Archive for Geekery

Warhammer client. What directory holds what?

The point of this post is to help you with debugging or moving preferences from one install/computer to another. I’ve determined what I’m writing just from poking around and you’ll probably want to confirm this data with someone smarter than me.

Logs
Let’s start with the Logs directory. Inside it is a Communications directory. A level deeper is a directory for each server you have characters on, and then inside that a directory for each character. So for my character Meglivorn I’m looking in:

\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Warhammer Online - Age of Reckoning\logs\communication\Averheim\Meglivorn

Averheim being the name of the server. Anyway inside here are 4 log files. chat.log, combat.log, guildnews.log and system.log. These are all text files and contain a *ton* of information if you feel like writing a parser for them. Here’s a snippet of the system log:

[08/09/14][12:55:57]You receive Druchii War Pendant.
[08/09/14][12:58:02]You sold Worked Highstaff to Galmaer Silvermoon for 1 silver and 20 brass coins.
[08/09/14][12:58:06]You sold Druchii War Pendant x2 to Galmaer Silvermoon for 24 brass coins.
[08/09/14][12:58:28]You have purchased a new ability.
[08/09/14][13:00:51]Jobildo has invited you to join the Casualties of WAR guild.

and the combat log:

[08/09/14][12:26:45]You have learned about Eltharin, Language of the High Elves
[08/09/14][12:26:45]You gain 104 experience.
[08/09/14][12:27:40]You gain 700 experience.
[08/09/14][12:28:19]You gain 700 experience.
[08/09/14][12:29:02]Your Eagle Eye hits Dark Sprite for 52 damage. (21 mitigated)
[08/09/14][12:29:02]Dark Sprite’s attack hits you for 9 damage.
[08/09/14][12:29:03]Your Grim Slash hits Dark Sprite for 28 damage. (11 mitigated)
[08/09/14][12:29:04]Dark Sprite’s attack critically hits you for 13 damage.

And so on. The only odd thing I’ve found is that /tells *seem* to go into a separate directory, named your character name + ^M. So for Meglivorn, his private chats are in \logs\communication\Averheim\Meglivorn^M Inside that directory is a file for each person you exchanged /tells with.

Check out the logs though. There’s a lot of data to play with in there.

Notes
The notes directory holds the current patch notes from the launcher, in case you don’t feel like logging in to read them

Interface
Next is the interface directory. You might not have one of these yet, but if you’re going to install modes they go in interface\addons\{nameOfMod}. e.g.:

\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Warhammer Online - Age of Reckoning\interface\addons\CurseProfiler\

These are the ’static’ files for addons.

User
Now let’s look at the user directory. Inside it is your UserSetttings.xml file. This contains screen resolution, key mapping, and a lot of other stuff controlled by the User Settings GUI in-game. There’s an audio_log_settings.xml file too, which I assume holds audio settings. Rocket science this ain’t.

But when moving clients, you probably really want to bring over
\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Warhammer Online - Age of Reckoning\user\UserSettings.xml

Inside the user directory is a nested interface directory, and inside that an AllCharacters directory. And inside that, a huge list of subdirectories, including ones matching the names of your addons. This is where all the settings for addons and various chunks of the UI are held.

I think a lot of this gets auto-loaded from the server. For instance inside EA_ActionBars is a SavedVariables.lua file (standard name for UI setting files) with the hotbars slots indicated, but there’s no character name attached to them. It possibly contains hot bar settings for all characters, but still, I quickly logged into my freshly installed client and although the UI was in its default layout, the hotbars were correct for that character, so that data must’ve been loaded from the server. On the other hand, the physical layout of the windows themselves didn’t. The EA_BackpackWindow has a SavedVariables.lua that contains the items in each characters backpack, and we *know* that info is held on the server, so this must be some kind of caching mechanism.

An important file is the settings file in EASystem_ActionBarClusterManager. This file contains all your UI layout settings, so you’ll probably want to bring that over.

Also, if you’ve ever tried to scale ActionBars using the mouse you probably found it to be tedious to get them all the same size. It looks to me like you could edit this by hand:

EA_ActionBar1 =
{
buttonCount = 12,
columns = 12,
buttonXSpacing = 0,
barId = 1,
modificationSettings =
{
true,
true,
},
buttonXPadding = 6,
buttonYSpacing = 0,
show = true,
buttonYPadding = 5,
showEmptySlots = 46,
caps = true,
buttonFactory = "ActionButton",
background = true,
scale = 0.93,
selector = 43,
}

Change the scale factor to be the same for each action bar, and voila. I’m intrigued by the other options here, too. If you made the bar 10 columns and 20 buttons, would it have 2 rows of 10, or just have half the bars hidden? Some experimentation is in order.

