Back in the middle of January, I decided to spend a little time and implement an application to help friends in the WoW Guild The Blacklist keep track of their Suicide Kings loot system.
Update:
Beta signups for the new version at 7Loot.com!
Prior to my application (called, imaginatively, SKapp), they were keeping track of two lists by hand (Regular and a Tier), which produced errors, was very labor intensive, and slow to update. I designed a small database driven application which tracks position on the list, the loot each character receives, and the amount of time since a character raided with the guild.
The results are displayed in a nicely formatted rankings list which allows participants to view their position on each of the two separate lists, the time since they last raided, and a history log of all past actions on the list. Character names are color coded according to class, and link to the wow armory.
You may view a live results page here:
The Blacklist Suicide Kings List
You can retrieve a copy of SKapp v0.5.4.zip. You’ll need MySQL 4 or higher, and PHP5. It also works better if you have some way to schedule cron jobs.
Update: Added Death Knight support, fixed several bugs. See the readme for more information.
If you are interested in installing and using this system for your guild, I will be happy to work with you to get it up and running. Alternatively, if you don’t want to host it yourself, I can host it for you. Just leave me a note here and I’ll get back to you via email.
Several Kinships are now using this for LOTRO with minor modifications. There is also at least one Everquest group using this system, and it has been successfully adapted for Age of Conan.
Update:
I’m working on a new version of this which should be online very shortly. It will be free and easy to use, you just sign in to start using it. It will be a lot more user friendly and have a number of new features including support for several different MMOs besides WOW, as many lists as you want to run, and a more comprehensive loot tracking system. I’m hoping to have it ready for public beta testing in several weeks, but in the meantime if you want to be notified when there is room in the private beta, sign up at the website and I’ll send you an invite when there is room.
http://7Loot.com/
(if you signed up here before, you don’t need to sign up again)
Although I cannot post a live version of the php app’s management interface, below are several screenshots.
Manage Raid:
Modify Characters:
Rankings List:
I’ve answered most of the comments below via email, and pruned several hundred that weren’t generally useful.
Comments
This is an amazing program. I owe you like 30 some hours of non shitty suicide kings listing :D.
Posted 08 May 2008 at 10:34 AM ¶I’ve installed this on our server. Seems to work fine. However, is there a convenient way to upload the data from the SKG lua file into the database so I don’t have to manually put everyone on, and put their status’ and what not up?
Thanks
Posted 06 Jun 2008 at 12:30 PM ¶Unfortunately this was not built with compatibility with the addon in mind (mainly because we didn’t use the addon, and wanted a system that would last through updates, patches, and the like without getting broken).
It’s open source, so you’re welcome to build a converter yourself, but that the moment one does not exist, sorry.
Posted 06 Jun 2008 at 2:59 PM ¶I keep getting:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: array_combine() in /home/content/s/h/a/shawnpowell/html/raid/main.php on line 39
When I try to save. Thoughts?
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 9:31 AM ¶Read the FAQ section of README.txt
You’re not using php5.
Posted 09 Jul 2008 at 12:38 PM ¶I have to say, Paul has done some excellent work. It is fairly simple to setup, and he’s really nice about helping out when you post here – helped out our guild a lot. Just wanted to drop a quick suggestion for a future update: it would be nice when a person is suicided, that it logs what place they were suicided from in the log. The only reason I say this is because a couple times now, I suicided the wrong person, and its a fairly big hassle to look at backups to figure it out rather than just have it posted there, and it also helps the members keep track as well. Anyways, thanks again, excellent work =D
Posted 23 Aug 2008 at 10:26 PM ¶Excellent app. Thnx for sharing it :)
Posted 05 Jan 2009 at 10:16 AM ¶Not i just need to find out how to add a list so we can have three lists (or more)
Tony: Unfortunately the best solution is to run multiple separate installations of the app if you need more than 2 lists. You are also of course welcome to modify the application itself.
