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Public Stats API

Discussion in 'Developer Work and Blog posts' started by Undone, May 9, 2017.

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  1. Woodchuck

    Woodchuck Avatar

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    I don’t think i’m being hyperbolic @Tiina Onir

    Even if I believe the purpose and point of the API is “for fun” and “interesting”, and that all users of this API have only benign and altruistic intentions, it still does not escape the fact that this whole thing is a circumvention of the game.

    Under the current game’s design, having instant access to the hi/lo/median prices of every single item being sold on the market was never meant to be.

    So why even publish this information, Portalarium? If ultimately, the only purpose of this information is to help players price things then why all this API sillyness? Just bake it into the game in some way. I don’t know, some kind of new UI window that has a complete listing of this information.

    If this is really information that is meant to be had by all sellers and buyers, then why bother with an API that someone has to fandangle and publish on an external website.

    Which begs the question, what is the point of regional economies if pricing information becomes efficient and commoditized? What is the point of players selling at their respective locations? What is the point of players being able to price things the way they want to?
     
  2. Tiina Onir

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    If you bothered to actually read this thread, a number of the proposals are explicitly designed to NOT give "instant access to the hi/lo/median prices of every single item being sold on the market." That's how your being hyperbolic. Rather then actually read what we're talking about, you've jumped to your assumption about how it would work, rather then what we've actually proposed. It's not "bypassing the game" any more then working with others is. Anymore then looking up where things are or how to get past some puzzle.

    Why not put it in the game? The UI is already cluttered. Putting it in game requires significantly more development time. Portalarium doesn't necessarily know what stats are interesting.

    I think a better question though is, why NOT publish it? Or if not everyone, everyone who opts to make theirs available (we already do this with player stats). At the minimum, give us access to our OWN info.

    Markets are only efficient in textbooks. Using that as your basis is like starting from a perfectly spherical cow on a frictionless plane in a vacuum. In the real world they aren't efficient, and that's given communications many times faster then Portalarium can afford.
     
  3. Woodchuck

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    @Tiina Onir

    By “instantly”, I don’t mean timely. Instantly as in accessible, a player can go to a website and find the hi/lo/median price for anything at any time.

    This was *not* meant to be.

    And it is different than someone posting the solution to a puzzle on the forum, or posting the location of where something is.

    Those postings are simply players posting information they have discovered by playing the game (i.e. knowledge gained through normal use of the game’s UI and mechanics). There is no API to give out all solutions to quests. There is no API to hand out all the locations of items in the game.

    If players collaborated with one another to collect and share item pricing and sales information by communicating with each other or whatever then that is fine! I don’t have a problem with that! Go ahead!

    This “Public Stats API” gives unprecedented access to the entire game market information. I highly doubt all player vendors in the game could/would band together to achieve what this API does and to do so constantly over time.

    This API is basically an exploit!

    I fail to see the rationale or justification for this API to exist. And if it is information that all should have, then make it available in the game. Don’t tell me adding another window to display this information would clutter the game.. that boat already sailed long ago with the current long list of different windows already.

    Why was an exception made for this API to exist?

    Edit: typo
     
  4. Undone

    Undone Trap Master Moderator SOTA Developer

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    The API exists for a multitude of reasons. In fact, most of the events in the API have nothing to do with vendors/merchants. Further, I'm not even sure merchant/vendor events have made it into the API yet? We can argue the merits of having such data in the API until we're blue in the face but the bottom line is the data contained in the API provides a way for our data-hungry player base to aggregate interesting information that we simply don't have time to do - i.e. PVP stats.
     
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  5. Hemswal The Descended

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    "Further, I'm not even sure merchant/vendor events have made it into the API yet?"

    Nope not yet. Was asking Chris about it the other day. Patiently waiting.
     
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  6. Tancreddo

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    I think having this market data is a great idea... Reminds me of Eve Online. Their API gives this info and one can search up where they want to go shopping for certain items on player made websites :) I would love to have this information to put up a site for the players to look up and find the item's they are looking for instead of jump around house to house looking at each vendor for hr's on end to find a prosperity tool in a certain price range or an expert crafting station they wanted to pick up...etc.
     
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  7. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    If you want all your item to worth nothing, this is the way to go. I can make a bot in a day for every item wrongly priced instanlty with notification on lowest price so i can set mine even lower to sell before you do. Is this what we want? Or people walking around town and visiting pot owner town so the map doesnt look more abandonned than it is. This has been repeated many time and the same problem is always there with this data. If this enter the API, may the best bot win. Pretty outta the current game right? Im not playing a game for their third party application but for the game itself. Knowing how people like to do RMT trust me its gonna be a silent war.
     
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  8. Synergy Blaize

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    Could some discussion amongst the Team be had on implementing a similar "Vendor/Items for Sale" system that is in UO?
    It was great to be able to search for armor & weaps with the actual stats we were looking for.

    *crosses fingers*
     
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  9. Titania Xylia

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    As someone that has dabbled in vendor data for the last two years, I'll say that any system that you create will be gamed and it will be a minority that will screw up the system(s) for the rest of the users. However, I don't think that means you stop creating tools to help us understand what's happening in the game.

    Vendor sales data should absolutely be in the API and there are a lot of benefits:

    1. Data sanitization: item data resolves to an archetype vs the display name of the item (localization really hurts sota.net giving each item multiple names and date formats cannot be resolved on the fly)
    2. The users cannot just edit a text file to falsify a record. A game event creates a record in the API
    3. Ease of use. We get to play the game and look at the data later (or real-time). Having to rely on someone uploading data will always result in a limited world view.
    I think the current privacy settings should be enforced.
     