By the way, this is all in an AllCharacters directory. It appears that you can make custom settings for your characters by putting them in interface\{server_name}\{character_name} if you like. You’d have to do this by hand; as far as I know there’s no way to do it using the GUI.

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A peek into the Warhammer client directories

As mentioned in my last post, I installed a new “fresh” copy of the Warhammer client off the retail disks. Before nuking the old one I took a quick glance at the two side by side, and here’s some of what I found. This isn’t a complete list; I did drill into every directory to compare things.

New directories in the retail client are GDF and Support. GDF looks to have something to do with patching, and Support contains a bunch of Help HTML files. Worth looking at if you’re having trouble.

The old Beta server has one directory and a few files that retail doesn’t. *Presumably* these are no longer needed, but of course I take no responsibility if you delete them and it totally fubars your install. The directory is audio and holds, unsurprisingly, a bunch of mp3 files with names like Music-Test_Fanfare_Chaos08.mp3. I’ll be holding on to these!

Now we get to the file level and again I’m not going to list everything. 3 directxfiles, d3dx9_30.dll, d3dx9_34.dll and d3dx9d_34.dll are in the beta client but not retail. These aren’t very big though. dev_zones.myp is huge, though, a bit over 3 gigs. .myp seems to be the basic data file ‘bundle’ extension for Warhammer Online. There are also some Player_Guide files that you d/led for beta.

On the retail side, there’s a world.myp which presumably takes the place of dev_zones.myp, though its a bit smaller, about 2.8 gigs. And there’s the opening video (I assume) video.myp, which is a 1.5 gigs or so. I wonder if we could nuke that to save space once we’ve watched it?

In my next post I’m going to talk about what some of the other directories are far.

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Use your PS2 to stream media to the living room

The Industry Standard brings us an article about QTV:

QTV by BroadQ uses a $30 piece of software to repurpose a PS2 as a digital media set-top for a TV or home theater. All users have to do is pop the DVD into their PS2, turn it on, and they are ready to either stream local network content or Internet shows like Revision3’s Digg Reel without leaving their sofas.

Brilliant idea. I’m going to be on the lookout for a copy of this software, and in the meanwhile I’ll dig out and dust off my old PS2.

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Esquire First Publication To Use Electronic Ink

Esquire First Publication To Use Electronic Ink

Hearst said the issue will feature a cover across which various words and images will scroll ” news-ticker style — thanks to technology developed by Cambridge, Mass.-based E Ink.

I have nothing to add except, this will probably be the only issue of Esquire I ever buy.

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Reiser leads police to body

The strange and fascinating case of Hans Reiser continues, though it seems things are drawing to a close. He’d been convicted of murdering his estranged wife, Nina, but maintained that he was innocent and had nothing to do with her appearance. Then, two days before sentencing, he led authorities to a body (not yet confirmed to be her) buried in a shallow grave a mile from where Nina was last seen. Details: Convicted husband leads authorities to body

I’m not sure why this case has grabbed my attention. It’s a sad fact that people are murdered all the time. I guess it’s because Reiser is such a geek. I have this weird mental image of us geeks as basically good and non-violent people for some reason. Totally naive of me, of course.

Anyway if you haven’t heard about the case, Wired has a lengthy and pretty interesting story on it from a while back. It was written before the trial and, as I remember it, paints Reiser in a somewhat sympathetic light while still remaining objective. I’ll admit its been a while since I read it though.

Hans Reiser: Once a Linux Visionary, Now Accused of Murder

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Simplifying the “home theater”

So my project for the day was to re-do my ‘home theater’ setup. I put that in quotes because we’re talking, y’know, the living room, not a dedicated home theater in a separate room. My goal was just to get components plugged in so that I could turn them all completely off, rather than have everything in ’standby mode.’ Good for the environment, and good for the electric bill, right? But of course I didn’t want the DVRs turning off, nor the hubs.

Once I started pulling stuff apart…I was pretty amazed. I ended up with a huge pile of gear I really no longer need to have hooked up. First, my ancient Laser Disk player. I haven’t turned that on since I moved into this apartment a few years ago. Next, VCR. Can’t remember the last time I used that. DVD player? Just collecting dust, since the PS3 upscales DVDs so nicely. I found out I had a wireless bridge running that was supplying ethernet to the XBox. Not the XBox360, mind you…the old XBox. And speaking of the old XBox, tear it out and stick it into storage. I don’t have time to play all the new games I want to play; I’m never going to get around to playing those old XBox 1 games.

