Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

to API or not to API

    • 1714 posts
    September 19, 2019 10:18 AM PDT

    stellarmind said:

    since i'm an simple man api = application programming interface(yes i bing searched it).

    i'm translating this like some kind of metadata sharing kind of system?

    ehh it's probably unavoidable with how things are nowadays.

    i think they call it datamining(not even sure what that is exactly).

     

    i would prefer not to have it though.  it sucks how some new armor appearance(wow) were datamined and it spoils the excitement and disappointment.  if i know what i don't know then why bother reading a book, when the act of reading the book is what makes it fun?

    uhh i think what i'm getting at is.. the knowledge isn't what makes it fun, but the act of gaining that knowledge is what makes it fun.

    An API is a service contract. It says I will give you this if you ask for it in this way. Web APIs provide accces to a service, and are generally made up of collections of services, usually backed by data, for people/apps/whatever to consume.  "this" might be a password reset email. "this" might be your privacy settings. "this" might be your profile. "this" might be your friends list. "this" might be videos of kittens. It's whatever the service provider wants to expose. It can be web client/server based, or it can be SDK or just client based. Think of commands you enter in a game like /wave or /dragcorpse or /follow. Those are commands that have been exposed by the API in question, and if you follow those commands properly(don't misspell them), the application will give you something back. The contract in this case is type /wave and your character will wave. If you want to log in to the pantheonmmo.com website, the contract is to send an HTTP POST to https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/login with the appropriate headers and message data. etc, etc, etc. 


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at September 19, 2019 10:22 AM PDT
    • 168 posts
    September 19, 2019 10:20 AM PDT

    vjek said:

    My comment about "providing reasonable feedback regarding your game" is based on this..
    If you don't have a client side log file that shows every cast, hit, miss, attack, effect, spell, ability, etc?  Then all you get from your customers is feelings.
    Feelings don't help in a game based entirely on math.  Feelings are sometimes important, but not always as helpful to developers trying to fix broken code.
    To fix that, you need the results of the math, to fix the broken math.
    Hence, the need to have customers be able to capture, cut and paste, or upload log files to the developers, showing.. " hey, see this math?  It's broken, please fix the broken math. "

    To your point, if there is no log, people will just read it out of memory.  Personally, I would prefer more transparency, not less, in a game based on math.  Several other posters have expressed a desire to hide the math from paying customers, when all that does is require paying customers willing to break the TOS/EULA to gain access to the same information everyone should have access to.  I see that as unfair, personally.
    If your game design is solid?  Knowing the math should make the game better, not worse. (see DnD, all dice based RPGs, and more)

    I believe we all see your point in the "fix the broken math", but i also believe too much is lost by allowing individuals to painlessly parse battle data.  Great warriors didn't become great because they fought one fight and crunched some numbers.  No, they became great from their overwhelming experience in battle and understanding and execution of tactics and manuveurs in an ever changing battle field.  It wouldn't be fair to try to say that only elitists, hardcore, or min-maxers want to see all the data.  There is, i'm sure, a huge variety of people who flop both ways in regards to transparency.  I personally see it as those who love numbers, and those who dont.  Neither side is right or wrong.  
    People love numbers, they love being the best, and will do whatever it takes to get there.  However, often time being the best has nothing to do with the DPS you can deal or take.  And gloating about parsing higher, taking less/more damage, healing more, etc. only leads to a foal stench. 
    People also love being the best and dont want anyone telling them how they should get there or what their definition of the best is.  Exploration, expirimentation, trial and error, mystery, frustration, breakthroughs.  These are what its all about to me and im sure others as well.

    moving on to a compromise.  I could be happy with a transparent system that allowed users to parse the logs, so long as it was against the EULA to share that knowledge.  I understand competition is at the core of a lot of humanity, unfortunately so is ego.  Let people see what they want to see without the ability to take that information and say they are better than others, because math isn't everything.  Ever try painting? working a puzzle? playing soccer/futbol? .. or pretty much anything that relies on practice, talent, practice and even more practice?

    I may be trying to think to realistic here, but this is one of those things that takes the devs little to no effort to make more realistic.  Immersion is at the core of this game after all.  They want us to feel like we are living our character's lives, we are part of the world, we make a difference.  Not that we can hit max level and get better gear faster than anyone else.

