New Armory changes are pretty amazing

[Ellay]

So now you can view someone's ENTIRE Arena histroy, everything you would ever want to know is all there.

Click on any team and choose Match history.. such as mine and you can see every team I faced and can inspect each one to see the damage done, etc etc. This is veryyy intricate details heh.

http://www.wowarmory.com/team-info.xml?r=Archimonde&ts=5&t=Oh+Baby+Does+It+Hurt&select=Oh+Baby+Does+It+Hurt

[Zal]

Gotta wonder how blizzard server can store THAT much info. Awesome new feature.

[Clanked]

Hmm, This could really make the research aspect interesting.

Playing world level matches in other games, we used to pour over demos of upcoming teams, just to see how they play. This isn't quite to that level yet, but now you can really look at the numbers of who is doing the most. I think going into an arena against a team, it would be quite useful knowledge who dies the most.

Its not exactly practical for each match, but I'm sure you could research those teams that you are most likely to play when you level in the ratings.

[Skuggomann]

Gotta wonder how blizzard server can store THAT much info. Awesome new feature.

was wandering the same thing XD

[Broken]

Gotta wonder how blizzard server can store THAT much info. Awesome new feature.

Thats your subscription fees at work!

Personally id rather have new killquests implemented :)

Its always super cool with alot of detail, infomation and statistics though.

[algol]

Gotta wonder how blizzard server can store THAT much info. Awesome new feature.

I'd bet THAT much info is not nearly as much as you think - and TB hard drives are cheap these days.

Also, a couple new hard drives? Costs not shit compared to the server farm they maintain.

[Hachoo]

Not quite as simple as a couple hard drives. I'm sure they're using enterprise level SAN storage arrays for all of their database storage, adding a couple disk drives doesn't work the same as adding them to a server, and costs a shit-ton more.

However, yes, storing arena match info like that hardly takes any space. Its just a few numbers per match. It would take billions of matches to make a huge dent in storage.

[Caspian]

Not quite as simple as a couple hard drives. I'm sure they're using enterprise level SAN storage arrays for all of their database storage, adding a couple disk drives doesn't work the same as adding them to a server, and costs a shit-ton more.

However, yes, storing arena match info like that hardly takes any space. Its just a few numbers per match. It would take billions of matches to make a huge dent in storage.

you beat me to it :/. Not much space at all. Database should not be very complex at all doesn't have anything big in it, just text.


I'd be willing to wager that their storage costs more then their servers.

[algol]

Not quite as simple as a couple hard drives. I'm sure they're using enterprise level SAN storage arrays for all of their database storage, adding a couple disk drives doesn't work the same as adding them to a server, and costs a shit-ton more.

It's basically a high-traffic web database server. SAN, maybe not...but controllers and backup get to be the expensive part for a large database compared to the drives themselves. And no, they're not getting the $100 Newegg special...but even at 3x for some enterprise drives and +$$ for the controllers, backup, cooling, etc...it's not that costly compared to the overall cash flow.

Add to that, they were probably storing the data anyway for research into the effects of various changes and trends over time, and the cost of this is extremely cheap at several times the cost if it helps drum up increased player interest or satisfaction. The primary problem of an MMO is retention - if they can improve that, across as many users as WoW has? It makes them a LOT of money later. Armory has its usual privacy qualms...but this is a pretty solid move.

[Hachoo]

Not quite as simple as a couple hard drives. I'm sure they're using enterprise level SAN storage arrays for all of their database storage, adding a couple disk drives doesn't work the same as adding them to a server, and costs a shit-ton more.

It's basically a high-traffic web database server. SAN, maybe not...but controllers and backup get to be the expensive part for a large database compared to the drives themselves. And no, they're not getting the $100 Newegg special...but even at 3x for some enterprise drives and +$$ for the controllers, backup, cooling, etc...it's not that costly compared to the overall cash flow.

Add to that, they were probably storing the data anyway for research into the effects of various changes and trends over time, and the cost of this is extremely cheap at several times the cost if it helps drum up increased player interest or satisfaction. The primary problem of an MMO is retention - if they can improve that, across as many users as WoW has? It makes them a LOT of money later. Armory has its usual privacy qualms...but this is a pretty solid move.heh... nothing is costly compared to their overall cash flow, they bank ridiculous amounts of money. But I can tell you that at my office I'm in charge of the SAN and all the Unix servers, and our Enterprise Disk Array Disks (fiber channel of course) are only 300GB in size and cost $2800 a piece, and that's after a 35% discount. The arrays themselves loaded with a portion of drives were almost $2 million each (we have 2 at this location). Of course as you said this wouldn't make much of a dent in their cash flow but its certainly a hell of a lot more expensive than most people think :) Just don't want people getting the wrong idea that "enterprise" drives are just "a bit more expensive than the IDE/SATA drives you put in your PC at home" :)

[zanthor]

Not quite as simple as a couple hard drives. I'm sure they're using enterprise level SAN storage arrays for all of their database storage, adding a couple disk drives doesn't work the same as adding them to a server, and costs a shit-ton more.

It's basically a high-traffic web database server. SAN, maybe not...but controllers and backup get to be the expensive part for a large database compared to the drives themselves. And no, they're not getting the $100 Newegg special...but even at 3x for some enterprise drives and +$$ for the controllers, backup, cooling, etc...it's not that costly compared to the overall cash flow.

Add to that, they were probably storing the data anyway for research into the effects of various changes and trends over time, and the cost of this is extremely cheap at several times the cost if it helps drum up increased player interest or satisfaction. The primary problem of an MMO is retention - if they can improve that, across as many users as WoW has? It makes them a LOT of money later. Armory has its usual privacy qualms...but this is a pretty solid move.I'd all but guarantee they are using a san due to the fact that the DB gets so much traffic they need to be able to spread reads and writes across spindles. Direct Attached Storage just doesnt keep up with even the low end SANs you can get. Combine that with their need to be always online and highly available and I think you would be challenged to build a raid that could perform as well on DAS as you can on SAN.

[Talamarr]

Pfft, I bet the IT people in charge of maintaining all the infrastructure costs a hell of a lot more the the hardware itself :)

[Souca]

Well, considering that they run this little game called World of Warcraft that is database backed, I'm willing to be they have some sort of strategy for the website too ;)

Don't get me wrong, I love talking tech, but the data they need for this page is minor compared tot he data needs of the game itself.

- Souca -