I admit...these are N00b Questions

[taurusrow]

Just stumbled accross this site, and so far I'm liking what I see - however, I am still trying to figure all this stuff out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I decided the other day that I wanted to set up a private WoW server, so did some looking. Came accross Johved's YouTube video [ [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcvgzIqU4X4]YouTube - How to make a WoW WoTLK private server for 3.0.3 (easy)[/ame] ] which I used and got the server set up. All's good. I'm still waiting to test an external connection (outside my LAN), but I think it's good to go.

Here are my questions:

I'm seeing constant new revisions / repacks coming out, but I'm not really sure how to load them, or even what the differences are. What sorts of things would I be gaining from updating? And is there anyway to tell what revision I would be on currently (ie. from the file downloaded from the link I mentioned above).

Also, when loading these new revisions, I looked at some of the code, and it appears to just be dropping tables and recreating them, so am I to expect all the data in the database to be wiped out each time I update?

I truly appreciate any guidance people can provide for me. There is a lot of great information on these forums, but I'm just finding it tough to get a solid grasp of everything that I'm reading.

Thanks in advance, and kudos on a great site.

[roguesownu]

Well if you are looking to update your server regularly you should compile your own core rather than using a repack (You can still use the database from the repack with your own core if you want all the fancy stuff found in the repack, but anything that uses a .dll file needs to be recompiled and repacks usually don't give out their source code for those items so you will be kind of screwed there).

As far as updating the database you just need to apply the SQL updates that can be found in the latest rev's for your core (you can tell which rev you are using by looking at the revision number or starting up your server and looking in the chat box where it is usually in yellow letters)

If you are switching to a new DB then just back up any tables you want to save as SQL files, then once you import the new DB just execute the SQL's you backed up.

Things you can expect from updating your core:
-Various bug fixes (see changelog for what got fixed)
-Support for any new content blizzard released in a patch
-Usually better stability

Things you can expect from updating your database:
-New content (items, objects, quests, npc's, etc...)
-Various bug fixes (see changelogs for what got fixed)

that's about all I can tell you without trying to remember all of this stuff (sorry I'm really tired) from when I actually had a server myself. Hope this helps!