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The New Reign Of Blood Server

Posted on 01-May-2019

Welcome to the new Reign Of Blood server!

Reign Of Blood is now sitting on its new hardware and software. I apologise for the delay in getting this online. It was only suppose to be an hour but the database was bigger than I thought. We're up and running now and i'm powering through the teething problems and reports as they come in, especially the 502 and lag spikes (the server is just getting comfy in it's new slot). This switch was done on all out war day so it affects everyone rather equally, and I apologise again for the inconvenience this has caused, there is some compensation after you've made your way through this post as well as everything else I've done to try and make up for it.

But, here we are!

This new server runs the latest in hardware and software, with the most up-to-date PHP and MySQL versions with an updated Reign Of Blood codebase to take full advantage of both. I've been working on this the last couple months and I'm excited to release it to the world.

On the hardware side, we're rocking some brand new super-fast SSD's and new intel processors.

2x Intel Xeon Gold 6134 (2018) (8-core 3.2GHz) processors
2x Intel DC P4460 1.6TB NVMe SSD

What's New?

Since I've started this project I have been making updates and additions to the game. Here is a complete list of all the changes to the game that have been added to the new test server (which is now the new live server).

There are about 100 updates and bug fixes with this new server. This is quite a list, so make a brew and enjoy.

Payment Changes
Due to new EU legislation coming into play at the end of 2019, some changes have been made to the debit/credit card options on Reign Of Blood. This is regarding to the implementation of 3D secure v2. Realex now requires a billing address, and Stripe a new updated API. But I've done what I can to reduce any friction in these areas.

The standard credit/debit card supplier REALEX is now known as GLOBALPAYMENTS. And now by law, they require you supply a billing address. While annoying, I have created a form where you can store your billing address which will pre-fill those details on future payments. For this reason, Stripe, which doesn't require a billing address yet, will be listed first, and GlobalPayments will be listed below it.

- Apple Pay transactions are now handled through Stripe. Which makes it faster, cheaper and more compatible.
- If you're using an Android phone we now accept GOOGLE PAY directly via Xsolla.
- Stripe's new API has been installed with a different payment flow, so don't be alarmed.
- Your Reign Of Blood store basket/cart is now (for a bit of fun) called Casket. You can now also hold up to 10 packs in your Casket to purchase at once.
- Due to VAT and currency complications, you can now only buy yourself packs when using RED.
- The look of the Reign Of Blood store has been updated, and some pack contents slightly tweaked.

Mobile Changes
- New sliding side bar navigation. You'll see the popular 3 lines on the top left of the page, touch this to open the main navigation from anywhere on Reign Of Blood. This will improved over time.
- On longer pages, a new red circle will appear on the bottom right of your screen to jump back to the top of the page.
- Forum id/post search added to mobile
- Time left on coven power relics added to mobile.
- Pet Units now displayed on pet battle arena lists top stats section.

Coven Specific Changes
- New coven VIP option to get back inactive player's lent equipment.
- Brawl bonus "Kill Vampires 100+ Missions Complete" replaced with "Kill Unmarried Vampires".
- Brawl finishes now use their own database table so they don't clash with regular battle finish verifications.
- If Vadenhill human juicyness is more than 10, it will now yield a 100% success rate when donating to the coven.
- Coven exp for donating a Vadenhill human has been increased 50%. (Remember coven VIPs get double coven exp for thier members donating humans.)
- Covens can now add a separate announcement area for mobile devices.
- Covens can now choose to apply the game's swear filter into their coven chats.
- Coven owner option "chat 2 password" is now "chat options" where all chat options will be displayed.
- New "View all" option on the coven rankings page.
- Coven wheel of death now correctly displays the new seeds/token terminology.
- You can now view the stats and top players of raids against your coven.
- Coven power relic blood bonuses will now apply to future Blood Thirst event scores.
- You will now be able to see all covens who scored in the all out war day on the previous week on the coven war page.
- New option when updating coven virtue to overrwrite already previously earned virtue titles.
- All Out War day war exp this week added to your profile conflict linked section.
- "Recruit Vampires" page now available on mobile under coven promotions.

