ArenaNet should release public API for the TP

ArenaNet should release public API for the TP

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

The current TP interface has been buggy since release and it seems ArenaNet devs are too busy to fix them. For example, we still can’t use the filters to search for back items only and some of the search filters seem to be wrong (e.g. the Unlocks for dyes and recipes).

In the perfect world, I would like to be able to play the game and be notified if I want to raise my price should someone undercut me. I don’t want to have to keep checking for undercuts every few seconds to ensure that I get the items that I really want. I can’t be expected to do dungeons and check the TP while fighting a boss at the same time.

This is why I think releasing the API would good for the game as we would have app developers fill up this feature void that ArenaNet devs do not seem to have the time to do.

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Posted by: Leuphe Rykkyr.1602

Leuphe Rykkyr.1602

So people can more easily write bots to automate TP buying/selling with minimal effort.

SEEMS LEGIT

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

So people can more easily write bots to automate TP buying/selling with minimal effort.

SEEMS LEGIT

So you are saying that since they have not released any public API for the TP, the TP is now absolutely free of any bots? Right….carry on with your delusions.

Maybe you just don’t understand the differences between apis, bots, and third-party programs. APIs are meant to be used for external programs, these are utility programs that are meant to run outside of the game. They are highly regulated through the server with developer API keys and quota. Bots, on the other hand, pretend to be the game itself so they don’t need any developer keys. They hide in the shadows, pretending to be legit players, because they are illegal. They don’t pretend to be an external program and they certainly do not require any published api from ArenaNet to work.

(edited by DarkSpirit.7046)

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Posted by: Risingashes.8694

Risingashes.8694

Just use Zicore. He opened sourced it, make whatever modifications you want. Branch the code, or keep it to yourself.

The API is already available.

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Posted by: lordkrall.7241

lordkrall.7241

So you are saying that since they have not released any public API for the TP, the TP is now absolutely free of any bots? Right….carry on with your delusions.

That was not what he was saying at all.
What he was saying was that with a public API it would be MUCH easier to create bots, not that no bots exists right now.

Krall Bloodsword – Mesmer
Krall Peterson – Warrior
Piken Square

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

So you are saying that since they have not released any public API for the TP, the TP is now absolutely free of any bots? Right….carry on with your delusions.

That was not what he was saying at all.
What he was saying was that with a public API it would be MUCH easier to create bots, not that no bots exists right now.

The easiest way to write any program is to simply call a library function already written up by someone else. For example something like, List<Item> getMyBuyList() which would presumably return your existing buy transactions as a list of items.

Once the first hacker finds out how to write a bot, he would write a wrapper library for the other hackers to use so they can build on top of it. This has already happened!

As for ArenaNet to release their web api, your program would have to make a http call and write some routines to parse a string (probably in JSON) something like this:

“item_id”:“24”,“name”:“Sealed Package of Snowballs”,“description”:“Open this package to create several snowballs that can hit anyone else holding a snowball.”,“type”:“Consumable”,“level”:“0”,“rarity”:“Basic”,“vendor_value”:“0”,“game_types”:[“Dungeon”,
“Pve”,
“Wvw”],“flags”:[],“restrictions”:[],“consumable”:{"type":"Generic"}

Which do you think makes it is easier to program a bot? Obviously the bot wrapper library that is already written by someone else would make it easier to program a bot, so releasing a web api would not make writing a bot any more easier. Those who claim otherwise do not know how a web api works. Furthermore, using ArenaNet web api, when it is released, would require a developer key and be under a quota system so your api calls are limited. This means the developer has to be registered and its api usage monitored. The bot library, however, pretends to be the game client itself and does not require registration. Obviously any bot writer would prefer himself and his bot to be “cloaked” as a legit “player” rather than being registered and have its bot usage monitored.

