Public Stats API

This is definitely the right place.

@Rowell could tell you more, but I think sotatraders depends on the users to updated their vendors, because player vendor information is NOT accessible via API. There are a few of us that have wanted anonymized historical data for a while, but there is concern about it not being perfectly anonymized, and being able to use it to gain too much of an advantage.

 

I'm mainly pulling data about items (created items, destroyed items, items sold to vendors, items bought from vendors). I map (as best I can) the archaic item names the API uses to items in my database, and use the vendor prices gleaned from the SOTA API to populate my base (vendor) prices. I simply make a call to the API with one of the following queries:

http://shroudoftheavatar.com:9200/_all/_search?q=@timestamp:>now-1h AND LocationEvent:ItemGained_Merchant&_source=&size=500&pretty
http://shroudoftheavatar.com:9200/_all/_search?q=@timestamp:>now-1h AND LocationEvent:ItemDestroyed_Merchant&_source=&size=500&pretty
http://shroudoftheavatar.com:9200/_all/_search?q=@timestamp:>now-1h AND LocationEvent:ItemGained_Crafting&_source=&size=500&pretty
http://shroudoftheavatar.com:9200/_all/_search?q=@timestamp:>now-1h AND LocationEvent:ItemDestroyed_Crafting&_source=&size=500&pretty

These get different aspects of item prices of the last 500 items over the last hour. The returned data will have to be read in and unpacked (it's JSON).
One thing that does not exist (at this point) is that player vendor information (current or historical) does not exist. A few telethons ago, I asked if the SOTA API would ever include that data, and the response was basically "Yes, eventually"... but the devs have a lot on their plate, so I'm not going to hold my breath to get it any time soon. Otherwise, my site would have a better snap shot of the pulse of the economy.

Earlier in this thread, there are several links which describe what all the parameters are acceptable to the SOTA API. Take a peek at those, and see if there's anything that you could find useful.

 

Greetings all. Thank you @Tiina Onir and @Rowell this was very helpful. I understand how the data could be used in a non-beneficial ways and fully agree, it is not the data that is bad it is the way it is manipulated. Since what I am trying to do is city and player vendor specific I think I will just have to spend the time running around the town manually gathering data. I do think it is funny though that they talk about a 25 hr delay on showing data but I can run around the town and gather it manually much quicker than that. Just need a way to parse the vendor list to a text file and I would not need the API.

Thanks again and I will look thru the thread again for those links. I do want to thank both of you for your sites. I have visited both of them and found then useful.

 

Having been a part of a full vendor survey last quarter, I can tell you covering all of novia certainly takes more then a few hours man-hours. Because of that, there will be much dancing from me when/if we ever get the ability to get statistical data about player-vendor sales.

And thanks for the kind words, it's always heartening to know it's being found helpful.

 

@Undone Any word on the possibility of having Player Vendor Sales (time delayed) as a data set tracked and available in the SOTA API ??

 

Hopefully it's cool top secret important stuff.

 

Do we really want to be able to query for all the vender data? isn't part of the game supposed to be the time spent wandering around looking what prices are? I think that is 100% THE GAME for some folks as they try to buy/sell for profit.

 

The reason for the request isn't to post what's on vendors in real time (or even close to real time). The reason for the request is to aggregate prices so that they can be shown when costing recipe costing. For example, if I wanted to know how much it would cost to make a Study Chair, I could aggregate all the prices from all across the world, then show the lowest price, the highest price, and the median average price for the components...and also show the lowest price, highest price and the median average price that a Sturdy Chair sells for....without ever showing who the vendors are with the lowest/highest prices for those items.

It's mainly used as an aid for crafters.

 

There are some of here trying to use the API to build tool precisely to make sure everyone has access to the same data.

I think it's a bit of stretch to say knowledge of buy/sell prices will cause a long term crash in market value. In an open market, prices rise an fall with perceived value. But, in general, markets tend to be much more stable with full knowledge. Every stock market has detailed prices for current/historic buy/sell prices. That open knowledge does not seem to hinder them in anyway.

 

What are you talking about, have's and have not's? A web site posting all this information for ALL to see isn't creating a segmented class of people that have an unfair advantage. And seeing the lowest/highest/median prices on items 1) lets crafters know the general price range for raw materials and components, and 2) lets crafters know the price range to price items when selling on their vendor. Nothing wrong with that.

What you shouldn't be able to see is "Vendor Bob sells Item-X for 25g, and that's the lowest price. Here's his location." That's crossing the line, IMHO. People will still explore different areas, because they don't know the location of the vendors.

 

I don't see any issue seeing what Bob has listed on his vendor. Just because Bob has the lowest price and everyone could rush over and buy something cheap doesn't mean Bob can keep it in stock for very long. There are plenty of great deals out there where people just want to get rid of something well below "market value" and happen to be in a part of town that gets little traffic. What is wrong with giving their deal more visibility?

Obviously, the "don't include my name" flag should still apply to this data. But, why not give the option to the player instead of hiding this data?

What wrong with know that some vendors have higher buy price on their vendor in Novia Market and a different vendor in Ardoris has a lower sell price? Isn't this how economies work?

 

As how I understood the request is to publish vendor sold data, not the actual items still for sale with prices.

Although having the API expose all vendor data to the public would be awesome!
If we then could use the API to also sent in buy and sell orders, we could create an out of SotA exchange system. I would so love to do this

 

This is across the line for me. Transaction should be in game only.
Of course, this ignores the fact that the "API" we are talking about here is currently just a neutered ElasticSearch with event data in it and is therefor one-way...

 

hehe - yeah I know, I was just getting too excited again.

 

the unintended consequences of making vender prices/sales avail thru the api would be huge I bet.
1) I could list items really cheap/expensive in towns nobody goes into to drive prices
2) I could purchase my own things with alts
3) who knows what else

 

If the information was easily accessible you would probably sell out pretty quick.

Sure. But, how long could you keep that up?

You are right. But, how does less information not have the same risk.