User talk:Xell Khaar
Ogre[edit source]
That's a tremendously good catch -- how did you notice it? ʞooɔ 05:43, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Haha, thanks. I'm just a little obsessive with release dates. I have many more like that I could fix based on educated guesses, but I'm not sure how much leeway I have with that (for instance, the Black scimitar probably came out on 04/30/02, but I wouldn't be able to prove it in court). Many from early 2001 are hard to pin down in particular. Message board posts Andrew would make or even transcripts of private conversations he would have with fan site owners are often all I have to go on. He had a habit of updating the game without even announcing it back then. Not sure what the policy is for adding dates that don't have a news post attached... or if it's even worth it. -- Xell Khaar (talk) 06:43, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- I'm rather obsessive with release dates too! I added about 80% of the ones on the RS Wiki back in 2010, and at one point had nearly all of them memorized. I have a very relevant data source that is helpful for nailing down RSC release dates -- would you be interested in joining our Discord server so I can show it to you? ʞooɔ 08:58, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- A quick glance tells me that's probably not for me, sorry. I haven't talked in a chat room since AOL was a thing. I don't think I have the fortitude for it anymore. Thank you for the invitation, though. I think I'm just going to go back to lurking. Not sure what came over me... -- Xell Khaar (talk) 11:46, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- Okay! Well, if you're looking for more data sources for release dates, https://chisel.weirdgloop.org/rsc/config/ and https://chisel.weirdgloop.org/rsc/maps/ is a website I made that parses old RSC cache data from archive.org into readable formats. It includes item/NPC lists and (some) old map images, reconstructed from the underlying map data. ʞooɔ 09:19, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
- Woa, that's ingenious... that's a gold mine! Do the .jag files happen to have a creation date in them anywhere? I could probably narrow down what update they correspond to via process of elimination though. There's some gaps in the numbering, so presumably the web archive didn't have those ones cached? Or did Jagex just skip numbers between releases? I notice you were able to parse out some item spawn data somehow on the early maps, that's INVALUABLE. The later ones don't have it though, was it not obtainable for the later ones? Are the numbers on the maps the same numbers as the ones on the config files, for instance is maps28.jag from the same update as config28.jag or are those numbers unrelated? Do you know if the NPC's dialogue happens to be buried in any of these files somewhere? If I could even just read some of that in a hex editor that would be so useful, but I don't see it. There's a ton of files in rsc/files/ though so I may be missing it. Strange they would cache stuff like the text of the Shield of Arrav book and not bother with the dialogue data. Anyway, thank you very much for the resource. I always assumed most of this information was completely lost to time. I'll be spending a lot of time going through all of this! -- Xell Khaar (talk) 18:22, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
- The files unfortunately don't have start dates. it's possible someone has archived clients that correspond to the specific cache files, and THOSE have dates, but that's unlikely to be the case for all of them. The numbers are independent for each cache type -- maps40 is not the same time as config40. The spawn data was only present in the first few revisions I have. I think it's very unlikely NPC dialogue is present, and they actually removed the books file after 18. BTW, check out the early runes in config18's items file. Pretty wack. ʞooɔ 18:30, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
- Woa, I remember someone finding the icon for the Life rune before, but I've never heard of illusion, time, or reality. Fascinating. It's going to be important not assuming something was released just because it was in the game's files. For instance, at first I thought config46 was the Member's update due to herbs and things getting added, but I think it was actually the 12/08/01 update due to all the Black equipment. He was just adding Members items to the files in preparation for the release. Dragon weapons weren't in there yet either until config50. -- Xell Khaar (talk) 21:22, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
- The files unfortunately don't have start dates. it's possible someone has archived clients that correspond to the specific cache files, and THOSE have dates, but that's unlikely to be the case for all of them. The numbers are independent for each cache type -- maps40 is not the same time as config40. The spawn data was only present in the first few revisions I have. I think it's very unlikely NPC dialogue is present, and they actually removed the books file after 18. BTW, check out the early runes in config18's items file. Pretty wack. ʞooɔ 18:30, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