(edited by DarkSpirit.7046)

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Posted by: aeneq.1760

aeneq.1760

Sorry but in order to properly support a public API and put in mechanics for protection against bots (access limitations) they would have to redo the whole TP backend/API. I.E. not gonna happen…

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

Sorry but in order to properly support a public API and put in mechanics for protection against bots (access limitations) they would have to redo the whole TP backend/API. I.E. not gonna happen…

Are you speaking for ArenaNet then? Do you have technical details on their existing infrastructure and details on their resources?

They have already planned to release a number of APIs : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/api

And their future plan upon release includes providing OAuth2 authentication with registered developer keys and quota. Any api that they release would have to be protected against bots, not just the TP. If what you say is right, then they shouldn’t be releasing any api.

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Posted by: aeneq.1760

aeneq.1760

I am extremely familiar with the current TP API… In its current form its too tied into the player character mechanics to just release an API for it, you would have to not only add an auth mechanism but change the behavior on several levels.

Also in case you werent aware, the same API is used atm whenever you do ANY TP ingame tasks, lookup, browsing etc etc. The only limiting factor is selling which is not possible.

edit: btw the API development in progress is about information and building tools for players that mostly enhances group functionality (offline guild chats etc etc). Also they have EXPLICITLY stated that NO API will offer more than whats currently possible todo ingame

An offline tool for improved TP functionality will not happen until the ingame TP offers the same functionality

With ANets currrent bug fixing progress I would estimated 6 months maybe for the ingame features to have improved (at a minimum)

(edited by aeneq.1760)

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

I am extremely familiar with the current TP API… In its current form its too tied into the player character mechanics to just release an API for it, you would have to not only add an auth mechanism but change the behavior on several levels.

Also in case you werent aware, the same API is used atm whenever you do ANY TP ingame tasks, lookup, browsing etc etc. The only limiting factor is selling which is not possible.

Obviously the current unofficial TP api is sorely lacking and I am well aware of that, otherwise I wouldn’t be starting this thread in the first place, would I?

I also don’t expect them to release the current TP api as it is. It doesn’t support the mobile scenario, at least not in any legal way that is clearly not a violation of their own rules. It barely supports even the desktop scenario well enough.

If they were to release an official TP api, I presume that they would do a good job and release a proper one.

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Posted by: aeneq.1760

aeneq.1760

Obviously the current unofficial TP api is sorely lacking and I am well aware of that, otherwise I wouldn’t be starting this thread in the first place, would I?

I also don’t expect them to release the current TP api as it is. It doesn’t support the mobile scenario, at least not in any legal way that is clearly not a violation of their own rules. It barely supports even the desktop scenario well enough.

If they were to release an official TP api, I presume that they would do a good job and release a proper one.

And thats where we diverge, the current API and internal mechanics has been in play since the game went live, no changes in the ingame browser that I can recall (except previewing).

With the upcoming asian release I am certain no fundamental change in EXISTING functionality will happen in the near future. Heck you posted your first suggestion over two months ago and there has been no action…

Instead of asking for 3rd party API you should be asking for an updated internal TP browser that offers what you want.

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

And thats where we diverge, the current API and internal mechanics has been in play since the game went live, no changes in the ingame browser that I can recall (except previewing).

With the upcoming asian release I am certain no fundamental change in EXISTING functionality will happen in the near future. Heck you posted your first suggestion over two months ago and there has been no action…

Instead of asking for 3rd party API you should be asking for an updated internal TP browser that offers what you want.

What I want is going to far outstrip their resources more than just providing a third party TP api so much so that it would make more sense for them to simply provide the api and leave it to the imaginations of third party devs just like they did with the other third party APIs that they already have plans to release.

The external app shouldn’t be emulating the game client like a bot but that is how it is with the current TP api.

(edited by DarkSpirit.7046)

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Posted by: aeneq.1760

aeneq.1760

The potential in open access is always impressive, however I fully understand ANets statement that no API will provide features not available in game as such would provide too large of an advantage to current normal players.

