The Package_Id where introduced by Aredhel for his necro package - easy upgrading/removing if needed.
From my point of view this necro stuff is a user kit. we may name it
"ared_necro" for instance. i depends on
"pub_si". Aredhel may name the kit like he wish.
Its main problem stands it is difficult to cross reference given package. In example, a mob 'Talos' could be affected to TOA package, ML9 package, AERUS package...
basically all toa stuff may be part of
"pub_toa". all the toa sub packets makes sense only in case more than one guy do on toa stuff. If i would be god and able to do all the work by myself, i would define pub_base, pub_classic, pub_si, pub_toa, pub_catacombs, pub_drising, pub_rvr_old, pub_rvr_new. All other kits are more or less descriptive or to split the work. For instance in catacombs i may flag new items as pub_catacombs or pub_crafting_catacombs. So i may find items easier to place them into merchants.
We think about serialised package handling, TOA|ML9|AERUS where the db entry 'd be really removed if packageid is null/empty.
Serialized data may be great from a C# point of view. As a old low level coder i look feared at large text fields used as indexes. a UUID code as a keyfield is a good choice from my point of view - not the best but good.
One other importand point is the text encoding in our tables. I switched to german on my local server and some german chars like äöüß looks strange. we need to define a text coding (Collation) for printed strings. may be i screwed somthing up in my local database
btw: may be we should start a new thread to discuss this database stuff?
cu.