Now I was really getting into the spirit of things: I pulled out the #2 Comcast Box, and the Tivo that was hanging off it. I never watch Tivo anymore because I can no longer tolerate SD content delivered through an s-video cable (the best my Tivo Series 2 offers). I’ll either put the 2nd Comcast box in the office, or turn it in and save the $10 or $12 that Comcast charges me every month. I did end up re-connecting the Tivo just to see if it gets its podcasts (like Cranky Geeks) via ethernet, or if it somehow is pulling them now through the cable. I can’t imagine how it would be… anyway that still might end up going. I had an Airport Express out there to stream music from my computers to the stereo, which I last did about 18 months ago. And I never print to the printer hanging off of it. So out that went.

Suddenly, a brace of switch boxes and y-cables were no longer needed, so I got rid of those, several of which were powered. Which mean fewer plugs and so fewer power strips.

That whole side of the room looks so much neater and uncluttered now. I’m using 3 power strips. One will be ‘always on’ and has the Tivo, the Comcast DVR and the single remaining ethernet hub on it. One controls the receiver and the XBox 360. And one (plugged into a different circuit) controls the TV, PS3 and Sub-Woofer. So when I’m turning out the lights at night, I can just toggle off those power strips and all that energy going into keeping all this gear on standby no longer gets wasted.

Now my big challenge is… where to store all these gear I tore out!!?

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SproutCore a Flash killer?

Another week, another geeky new technology to get all excited about.

Leo Laporte was twittering about SproutCore, which caught my interest and led me to a couple of articles. The actual SproutCore website is throwin an error at the moment so I can’t get to the source, but what I’m reading is that SproutCore wants to replace Flash, Adobe AIR and Silverstream as a technology for RIA (rich internet applications).

The beauty of it is that its all written in javascript, so there’s no plug-in to download. Which gets me wondering about SproutCore vs Lively Kernel (another Javascript-based RIA platform in development). Are they in competition or do they compliment one another?

Interesting times. Anyway, here’s a couple of articles worth reading. Thanks to Leo for Twittering about this.

Apple’s open secret: SproutCore is Cocoa for the Web

Cocoa for Windows + Flash Killer = SproutCore

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Anyone using andLinux?

I read a piece at Linux.com (Run Windows and Linux without virtualization) about andLinux.org today. It’s an Ubuntu system that is supposed to run alongside of Windows. I’m intrigued, but frankly don’t want to mess with my Windows Vista system (used primarily for gaming) any further than installing programs on it. andLinux *seems* to be non-intrusive, but I’d love to hear from someone with firsthand experience with it.

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An Engineer’s Guide to Cats

Lots of useful and interesting information about Felis catus:

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Virtual World meets real life?

Can anyone think of a practical use for this? I’m coming up blank, and it was apparently designed more as a social experiment than anything. Weird though.

Avatar Machine - Marc Owens’ wearable simulator of virtual worlds. - Boing Boing TV

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Arcade Nostalgia

For the old-skool gamers among us, here’s a post that’ll take you back:

Coding Horror: Rediscovering Arcade Nostalgia

I really miss the days of (relatively) easy programming languages. You could make a simple game in Atari Basic pretty easily, and I spent countless hours typing in games from magazines (not easy on the Atari 400 chiklet keyboard!) and then tweaking/customizing them. Then saving them on cassette tape. Heh, frustrating good times.

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Building your Twitter network

WebWorkerDaily has a post with a couple of webapps that’ll find you more strangers to stalk follow on Twitter. One of them just checks who you are following, and sees who they are following, and if a bunch of them are following a particular individual, it suggests you follow that individual too. It’s a good way to expand your “Celebrity Twitterers” circle, I guess.

The other one looks at your tweets and compares them to what other people are tweeting about, and suggests matches. I actually found a guy who has been tweeting about some web stuff he’s been playing with that looks pretty interesting. This feels more useful, as this person doesn’t have a huge network or anything and its pretty unlikely I’d ever have found him through ‘normal channels.’

Anyway I don’t want to totally rip-off WWD so I’ll send you to the post to check out the apps.

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Instapaper

Here’s a neat tool I just read about: Instapaper.

The idea is actually pretty simple. You drag a bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar. Then when you hit something you want to read but don’t have time for right now, you click this bookmarklet and the url and title to that webpage gets jammed onto you Instapaper page.

Essentially it’s just a way of tracking short-term bookmarks, really. But for some reason I find the idea compelling…

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Geeks & dogs

Just had to share this video. I wonder if the plans for this contraption are online anywhere?

(Sorry for the [sometimes] gray teaser frame, but the video does play, and it is safe for anywhere.)

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BookLamp

LifeHacker had a post about a new service called BookLamp. The 2 second pitch is that its Pandora for Books. The idea is they scan in books and parse them for various stylistic attributes. Then you tell them a book that you like, and they offer a list of books that are stylistically similar. I’m *fascinated* by this idea!

But rather than me drone on about it, why not watch this presentation by one of the guys behind the project. Get comfortable because its close to 15 minutes long, but quite interesting for book geeks.

I’m really hoping that this service becomes a reality!

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