Example; lets say (hint) you can write a tool that lists all your orders (listings) in one page and show whether you are the highest bidder or not and with a refresh button.

Just this simple tool provides a HUGE advantage of anyone in game tracking more than one order.

Arguing that you could do the same in the browser is true. However; TP trading is about having the right bid at the right time and anyone manually doing this will not have a chance to compete.

IF ANet was to provide a public API they would be forced to block all actual trading (selling/buying) of items and limit access to informational gathering only, any actual trades would have to occur in game (The potential of external automation is just too great).

The other issue is of course where all the items are stored in between trades, the pickup is designed per character atm which wouldn’t be possible in an external API.

So if it gets transferred to the bank then you have a new behavior that’s counter intuitive to the in game mechanics thus you need two separate APIs (without the consideration that this behavior would make one of the permanent trader/bank obsolete).

The other option is to have it stay in pickup line and be able to pickup specific items, this however has the side effect that items will be kept in pickup for a long time and thus will have performance issues with the backend (think selling list).

edit: Another implication/complication of a selling API is that you would have to be able to index the inventory, this means both whats in waiting to be picked up and whats in the current bank and/or character. This kind of API would not be TP specific and could be used for Character indexing instead, additionally you would need to be able to determine inventory space as well.

The point is that any advanced TP functionality will have big impacts on the API level in general and this wont happen anytime soon.

(edited by aeneq.1760)

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

One can also say the same for most of the api that they are going to release. With the events api, I can find out which boss events are going on at which server so that already gives an advantage. Furthermore, I can see ALL events around my map without being just close to them. That in itself is definitely another advantage not offered to the game client.

What is the option then without such API? Anyone who wants to know if a particular temple is open, or if a boss event is happening, would have to post in the forums and wait for an answer, if he even gets one before the event is over. Is that a better gaming experience?

As for the TP, if I really want to get that precusor, I would have to keep spamming the TP and check if anyone has outbid me over and over every few seconds. This is how it would be done without an app at the moment. I can’t actually play the game if I really want a particular item in the TP for the best price. Is this a better gaming experience?

The purpose of such API is to enhance the gaming experience, not bring it down to the worse possible level. Just because ArenaNet doesn’t have the resources to give us every feature that we ever want, does not imply that third party developers must be barred from helping out.

If they don’t improve on the game play experience, then only the botters and hackers, those people whose actions that they have failed to stopped because of their limited resources, would reap the benefits. Because truly legit third party devs are not going to release any apps that would violate the rules and implicate themselves. This is why, unlike Zicore, I would never release my TP app as it is with the current TP api. This is why after working on his own app for almost a year, releasing it for free along with open source, many players in the community gets to curse him as a sign of appreciation for his efforts. Furthermore, he runs the risk of violating any EULA/TOS from ArenaNet. It is just not worth it.

(edited by DarkSpirit.7046)

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Posted by: aeneq.1760

aeneq.1760

I’m not debating the benefit of such a tool, that is quite obvious. However such benefits should be realized within the game so all can benefit and not just the l33t people who know the various 3rd party tools?

Temples is also a bad example, that “feature” only occurred after guesting was introduced and was primarily a means to combat lack of interest in the temple chains and with the design of the game its hard to implement it within the game itself.

And frankly the “benefit” of knowing what events/temples are active is not really that great. However the TP is a totally different beast…

edit: True bot applications would never be released, only used within closed circles. Also a TP app is not hard to write as it is currently, making the API easier would only allow for more “private” apps to abuse it, and don’t kid yourself it would be abused.

edit2: Btw the backend server load would increase drastically due to the increased workload form different clients polling for updates all the time, as it is atm that workload is managed by proxy, not sure ANet would be willing to support the amount of traffic we are talking about

(edited by aeneq.1760)

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

I’m not debating the benefit of such a tool, that is quite obvious. However such benefits should be realized within the game so all can benefit and not just the l33t people who know the various 3rd party tools?

