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Post by schnautzr on Sept 10, 2009 3:54:56 GMT
Woot...got all of July sporecasted finally (it sure helped that about 500 of those were lost in limbo ). The queue is currently at 479 starting with creations from August 1. Guys, the sporecasting problem I'm having is staring me in the face, getting worse and worse. We've tested Spore.com's limits, and we've found them. If we go much further, we may lose something. Here's what it all comes down to: The Prehistoria/Mythology/Zoology Sporecast Collections I manage have become so large that the website is incapable of allowing me to sporecast properly. I would not be surprised if, while sporecasting within the next month or less, I crash the server and cause it to lose (at minimum) the sporecasts I maintain. Worst case scenario: I crash Spore.com and cause significant data loss. Best case scenario: I am forced to sporecast exclusively ingame and never affect the server load. Ideal scenario: EA gets their act together and fixes the website to handle heavier sporecasting, resolving all my problems. Not likely. Expected scenario: I crash Spore.com and cause one or all of my sporecasts to disappear into limbo. If I am forced to sporecast ingame, you can expect me to stop updating Prehistoria (and the other two sporecast collections). If the sporecasts are lost completely or become corrupted, I don't plan on reviving them. Here's the question: What should I do? A few options: *Stop sporecasting altogether but don't delete any sporecasts *Clean out Prehistoria and get rid of duplicate species (I hate playing favorites, though) *Pretend nothing is wrong
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mantooth02
Researcher
Dieter the Saurornitholestes [F4:ManTooth02]
Posts: 134
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Post by mantooth02 on Sept 10, 2009 18:50:07 GMT
Can't you spit them up in some way? Mesozoic, Cenozoic etc, something like that? You could also clean it up a bit, playing favorites sucks but some are obviously better than others.
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Post by schnautzr on Sept 10, 2009 18:59:40 GMT
Hmm. I'd hate to merge Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous all into a single Mesozoic sporecast. I suppose a start might be to get rid of the smallest of the Mythology Sporecast Collection. There are several sporecasts with 1-3 creations in that collection that I can get rid of. I'll see if it's an improvement. Edit: Just deleted a total of 91 sporecasts, including most of the MSC and ZSC. I kept the largest of the MSC and the comprehensive sporecasts from both MSC and ZSC. I also kept Mammals, since I never finished going through and migrating the fossil ones to the PSC. Still experiencing the problem. It didn't even improve the least bit. Edit: I'm beginning to seriously regret deleting most of the MSC...that was a whole year's work. Oh well, I'm keeping the Mexico, U.S., England, Rome, Greece, China, Egypt, Norway, and Japan ones.
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Post by schnautzr on Sept 13, 2009 22:06:15 GMT
I didn't think the sporecast situation could get any worse...here's the current scenario:
Sporecast list is truncated to 20 sporecasts (5 on the UK site) and does not display scrollbar. Cannot search for sporecasts anymore. This means I can't edit or remove any of the sporecasts that don't appear in the sporecast list on the left margin. EA doesn't care and thinks it's my Firefox installation. I've done enough extensive testing to know that's not the case. It's not Firefox, it's not Windows Vista, and it's not even my computer. It's my web account. Sporemaster Kaliena is very confused and has no idea what to do; hasn't even succeeded in getting EA's attention. The bug has now cost me 104 sporecasts (91 of them permanently, 13 of them hopefully only temporarily) I have access to the following sporecasts (and ONLY the following sporecasts):
Zoology Mythology: England Mythology: Norway Mythology: Germany Mythology: Rome Mythology: Greece Mythology: Mexico Willosaur Invasion! Mythology: Egypt Mythology:All Mythology: United States Prehistoria Museum Neogene Paleogene Cretaceous Jurassic Triassic Permian Carboniferous
THIS MEANS that I will be discontinuing the specialized MSC sporecasts. Prehistoria is now the only sporecast collection in existence, to the best of my knowledge.
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mantooth02
Researcher
Dieter the Saurornitholestes [F4:ManTooth02]
Posts: 134
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Post by mantooth02 on Sept 14, 2009 23:22:32 GMT
Wow man, that really sucks. How many Sporecasts did you have when you were at your max. Sounds like you've invested more in this than I had ever imagined.
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Post by schnautzr on Sept 15, 2009 0:13:01 GMT
The highest I ever was aware of was 124 sporecasts, 91 of which belonged to the MSC. 11 belong to Prehistoria. I don't remember how many Zoology sporecasts there were-- around 10 or 15. I also still maintain the Willosaur Invasion! and a sporecast featuring the template creatures for the sporecast (in case someone would like to contribute to the invasion). Additionally, I kept a sporecast of my own creations for the times whenever I need to repollinate my game (I'll restore that sporecast eventually-- it's not too hard to compile). I maintained a Featured Creations sporecast for quite awhile before abandoning it. The reason I stopped upkeeping that one after about the first 750 or so featureds was because it was beginning to become difficult to manage the Featureds, Noah's Ark (later divided into Zoology), Prehistoria, and Mythology. I eventually got rid of Sea Monsters because it was the largest and most pointless sporecast ever. Everyone wanted everything added to it, and I didn't have time. I've had several less significant sporecasts here and there along the way.
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mantooth02
Researcher
Dieter the Saurornitholestes [F4:ManTooth02]
Posts: 134
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Post by mantooth02 on Sept 15, 2009 2:57:28 GMT
How did you ever have time to manage 124 Sporecasts? That is amazing. I guess I knew you already had a lot between Mythology, Prehistoria and Zoology but 124 is mind boggling.
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Post by schnautzr on Sept 15, 2009 5:19:15 GMT
Managing that many sporecasts at once means the sporecasting process is very slow, too. When I first started I would do maybe 50-70 creations at once. Once the sporecasts began adding up, sporecasting more than 10 was quite a commitment. It's not easy finding those sporecasts, especially with the naming convention I had for the MSC-- all of them started with "Mythology: " (e.g. "Mythology: Greece") and made finding them particularly difficult-- all that displayed in the left margin was "Mythology: Gr...", "Mythology: Ca...", "Mythology: Be...". Couldn't tell Greece from Greenland, Canada from Cambodia or Cameroon, Belgium from Bermuda. But I got by; not sure how. I also do research every time I sporecast something so I can be sure it's going into the correct sporecast (although with the ZSC and MSC turned into individual sporecasts, research will now only be required for the PSC. You can probably guess why I don't create very often. While I'm not sporecasting or expanding the Great Checklist, I pass time by playing Spore, doing hw, or escaping with Age of Mythology, Age of Empires II, or Bubble Spinner, one of the most awesome flash games ever. Plus I'm getting addicted now to Evony. Thankfully, though, it has a lot of downtime that allows me to do other things (like hw) while playing. College and work fill in the rest of the picture...
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Post by schnautzr on Sept 15, 2009 16:54:38 GMT
I'm happy to say that the search feature works again. That means I'll be able to continue editing the pre-Carboniferous sporecasts. Also, condensing two sporecast collections into individual sporecasts sure is a relief. I now have far less research when sporecasting to those collections.
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