    • 168 posts
    September 19, 2019 10:27 AM PDT

    Keno Monster said:

    An API is a service contract. It says I will give you this if you ask for it in this way. Web APIs provide accces to a service, and are generally made up of collections of services, usually backed by data, for people/apps/whatever to consume.  "this" might be a password reset email. "this" might be your privacy settings. "this" might be your profile. "this" might be your friends list. "this" might be videos of kittens. It's whatever the service provider wants to expose. It can be web client/server based, or it can be SDK or just client based. Think of commands you enter in a game like /wave or /dragcorpse or /follow. Those are commands that have been exposed by the API in question, and if you follow those commands properly(don't misspell them), the application will give you something back. The contract in this case is type /wave and your character will wave. If you want to log in to the pantheonmmo.com website, the contract is to send an HTTP POST to https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/login with the appropriate headers and message data. etc, etc, etc. 

    You have gotten better at Explinations (245)!


    This post was edited by Kargen at September 19, 2019 10:28 AM PDT
    • 2756 posts
    September 19, 2019 2:44 PM PDT

    vjek said:

    If your game design is solid?  Knowing the math should make the game better, not worse. (see DnD, all dice based RPGs, and more)

    Dungeons and Dragons is an excellent example.  As a DM I would very often (more often than not) keep what is going on under the hood of the game a secret.  It vastly improves the game for players to not know every dice roll I'm making or that I'm even making a roll sometimes.  The mystery is paramount to the experience being immersive.  It's a prime difference between playing D&D and playing Monopoly.  The rules and the rolls are there, but they don't dictate the action.

    Sometimes I even fudge a 'roll' because I know a particular random outcome would have been a real buzzkill or whatever.  I'd be fine if VR did the same.

    Players do not need to know and they are better off without knowing and we all know once third party tools are available they become de facto and ruin it in many ways for everyone, even those not using them, much like players in Dungeons and Dragons that tend to quote 'the rules' at the DM and bring things down when everyone else is having a great time.

    Good grief can you imagine having analysis tools on a D&D session and afterward telling someone "Yeah, you are using your Magic Missile spell at a sub-optimal time. You'd get 2.3% more DPS on average if you cast it in the third segment of the second round after engagement"?  You wouldn't get invited for a drink after and you wouldn't be in that group long.

    In fact, I just went to my DM's guide as a little reminder and the advice given all over the place, paraphrasing, is to put aside the minutiae of the rules and dice if and when they get in the way of the game.

    Log analysis and third party tools in computer-based games is pretty much the ultimate form of letting the 'rules' get in the way of the quality of the game.

    I know some people love it.  I know some people want to minmax their hearts out and can't live with themselves if they peform sub-optimally.

    Unfortunately allowing this - and the assitant/spoiler tools and generalised elitism that inevitably follows - is something that effects everyone else too.

    I know some people love looking through the Allkhazam database for the best-in-slot item of the week and looking up what monster has it and where and then looking up how to get to that location and when it spawns and then looking up the optimal tactics to defeat it, etc etc and this is something else that, unfortunately, ruins it for everyone else too when people get used to looking stuff up and speed-running everything because everything is literally 'spoiled'.

    I want to be able to come to know the mechanics of the game world *as my character experiences them* not from the intricate detail of the underlying figures they would never know and shouldn't need to worry about.

    Feedback in the UI should say things like "You hit the monster with a burning brand. It absorbed some of the blow and shrugged off the fire".  I should be able to scroll up the UI box after the fight and check.

    I do not want a log that lists "You needed a 14 to hit. You rolled a 16. Your burning brand did 7 physical damage. The monster mitigated 2 and dodged 2. Your burning brand did 2 fire damage. The monster is immune to fire damage" and 10,000 other detailed bits of info that a third party analysis tool takes to pieces and builds weapon, monster and mechanics models from which can then be used to reverse engineer the game mechanics and be used to make third party assistant tools.

    As I say, I know some people want that and I'm not saying what you want is somehow 'wrong' I'm saying it creates a type of game that is different to how *I* was hoping Pantheon could be.


    This post was edited by disposalist at September 19, 2019 2:46 PM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    September 19, 2019 3:36 PM PDT

    I understand the desire to hide it.  I'm simply acknowledging that you can't hide it, so.. why not, as VR, control the easy sharing of information?
    It doesn't seem fair to me that an arbitrary player be denied that mathematical clarity, while those willing to break the TOS/EULA get to see 'under the hood'.

    The log example that you cited?  That's precisely what's in Kingmaker.  That exact level of detail.  It's not shown all the time, but you can show it all the time if you want to see it.  The reason?  It's based on the Pathfinder ruleset, and it offers verification the rules are being followed.

    • 1714 posts
    September 19, 2019 3:44 PM PDT

    The EQ client had logging 20 years ago and people wrote parsers. It's a weird argument to lump combat parsing in with item databases and player profiles. Additionally, this is supposed to be a virtual world, not an arcade game, exposing wholesale item and npc and quest info flies in the face of what makes this game different and special. If people are going to collect data themselves, so be it, let them do that for you and focus instead on the actual game itself.  