But like I have said, such benefits are not being realized within the game because ArenaNet devs are swarmed with other work. Third party developers also cannot help to realize this because ArenaNet has not released any official public API for them and their overly strict TOS/EULA prevents any legit third party dev from working on the problems.

Temples is also a bad example, that “feature” only occurred after guesting was introduced and was primarily a means to combat lack of interest in the temple chains and with the design of the game its hard to implement it within the game itself.

And frankly the “benefit” of knowing what events/temples are active is not really that great. However the TP is a totally different beast…

The advantage is much bigger than most people realized. You can now use it to always get the champion events that you want by guesting. For the temp content, I went around from server to server, killing the karka queen over and over as one example. The amount of gold that I got out of this little advantage is quite significant I can tell you that.

edit: True bot applications would never be released, only used within closed circles. Also a TP app is not hard to write as it is currently, making the API easier would only allow for more “private” apps to abuse it, and don’t kid yourself it would be abused.

edit2: Btw the backend server load would increase drastically due to the increased workload form different clients polling for updates all the time, as it is atm that workload is managed by proxy, not sure ANet would be willing to support the amount of traffic we are talking about

This is already happening as Zicore has released his TP app and more people have started to use it or a modified version of his open source app. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some people have modified his code into working bots.

I can already see ArenaNet doing work on their TP back end to limit the queries imposed by such apps. I have not tried his newer version but his older versions are quite spammy.

Personally, I consider such access to the TP servers by emulating the game client to be bot-like and many bots actually use the same methods to access the TP. Having both the in-game client and bots/apps spamming the same TP server is not a good idea if they want to maintain a high quality TP experience. ArenaNet should eventually close that kind of access for bots/third party apps and release a public API (through an app-only api server) for legit apps if they do care about our TP experience. The TP API server would serve app requests from its cached db and only grab data from the game TP server at a fixed controlled manner. This should improve the overall performance of the TP in the game.

(edited by DarkSpirit.7046)

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Posted by: aeneq.1760

aeneq.1760

My fundamental issue is that you cannot and should not provide an out of the game experience that’s superior to the in game one. Atm this is what is happening when it comes to browsing but this is a grey area for now.

Not sure how you could jump server to server since questing is time limited? Was that a limitation they added after, in which case it speaks to my original interpretation of said functionality.

Current bots are limited in what they can do due to limitations in the API as we touched on already, removing these limitations will make the issue several magnitudes worse.

Granted you can do a more advanced bot using key macros and more advanced communication between those programs and the bot however since there is no way to “specify” which item you want to sell youll have to rely in image recognition and not all items in the game have unique art (also frankly a selling bot is not that great, you wont relist items due to the fees and adding new items to handle undercutters will just make the price go down and your items stay longer).

Working from a proxy is only valid for informational data, selling/pickup cant go over a proxy due to the risk of timeing issues.

Musing:
Lets say you provide this API, you also provide application keys for unique monitoring/quota to handle system load and abuse monitoring. What would stop a gold farmer to register for a large quota license and then spam the TP for every item he can flip for a profit?

Multiple sites doing the same will always ramp up the price for “profitable” items to the max level possible while retaining flipping profits. This will mean after a while that all items will basically be going for buy price-15% and there will not be any margin for error for normal TP users. Atm this behavior is limited to a small number of identified items but if there is a profit for it and the traffic is “allowed” then farming groups will abuse it.

One could argue that this could be handled by dev key monitoring but how would this be formalized in a legal text? x% of traffic must go to unique devices/accounts would not work, one could not offer large quota licenses but this would hit sites like gw2spidy and others.

One option could be to say that large quota licenses are not allowed to use the buy/sell API but even this is not a good option since a bot could be designed to use a large quota license for information and another (or several) for buying/selling

Im sorry, no matter how this is viewed a programmatic API with full features for the TP is just too risky

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

We don’t need someone building the equivalent of a high frequency trading program for the TP. So I’m all for establishing a mirror of the TP state that’s updated only say 10 times an hour and have an API that can query that. But all transactions still must be done in game.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

My fundamental issue is that you cannot and should not provide an out of the game experience that’s superior to the in game one. Atm this is what is happening when it comes to browsing but this is a grey area for now.

