Voting system upgrade

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+Colibri
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Voting system upgrade

Post by +Colibri »

We have a brand new, completely recoded voting system. What we had previously was based on sporadic and unreliable data, then patched to compensate for the unreliability - and it was scheduled for an overhaul during june. In the last month or so there were also database errors popping up - so it's just about time for a completely fresh take. Since the old system was put in place, a lot has changed on the topsites, and also the way our shard works under the hood, so it's nice to see this streamlined system in action.

Long story short: it's still at it's original location. When you open it, you can click "Start voting" which will open your browser, you have 15 minutes to vote on all of the big bold links. After you vote, click "Refresh" on the gump (or doubleclick the stone again) and a reward option will be displayed.

Changes in rewards:
- the stone now no longer relies on confirmations for increasing or decreasing your reward level, the reward level is increased if you have voted within 48 hours. 48-72 hours the reward level stays the same. 72-96 it goes down by 1 level.. and so on (the decrease is based on how long ago you voted last time). History is checked up to 14 days ago. Note below about exception during first week of this system.
- If there are insufficient confirmations from the sites (for example, if you just vote on one), the session will not be considered successful and you will not be able to get the reward.
- Reward level 1 is 2000gp, and increases 2000gp up until level 24. At level 25, the reward is 1ED.
- There is also an Achievemet based on voting! If you vote every day, on consecutive days, your achievement will progress through 4 tiers (the last tier being 365 days). Missing a day resets the achievement progress, but the tiers you have already achieved will remain. A day is the 24 hours on the shard time (from 0:00 to 23:59), so you have quite a wide timewindow if you want to vote at about the same time every day. But be careful if you vote around midnight shard time - if you vote 24 hours and a few minutes apart (one vote on Monday at 23:55 and another on Wednesday at 0:05), the achievement will reset.


Note about cooldown: you can now vote every 22 hours. Most sites are on a 24 hour cooldown, that's why in the previous system it was recommended to wait 24 hours + 15 minutes for safety, before doing another session. This system now checks which sites you voted for yesterday, and excludes the ones that are still on cooldown for you, from the random pool of sites that are picked for your vote.

Note about transition to the new system: The old system, over the last few weeks, sometimes reduced reward level even with full fair voting, I have pulled data over the past 2 months (since May 1st) and obtained the maximum level every player was at. This level is now also recorded in the new system. The reward decreasing logic (more days between votes, more the level goes down) will take effect on July 14th. So for those who won't start voting today or tomorrow, your reward level will remain for another week.


The stone gump (menu) needs some decorative touchups, and instructions/help will be embedded into the gump itself. Probably in about a week. If you run into problems with the new system, it's best that you send an in-game ticket. You can also reply to this topic if you have any questions.
+Colibri, Administrator of UO Excelsior Shard

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+Colibri
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Re: Voting system upgrade

Post by +Colibri »

There were a few reports about the reward level from the old system not transferring to the new one... and i see the bug in the import script, though now with some voting data already in the new system, it would be a good amount of time and brainpower to make this correctly - so good news, everyone's reward is level is now 25. For those who already voted and got the lesser reward (usually level 2), i'm afraid you will not be getting additional checks or ED to compensate for it (fortunately it's usually just one vote since the system went in about 24 hours ago). But from here on, you will get the proper reward.
+Colibri, Administrator of UO Excelsior Shard

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Re: Voting system upgrade

Post by +Colibri »

2 days ago I finished the look of the voting gump, and there were 2 separate issues:

a. if your client wasn't patched, or not properly patched, the client crashed right when you opened the gump. I've switched the way the gump is built, so even with an outdated client, it should still open ok.

b. A bug that, if you haven't voted at all, ever, no gump was opened at all. This is also now fixed.

There's a separate issue, where the gump opens OK, but when you start the voting session, even if you click the "open browser again", nothing happens.
This is an issue that's been around for years and I'd like to figure out, right now we were looking into this with the help of Kellsar Wolf and Lily Schonbloom, since they have this issue and know their way around the configuration, alas we weren't able to find the cause.

So, if the browser doesn't open for you, unfortunately you will not be able to vote until we figure this out, or make a workaround.

(Discussion thread about the crashing issue: http://www.uoex.net/forum/viewtopic.php ... 47&start=0 )
+Colibri, Administrator of UO Excelsior Shard

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+Colibri
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Re: Voting system upgrade

Post by +Colibri »

There's now a workaround for those who have issues with the "open browser" feature.
(For some, the stone doesnt open a browser at all. And some get it to open, but it doesnt open in their preferred browser, even though it's set as default, but in Internet Explorer - security risk, doesnt open pages correctly & very slow)

When you go to the Vote Stone and start a new voting session, there's now also the option to open "manual mode". You get a 9-digit ID, which you enter in at http://www.uoex.net/vote

Happy captcha solving!
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+Colibri, Administrator of UO Excelsior Shard

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