Suggestion to move the location of the game client settings folder

[pRyodon]

Before I go into details about my suggestion… Please backup your client settings folder RIGHT NOW before you accidentally lose them!! It might be a good idea to close the game and launcher before you do this.

Quoted from CCP:
To prevent the loss of your settings, you can back them up by following the instructions below:

1. Press and hold the Windows key on your keyboard while pressing R (this will open a run window).
2. Copy and paste the following line into the run window: %LOCALAPPDATA%\CCP\EVE\
3. You should see a few folders there. One will be named after where your sharedCache folder is located on your hard drive such as (c_programdata_eve_sharedcache_tq_tranquility), open this folder.
4. Copy the “settings_default” folder to another location on your hard drive (if you used a different profile from the default one, copy the folder with your profile name).
5. If you lose your settings again copy the folder back and your settings should be restored to what they were when the folder was copied. If you make any changes to your settings, you should create a new backup.
   End of quote

First some background…
CCP puts your game client settings into a directory named after the location of your shared cache folder.

Example location of where your game client settings are located…

%LOCALAPPDATA%\CCP\EVE\c_programdata_eve_sharedcache_tq_tranquility\settings_default

The settings are not in the shared cache folder, but under a folder that has the name of the location of the shared cache folder… AND also if you move the shared cache folder… the game does NOT move your settings! It leaves the client settings folder where it was and you get to setup all of your clients and toons starting from nothing if you do not know the location of your client settings folder. So, backup your settings now and save yourself a TON of trouble later.

I cannot come up with a logical reason as to why changing the location of of the shared cache folder does not also move the location of your game client settings folder.

I filed a bug report about my game client settings folder not moving when I moved the location of my shared cache. CCP told me this was functioning as intended and was not a bug.

My suggestions:

1. Have the launcher move the client settings folder when the shared cache folder is moved.

2. Why not put the client settings under a folder named something like this…

%LOCALAPPDATA%\CCP\EVE\clientSettings

…then when you move the shared cache, your client settings don’t need to change locations.

You could have locations like:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\CCP\EVE\clientSettings\sisi_singularity
%LOCALAPPDATA%\CCP\EVE\clientSettings\tq_tranquility
%LOCALAPPDATA%\CCP\EVE\clientSettings\etc

Plus, if it is setup like that, people can probably figure out the location of their client settings without prior knowledge of their location.

I just spent half a day setting up my clients and toons for no good reason after I moved the location of the shared cache. After I spent all of that time, I get a mail from CCP telling me how to backup my client settings. I figured out on my own how to move my client settings from the old location to the new location and everything is back to how it was before I moved the shared cache.

BACKUP YOUR SETTINGS!!