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at September 19, 2019 3:51 PM PDT
    • 1428 posts
    September 19, 2019 3:47 PM PDT

    Keno Monster said:

    An API is a service contract. It says I will give you this if you ask for it in this way. Web APIs provide accces to a service, and are generally made up of collections of services, usually backed by data, for people/apps/whatever to consume.  "this" might be a password reset email. "this" might be your privacy settings. "this" might be your profile. "this" might be your friends list. "this" might be videos of kittens. It's whatever the service provider wants to expose. It can be web client/server based, or it can be SDK or just client based. Think of commands you enter in a game like /wave or /dragcorpse or /follow. Those are commands that have been exposed by the API in question, and if you follow those commands properly(don't misspell them), the application will give you something back. The contract in this case is type /wave and your character will wave. If you want to log in to the pantheonmmo.com website, the contract is to send an HTTP POST to https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/login with the appropriate headers and message data. etc, etc, etc. 

    ohhhh so it functions like a pizza delivery driver, but very specific.  okay i think i understand appreciate the explaination.

    so in context,

    information on damage output, an api could give me data on spell rotation and execution.

    10:37:22 kenomonster casted pepperoni dealing 15 meat damage at location 124x, 676y, 372z

    10:37:25 kenomonster casted parmesan dealing 5 dairy damage at location 182x, 676y, 372z

     

    i mean this could be great if you're a competitive raiding group.

    as long as i don't have to download deadly boss mods so a script tells me what to do i'm fine XD

    • 1714 posts
    September 19, 2019 3:52 PM PDT

    nm


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at September 19, 2019 3:54 PM PDT
    • 1428 posts
    September 19, 2019 3:59 PM PDT

    Keno Monster said:

    nm

    to clarify:

    i want a timestamp, a target, a spell, teh damage and location of player and the game would deliever this information via api


    This post was edited by NoJuiceViscosity at September 19, 2019 4:00 PM PDT
    • 1714 posts
    September 19, 2019 4:13 PM PDT

    stellarmind said:

    Keno Monster said:

    nm

    to clarify:

    i want a timestamp, a target, a spell, teh damage and location of player and the game would deliever this information via api

    This is an absurd request, no offense. They are not going to log every single combat action for every single player. I think the people in this thread using big tech words and asking for things like this actually know a lot less about client/server/database relationships and performance than they act like. 


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at September 19, 2019 4:13 PM PDT
    • 1428 posts
    September 19, 2019 4:16 PM PDT

    Keno Monster said:

    stellarmind said:

    Keno Monster said:

    nm

    to clarify:

    i want a timestamp, a target, a spell, teh damage and location of player and the game would deliever this information via api

    This is an absurd request, no offense. They are not going to log every single combat action for every single player. I think the people in this thread using big tech words and asking for things like this actually know a lot less about client/server/database relationships and performance than they act like. 

    haha i gotcha.  no offense taken i'm just saying as an example XD.  i'll add that i really dont' understand most of what is being said here so i'm doing what i can to comprehend what's going on.


    This post was edited by NoJuiceViscosity at September 19, 2019 4:21 PM PDT
    • 1714 posts
    September 19, 2019 4:29 PM PDT

    stellarmind said:

    Keno Monster said:

    stellarmind said:

    Keno Monster said:

    nm

    to clarify:

    i want a timestamp, a target, a spell, teh damage and location of player and the game would deliever this information via api

    This is an absurd request, no offense. They are not going to log every single combat action for every single player. I think the people in this thread using big tech words and asking for things like this actually know a lot less about client/server/database relationships and performance than they act like. 

    haha i gotcha.  no offense taken i'm just saying as an example XD.  i'll add that i really dont' understand most of what is being said here so i'm doing what i can to comprehend what's going on.

    I mean just imagine storing hundreds of thousands of (text) characters every single day from every single character. It would incur massive storage costs and require some very good architecture to make queryinig such a massive amount of data possible. What I've seen sites do is aggregate data and spit out a final product, but not make such detailed line by line info available, and even that is expensive in terms of resources. It would be more reasonable to ask for them to calculate and expose your DPS for a given boss fight, or the time it took, but certainly not at 12:22:05 Trogzor hit a froglok witch doctor for 49 points of non-melee damage. Also, again, combat logging can and has been done by the client. Let someone in the community write a parser and do that work for VR. 