- Woa, that's ingenious... that's a gold mine! Do the .jag files happen to have a creation date in them anywhere? I could probably narrow down what update they correspond to via process of elimination though. There's some gaps in the numbering, so presumably the web archive didn't have those ones cached? Or did Jagex just skip numbers between releases? I notice you were able to parse out some item spawn data somehow on the early maps, that's INVALUABLE. The later ones don't have it though, was it not obtainable for the later ones? Are the numbers on the maps the same numbers as the ones on the config files, for instance is maps28.jag from the same update as config28.jag or are those numbers unrelated? Do you know if the NPC's dialogue happens to be buried in any of these files somewhere? If I could even just read some of that in a hex editor that would be so useful, but I don't see it. There's a ton of files in rsc/files/ though so I may be missing it. Strange they would cache stuff like the text of the Shield of Arrav book and not bother with the dialogue data. Anyway, thank you very much for the resource. I always assumed most of this information was completely lost to time. I'll be spending a lot of time going through all of this! -- Xell Khaar (talk) 18:22, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
- Okay! Well, if you're looking for more data sources for release dates, https://chisel.weirdgloop.org/rsc/config/ and https://chisel.weirdgloop.org/rsc/maps/ is a website I made that parses old RSC cache data from archive.org into readable formats. It includes item/NPC lists and (some) old map images, reconstructed from the underlying map data. ʞooɔ 09:19, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
- A quick glance tells me that's probably not for me, sorry. I haven't talked in a chat room since AOL was a thing. I don't think I have the fortitude for it anymore. Thank you for the invitation, though. I think I'm just going to go back to lurking. Not sure what came over me... -- Xell Khaar (talk) 11:46, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
- I'm rather obsessive with release dates too! I added about 80% of the ones on the RS Wiki back in 2010, and at one point had nearly all of them memorized. I have a very relevant data source that is helpful for nailing down RSC release dates -- would you be interested in joining our Discord server so I can show it to you? ʞooɔ 08:58, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I've gone through and extrapolated the dates. I'm counting 65 separate updates to RSC now if you don't count anything before 2001-01-04. Here you go for what it's worth:
2001-01-04 -- MISSING 2001-01-19 -- MISSING 2001-01-23 -- MISSING 2001-01-28 -- MISSING 2001-02-05 -- MISSING 2001-02-13 -- MISSING 2001-02-16 -- MISSING 2001-02-28 -- MISSING 2001-03-17 -- MISSING 2001-04-06 -- MISSING 2001-05-08 -- config18.jag 2001-05-24 -- MISSING 2001-05-26 -- MISSING 2001-06-11 -- config26.jag 2001-06-23 -- config28.jag 2001-07-12 -- config29.jag 2001-07-26 -- config31.jag 2001-08-13 -- config32.jag 2001-08-18 -- MISSING 2001-09-23 -- config34.jag 2001-10-31 -- config37.jag HIDDEN -- config38.jag HIDDEN -- config42.jag HIDDEN -- config44.jag 2001-12-08 -- config46.jag 2001-12-25 -- config48.jag 2001-01-29 -- config49.jag 2001-02-27 -- config50.jag HIDDEN -- config51.jag 2002-03-18 -- MISSING 2002-03-25 -- config55.jag 2002-04-09 -- config56.jag 2002-04-30 -- config57.jag 2002-05-10 -- config58.jag 2002-05-28 -- config59.jag 2002-06-17 -- config60.jag HIDDEN -- config61.jag HIDDEN -- config62.jag 2002-07-23 -- MISSING 2002-08-15 -- MISSING 2002-08-27 -- MISSING 2002-09-09 -- config66.jag 2002-09-24 -- config67.jag 2002-10-23 -- MISSING 2002-11-13 -- MISSING 2002-11-14 -- MISSING 2002-11-15 -- MISSING 2002-11-25 -- MISSING 2002-12-12 -- MISSING 2002-12-25 -- MISSING 2003-01-27 -- MISSING 2003-01-28 -- MISSING 2003-01-28 -- MISSING 2003-03-03 -- MISSING 2003-03-17 -- MISSING 2003-04-14 -- MISSING 2003-04-20 -- MISSING 2003-05-07 -- MISSING 2003-05-27 -- MISSING 2003-05-29 -- MISSING 2003-06-09 -- MISSING 2003-07-09 -- MISSING 2003-07-28 -- MISSING 2003-08-20 -- MISSING 2003-09-22 -- MISSING 2003-10-31 -- config85.jag
-- Xell Khaar (talk) 01:35, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Beer glass[edit source]
Was the "22 March" part a typo? I see updates dated the 25th of March, but nothing the 22nd of that year. Chen (talk) 08:45, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, it was. Fixed it, thanks. -- Xell Khaar (talk) 08:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
RS2 beta[edit source]
Hey Xell! Would you mind holding off on changing the release dates of RS2 beta stuff to the full launch date? While it's true that they didn't officially join the "released" game until 29 March, I'm generally of the view that it's more useful to have the date it was added to the beta. That's because giving a beta release date conveys strictly more information than just giving the launch date -- if we see the date is 3 March 2004, then we can surmise that it officially made it out of beta on 29 March, but if we just put 29 March, then it loses information about the beta development history. ʞooɔ 05:52, 2 March 2020 (UTC) ʞooɔ 05:52, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- My only concern is that it creates a double standard. They frequently use test servers today as well and we still use the real release date. The thing is, RS1 was ongoing at the same time as RS2 beta; it was a totally separate thing.
