Example Sites

This post will be used to highlight particular sites and applications that make use of the DATA API

Server Status

• Dethdlr's Status Widget (from EQ2wire.com) - widget that can embed server status into your site
• soe.com/status - status for all games
• SOEStatus iPhone App - status for all games in an iOS app
• everquest2.com (click on "Players" tab) - status for EverQuest II
• dcuniverseonline.com (click on "Players" tab) - status for DC Universe Online servers

Game Data

• RosterMaster Standalone - a tool for EverQuest II players who manage a web site for their guild
• Roster Master for Dragonfly (RM4DF) - a tool for integrating the Guild Roster into your Dragonfly CMS site
• EQ2U - search & management of EQ2 Characters, Guilds, Items, and Spells
• Quest Forever - search for Characters, Items and Guilds
• EQ2Players - search and compare characters and their items and abilities
• EQ2Mission - character progress tracking and leaderboards galore

 

I've been using the REST API for my Server Status Widget Thingy (fancy name, huh?) since early September 2011.  You can check it out here.  It's available for use on other sites as well.

It's the server status we use at EQ2Wire.com and also what I use on my own guild website:

<img src="http://eq2wire.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/EQ2ServerStatusEmbeded.png" width="202" height="472" />

Had a couple of hiccups along the way but the folks at SOE have been really responsive any time it had issues.

I originally stumbled across it while looking at the source code for the new SOE Server Status page.  I took what I found there and adapted it for my own use.  I had no idea I was fiddling with what was to become the REST API. 

Dethdlr

 

Source code for this app is available on github, free to use for anyone who is interested.

The REST API classes are derived from apps that I have written and have been available since 2009 - Huddle, Comet, Mobile Adventure Walks.  I will continue to expand these to support additional features as Dan reveals them (see some of the other threads here!), even if this app doesn't make use of them directly.

 

RosterMaster StandAlone is in the process of switching from the old data scraping hydra parser (I was grabbing data from four different sources, in three different formats to generate the roster!) to the new REST API.  Latest development version is already interfaced with the new API - the next step will be to build on it, adding more data fields to it.  So, starting from version 5.0.0, this will make full use of the new data feeds.

Technical details: RMSA is web application written in PHP that allows webmasters to put a full-featured guild roster on their website.  It pulls the data in XML format, which I parse using SimpleXML (that turns an XML string into a hierarchical object).  The parsed data is stored in a local MySQL database, which is typically updated every 24 hours (user-configurable).

Official site is <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.lostrealm.ca/rostermaster"]http://www.lostrealm.ca/rostermaster[/url] (the development version linked at the bottom of that page is the one that's interfaced with the new feeds).

 

Lantis has already introduced Roster Master Stand Alone (RMSA), but I'd like to introduce my own fork of the project, Roster Master for Dragonfly (RM4DF).

Roster Master for Dragonfly (RM4DF) provides a method to integrate the Sony EverQuest II Guild Roster into your Dragonfly CMS site. Fully integrated into the site, you can manage and view your guild's data right from your portal. A block is also provided that displays guild statistical data similar to that found on the guild summary page on the [url="http://www.everquest2.com/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: #0066cc;">everquest2.com[/url] website.

Roster Master for Dragonfly is part of the [url="http://www.rostermaster.org/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: #0066cc;">Roster Master Project[/url], which is composed of a family of ports of the original Roster Master module originally written by Rex "SaintPeter" Schrader. Significant enhancements and exclusive features have been made for the Dragonfly CMS version, as well as to accomodate changes in Everquest II and the everquest2.com site.

The Roster Master [url="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=346728"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: #0066cc;">development thread[/url] on everquest2.com is a highly active and community supported discussion focusing on debugging and introducing new features and ideas into the Roster Master project. Other Roster Master ports and related resources can be found on the [url="http://www.rostermaster.org/"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: #0066cc;">www.rostermaster.org[/url] site.

 

I'm working on an open source loot system for our "casual" guild.  Due to being "casual", it's a fairly unique system that lies somewhere between DKP, Suicide Kings and /random.

The source is at: https://github.com/Catharz/Raids-Per-Loot and the "beta" of our site is hosted at: <a rel="nofollow" href="https://southerncross.heroku.com."]https://southerncross.heroku.com.[/url]  Please be gentle with it.

<span style="text-decoration: line-through;">I've also written a log parser in ruby that populates the site by reading the logs and uploading data via ActiveResource.  And I've developed a C# plug-in for ACT that can upload drops on the fly.  I haven't put the source for either of those on Github yet (both need some clean-up first), but will be doing so soon(ish).

