Three years ago due to the popularity of Master Merchant and other addons that relied on the Guild History API, the game servers were struggling to keep up with the demand, threatening the stability of the whole game.
ZOS swiftly took measures to reduce the load by limiting the speed with which data can be requested and even considered completely locking down the API for addons at one point.
In order to prevent that from happening, I wrote LibHistoire as a way to cache the history data locally and make it available to addons without having to query the server for every request.
And while it did improve the situation, it still would not be able to help with requests made via the vanilla UI or with addons that did not switch to the library.
Fast forward to today and we are finally getting a new and more efficient guild history with Update 41.
The new system will allow to load data much faster (500 entries at a time compared to 100 before) and going back for a longer period of time (at least 30 days). In addition, it will also enable addons to request data for specific time ranges without having to load all the history up to that point.
And as if that is not already enough, it will offer a shared cache for the vanilla UI and addons alike, so that data can be accessed without having to query the server again.
As you can see, the new system will make LibHistoire’s caching feature obsolete and as such I will be removing all the caching functionality from the library starting with the next update.
In order to improve loading times, I also decided it will be best to completely delete already stored data, so if you want to retain any of it for future use, please make sure to export all the information you want to keep before the update arrives early next year.
Now you may be wondering what will LibHistoire be used for in the future?
The answer is that it will continue to act as a wrapper around the new system and ensure that addons relying on the library will be compatible with the new system without any changes on their part.
In addition it will also add more fine-grained control over the new cache than what the game itself will provide, as well as visualise the state of it by adapting the already available UI.
For a more in-depth look at the new API, check out this thread on the ESOUI forum.
