Regarding ESP Colors and Duplications

[Jirato]

BLUF: You could potentially have your ESP color changed to Gray if you are on the below list. It will take some time to sort through the data and update it. But for now, you should be aware that multiple people have those colors. The espcolor command is temporarily disabled until we finish sorting through this.

The following colors are affected by this change: amethyst, ash-gray, cardinal-red, celestial-blue, dark-chocolate, fiery-orange, fiery-red, forest-green, frosty-blue, ghost-white, imperial-blue, indigo, jet, magenta, night-blue, onyx, pearl, silver-gray, snow, twilight-gray, yellow

We've recently discovered a problem that was allowing players to pick ESP colors that should have already been claimed by someone else. Without going into too much detail, we maintain a database containing statistical tracking information (including ESP Colors) for each character. When you generate a list of available ESP colors or try to assign a color, it first queries this database to ensure that it isn't already in use.

Unfortunately, it looks like for at least the past 25 days, if not longer, new characters have not been properly added to the table. That particular issue has since been resolved, but we're presented with a problem now, as we'll have to revert some people to Gray.

We've identified and flagged the 250+ characters that were not saved to the database properly, so we can differentiate them from the ones that were already in the database. If a character was flagged for not being in the database properly and had a color, they will keep their color over the person that was already in the database, since they wouldn't have been able to pick it if the person that was already there had the color first.

If two people who were not in the database previously share a color, the one with the lower ID number will keep that color, as there is no telling what their last access date was.


Example:
Bob was created before the database bug and last played 10/1/2014. His ESP color has been changed to Gray because he has not played recently.
Fred is a new player that started playing mid November
Sam is also a new player starting playing mid November, after Sam

Bob used to use the color Neon-Pink. He got reverted to Gray for inactivity, Fred came in and saw Neon Pink on the list and thought it was awesome, so he picked it for himself. Sam creates a new character a couple weeks later, and also sees it on the list, since Fred isn't in the database. Bob comes back and sees that he's Gray again, and doesn't see that Fred or Sam have Neon-Pink, since neither of them are in the database, so he picks it too.

We now have the following:

Character 1: Bob Neon-Pink
Character 2: Fred Neon-Pink (New Import after the database fix)
Character 3: Sam Neon-Pink (New Import after the database fix)

In a situation like this, Fred would get to keep Neon-Pink and Bob and Sam would be reverted to Gray, since Fred has a lower ID number than Sam, but must have picked it before Bob did, since he wouldn't have been able to pick it if Bob had it first.

[Jirato]

Alright, I managed to work up a pretty nifty command to quickly fix the colors listed above, so everything should be back to normal now. However, if you have a newer character, probably created after mid October, and haven't logged in recently, it might be a good idea for you to just log in once to make sure your information is updated.

[qinweiqi]

Can we get some guidance as to whether we should treat this as OOC or IC. IE should I come up with an RP reason for my character's color change?

[Jirato]

Considering how small a set of characters this affects, and how it should only have affected stuff since mid October/November and after, I was thinking we could just treat it as OOC and act like it never happened.

But if you want an IC justification, I guess it would be feasible that there was some sort of weakness in the ESP network that prevented the usual feeling of resistance when choosing a color, which has for whatever reason since been resolved and now you've got a resistance to those colors or something... Rias would be able to give you a better explanation than I would, really.

[Rias]

I'd say treat it as OOC. If someone is overly insistent that you give an IC explanation, feel free to come up with your own believable response or use one of these handy ready-made ones!

"I kept getting confused with someone with a similar color, so I changed mine to something else."
"Someone else really wanted the color so I, in my benevolence, let them have it and picked this new color for myself."
"I lost my pendant for a while/my pendant was stolen, and by the time I got a new one someone else had chosen my color, so I had to pick a new one."
"I like variety."
"I changed my mind." (pun bonus!)
"I changed it for personal reasons I don't care to explain."
"Life is full of changes. This is one of them."
"I have no idea! I just found myself communicating in Gray, and someone else was using my old color. Very mysterious."

[Jirato]

If you have a newer character, probably created after mid October, and haven't logged in recently, it might be a good idea for you to just log in once to make sure your information is updated.

Just want to point out, we still have 39 newer characters with non-gray ESP colors that haven't logged in since this fix was made. They are going to lose their ESP colors very soon if they don't log in.