I didn't do the above soonish enough.  My macbook's HDD crashed, so I lost the log parser code and the ACT plug-in code.Will be rebuilding that next.

I've been working on pulling in some of the characters data into our site.I have one page where we can see characters main stats (level, aa's, potency, crit, crit bonus, health and power).You can look at ours here: https://southerncross.heroku.com/ch...ters/statistics

We also have more details stats for each character on their own page.At the moment, that data is stored as serialized json in the database.I mostly did that because I've mostly been working on this during a 1 hour commute (with marginal internet access).Now that I have the data parsing correctly, I'll probably move back to pulling the data back from the API at run-time.The loot details are way out of date, but you can see a sample here: https://southerncross.heroku.com/characters/2

 

Please don't take this as trying to discourage writing your own code as that's not my intent.  But I thought I would throw this out there in case it meets your needs without needing to code anything for it.  We've set up links at EQ2U to make linking from other sites a bit easier but haven't really talked about it much.

You can link to an item using the following syntax:

u.eq2wire.com/i/Item%20Name  (%20 for spaces)

or if you have the ID from the in game item link:

u.eq2wire.com/item/index/itemnumber

The ID from the in game item link will be the first set of numbers.  For example:

aITEM -1953401994 1881457572:Synergism V (Master)/a

If it is a negative number, you can pass that in as well and we do the conversion to pull up the right item.  If the item has just been discovered, we'll have it on EQ2U as soon as it shows up in the data feeds which usually is a couple minutes or less.

You can link to characters using the following syntax:

u.eq2wire.com/c/charactername

That will perform a search for that character name and if it finds more than one match, will return the list of results.  If it only finds one match, it takes you straight to that character.  But in cases where you know the server, you can use this syntax instead:

u.eq2wire.com/servername/charactername

For example: u.eq2wire.com/antonia%20bayle/Kzann  Use %20 for servers that have spaces in them.

Again, not trying to discourage development by any means, just throwing this out there in case it does what you need.

 

Actually, I will take you up on the offer of using your code short-term.

Long term, I am going to code it myself.  More for the purpose of learning web UI design than anything else though.

As an aside, do you mind if I pilfer some of your code?  I have the data retreival code working, but I suck at the front-end side of things, and have been struggling to get the hover effect working with the dataTables plug-in I'm using.

 

If you need some Javascript wizardry for part of your project, have a look at the DynamicDrive website.  Whenever I need some Javascript-based stuff for menus, popups, or other Ajax stuff and I don't feel like learning JQuery, I look there as they offer a lot of freely reusable scripts.

 

Actually, I may take a look there myself.  Our hover popup thigies could use some work.  They've got a few issues we'd like to work out but haven't had the chance yet.

 

I can vouch for the jQuery library.  We've been using it for about a year and it has proven to be extremely valuable...especially when trying to make stuff work consistently between different browsers.

-dan

 

The biggest problem I ran into with jQuery Tabs was that they *really* wanted each tab to be a div. Several of our "tabs" load a whole new page. So I use jQuery Tabs for Factions and AAs, but for our main navigation, it's hand-written. I know there are some examples out there of tricking jQuery Tabs into allowing some tabs to target another page, but I haven't delved into that yet.

I want to make more use of jQuery on our site to be sure.

 

We are also starting to use Twitter Bootstrap more and more.  It is pretty nice and very comprehensive.

http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/index.html

-dan

 

Bootstrap is awesome, indeed, even though it uses yet another pre-compiler for CSS.  I'm used to SCSS, aka Sass, which is pretty much included with Rails these days.

 

I was blown away, and saw a lot of solutions it can provide me that I was dreading writing.

The main roadblock for me, other than the fact I'd really want to start from zero on a new EQU style to fully embrace this Bootstrap, is that LESS is a binary. This could add workflow headaches since Dethdlr and I are both working remotely.

I do see that there are several Mac binaries and even a PC drag-and-drop .less -> .css compiler so that may do what I need.

 

Thanks!!

I found an awesome menu system from there that I've now implemented.  Really improved the flow of the site.

Now I need to sit down and parse the item information for my pop overs.

 

Sounds great Catharz!

If you register your handle as a developer, you can get access to the hidden forum of other registered developers.  There is more detailed conversations and you may find more assistance in understanding and manipulating the data there.

-dan