Then sorry but I don’t think you are being realistic. In a perfect world, ArenaNet devs would have infinite resources to implement whatever features we can dream of in the game. But we are not in a perfect world are we?

ArenaNet devs have higher priority bugs to fix and features to add. This is why they decided to release APIs to invite third party devs to add features to the game through external programs. Furthermore, their APIs have ALREADY given a superior game experience by providing information not available to the in-game client which I have mentioned before.

Not sure how you could jump server to server since questing is time limited? Was that a limitation they added after, in which case it speaks to my original interpretation of said functionality.

Guesting time is not limited but you are only limited to 2 guest servers within 24 hours per account. Having multiple accounts, like I do, would circumvent this easy limitation.

Current bots are limited in what they can do due to limitations in the API as we touched on already, removing these limitations will make the issue several magnitudes worse.

Like I have already mentioned, bots emulate the game client, legit third party programs don’t so they operate differently. If ArenaNet has a legit TP API server for apps only, then both of them would be hitting different servers.

Granted you can do a more advanced bot using key macros and more advanced communication between those programs and the bot however since there is no way to “specify” which item you want to sell youll have to rely in image recognition and not all items in the game have unique art (also frankly a selling bot is not that great, you wont relist items due to the fees and adding new items to handle undercutters will just make the price go down and your items stay longer).

Then simply add more analysis routines to the bot. It should be quite easy to do.

Musing:
Lets say you provide this API, you also provide application keys for unique monitoring/quota to handle system load and abuse monitoring. What would stop a gold farmer to register for a large quota license and then spam the TP for every item he can flip for a profit?

Didn’t ArenaNet already said that they are going to use OAuth2 authentication and limit quota access through registered developer keys to their API?

One option could be to say that large quota licenses are not allowed to use the buy/sell API but even this is not a good option since a bot could be designed to use a large quota license for information and another (or several) for buying/selling

Like I have said, a bot and a legit app would work differently. A bot would try to emulate a game client and a legit app would declare itself to be an external program. A bot would not have a developer key and a legit app would need one. A legit apps would be bound by quota using the legit API while a bot would be using the game client API.

(edited by DarkSpirit.7046)

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

We don’t need someone building the equivalent of a high frequency trading program for the TP. So I’m all for establishing a mirror of the TP state that’s updated only say 10 times an hour and have an API that can query that. But all transactions still must be done in game.

Who has the time to add these things in the game? Considering that TP bugs from the release day, a year ago, are still not fixed.

A more realistic approach is to make use of third party devs to add these features as external programs.

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Posted by: aeneq.1760

aeneq.1760


Then sorry but I don’t think you are being realistic. In a perfect world, ArenaNet devs would have infinite resources to implement whatever features we can dream of in the game. But we are not in a perfect world are we?

In what way am I not being realistic? You are looking at this from a “wishing well” position and I am arguing that this wont happen for a number of realistic complications (one of them being alienating in game players).

And frankly the in game TP browser has been a serious eye sore from the beginning and if this isnt high on ANets todo list I would be surprised (and disappointed)

ArenaNet devs have higher priority bugs to fix and features to add. This is why they decided to release APIs to invite third party devs to add features to the game through external programs. Furthermore, their APIs have ALREADY given a superior game experience by providing information not available to the in-game client which I have mentioned before.

NONE of their APIs has been anything else than informational and is totally different to what is being proposed here (which actually ties into specific account/characters).

I am NOT arguing against an open API for the TP!

I am instead saying that such an API would/should be informational only ie not account/character bound. If you tie the API to a specific account quite a lot “hidden” work pop up that are vastly more complicated than updating the ingame TP ui with far more reaching indirect complications as I have already tried to explain.