Posted 05 Jan 2009 at 12:50 PM ¶Heya mate.
Great work there. It’s a big step up from the Google Docs spreadsheet we were using previously.
One question. What is the effect of the radio-button question, “Is this character a Guild Member?”
Posted 02 Mar 2009 at 4:22 PM ¶Glad it’s working for you! You’re actually the first person to ask about it, and the answer is “not much.” I put it in there with the idea that I might use it in the future, but never got around to implementing anything. It’s stored in the database though, so if you often have pickup-raiders from out of guild, you could mark them on the rankings page, or implement a 2 week drop policy for non-guild members, or pretty much anything else.
Posted 02 Mar 2009 at 5:53 PM ¶Paul – rankings.html doesn’t come in the zip file, it’s generated by genlist.php the first time you run it.
Posted 16 Mar 2009 at 7:39 AM ¶For Jason :
I got the same problem like u do, but after i changed header.php name with 4 char username (1st char in uppercase). and 5 char passowrd (also 1st char in uppercase). i can access the admin panel.
hope this helps.
and i also got another question, i always get a timeout after a few minutes, is there a way to disable the php timeout too ? cause sometime we kill a boss around 10 – 15 min, and after i try to suicide someone the php timeout occurs. is there a way to disable or extend the php timeout ??
thanks in advance
Posted 29 May 2009 at 11:28 AM ¶Hello,
Posted 31 May 2009 at 11:02 AM ¶I have the same problem like “Jason”.
Hope you can help me.
Second thing is, I wanted use the programm for Lotro too. An example how to would be very nice.
@stefan I have a working LOTRO adaption that you can see linked from my kinships website. If you drop me some contact details vis the admin link on the website I will send you some files
Posted 05 Jun 2009 at 7:04 AM ¶I believe I have everything set up right. I can add the members, and edit a raid but the rankings.html is not being created. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong…
Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 9:07 PM ¶Will we be able to host our own copy of the new version if we would rather?
Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 12:34 AM ¶Part of the reason I’m setting up the new version is because everyone has so much trouble installing the old version. The new version is actually even more complex to install, so I’m not planning on offering it for download. It will have the ability to back your lists up via email, and you can always include the new lists in your website via an iframe (or there might be more complex ways – an api even, if there was interest). But long story short, no it won’t replace this one if you want to install it yourself on your server.
Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 12:39 AM ¶Well not everyone does ;) But I see your point entirely and the backups was my big concern as its pretty emotive data :) As someone who’s done a LOTRO adaptation I’ve signed up and will be happy to help with the testing.
An iFrame should be fine for integration for me.
I’ll save the host of other questions I have for later :)
Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 12:46 AM ¶I’m disheartened to hear people have an issue installing this and that angst (among other things, I’m sure) has prompted a hosted-only version.
I, for one, would rather host than be hosted. Having access to the code to tweak/add things my guild requests has been critical for keeping my inbox light and fluffy.
After you go live with the hosted version I hope you reconsider a downloadable! SKApp has been great regardless, so thanks for the effort.
Posted 13 Jul 2009 at 1:27 PM ¶Is it possible I can have a version for Lotro please to test.
Thanks,
Mark
Posted 28 Jul 2009 at 10:02 PM ¶Were you after a LOTRO adaptation of the current 0.5.4 version? If so I can let you have a copy of the modified files that I use for a LOTRO kinship. Just drop a mail to admin@ the domain of my kinship and I’ll send you some files zipped up. No links to the Loreboook for characters though as we are in EU so I have no way of testing it.
Posted 29 Jul 2009 at 5:33 AM ¶are you working on a custom version for lord of the rings online? i know of a few guilds that would love to use your SKapp there.
