Playerslot.txt What's the point of it?

[Bill Z Bubba]

Long story short:

 

Got the playerslot.txt file all resorted exactly like I wanted it but found that it made no difference to the character select screen. Moving a single character then edits the playerslot.txt file back completely.

 

So, what's the point of this file's existence and is there any way to quickly sort characters by alphabet or archetype? I see we can search by AT or Powerset so it should be possible, yes?

[Nerio72]

Just asking in case, but it's formatted correctly?

 

"accountname" "Server" "Character" "0"

"accountname" "Server" "Character" "1"

"accountname" "Server" "Character" "2"

 

It appears that some others have had problems getting this file to work right.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Exactly that but thank you for asking.

[Nerio72]

I found a thread that says to make just that file "Read Only"

 

[WanderingAries]

21 minutes ago, Nerio72 said:

I found a thread that says to make just that file "Read Only"

 

 

The downside being, you have to reverse that Every time you do anything in the character screen.

[WanderingAries]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Exactly that but thank you for asking.

 

Make sure there's no duplicate numbers (per server) at the end as that will cause trouble.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Too much work.

[WanderingAries]

32 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Too much work.

 

Less work than importing it into Excel, modifying it (sorting), and saving back to a comma separated file. :p

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 minutes ago, WanderingAries said:

 

Less work than importing it into Excel, modifying it (sorting), and saving back to a comma separated file. 😛

 

It doesn't solve the problem. I was hoping to edit playerslot.txt so that it's useful but its not useful in any way and seems to have no useful purpose.

[Metatheory]

 

11 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Got the playerslot.txt file all resorted exactly like I wanted it but found that it made no difference to the character select screen.

Usually trouble with playerslot.txt is caused by not having 'remember account name' ticked on the log-in screen. In this case you should have generated the initial playerslot.txt by having the checkbox active.

 

11 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

 

So, what's the point of this file's existence and is there any way to quickly sort characters by alphabet or archetype? 

I believe its point is simply to save changes made in the UI to the local account. i.e. it is not intended to be a useful tool for sorting the character list offline.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Metatheory

[SuperPlyx]

 

Just out of curiosity what does the end number stand for ?

 

"accountname" "Server" "Character" "0"  <---what 0 for? 

[GM Impervium]

So, I don't know the full answer, and that's something I'll ask about because now I'm curious, but I do know that when players have an issue where one of their characters has disappeared, deleting this file fixes the issue 99% of the time. So if I were to GUESS, it's some kind of pre-cache so that the client doesn't have to pull the name data from the server every time you switch characters. Not a huge deal these days, but since the game was coded back when many people were still on dial-up (shudder), every bit and byte counts!

 

But yeah, I'll get the real answer later 😃

[Linea]

I edit mine from time to time to move whole pages of characters around.   So I'm not sure what's happening here that it's not behaving the way it always has in the past.

[Dazl]

2 hours ago, SuperPlyx said:

 

Just out of curiosity what does the end number stand for ?

 

"accountname" "Server" "Character" "0"  <---what 0 for? 

The 0 would be the character you want on top of the list, then 1, 2 ect. It is the same with costume slots when using the costume change command, the first costume slot is 0.

[WanderingAries]

6 hours ago, GM Impervium said:

So, I don't know the full answer, and that's something I'll ask about because now I'm curious, but I do know that when players have an issue where one of their characters has disappeared, deleting this file fixes the issue 99% of the time. So if I were to GUESS, it's some kind of pre-cache so that the client doesn't have to pull the name data from the server every time you switch characters. Not a huge deal these days, but since the game was coded back when many people were still on dial-up (shudder), every bit and byte counts!

 

But yeah, I'll get the real answer later 😃

 

From experimentation it seems that the game doesn't actually use it unless we start moving characters around on the screen. Then it creates a new copy. If we make another change, it makes a change/new copy in real time. I've also been able to do the reverse by backing out of the character select screen, making a change, saving, and having it reflect immediately. What's being asked is whether the file can be expanded to include things that have been asked for in general about the character menu for a long time. Sort by: Name, Type, etc.

[WanderingAries]

16 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Too much work.

 

Also, I believe I had suggested an app for sorting the character page offline in the thread posted above as well. I kinda have the logic in my head, but I'm way behind on coding to actually create such a thing and I think TK's burnt out from our last project. :p

[GM Impervium]

So, the text file IS supposed to be editable to allow your characters to appear in whatever order you'd like, so long as you have "remember username" checked when you log in, and you have write permission for the folder that it's in. And yes, you change the number at the end of each line, not the physical location of the line.

Personally, I find it easier to just to drag and drop characters in the character select screen itself, though I can see how that wouldn't be a workable solution for someone with dozens of pages worth of characters.

If it pleases, though, @Michiyo wrote a little utility to help with this:

https://cityofheroes.dev/charsorter/charsorter.zip

It's not digitally signed, so, use at your "own risk", but it's just a UI for editing the text file in a nicer way.

Edited October 29, 2021 by GM Impervium

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, GM Impervium said:

So, the text file IS supposed to be editable to allow your characters to appear in whatever order you'd like, so long as you have "remember username" checked when you log in, and you have write permission for the folder that it's in. And yes, you change the number at the end of each line, not the physical location of the line.

 

That's the strange part. HC is in its own directory out on a third drive, so not locked down by Windows, remember username is always checked, yet edits I made to the file didn't show up at character select. Changes I make at character select change the file in question without issue.

[WanderingAries]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

That's the strange part. HC is in its own directory out on a third drive, so not locked down by Windows, remember username is always checked, yet edits I made to the file didn't show up at character select. Changes I make at character select change the file in question without issue.

 

 Just checking, but you did make sure not to do the edit while you were on the character screen right? That's the only other restriction I know of.

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 hours ago, WanderingAries said:

Just checking, but you did make sure not to do the edit while you were on the character screen right? That's the only other restriction I know of.

 

Aye. Game and launcher both closed when txt file was replaced with edited version. I'll try again some time since it appears that it should have worked.

Edited October 29, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[WanderingAries]

10 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Aye. Game and launcher both closed when txt file was replaced with edited version. I'll try again some time since it appears that it should have worked.

 

When I tested it, I didn't even have to close the launcher, just be in the server screen and it worked just fine. Granted, I did it on my i7 / Win7 build with the game in my C:\Games\CoX folder, so doing it on a new OS may (?) have a different reaction.

[GM Crumpet]

I'm a little confused as to why this is a problem? It's not a player file as such, it tells the game exactly where you have organised the list of characters. It's editable because occasionally it can give two characters the same number and so they appear on top of each other and you need to change the number to make the "missing" alt reappear.

 

You have 300 alts organised where you want them. You may have a screen for each AT, or blue/red/gold, or any number of logical ways to find the alt you want to play. Without the playerslot there is no way for any organisation to work. Every time you log in the order is the order created. No other possibility. With a 1000 slots over 5 shards you'll spend ages searching for the one you want.

 

When you drag your alts round so they are where you want them then log in fully the game edits the playerslot so it's current. You can stop it doing this by making it read only, but in my opinion that actively makes your game worse not better.

 

You can also easily copy the file and send it to a different machine. I have a desktop at home and laptop at work. If I move stuff round and do housekeeping I'll email myself the current playerslot file and just drag it to where it's needed. No need to do all that work again.