New Devlog: Sharing Game Data - Page 2

JurGradi · #11 03-26-2008, 03:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Grogg

The page that generates developer keys (http://www.burningsea.com/pages/developer) is just redirecting back to the home page...

That happens when you're not logged in.
When you are logged in, you'll get another page.

Aye_Moody · #12 03-26-2008, 04:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JurGradi

That happens when you're not logged in.
When you are logged in, you'll get another page.

Aye, that did the trick . i still dont get used to being logged into the forums is not the same as being logged in to the main page

Aye_Moody · #13 03-26-2008, 04:51 AM

for those of you not familiar with HTTP POST actions here is a very quick(and very dirty) way to access the data using your web browser:

1. open an editor like notepad
2. copy the following content and replace yourapikey and youruserid with the proper values for your account (keep the "" though)

Code:

<html>
<body>
<form action="http://data.burningsea.com/servers" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="apikey" value="yourapikey">
<input type="hidden" name="userid" value="youruserid">
<input type="submit" value="Show Server List">
</form></body></html>

4. save the notepad to your hard disk, call it test.html (or whatever you like)
3. open your web browser
4. choose FILE|OPEN|BROWSE from the menu bar
5. pick your test.html file, your web browser will now display one button labled "Show Server List" - push it
6. your browser will now show an emtpy page, because the return answer is not formatted to HTML or XML style
7. choose VIEW|SOURCE CODE from the menu bar and you will see the result

to call another API simply replace the action="http://data.burningsea.com/servers" to the URL you want to use

Enjoy, won’t you?
(Always wanted to say that

)

waterhouse · #14 03-26-2008, 05:24 AM

May I suggest also adding another section to the forums, perhaps under user content, so that we may discuss the API and offer up suggestions of data formatting as well as help each other with code for it?

ArmEagle · #15 03-26-2008, 07:20 AM

There's some 'conflict' in the API.

The landmark (translated) queries return the current circle sizes. And the normal landmark query has a cache of 10 minutes, yet the translated landmark query has one of 60 minutes.

If one would use the API to translate the coordinates and sizes, then those sizes could be wrong for an hour!
Why not simply return sizes for all possible situations, and let the programmer choose which to use in which situations?

LM_NORMAL: no circles
LM_PIRATE: 1 circle
LM_PVP: 2 circles,with full-pvp circle the size of the 1 circle above
LM_CONTENTION: 2 circles, which are both larger than the ones in LM_PVP

So, you could just give 4 (or 5) circle sizes, which the programmer can then simply cache, only needing the current port states.
Edit: Hmm, I guess I was wrong about the different sizes. Somehow I thought that in full contention the circles were even a bit bigger, but the don't seem to be. It's a bit confusing, with them named fullPvPRange and piratePvPRange, being the 'current' radius.

* Also, is there a special state for when a port is raided, or is that LM_PIRATE too? (Listing all states in the documentation might be handy) Ah yes.. that's LM_RAIDED

* A third small remark; "Landmark Location (Translated)" doesn't mention the pirate/full PVP range values. They are simply 'fit' to the viewport too. (I mean, the description doesn't, the code does of course)

* And a bigger issue: Current (complete and translated) landmark data does show unrest numbers and states for New Orleans and Campeche on Rackham, but both have '0' range (pirate & fullPVP). Something is amiss here.
* Same with La Isabella, though that might be because it was recently raided.

ktatroe · #16 03-26-2008, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waterhouse

May I suggest also adding another section to the forums, perhaps under user content, so that we may discuss the API and offer up suggestions of data formatting as well as help each other with code for it?

That's a great idea; I'll try to make that happen.

ktatroe · #17 03-26-2008, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArmEagle

That's just a little bit sloppy.

When I get a moment, I'll snag Brendan and we'll take a closer look at this. The difference is intentional, though perhaps unnecessary. The world viewport uses (x,z) coordinates, while images use (x,y) coordinates, so we have the API returning different values based on the kind of coordinates you're looking at.

ArmEagle · #18 03-26-2008, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ktatroe

When I get a moment, I'll snag Brendan and we'll take a closer look at this. The difference is intentional, though perhaps unnecessary. The world viewport uses (x,z) coordinates, while images use (x,y) coordinates, so we have the API returning different values based on the kind of coordinates you're looking at.

Yeah, it isn't really important. But hey, APIs should be plain and simple!

.

Xaphod · #19 03-26-2008, 10:21 AM

a few questions..
the API says -
"ENGLAND - The current English population on this server; either 0 (Light), 1 (Moderate), 2 (Heavy), or 3 (Very Heavy)"
So am I right in thinking this is NOT the same as the text shown in the server select screen, because that shows the WEEKLY MAX population of that faction not the CURRENT population. If it does show the same weekly max population then this data is much less useful and really you'd only need to update the cache when things do change.

The API states that the population figures are optional and shows an example where only england is shown. In what circumstances would the query only return a single nation, and what would the default for the other nations be in that circumstance?
Also.. it's Britain, not England.

"The port state XML contains <PortList> element, which in turn contains zero or more <Port> elements. The port elements detail information about a port on that server, including PvP state, server victory state, its location in the world, and so on."
This reads a little oddly. Surely in all circumstances this would be a list of ALL the ports in game? If not, when would it return less than that, and when should we expect it to contain zero ports?

ktatroe · #20 03-26-2008, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xaphod

a few questions..
the API says -
"ENGLAND - The current English population on this server; either 0 (Light), 1 (Moderate), 2 (Heavy), or 3 (Very Heavy)"
So am I right in thinking this is NOT the same as the text shown in the server select screen, because that shows the WEEKLY MAX population of that faction not the CURRENT population. If it does show the same weekly max population then this data is much less useful and really you'd only need to update the cache when things do change.

It is currently not the same as the values shown in the client, though the intention is to change it to that value eventually, I think. Brendan and I are going to be figuring that out in the coming days. It's possible (though don't take this as a promise) that we'll end up providing both (an immediate snapshot and a rolling weekly "high tide").

If that's something you'd like to see, be sure to let us know.

Quote:

The API states that the population figures are optional and shows an example where only england is shown. In what circumstances would the query only return a single nation, and what would the default for the other nations be in that circumstance?

It'd not show the optional parameters in the rare case that nation has never had a character on that server. For most purposes, you can assume that case simply won't ever exist, though handling it is pretty straightforward.

There wouldn't be a default value in that case -- it'd simply indicate that nation doesn't have a horse in the race yet.

Quote:

"The port state XML contains <PortList> element, which in turn contains zero or more <Port> elements. The port elements detail information about a port on that server, including PvP state, server victory state, its location in the world, and so on."
This reads a little oddly. Surely in all circumstances this would be a list of ALL the ports in game? If not, when would it return less than that, and when should we expect it to contain zero ports?

Like the above, in real-world situations, you'd never see anything less than "everything", but in certain circumstances in test servers, we might see less internally. Keeping to one standard for data exchange ensures we have a lot fewer problems (not having to write code twice to do essentially the same thing means there's half the number of bugs!).

That said, most good XML libraries will handle "zero or more" child elements just as well as "1 or more", so there should be little to no practical difference between the two.

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