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at September 19, 2019 4:30 PM PDT
    • 1428 posts
    September 19, 2019 4:37 PM PDT

    Keno Monster said:

    I mean just imagine storing hundreds of thousands of (text) characters every single day from every single character. It would incur massive storage costs and require some very good architecture to make queryinig such a massive amount of data possible. What I've seen sites do is aggregate data and spit out a final product, but not make such detailed line by line info available, and even that is expensive in terms of resources. It would be more reasonable to ask for them to calculate and expose your DPS for a given boss fight, or the time it took, but certainly not at 12:22:05 Trogzor hit a froglok witch doctor for 49 points of non-melee damage. Also, again, combat logging can and has been done by the client. Let someone in the community write a parser and do that work for VR. 

    would this be equivalent if i took pizza orders like uhh:

    what kind of pepperonis would you like?

    how long would you like us to cook it?

    what tempature would you like for us to cook it?

    where would you like your pepperonis positioned?

    what type of cheese would you like?

    how much cheese would you like in grams?

    how would you like for us to position your cheese?

    etc etc for each topping so on so forth?

     

    cuz that would be pretty obsurd if any pizza joint had to take orders like that >.>

    • 1714 posts
    September 19, 2019 7:01 PM PDT

    stellarmind said:

    Keno Monster said:

    I mean just imagine storing hundreds of thousands of (text) characters every single day from every single character. It would incur massive storage costs and require some very good architecture to make queryinig such a massive amount of data possible. What I've seen sites do is aggregate data and spit out a final product, but not make such detailed line by line info available, and even that is expensive in terms of resources. It would be more reasonable to ask for them to calculate and expose your DPS for a given boss fight, or the time it took, but certainly not at 12:22:05 Trogzor hit a froglok witch doctor for 49 points of non-melee damage. Also, again, combat logging can and has been done by the client. Let someone in the community write a parser and do that work for VR. 

    would this be equivalent if i took pizza orders like uhh:

    what kind of pepperonis would you like?

    how long would you like us to cook it?

    what tempature would you like for us to cook it?

    where would you like your pepperonis positioned?

    what type of cheese would you like?

    how much cheese would you like in grams?

    how would you like for us to position your cheese?

    etc etc for each topping so on so forth?

     

    cuz that would be pretty obsurd if any pizza joint had to take orders like that >.>

    Imagine taking an excel/google sheet, selecting all the cells and pasting those into a text document. You went from an application that could sort, order, run functions, etc, to a blob of text. If you want to know what the biggest number in column F is in excel, you sort it. How do you know what the biggest number of what used to be column F is in your text document? You have no more definition of how anything relates. In fact, there is no definition of anything, it's just characters. 

    Now imagine STARTING with the raw blob of text and being asked to transform that into your spreadsheet. That's a nightmare. Yes, there's an entire industry around things like ETL and business analysis, and while the big data industry is maturing every day, it is still super expensive and time consuming. This is what people are asking for when asking to take server logs and transform those into data that can be provided/consumed via an API. 

    Additionally, what makes this even more of a non starter is performance. This is really the key here. Even if they were to do the above, I've seen queries to robust production databases grind to a halt because a bot updated its username 70,000 times and every request to load that user would time out. Now imagine how much data would have to be stored for *every single thing you do in combat*. Guess which is faster to query, a table with 50,000 records or a table with 10,000,000 records. In this industry performance, and success, is measured in milliseconds. 

    They are not going to be actively writing things like how many muffins you bought and how many times you hit the froglok king to a queryable, client exposed database. That type of info will be reserved for specific reporting and analysis, because, again, it's expensive from a financial perspective, and hilariously prohibitive from a performance perspective. 

     


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at September 19, 2019 7:14 PM PDT
    • 2756 posts
    September 20, 2019 2:18 AM PDT

    vjek said:

    I understand the desire to hide it.  I'm simply acknowledging that you can't hide it, so.. why not, as VR, control the easy sharing of information?
    It doesn't seem fair to me that an arbitrary player be denied that mathematical clarity, while those willing to break the TOS/EULA get to see 'under the hood'.

    The log example that you cited?  That's precisely what's in Kingmaker.  That exact level of detail.  It's not shown all the time, but you can show it all the time if you want to see it.  The reason?  It's based on the Pathfinder ruleset, and it offers verification the rules are being followed.

    I get what you're saying and, if it were true that they can't hide it, I would agree, but I think they can.

    There are technical restrictions where, for example, to store figures in memory, obfuscated, adds a processing time overhead, but since this isn't an FPS where losing 10ms matters, I think they should do it.

