Transmog SourceIDs - Unique IDs to Classic?!

In Development Cataclysm Classic Beta
1

Hi there!

The Transmog API just came up on the Cataclysm Beta and I’m sure none of you know this, but every single (transmoggable) item in the game has a brand new unique SourceID assigned to it.

Let’s say you lookup the sourceID of Corrupted Ashbringer on Retail (Item #22691), it has a unique sourceID of 8925. It has no shared appearances.

If you lookup that same item on the beta, it has a different sourceID of 133090.

I’m hopeful this is a bug and is not working as intended. If not, what is the intent behind this? Is it so that eventually when you guys do a Classic ↔ Retail account merge that they have a different source of the appearance so that the people complaining about owning the original source of an item can say they have the original sourceID and that everyone that has the new sourceID from classic shows a different name in the source selection list? Or was this entirely unintentional?

In Retail, there’s also a feature called “Quantum Items”, which give you a random unlearned sourceID. If you were to eventually merge with Retail, then this really neat feature in Retail would heavily bias these duplicated sourceIDs over unique appearances. While I personally am a Completionist, this would affect the vast majority of collectors that simply want exactly one source of an appearance.

EDIT: Upon further investigation, I’ve also determined that the visualID (appearance ID of the model) is also unique to Classic and no longer even shares the appearance logically with the Retail version of the item. This is really really bad! THIS CANNOT GO LIVE LIKE THIS.

EDIT2: It’s bad for a number of reasons.

  1. Addons like AllTheThings will need to maintain two separate databases for SourceIDs for Classic/Mainline forever. This being the very first expansion that features Transmog, its important to nip this in the bud immediately otherwise we’ll eventually get to a point where Legion Classic exists and we’ll be on sourceID 400k. When they introduce new sourceIDs, they do so in a way where there is no collisions between Classic and Retail, so the rate at which the sourceID database tables grow will become untennable. I maintain the ATT addon and I can tell you that duplicate sources for an appearance is a particular source of lag for the majority of collectors depending on how many transmog addons you have that need to calculate whether you have an appearance or not. Imagine doubling that for a reason other than adding “new” stuff, but instead by adding an expansion worth of new sourceIDs without those sourceIDs being used to represent anything new, rather instead, its to represent something that’s been in the game for 10 years already.
    • As a database admin and addon developer myself, I can’t not point this out. (If I don’t, who will?)
  2. Should they opt to allow Classic ↔ Retail transfers in the future, those phantom sourceIDs will either suddenly appear in the Retail database proper as unique appearances since the visualID is unique to Classic and is not the same visualID of the item as it existed within the OG run of the game or they will not be transferrable in any capacity as they are exclusively limited to Classic.
    • First point meaning that since Retail’s transmog system shows every unique appearance in a grid, you’d be duplicating entries in that grid for the same appearance since the visualIDs are different. This is how the game engine determines uniqueness in this system and was not designed in such a way to handle an influx of identical models like this.
    • If an item has the same model, color, etc, it’s supposed to use the same visualID.
    • The sourceID is how they differentiate between different sources of an appearance and even if that was the only thing that was different, it would still be bad for the game because it sets up a very dangerous precedent.
      • If they were to merge the database, these unique sourceIDs would only be distinguishable between how you earned it. Meaning the source would either have the exact same name, item, location or it would be suffixed with “Item Name (WoW Classic)” so that the elitist on the dev team can say, “Oh yeah, you might have Corrupted Ashbringer, but do you have it from the original game or classic?” (In transmog you can shift tab down to have the item show a specific sourceID and this would effectively be how they could differentiate how you got the appearance) Nobody other than smug as-err-people use this feature in Retail in this capacity, but it exists in the collection community and this simply helps promote that toxic behaviour. (Who careees where you got it, so long as you do?)
    • Second point meaning any transmog you have in Classic is not transferrable at all and the only reason you’d want to transfer, maybe, is if you prefer the game play of Retail and want to see the character you built in Classic in that environment instead. You can probably guess why that is a bad thing for both the game and the players.
    • This is bad because you’d lose something you earned without reason. It’s just plain dumb
  3. Each of the points made above communicate that the dev team is either unaware of these problems or they have absolutely no desire to allow for anyone ever to transfer from Classic to Retail. I can tell you that everyone playing Classic has a cut off time. There’s a reason why we played Classic over Retail in the first place. For me, that’s Cataclysm. I’ll play it in order to support my addon, but other than that, my free time will be in Retail. (I’d return for Legion and MOP!)
37 Likes
2

I actually can’t see how this ISN’T intentional. Why is of course beyond me. But I see your concern and hopefully they do something about it.