So if you were to say that warhammers came out before the halloween Scythe it would just be confusing. Because you could obtain a Scythe on a live server before you could obtain a warhammer after all.If retaining that additional information is important, then couldn't we just make a separate field in the infobox for "beta release date" or something? I want to be able to "What links here" on the RS2 launch update to see everything that was added, and right now I can't do that. -- Xell Khaar (talk) 07:59, 2 March 2020 (UTC) - EDIT: Okay so Beta didn't start until after the Hallowen update, but still. -- Xell Khaar (talk) 08:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
- FWIW I'm not aware of any entity updates to RSC while the beta was active from 1 December to 29 March, so there's actually no overlap there. I suppose the correct compromise is to use the
{{Subject changes}}template. I'm just not a fan of completely removing the beta release dates (which often took a lot of effort to get, and are much more interesting) and replacing them with the obvious, easy 29 March date. ʞooɔ 08:23, 2 March 2020 (UTC)- Something like that the below, perhaps? I haven't seen anyone put an item's release into that template before, but I suppose I could do it. The phrasing could be refined a little, of course. I was wondering if we were supposed to be using that for pre-2013 stuff as I haven't seen any articles with changes that old. I mean, I could go to town with a template like that really... would it be acceptable to start adding ancient changes like the ones I'm sure you can imagine me adding?
- FWIW I'm not aware of any entity updates to RSC while the beta was active from 1 December to 29 March, so there's actually no overlap there. I suppose the correct compromise is to use the
| Date | Changes |
|---|---|
| 29 March 2004 (update) |
This item is released into the live game as part of RuneScape 2. |
| 3 March 2004 (update) |
This item is added to a test server as part of RuneScape 2 beta. |
- -- Xell Khaar (talk) 07:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, I didn't check this page for a hot minute! Yes, go to town on pre-2013 updates. I'd love to see what you come up with. ʞooɔ 21:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
- I'll try to do what you've asked... but what about this forum thread where they decide to not add release dates to the change log? That doesn't seem compatible with your instructions above. It sounds like they're assuming we won't be adding pre-2013 changes as well? I'd really like some more definite consensus on this before I start adding a ton of them. There needs to be a policy on how to handle beta release dates too. -- Xell Khaar (talk) 00:53, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, I didn't check this page for a hot minute! Yes, go to town on pre-2013 updates. I'd love to see what you come up with. ʞooɔ 21:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
- -- Xell Khaar (talk) 07:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Release Dates Forum[edit source]
Hello, I would like to inform you that there is an ongoing forum thread relating to release dates that I believe you may be interested in discussing given your contributions towards release dates specifically. 
Crow 06:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Do you want a free wiki t-shirt?[edit source]
Hi Xell Khaar!
To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the new site, we're giving away RuneScape Wiki t-shirts to a bunch of wiki editors. Because of your contributions to the community over the last year, we'd like to send you one! If you're interested, go fill out this form, and we'll get those shipped out before the end of the month.
If you have any questions, shoot me a talk page message or a DM on Discord (Cook#2222). Thanks!
ʞooɔ 21:59, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
I made a giant RS1 updates table[edit source]
Here is a giant table of updates, client versions, and cache versions: https://classic.runescape.wiki/w/User:Hubcapp#Combined_update,_client,_and_cache_history_table
Seems relevant to your interests, given that I started out based off of some of your work. I think some of your cache file versions for 10-31-2001 are not dated correctly, because some of the dates associated with mudclients released later use smaller cache versions.
Hope it's useful to you Hubcapp (talk) 15:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- Hey, my pointless release date research came in handy to someone!? It was all worth it! -- Xell Khaar (talk) 06:44, 13 December 2020 (UTC)