Fansite API

[Jamdoggy]

I'd love for some kind of API, that can be used by fan sites to automatically retrieve freely available information from the game servers.

For example, this page on my guild website lists all 100 guild members, including their avatar and level. Currently, this information has to be entered manually, but if I could write a script that updates this list it would save a lot of time. I'd need to get a list of 'players in the guild', their guild rank, avatar and current level.

As another example, this page lists all adventures, and their rewards. Again, it would be very handy if I had a script which I could run when new adventures are released, that would update the data in the database for me. I'd need to be able to grab the adventure and reward information, as well as a list of current trades in the TO, to update the max, min and average trade prices for each adventure.

Many online games provide a method to retrieve information from the game servers in this way. I'd love it if BB could provide something similar.

[Jamdoggy]

I'm honestly surprised that there hasn't been more interest in this idea, other than 44 people looking at the post. Do web designers/programmers not play TSO? For any guild with their own website, or player who creates adventure guides, this kind of this would be invaluable...

[Delta_Leb]

Hi, I am also interested for and SDK , API or WebService.
But I prefer to have a more advanced API such as the ability to check if a building is depleted and the ability to build a new building via the API.
In addition the ability to send the Scouts or Geolog. in a search mission.
In my opinion I prefer two levels of API, a free one which can be used to get information. and a monthly subscription that allow the user to have access to the advanced API where he can control a lot of features in the game. I think a monthly subscription of 200-300 gem will be good.

[Dragonia]

I'm honestly surprised that there hasn't been more interest in this idea, other than 44 people looking at the post. Do web designers/programmers not play TSO? For any guild with their own website, or player who creates adventure guides, this kind of this would be invaluable...

Its not like there are no interest from players who are not only devoted players of settlers online but also talented developers
who build various fansites and tools for self and for community of this game.

It seems like Blue Byte have shown signs of good will and interest in supporting such activities at beggining,
by providing some 'fan site kits' which contain some preselected graphic files, helpful in styling user fansites.

However it seems like they have lost interest or not see it appropriate to provide more resources to community,
especially the API which is asked here, and for which many developers have asked in the past.
I have asked for similar thing year a go here, and after all year - still nothing has changed.
So as you see, there are continuous interest from players side - but no interest from blue byte side to provide any API.

What we always got in return for these questions was - 'you dont need to do it - we will implement it in our game'

Because of blue byte silence in this topic, there was many developers who attempted to create such api by them self over time,
by pulling required data in not always legal or safe way from client or other places.
But these attempts was eventually stoped by blue byte updates which render them incompatible.

I began to believe that blue byte will never provide such API for settlers online.
and this is sad, as im by myself developer of settlers fansite and i have many cool ideas in mind,
but these ideas need API to access / pull, various informations from game to process, make presentation or use in various ways.
All these things are impossible without blue byte good will, support, and providing API which give access to various game data
which could be pulled by fansites.

Without this API - which allow to pull informations from game, all fansites can be just simple forums - not really much useful or awesome.

Maybe blue byte developers not really understand what informations we meant, what we see useful in this, and what it would really help.

Well, data is a data, it can be processed and displayed in many ways, and its impossible to give exact example on usage just now,
but i can reply to this question for sure even now, that - what is usefull in this for blue byte is
'strenghtening and building up settlers online community - by supporting multiple cool and technicaly advanced fansites
build by players with developer abilities, which at the end would bring settlers online even more players and stronger community'.

Btw, pages shown as examples in Jamdoggy post above are worth to see, as an example of talented developers
and one of many possible usages of data which could be provided by game API if only blue byte developers would show a little interest
in providing such API, for player websites and services to read.

I understand this API as some kind of XML read only data, which would provide various game informations depending on request to game server.
Could return informations related to adventures, guilds, players, whatever. (now thats a good idea from jamdoggy)
I believe any informations provided by game and updated from game engine would be usefull to player fansites developers,
increase its usability, provide useful and whats more up to date informations about game and its features.
My self as site developer im excited when thinking about it and what cool possibilities it would give,
and same time im dissapointed and sad that such API is not only not provided but there seem to be not even hope that it will be provided in future.

[Jamdoggy]

But I prefer to have a more advanced API such as the ability to check if a building is depleted and the ability to build a new building via the API.
In addition the ability to send the Scouts or Geolog. in a search mission.
In my opinion I prefer two levels of API, a free one which can be used to get information. and a monthly subscription that allow the user to have access to the advanced API where he can control a lot of features in the game. I think a monthly subscription of 200-300 gem will be good.

Noooo, being able to control the game from an external source is a really bad idea. This would lead to cheating and people making 'bots' that would play the game for them when they aren't at the keyboard.

As Dragonia said, an API should just be used to retrieve information about the current state of the game, the players, quests, adventures, trades or other such useful items. Personally, I'd be happy with just player lists (with guild, rank and level) and adventure lists (with all adventure info).

The information an API could obtain would have to be carefully considered. I can see how trade information, for example, could be used to alert players to favourable trades (for example if someone accidentally put up a Black Knights adventure for 16gc instead of 1,600gc), so they could snatch them up immediately. This would be a bad use of an API.

Checking if a building is depleted, however, could also be used to alert players, and would be useful if you were in an adventure or visiting a friend's map.