Status Update, 2/20/17
Hi everyone,
Kattiara here. I wanted to give a general update. First a shout-out - there are some amazing and wonderful editors in the community (TORAelle and Palidan188 most recently – hugs to you both!) who have been helping out immensely with the creation of all the pages for new events, and have been doing so for for awhile. Thank you again for that, and to all of the players who contribute data in the form of unit and monster stats. I’m biased, but I think this is one of the best mobile gaming wikis around, and it’s absolutely because of a lot of great players and contributors. Thank you to everyone. :)
For a long time now, I’ve been the main editor who has uploaded image files for events, and set up the units and monsters within the database backend. And over these past few years, the events have gotten shorter (usually ~ 3 days each now) and often overlap, and packs have gotten more frequent (new packs literally every single day). That means that the amount of files that go into each update have also increased, and the amount of time and effort it takes to bundle it all together has gone up.
I want to note that I do not, and have never had, any affiliation with Mobage / DeNA / Silicon Studios. I’m just a random player who is also a data nerd, and wanted to try and help collect info for the wiki as best I could.
For anyone curious, the update process on my side is something like this:
- Wake up early (~6:30am EST) to start checking when the game comes up from maintenance
- While I’m waiting, use the new event’s Rules page to start creating the full event page on the wiki, listing all the info, units, packs, rewards, etc.
- At some point, maintenance ends and the game comes up. Start the process of pulling the local, encrypted image files down to be able to work with
- Decrypt the files, rename the files, prep and get them ready for upload, including units, monsters, banners, item icons, packart, etc, upload to FTP site
- Pull down posters, rename appropriately, condense if the files are too large, upload to FTP site
- Go into the backend of the wiki site, create all of the units / monsters in the database
- Review and check for issues. Fix typos! One thing that still gets me if I’m trying to move quickly is units with the same name, but different versions. I sometimes overwrite an older version, and then have to revert it back, fix the new files with a new name, and then reupload. How many more freaking versions of Kanbei Kuroda and Yoshiteru Ashikaga will they release?!?
The whole thing takes usually about 2 hours start to finish, at which point I’m running out the door and trying not to be late to work.. and as noted above, this doesn't even include the creation of the individual pack and unit pages. The whole thing gets repeated every single time there’s a new event, so about two to three times a week. Mwilkens37 has helped me out with updates a couple times in the past, but it’s too much to ask anyone to do consistently.
Including, unfortunately, myself.
I’ve played this game for going on 4½ years. I’ve been running files on the wiki for ~3 years. I took a break at one point in 2015, and was yelled at for ‘abandoning’ the community. If maintenance ends late, or is extended, I literally don’t have time to run the files before work, and will usually do it later that same night – but that still gets me nasty comments about the wiki being slow and out of date. Even worse are the people who post nasty things directly on the wiki itself because they’re impatient.
I am burned out. Not only are the updates more frequent and larger, so have more work involved, but the game itself has turned into such a pure moneygrab that it’s no longer fun for me to play. They’ve hamstrung the ‘trading’ aspect of what was original a trading card game. Rewards are for the most part literally unobtainable without significant spending AND being lucky with bonus units. None of this is unheard of in gacha-type games, but it still makes me sad.
I’ve also spent more money on this game over the years than I should have. I’m not a top ranker – you won’t see me on forstle's lists – but I always get sucked back in. I tell myself I’m going f2p, and then there’s a new nifty sprite and I end up trying to get it. Then I tell myself now I’m REALLY going to go f2p, and the cycle repeats.
I no longer have the time, energy, desire, or money to stay in the game. So I’m retiring, both in game and from this wiki.
I decided to post this to give a bit of explanation and warning to folks. As of right now, I’m planning to continue updating through the end of this month (February 2017). So I’ll do the Guild Battle that’ll start this Thursday, as well as the event after that on the 27th. Once February is over, I’m officially retired.
Although I'm retiring, I want to stress that the wiki is still here (heck, I don't own it or anything!), and very much still a tool for all of you to use and update. I hope other folks may figure out a better and less manual way to get information posted and shared. If anyone is interested in learning the process I used (which again is not anything official, but very cobbled together), there’s a zip available here with an info doc laying out the steps I would take.
Thank you to my Allies over the years, who have always been amazing. Thanks to the community for all the help and contributions. Thanks once again to the other editors on the wiki. And thank you to all the folks who have just used the wiki and enjoyed having it as a resource! My favorite thing was when someone would message me to say, the wiki is awesome, I'm so glad you guys do it. It was definitely a joint effort across a lot of great editors, so that thanks goes to everyone. :)
Best of luck to everyone - whether you continue with Fanta or find other sources of entertainment (if you haven't already), hope you have fun whatever you're up to!
TL;DR: I'm retiring from the game and wiki. So long, and thanks for all the fish. :) If anyone is interested in picking things up, check out this zip with info on what I would do. -Kattiara (talk)
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