Guesting time is not limited but you are only limited to 2 guest servers within 24 hours per account. Having multiple accounts, like I do, would circumvent this easy limitation.

But you are still very much limited and its not like its farmable with huge turnouts so I dont see the example you are trying to make.


Like I have already mentioned, bots emulate the game client, legit third party programs don’t so they operate differently. If ArenaNet has a legit TP API server for apps only, then both of them would be hitting different servers.

And as I already mentioned any selling/buying would still have to hit the real servers, further complication if the proxy has old data and the buy/sell orders are inaccurate for this reason.

For an informational only API a proxy offload with a reduced update time (ie very similar to gw2spidy et al) is workable.

Musing:
Lets say you provide this API, you also provide application keys for unique monitoring/quota to handle system load and abuse monitoring. What would stop a gold farmer to register for a large quota license and then spam the TP for every item he can flip for a profit?


Didn’t ArenaNet already said that they are going to use OAuth2 authentication and limit quota access through registered developer keys to their API?

How would that impact my musing? The musings was considering a proper API using a proper authentication mechanism. Oauth2 has its issues and doesnt necessarily mean allowing for account access, instead I believe they would use it for client identification (ie app. verification).

The musing was that they would have to allow for large quota users in which case what would stop a farm group to obtain one and use it for internal use only.


Like I have said, a bot and a legit app would work differently. A bot would try to emulate a game client and a legit app would declare itself to be an external program. A bot would not have a developer key and a legit app would need one. A legit apps would be bound by quota using the legit API while a bot would be using the game client API.

A bot isnt defined by which API he uses, its a matter of automation.

What would make it impossible to write a bot using the public API? Quota is as I tried to explain not a good answer…

(edited by aeneq.1760)

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

We don’t need someone building the equivalent of a high frequency trading program for the TP. So I’m all for establishing a mirror of the TP state that’s updated only say 10 times an hour and have an API that can query that. But all transactions still must be done in game.

Who has the time to add these things in the game? Considering that TP bugs from the release day, a year ago, are still not fixed.

A more realistic approach is to make use of third party devs to add these features as external programs.

Which can be abused. Is that so hard to understand? Hey lets write one where we can enter a maximum buy amount we are willing to spend and then have it poll the TP so every time we are overcut it would cancel our previous offer and overcut the current lead until we hit the limit we set? Now imagine 1,000 of these helpful external programs hitting the TP at the same time. Or 5,000. Or 10,000. TP would come to a crawl, we’ll start having buy timers in place like we have sell timers.

The ability to abuse is simply too high.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

We don’t need someone building the equivalent of a high frequency trading program for the TP. So I’m all for establishing a mirror of the TP state that’s updated only say 10 times an hour and have an API that can query that. But all transactions still must be done in game.

Who has the time to add these things in the game? Considering that TP bugs from the release day, a year ago, are still not fixed.

A more realistic approach is to make use of third party devs to add these features as external programs.

Which can be abused. Is that so hard to understand? Hey lets write one where we can enter a maximum buy amount we are willing to spend and then have it poll the TP so every time we are overcut it would cancel our previous offer and overcut the current lead until we hit the limit we set? Now imagine 1,000 of these helpful external programs hitting the TP at the same time. Or 5,000. Or 10,000. TP would come to a crawl, we’ll start having buy timers in place like we have sell timers.

So assuming that you are right and we don’t have this feature. What do I do if I put a huge amount of gold to buy the precursor that I want? I would have to keep checking every few seconds to make sure that nobody undercut me. When my friends message me to help them with the game, I would have to refuse them and just check the TP over and over. So instead of actually playing the game, people would have to spam the TP over and over to get the items that they want at the best price. Is that fun?

I don’t think so. I would rather ArenaNet adds that notification feature into the game itself. But if they don’t have the resources, I would rather have them provide the API for other devs to implement it.

