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.
Excellent information, looking forward to the new and improved addon~
That’s wonderful! Thanks for keeping us in the loop and for all the work you do!
Fantastic. And wonderful explanation, absolutely clear and helpful.
Hello,
First, thank you very much for the work you’re doing for us all, and for the information about what’s to come 🙂
You wrote about “export all the information” : Is there an integrated way to do that, or should we just backup somes files from the SavedVariables directory ? And, in this case, which ones ?
I usually keep a year of history (mainly for event-related sales), so I wondered whether it will be possible to re-inject this data into the new addon datafiles ?
Thanks a lot,
The various history categories contain different kinds of data, so it all depends on your use case and there is no single way to “export all the information”.
I guess most people who actually make use of the data will already have some workflow in place, so they just need to make sure to read out everything they want to keep and ensure it is stored in some other form outside of the library.
Backing up the saved variables is never a mistake, but in this case it’s also not really a solution, since reading and processing the raw data outside of the game is next to impossible. It may help in case someone plans to provide a separate addon to read the old format even after the new system is in place, but I don’t plan to do that myself.
Re-injecting the old data into the new system is also not possible, which is why I decided to give this early warning.
In the long run, the new system will allow you to keep a year of data if you wish so, but it will start out with less than that, since you will only have access to the last 30 days when the update arrives.
Thank you very much for these explanations 🙂
I have really loved this addon. Thank you for the work you’ve done.
excelent! ty so much for all your work!
cheers
Thanks for this notice and thanks for your work on this add-on.
Thank you very much for the update and all the hard work that you have done to make our gaming lives easier, it is greatly appreciated!
Thanks for all your hard work on this!
You’ve been a great community member for all your work with MM and LH. Thanks for what you’ve done, do, and will do for us, from your grateful lay-abouts using your awesome, free software.
Nice! Great to learn about good things coming to the game and this lib! Appreciate you and the update! 🙂