patch) to switch the server's operating system from Debian 8 to CentOS 7 in response to memory issues that have taken the server down several times in the past week. This entails the server being completely offline for about 30 minutes; I should still have the server back online before the client patch drops!

Updates will be posted here if I have any.

Sorry for the short wipe, and I look forward to seeing you on for Thursday's chaos!

-Alex

 

Quote from alex@rustorbust.org on July 13, 2016, 2:32 am

if the commits mentioning protocol++ , persistence++ , and save++ are not dropped by 11:00am EST Thursday 7/14/2016, we will be following through with the wipe.

So Gary says there will be a way server owners can restore our xp/levels (i.e. not wipe them but do a map wipe).

https://twitter.com/RustUpdates/status/753341649875525632

I am completely fine with a map wipe but I believe that it would be in the servers best interest to leave levels/xp. What do you think Alex?

 

Hi DerekRAGE,

First and foremost, I want to stress that they just added this feature! What he is saying still does not negate the previous "persistence++" message, but means that further down the road we may be able to avoid an XP wipe. As of this moment, no process has been identified for renaming these .db files. I will back up all .dbs prior to the wipe, but I find it extremely unlikely a process can or will be established in time for us to avoid this wipe. I intend the be online and connectable to the very first person who installs the patched client side update - trying to juggle / rename these files to get the rust server to acknowledge them is a time sink I am unwilling to commit to. I will continue to monitor this though; if more can be explained as to how exactly this can be accomplished, I will reconsider!

-Alex

My group and I are looking forward to a full wipe, Map along with all the levels and XP. (I am level 28 and have put 60 hours into this wipe week so Its not because im a low level or anything.) With a full XP wipe new people can come on the server and not instantly get hunted down by already established players with AK's, making 50% of the new player base we would get leave in a few hours, once again bringing the server down to sub 100. I think you will have people mad either choice you make but I just wanted to voice my opinion.     :)

Changed how blueprints/xp are wiped, so server owners can roll back by renaming the db files if they want

Also worth mention here - nowhere does he mention the UserPersistence.db file! It is unclear to me what good a massive amount of xp would do for a player that has been reset to level 0. Convenient, maybe, but a modest advantage.

For anyone curious, servers maintain a few different files that made up a "wipe":

  • UserPersistence.db - this puppy used to keep BP data. Currently it seems to be the place level and unlocks are stored.
  • xp3.db - This never existed before! Sure seems likely it would correspond to XP.
  • xp3.statistics.db - um, XP statistics?
  • save\Procedural Map_SIZE_SEED -  this stored world data. Buildings, the map itself, player location data all lived here

As you can see, the tweet really doesn't cover a lot of bases here. It is unclear IF the data can be preserved, or if he is enabling a mechanism to allow for it to be preserved down the road. Even if it could be this wipe, it is beyond unclear which component(s) of the wipe data could be preserved, if any.

Barring further information, I do not consider this adequate information to call off tomorrow's wipe. I will continue to monitor though!

-Alex

Rustafied seems to not be wiping levels and xp.

http://www.rustafied.com/

Not sure if that will sway you one way or the other just thought it was useful information.

Interesting; they are either taking that single tweet as the word of God, or they have some information I don't! I will reach out to the Rustafied admins and see if they have isolated a process for this yet.

"We've also introduced a feature that will allow community server owners to restore the old xp database and savegame file after they've patched incase they do not want to participate in the forced wipe." - Maurino on Reddit

 

Up to you Admin if you want to do a full wipe or not!

Developers, as usual, have provided 0 information as to how this can be done.. just enough promise to get pop to blame admins like myself for the wipe!

Bugs from Rustafied is still trying to get a functional process together. In his testing he has not yet been able to successfully transfer the data (per a message from him that is 50 minutes old). My stance is unchanged- simply mentioning there is some shit glimmer of hope that hours of flailing may be able to preserve some xp data doesn't change this from what I interpret as a "Forced wipe". I have no choice but to be one of the first servers available for patched clients to connect to. If I can get my hands on a documented, tested process I may consider it... at this point I would consider bugs from Rustafied the only hope of this not being a wipe for us.

I think it is shameful for FP to do this, say there is a way to avoid the wipe but not give admins the first fucking clue what that might be...

In the interest of transparency, I wanted to follow up with a final decision: Yes, we will be doing a full (map and XP) wipe tomorrow. Recent developments have allowed Bugs to migrate XP data in his staging branch server. Some servers, including his ( Rustopia ) will be migrating XP data. Many others, including us here at RustOrBust, will not.

Rustralasia's view on the subject is consistent with ours -  our pop simply stopped leveling when this impending wipe was announced. Furthermore this method of migrating the xp database file is completely untested on main branch, and the implications of doing so are not yet fully understood. I am immensely relieved this XP.db migration will be tested tomorrow by big players such as Rustopia, as it will allow us a mechanism to stick to our intended wipe cycle: Map wipe every 2 weeks, XP wipe monthly. 

I am well aware this decision will be controversial, and invite you all can help me try to make the best of this shit situation.

Expect to see the server, clean and wiped, as soon as client patch drops tomorrow!

-Alex

 

First and foremost, thank you for being an active admin that is obviously passionate about how his community is managed.

I read your above posts, so I understand "why"... but why would you wipe XP when it isn't being forced or wiping can be circumvented by simply changing a couple of file names?

It was a big enough kick in the balls for you to have wiped on Friday (still insisting it was FP forced, when it was not; even though this was beneficial to patching an XP exploit and I agree with you having done so); why further kill the pop by wiping XP AGAIN when it can be avoided?

I understand this is one hell of a situation FP's errors has put all server admins in the middle of (the joys of an alpha release game), but at this point with an XP wipe being implemented while not completely necessary, server pop is going to be hit harder than it would be with a legitimate forced Map+XP wipe.

Sorry to say, but I don't think our group of 6 will be returning after this afternoons update.

- Bobby

You gain people and you lose people with either choice, much easier to get new people doing a full wipe.

General - Server is fully wiped, updated, and ready to rock! Still waiting for client patch to drop.

@BobbyTrill - Sorry to see you go. I tried my best to explain why I consider that a wipe dev forced wipe. I also explained why the completely untested nature of the preservation of XP ruled it out as a logical option for this wipe. Moving forward, we can consider preserving only the xp db file and its implications tested, documented, and understood! I remain thrilled to have that as an option at my disposal moving forward to help avoid future out-of-wipe-cycle wipes. Unfortunately if you do not see the merits of those points I do suggest looking for a new server; I would make the exact same decision again if the circumstances were repeated.

@Bramwell - You had more to lose than anyone! Glad to see you don't have a pitchfork out.

LOL 21 people on vs last weeks full pop. I bet you wish that you had those extra 6 people  now. Maybe instead of  wiping you should have actually listened to your community's wishes and kept xp but if you want to cripple your server that's on you.

- sincerly, ASSQUATCH THE DESTROYER OF ASS

Actually, the opposite - I just spent the bulk of the day reading about LGSM / Debian boxes (aka US!) that ended up with corrupting .db files; the bulk of the servers with wipes today were likely a result of that issue and associated corruption! Perfectly happy to have wiped yesterday before being a guinea pig for a completely untested process.

Extremely happy to have that process tested and whatever issue tanked LGSM / Debian boxes will be patched out before I ever have to attempt it.

With that said, we do still hope for as much pop as possible! Hope to see you around.

*Edit*

Also worth a mention - there are 31,000 players on rust right now vs. last weeks >200,000!! Our pop is roughly right where it should be as far as percentage of players.

Thanks to everyone who is sticking with us!

-Alex