And what you say about the TP coming to a crawl is simply not true if they separate app calls into a different server.

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Posted by: aeneq.1760

aeneq.1760

Ah well I dont see the point in continuing this discussion, these are the points I am arguing and I have yet to see anything that would change these.

  • I agree a official informational TP API would be great, however I would like to see an in game update first.
  • The amount of work involved in offering an account bound API is too large/complex that I don’t think we will ever see an API offering buying/selling
  • Any open API would be abused in any way it can and there is no easy way to formalize protection without impacting user experience.
  • Any such open API should probably mean reworking the current TP API so 3rd parties cant use it.

To end my contribution to this thread;

IMO the only potential API ANet would publish would be informational only, now whether this would happen is very doubtful imo. I would almost bet money that they are more likely to create developer api (informational) that are on developer request only and rework the TP internal api to block non authorized access totally

Just my .5

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

IMO the only potential API ANet would publish would be informational only, now whether this would happen is very doubtful imo. I would almost bet money that they are more likely to create developer api (informational) that are on developer request only and rework the TP internal api to block non authorized access totally

If it is only informational then I see no point in them doing it since we already have gw2spidy and the gw2spidy api is mobile friendly. The website reliability is unfortunately not as good as I wish it would be but we would have to live with that.

Also all third party devs would have to continue using this bot-like method to access the TP by emulating the game client and compete with real in-game clients TP traffic. If they stop this then individual devs would have to make a hard decision to hack the client further so that their tools and websites can continue to work or abandon their tools/websites entirely. It should be obvious which of these choices the bot authors would choose to take.

(edited by DarkSpirit.7046)

ArenaNet should release public API for the TP

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

So assuming that you are right and we don’t have this feature. What do I do if I put a huge amount of gold to buy the precursor that I want?

This is a problem with low supply, low volume, high price items. So either save more to buy one from a seller directly or make a fair and reasonable offer and wait it out. Otherwise you aren’t having fun with the game because you’re camping on your offer.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

ArenaNet should release public API for the TP

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Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

So assuming that you are right and we don’t have this feature. What do I do if I put a huge amount of gold to buy the precursor that I want?

This is a problem with low supply, low volume, high price items. So either save more to buy one from a seller directly or make a fair and reasonable offer and wait it out. Otherwise you aren’t having fun with the game because you’re camping on your offer.

You can’t just make a fair offer and wait it out. What is there to prevent someone who would come after you and undercut with 1 copper? Unfortunately, you have to camp your offer if tools are not available.

ArenaNet should release public API for the TP

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

So assuming that you are right and we don’t have this feature. What do I do if I put a huge amount of gold to buy the precursor that I want?

This is a problem with low supply, low volume, high price items. So either save more to buy one from a seller directly or make a fair and reasonable offer and wait it out. Otherwise you aren’t having fun with the game because you’re camping on your offer.

You can’t just make a fair offer and wait it out. What is there to prevent someone who would come after you and undercut with 1 copper? Unfortunately, you have to camp your offer if tools are not available.

Nothing is stopping them, it’s a fact of life on the exchange that other players will undercut or overcut the current sell or buy price. If you are selling are you honestly willing to spend the 5% posting fee again simply because someone undercut you for the moment?

How would notification affect you? So you go off to play and you get notified that you’ve been overcut/undercut so you stop, tweak the price and start to play again when you get another notification. That sound less fun then accepting you aren’t going to maximizing profit or minimizing cost.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

ArenaNet should release public API for the TP

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: DarkSpirit.7046

DarkSpirit.7046

How would notification affect you? So you go off to play and you get notified that you’ve been overcut/undercut so you stop, tweak the price and start to play again when you get another notification. That sound less fun then accepting you aren’t going to maximizing profit or minimizing cost.

It is certainly a lot more fun than camping on your bids, checking and re-checking every few seconds that is for sure.

(edited by DarkSpirit.7046)