Altnerative to Allakhazam

[Denidil]

Dunno if this belongs in this forum - I saw some discussion in serverwide about people wanting to open an alternative to allakhazam since it lags so badly, doesn't load correctly, etc.

I have the hosting space the the ability to write an alternative, but i cannot singlehandedly populate to db - so who would be willing to populate DB for me - and who has ideas of features that i should put in it.

[Nolrog]

Dunno if this belongs in this forum - I saw some discussion in serverwide about people wanting to open an alternative to allakhazam since it lags so badly, doesn't load correctly, etc.

I have the hosting space the the ability to write an alternative, but i cannot singlehandedly populate to db - so who would be willing to populate DB for me - and who has ideas of features that i should put in it.

Allakhazam didn't single handedly populate there DB either. They rely on the submissions from players to get things in.

[Denidil]

aye, i know - i didn't mean to imply that they did

[quixylvr]

Maybe there is a way to partner up with Magelo and access their database. Which is probably probably more complete.

Ahh Just Like a Rogue..... Utilize someone elses work.... =X

[Taushar]

I have the hosting space the the ability to write an alternative, but i cannot singlehandedly populate to db - so who would be willing to populate DB for me - and who has ideas of features that i should put in it.

Be careful what you ask for. I don't know what type of hosting services you have but sites like Alla's utilize multi-terabytes of bandwidths per month. Those will easily cost you $1000s per month to maintain. It's not the space that cause your site to lag, it's the bandwidth. Unless you have a complete T-1 by youself, just hosting it will not solve that problem. FYI.

Taushar

[mewkus]

You can download item information from http://eqitems.13th-floor.org/download.php

That seems to have the same kinds of data the lucy keeps track of. But there's a bunch of stuff that allakhazam has (which mob drops it, what quest it's used in, etc), that will prolly take a whole bunch of time to recreate.

[Mehlindi]

Doesnt Load Properly: That is probally because there is a script that delays every other inquery so you have to watch the advertisement longer.

Lag: Think of how many people are looking at that site at the same time. Not even to mention bandwidth use per day. Then again, it uses some graphics as well as have multiple sections for other games besides Everquest.

If you are determined to do this then think about using little to no graphics on your website. This will greatly reduce bandwidth problems. Reduce, not take away. Calculate how broad of the player base you wish to target and times that per the load of bandwidth it takes per database inquery including the homepage. Then just to plan ahead, make another calculation on if a person does Three or Five inqueries a day. Not trying to discourage you from doing this, just want you to make sure you are ready for it.

[Silound]

Most of the time, Allakhazam loaded properly for me. I used a addon for Mozilla to cache specific sites, like this one and Allakhazam (compared to the general cache all or no cache option inheret to Mozilla). It compares the current file vs the new file and updates accordingly, including making sure all the linked and included files are up to date. Helps me not to suck extra BW from sites by simply using cached files if they're the same file as the one hosted.


If you really want to make a site, I suggest using a setup similar to ThottBot (WoW site, www.thottbot.com). Plain site, very little in terms of pictures, very text oriented and still fairly user friendly. Also has a phenomenal amount of data for seemingly so little site.

[Denidil]

I'm familiar with low bandwidth techniques - writing php/mysql webpages it my day job - thanks for the tips though.


My hosting provider says 1Terabyte of bandwidth per month in one spot, but six gigabytes per month in another. They recently updated their packages with significant upgrades so this may just be the T&C containing old data - i have sent billing an email requesting clarification.

If 1 Terabyte is the correct number I can sustain 400k/sec bandwidth the entire month and just hit my quota (1TB/(31days*24hrs*60minutes*60secs). This frees me up to have some graphics - mostly well compressed JPGs - but i don't plan on posting images for each item - I'll just have a nice display table. However is 6gb is the right number i can only sustain a continuous 2.3kbyte/sec the entire month without exceeding bandwidth and that isn't acceptable - let us hope 1TB is the correct number.

I have 4900mb of mysql database space and 20GB of disc to use - unfortunate the mysql database space is partitioned into 49 100-meg blocks and they will not customize.


Thanks for the info on the Items database - that is a nice grab.


If the shared hosting falls through I _may_ be able to piggyback on my work's collocate. (but probably not) Even if i can that comes with the expense [prob about $1000] of building a server

[Ngreth Thergn]

Wait until Wednesday for something from SOE before you go to far on this. (Though what SOE is doing will not be helpful for quests, or tradeskills...)

And yes that is a tease, and no I am not talking (It may have been announced, but I do not know... so keeping trap mostly shut)

[tnexus]

Wait until Wednesday for something from SOE before you go to far on this. (Though what SOE is doing will not be helpful for quests, or tradeskills...)

And yes that is a tease, and no I am not talking (It may have been announced, but I do not know... so keeping trap mostly shut)

Such a tease!

[Denidil]

lol ngreth

I just got confirmation that it is 1000GB of transfer that i'm allowed not 6GB.

[Quseio]

Such a tease!

i hate waiting for thingslike this heh.. will it be nasty surpise? will it just suck..just annoying, or eh who cares? its like its AntiChristmas waiting and waiting...

[KyrosKrane]

I'm assuming Ngreth was hinting at the new EQPlayers.com service from SOE. Official announcement on the Sony boards. Apparently it includes full item and spell info, but not sources (as in, it replaces Lucy, but not Allakhazam). It also includes player profiles (as in, it replaces Magelo).

[Ngreth Thergn]

Aye, that was my tease

I just thought it might affect what you do.

It does not replace Quest data, Source Data, nor Recipe Data