What about items from LK, BC, and vanilla classic that do still have the same item ID’s? It’s possible that they will ONLY do this for Cata stuff, though we have no way of knowing that until further expansions happen. Hopefully you can get an answer from them on this!

Also, big thanks for your work on ATT!!!

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The itemIDs are all the same, its just each item’s assigned sourceID and visualID that are unique. As far I can tell on my end, this is the only part of the database aside from Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdom mapIDs that has been different between all the different game flavors. (and originally I sort of assumed they did that because the maps changed so much between classic and Cata, but they ended up reusing the new mapIDs on the beta for the updated zones as well)

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Good luck, I really hope you can get something done about this! It seems like it could turn into a nightmare really quickly and it’s got to be really tough to maintain already!

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There is another very large concern with the new Cataclysm Transmog Appearance tab currently that no one has addressed. Quest IDs are NOT marking an item ID tied to such quest as being “collected”.

For example, if I complete a quest on a Rogue that grants a leather belt and a dagger I can only choose one reward. The game will allow me to collect one of the appearances on not the other. This is NOT how it works in Dragonflight.

If a quest ID is marked as complete on an account or battle.net then those appearances ties with that quest are “collected” across all characters.

This an even larger concern for Classic players as if you have completed quests in the old world, but failed to bank every single item, you would not be able to collect those appearances once the Cataclysm prepatch arrives.

I am not sure if this is an oversight or something that is still being tweaked but I hope it is congruent going forward.

3 Likes
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Could this be due to their new HD textures system they’re implementing? As far as I know, it’s only in Cataclysm beta and not retail. I assume visual IDs would be tied to a specific model and the upscaled models would have their own assets compared to default.

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Regardless of which mode you were in your active transmog would be tied to the sourceIDs of the items you’ve selected, so I’d assume that those assignments would persist. Someone in HD mode would simply be looking at a higher resolution version of your transmog.

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Would 1h/offhand also have weird item ids? Any dual wielding class cant mog the same weapons for some reason.

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Hoping for a Blizz response sooner rather than later. Cata is approaching quickly.

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Maybe they’ll allow us to unlock the Classic appearances for retail and there’ll will be a new “Classic Appearances” tab

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likely because the transmog system is the same as in retail and instead of building two seperate databases they just gave a bigger number than retail expects so it ignores the classic items in the account while for classic they tuned it to ignore the lower numbered items you have on your account in retail, makes the most sense stop overthinking it.

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In case someone wants to test this on Retail or the Cataclysm Beta, download AllTheThings. (the addon)

Then in game, you run this command to check Corrupted Ashbringer:
/dump ATTC.GetSourceID(ATTC.CreateItem(22691).link);

That will print the sourceID and whether you have it collected. If it only returns a boolean, run it again. On the Cataclysm beta, this is still coming back as 133090. On Retail, this comes back as 8925.

EDIT: If this somehow magically gets fixed on the beta, if/when it gets fixed, it should come back as 8925. The function returns what the game says for a sourceID and not ATT. ATT uses a cache of this value in its database, but this function is one of the ways we get that information in the first place.

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Replying so it gets bumped up. Hopefully Blizz fixes this or at the very least explain their decision behind it.

1 Like
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Pointless adding of item IDS will lead to massive problems later. Seems like the most simple solution is to just have a universal system for xmog and they just dont wanna do it.

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while its annoying youre making a pretty big assumption that the potential transfer between classic and retail is a one to one mapping and there isnt a single mapping to be made, essentially a copy/paste is all that would be available/viable.

sure its stupid to have to map things to get them to line up between databases where one is essentially a subset of the other, and youre shooting yourself in the foot down the track because you then have to maintain that mapping, but its not something you can say is impossible, not with any certainty at least.

you only have to look at war within and the requirement that it do a multi character data merge to handle that circumstance, to know that character data manipulation is possible at the account level on the system.

so why wouldnt they be able to map stuff between classic and retail if they really wanted to for some stupid reason.