Posted 17 Oct 2009 at 4:24 AM ¶http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a9105535/sks/
Here you can find a verion fpr LOTRO, unfortunately in German but with improved functionality (a list for every raid and a world list). You will have to translate it, which shouldn’t very hard since only the rankings has been translated to german. Quick translation of the classes:
Barde > Minstrel
Posted 19 Oct 2009 at 6:01 AM ¶Jäger > Hunter
Waffenmeister > Champion
Hauptmann > Captain
Kundiger > Lore-Master
Wächter > Guardian
Hüter > Warden
Runenbewahrer > Rune-Keeper
Schurke > Burglar
Unfortunaley I have an serious problem with the app. It seems that I cannot save lists anymore since I have moved my domain on a server with PHP5 and MySQL5. I can log in, edit characters, edit raids, suicide players and when I press the “Save changes” button it seems to work, but when I re-enter the page the raids are empty again and no rankings-page has been created.
What can I do about it?
Posted 19 Oct 2009 at 6:06 AM ¶P.S.: Alle Changes appear in the database. I don’t know why the don’t appear on the admin-page and the rankings.
Posted 19 Oct 2009 at 6:20 AM ¶I wrote the app to work with php5, so I doubt that’s your problem. Perhaps you need to double-check the mysql login info? If you used your actual email address, I might be able to help you more directly.
If the rankings page isn’t changing, double-check that the file exists on the server and the server has permissions to write to it. If it does not exist, create a file called rankings.html and make sure that the webserver has permissions to write to it.
Posted 19 Oct 2009 at 9:52 AM ¶You can use the given email-address. I check the email-address regularly.
The rankings-file exists with write permissions. My assumption is, that the tool simply doesn’t fetch the data stored in the database. The entries are there and it’s no problem to write data to the database, but it seems that the fetch doesn’t work.
I also receive several error messages similar to this one:
Notice: Undefined index: weltlist in /www/htdocs/w00bda8b/sks/main.php on line 23
As you can see I use the LOTRO-version, but it’s the same with your app.
I’d appreciate your help very much try to help to improve the app to work properly with MySQL5.
Posted 19 Oct 2009 at 11:41 AM ¶Obvious tip first – are you using the “Current Rankings” tab at the top of the admin page to generate new HTML output?
Have you tried using Ctrl-F5 to force the browser not to use its cache? I have had trouble with Firefox caching the previous results.
Posted 20 Oct 2009 at 6:07 AM ¶Hey guys, nevermind. The tool is working fine. I was just to stupid (or too clever) to understand, how the tool works. Took me a few days to understand, that the admin doesn’t configure the entire lists but only the status of the current raid an it’s players.
http://laingwaith.miromondo.net/sks/index.html
Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 3:51 AM ¶Hi, thank you very much for this tool, it’s phenomenal.
I would have one question for you. Is there any way we can make the rankings results work with wowhead database (powered by wowhead) or something else that does about the same? I mean so that the item we entered for this particular person that suicided for it and won is working as an hyperlink to the wowhead db and also works with the mouse over feature? If so, is it something that can be done remotely easily or that would imply a lot of work?
Thank you very much again for this great tool.
PM.
Posted 24 Oct 2009 at 9:54 AM ¶I am interested in using your system for my guild. I am unsure of weather or not we will host it or not but will be able to let you know soon
thanks
Posted 05 Nov 2009 at 11:09 AM ¶Hi thank you for the good work.
My guild has been using SKapp for quite some times now and i’ve come to make some modifications on v0.5.2 when woltk was released (DeathKnight support).
I’ve also written a small WoW addons to generate a list of all players in the current raid you’re in, in order to skipp adding player one by one.
I’m currently working on a feature to track attendance of your guildies (based on skapp_log).
Let me now if you’re intereseted !!
Posted 18 Nov 2009 at 1:12 AM ¶I am looking at trying to implement Suicide Kings for a new MMO: Star Trek Online. Just wondered if there was more info out there on how that could be done in a way that I could easily post, and update, the list on our guild website.
Posted 30 Dec 2009 at 12:23 PM ¶Post a Comment