Curse

Shadowlance. · Jan 17, 2008, 02:03 PM // 14:03

I play GuildWars on multiple computers. It would be nice to have my skill templates follow my account. It's a minor annoyance to want to load up a build on a character or hero and then remember I'd saved it on a different computer. Since the templates are small text files, I'm guessing it wouldn't be a major drain on the servers to have then stored centrally. They could even limit it to a max number of server-stored templates if storage became a problem. Possibly it could even be a client-side option that you'd specify whether you wanted your templates stored locally or centrally.

MithranArkanere · Jan 17, 2008, 03:41 PM // 15:41

You mean this?

GUILD WARS\Templates
GUILD WARS\Templates\[email protected]\Skills
GUILD WARS\Templates\[email protected]\Equipmet
GUILD WARS\Templates\[email protected]\Skills
GUILD WARS\Templates\[email protected]\Equipmet

Something like that?
You can use folders to put the folders per-user already.

Hm... maybe just an option to save the last folder you where in, so you don't have to open two folders anytime you want a template.

Vlatro · Jan 17, 2008, 07:40 PM // 19:40

I share templates with several guildies Via VPN (Virtual Private network). We map it to drive Z and have a batchfile that executes with the client to replace your individual file. If you add something to you file to make public, we just run a secondary batch file to append your entry to the master file. It even auto-updates the build names to fit a naming convention where there are no duplicates and the primary class proceeds the name of the build to keep it organized.

This works, but sounds over complicated for what you're doing. The one major downfall to this workaround we use is the necessity of running outside batch files before loading the game and after we make a change. Then ofcourse it all depends if the computer serving the file is online. We've had the file wiped to nothing a few times because of this (thank god for backups).

I would maybe suggest a "Community Build List" that imports from one of the build wikis and displays a 0-5 star rating. It would be easier pulling from a website via PHP and appending that to your file. Could be done very easily that way, all that is missing is the rating system in-game. Cool idea though, I'll play around with it and see if I can come up with a specific example.

Shadowlance. · Jan 17, 2008, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Today GuildWars has some things it remembers about you that it keeps centrally. For example if I bind some hotkeys, I can logon to GW from any other computer and those hotkeys are still bound. (They are stored on the ANet servers.) Templates though are stored on the local computer's C: drive by default, so when I logon to another computer, I don't see those templates.

I like your batch file idea, and that would be a good workaround, but in a nutshell my request would be that ANet make the templates stored on their own servers, so when I logon from anywhere, I see those templates.

Vlatro · Jan 18, 2008, 04:50 AM // 04:50

It should be doable. After all, they remember the state of all your equipped skills and those of your heroes between logins (otherwise you would always start up with an empty skill bar). I don't see why they couldn't serialize a few more variables and dump it to the player data they keep for you. Better still, I would like to see them give an option in the GUI that allows you to point to a file to save your templates. Preferably a datasource in an SQL database. That opens the doors for player like you to have 3rd party hosting that accomplishes exactly what you want and it allows for communitive build data like what I want, a win/win situation. Not to mention it opens the door for amature developers to create web apps that integrate directly into the game, 3rd party build calculators etc.

mrvrod · Jan 19, 2008, 01:26 AM // 01:26

I'm not personally for or against your idea, but my suggestion would be a cheap thumb drive (512mb would be overkill and probably $5 in a bargan bin).

Then the only problem would be remembering to sync before leaving. I would put a shortcut to the template folder in the center of my desktop.

Or you could zip the folder and mail to yourself using gmail, hotmail, yahoo...etc. Although I think the thumb drive is easier.

Hope this helps.