Game Changes/Additions
- The battle arena page will let you know how much battle protection you have left.
- Forum "page hopper" drop down now displays what page you're on out of how many pages there are.
- House owners/staff can now set the default Why should they join? invite text. (set in the house settings page).
- "Current top players" now shows avg blood ratio and finishes for today and yesterday.
- You can no longer place a human in a Vadenhill slot that already has one in there.
- If you remove an AP listing from the market, the amount of AP you're removing is taken off the limit towards your weekly cap for you to add them again.
- Expired bounties are now checked hourly to help stop the news feed glitches.
- Co-op quest invites now give the option to invite someone from your friends list.
- Battle reports are now recent battles when viewing other vampire's.
- The R link on your battle news now goes directly to that battle report.
- Removed individual buy food links on minion which caused glitches if you had the Plasma Boon that allows you to have food pot for all minions.
- Power gained today stat added to power progress section on your home page.
- You can now choose to hide your minions from your profile, just go to edit minion and make sure the show on profile checkbox is not ticked on any minion.
- You can now link up to 20 blogs to an RP character.
- New players 'get drunk' random daily is now 'buy a drink'.
- Removed the seconds from news items for a cleaner look and to add more room or content.
- You can now order templates on the profile market by popularity, price and date added.
- Added the ability to search RP forum posts by poster ID.
- When saving a blank "Custom PvP Battle Verb" it will turn it off.
- "A Ghostly Town" quest has been removed.
- RP chats rule 2 has been updated with an example.
- "Magic Warehouse" from Ghost town has been removed.

Layout Updates
- Spend some time polishing the UI on most pages.
- Profiles have been given an updated look and now include wins today stat, and today's win/blood ratio stat. Made to be compatible with people's current profile codes, but will continue to work on this as reports come in.
- New VIP option to change the game's text font (on default and RoB Lite v2 only). All players can change from the default back to Arial, however.
- Replaced the footer image.
- Adjusted header images and general game colours for improved look on lower quality monitors.
- Updated the look of the forums and the chats and made them all share the same layout.

General Bug/Error Fixes
- Fixed error with brawl coven stats not properly logging the correct week.
- Fixed error that wouldn't properly clear off previous minion profile choices.
- Fixed error with battle protection potion taking effect in brawl arena.
- Fixed error with [ Your Coven War ] not showing your war day after it has been declared.
- Fixed error with the defended incursion total was not adding correctly.
- Fixed error with Unknown Task XIV quest not counting correctly.
- Fixed error coven war turns personal stat not wiping when leaving a coven (had no affect on the actual war scores).
- Fixed error with 'any coven' browse vampires function was bringing up vampires not in a coven.
- Fixed error with mobile quick links navigating off https.
- Fixed error with custom emotes not reducing your "Plasma owed" stat for Auction Market reselling.
- Fixed error with completing a brawl didnt appear to count towards one of your three conflicts required one the main conflict page (but it did actually count).
- Made it clear on the increase power page that it calculates your life max based on the AP value, rather than the amount of life itself.
- You should no longer get coven level up news notifications for a reward category you didn't earn due to there not being enough currency in that specific pot.
- Fixed error where Gift shop moon stone option was sending as just a regular boring stone.
- Fixed error with special pack double bonuses being active during excluded events.
- Fixed error that only allowed 8 characters when typing a reason you kicked someone out of the coven.
- Fixed error with you unable to log back in easily when you change your game email.
- Fixed error with coven virtue not displaying correctly on profiles if none was set.
- Fixed error where you couldn't select all news on the quest & gift categories for quick deletion.
- Fixed error with BL template subjects not showing up as the default subject.

Database optimisations & making TOH faster
I have gone through and made the main header/footer query processes as streamlined as possible, with extra focus on the battle pages. I have done a number of changes and tweaks after logging and watching what queries load slowly. In regards to battles (which is the main problem) I have worked on better ordering techniques to get to the rows as quickly as possible. I have found a few things that add unnecessary load to the pages and action has been taken. News, battle news, and battle history logs are now deleted after 7 days, down from 10 days. I have emptied a load data no longer needed, like leftover event tables, old BT data etc. The 'finish them' verifications that are made when you battle are wiped at midnight each day during cool down to keep it empty, as there are hundreds of entries sitting in there pending at any given time that don't need to be, as it might be a day or two gap between people battling again. All of this, along with other smaller tweaks each contribute to reducing page load times. Also keep in mind most of the speed enhancemnts only apply to the default and RoB-Lite v2 layouts, the older layouts are not fully supported.

There are still some more tweaks here and there to do, which i'll continue to work on for the rest of this week.

As I said, there might be some teething issues as we get settled into this new hardware. So please report any strange findings on this forum thread.

Cheers & enjoy,
Ash

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