  10. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    I dont think we need this to know what is "happening" in the game. Its not only a question of data but a question of having people walking around towns and making the game alive.
    1) Why would this fix data sanitization? The name of archetype will remain the same as it is now unless they change it on their side.
    2) Who is asking to edit a file and falsify a record? If that is how your website is working by receiving record from people that can falsify it, then its your own problem.
    3) We get to play the game, staying in same spot all day long fetching data from a third application? Sorry but that is not playing the game. The game isnt all about vendor and making cash with RMT. RMT is slowly killing this game and this is the most honest line you will ever see in this forum full of greedy users (myself included).

    When the game goes bad because of **** like this, remember my name and what i have been defending for over a year and be in shame.
     
  11. Titania Xylia

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    1) Oh, I process discarded email files on sota.net and it's the display name not the archetype. Archetype is better since the system's name for the in-game object is the same regardless of language.
    2) discard emails are in a text file that can be edited and redistributed.
    3) This isn't about RMT. It's about helping people find the best prices and keep from getting scammed and for people that need to sell off items to get the best price for them. It's really helpful.

    If you don't want to know, don't look. Other's want it. Why does it have to be one rule for all us? Live and let live.

    I would argue that the genie is already out of the bottle with the discard email files. People can share their data on their own, and it's really helpful. It isn't perfect and I think pulling the info from the API would solve the weaknesses in the discarded email format.
     
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  12. Aeryk

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    I've not decided yet what the best solution is, but trying to find equipment for my characters is a not a fun experience for me right now. Running around to dozens of vendors hoping that someone has stocked recently takes too much time and is not a fun activity to start with. For my PvP characters it is especially annoying. I either have to change equipment or risk a huge bounty for losing an artifact to the thieves that think it is "fun" to camp the shopping towns.

    I do suspect the solution might involve something voluntary though, as that is what is happening currently anyway with the player resources such as null trading and the item price list (many thanks to those of you working on those!). Something like the "list in public stats" toggle that is already in game.
     
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  13. Tancreddo

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    I still think this would be a great idea and make the player experience a bit better :) This will not be the make our break of the game. Wow, Eq2, Eve Online (via player made sites)... etc all have common vendors where you can look up and purchase from and they are alive and doing well. If you need to have players walking around for hours looking for an item instead of enjoying the game other ways (just so the world does not seem empty) then there is a bigger issue at hand which had nothing to do with an api. In the end I hope they do.
     
  14. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    Here a bad example of how API is being used. People want peace in their town but are forced multiplayer. They want to practice pvp between friends, but someone is reading api and know there a town that people are dieing within. Even if you are anonymous, the town biome show up and all, its enough for someone with a good experience to know exactly where to go. Not only now they are forced to go in multiplayer in their own town they paid a thousand or more for, but they cannot enjoy the game as before cause of some smart people using a third application. Those guy werent even knowing it was existing or that you could do that with it, and its not in their plan to use this kind of stuff, they just want to play the game like they want to, because they were promised it was like this and the word sandbox is spread out everything.

    Wikipedia sandbox definition:
    sandbox game
    A game in which the player has been freed from traditional video game structure and direction, and instead chooses what, when, and how they want to approach the available content.
     
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  15. Alleine Dragonfyre

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    A lot of this is over my head, but whatever you do please do not make it so that there is any kind of auction house or searchable means to find items for sale on vendors in this game. It is meant to be that we walk around to find things for sale and that's it.

    Perhaps there are some nerds that can pull that data out of this information now, but if the whole population can do so it will tank the economy and a lot of us will quit. I do not want to have to spend my life under cutting the lowest price on items and I won't do it. I might as well go back to Star Wars the Old Republic at that point.
     
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  16. Brewton

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    Yeah it would kill the whole "regional economy",what ever is left of it anyway. The closest we came to it is when almost everyone selling something put a vendor in NoMa. Now with multiple market and crafting towns it has spread it back out some.
     
  17. Tiina Onir

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    There is no "regional economy," not even the pretext of it. That ship done sailed.
     
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  18. Brewton

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    Correct, but people are always shouting that players should venture out more to see all the areas the game has to offer, but than say, lets have a auction house so you don't need to run all over the world.
     
  19. Daxxe Diggler

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    Hi all,
    I haven't really messed with the API much yet (mostly because I can't figure out what to do beyond installing elasticsearch on my computer)... but I've been trying for a couple days to get it to where I could query the server for info.

    Maybe someone here could help me?

    Here's where I'm at right now:
    - Downloaded and installed Python 3.7.1
    - Opened Windows Command Prompt (tried using the Python command prompt, but got errors trying to install elasticsearch)
    - Installed ElasticSearch 6.3.1 (pip install elasticsearch)
    - Downloaded entire SOTA api repository (unzipped it inside a folder I made named Scripts, so path is ... C:\PYTHON\Scripts\SotAPublicStatsQuery-master)
    - Changed directory to the repository folder
    - Tried to install the sample script with... pip install download_quick.py but got an error message ----> "Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement download_quick.py (from version: ) No matching distribution found for download_quick.py"

    So that's where I'm stuck. :mad:

    For now, all I am really trying to do is query the server to get a list of all the available item Archetypes. I found some use out of that when Phil Scott had his page up that gave that info and I was trying to do that myself some how.

    Anyway, if anyone could point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.
     
  20. Undone

    Undone Trap Master Moderator SOTA Developer

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    To start you'll want to follow the examples in the readme from the sample code on github. That should get you started running some queries. You are trying to pip install the file you should be executing =)
     
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