    I don't really understand why people would feel the need to somehow check that the rules are being properly followed if the game is good.  That's what I was getting at with my comments on not letting the rules get in the way of the game.  It just doesn't matter to 99.99999% of players, but making that data available will effect everyone.


    This post was edited by disposalist at September 20, 2019 2:18 AM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    September 20, 2019 7:19 AM PDT

    Based on every related satement and video to date, the information they've shown in the UI is all that's required to write or parse everything relevant, the same as EQ1.
    In other words, it can't be hidden, because whatever is in the UI can be read out of memory.   As humans, we need to see it, so, it's there to see, as well, with our eyeballs. 
    The requirement for it to be visible on the screen means it won't be hidden in any way that matters, and could be trivially read out of the memory space of the client process.  Just like any other game.  Obfuscation in memory doesn't matter if, at any point, you actually show any number on the screen.  It's just pointless extra processing to no purpose.
    Never mind the fact that they've already confirmed a client side log file.

    Yet, an API could provide none of those things, and doesn't have to be any of those things. 
    It could provide tremendous value, similar to the eq2players API I mention above, by providing what Kargen and Sarim have mentioned.
    Specifically, it could provide no combat data of any kind.  It could provide no player actions of any kind.
    Simply a lookup API for characters and their equipment, to show off your own character, or those in your guild. 
    Been done before, easy to do, doesn't affect the game servers in any way.  Could even be delayed by an hour, many hours, or a day.
    Sure, players can and will do it themselves, like Magelo, Lucy, or similar.  But if a company says "we are transparent" and yet doesn't provide the same data that other companies have in the past (that had no claim to transparency), are they really living up to that statement?

    To your point of  "... but making that data available will effect everyone." , if you don't make it available, it will be made available anyway. 
    It will effect everyone anyway.  20+ years of MMO's have all been the same, it's not going to change with Pantheon.  People aren't less curious now.
    As far as rules verification, I would agree if the rules didn't matter, and there were no roles. 
    But as there are roles, people are extremely interested in playing that role, and ensuring it's effective. 
    If the rules don't permit the roles?  Paying customers get pretty annoyed, and often will stop paying.

    • 2756 posts
    September 20, 2019 7:49 AM PDT

    I'm pretty sure that, techincally, to put pixels on screen that form readable letters does not require those actual letters to be in plain ascii in memory on the client if they don't want to.  They could be encoded and the encoded text be processed by a compiled function in a manner such that they are never stored in a readable form on the client.  It's not difficult.  It's not the default, I'm sure, but not difficult.

    Sure, it's an overhead, as I said.  Worth it, to me.  Maybe not to you.  Maybe not to VR.

    Maybe I'm being naive and it's a doddle to look at what's on screen and 'see' the text that is there *shrug*

    Another thing they could do is simply not show any detailed numerical data to the client.  As I said, we don't need to see it to get meaningful feedback and play a great game.  In fact, for some like me, *not* having that detailed information available is preferable.  I would *much* prefer to see something immersive and role-playing-ish.

    "20+ years of MMO's have all been the same, it's not going to change with Pantheon"  Why not?  A lot is going to change between EQ/VG and Pantheon.  Why not this?

    "People aren't less curious now"  No, they aren't and the fallout of that is very apparent, so we should guard against it more, no?

    Rules and roles are beside the point.  There is a small subset of people that feel the need to minmax using statistical analysis.  No need to accommodate them if it has a negative effect for everyone.

    I do see your point, I just disagree.  APIs and third party tools are neither inevitable nor desirable.


    This post was edited by disposalist at September 20, 2019 7:58 AM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    September 20, 2019 8:43 AM PDT

    disposalist said: ... it's a doddle to look at what's on screen and 'see' the text that is there ...
    Correct.

    • 1428 posts
    September 20, 2019 8:52 AM PDT

    Keno Monster said:

    Imagine taking an excel/google sheet, selecting all the cells and pasting those into a text document. You went from an application that could sort, order, run functions, etc, to a blob of text. If you want to know what the biggest number in column F is in excel, you sort it. How do you know what the biggest number of what used to be column F is in your text document? You have no more definition of how anything relates. In fact, there is no definition of anything, it's just characters. 

    Now imagine STARTING with the raw blob of text and being asked to transform that into your spreadsheet. That's a nightmare. Yes, there's an entire industry around things like ETL and business analysis, and while the big data industry is maturing every day, it is still super expensive and time consuming. This is what people are asking for when asking to take server logs and transform those into data that can be provided/consumed via an API. 

    Additionally, what makes this even more of a non starter is performance. This is really the key here. Even if they were to do the above, I've seen queries to robust production databases grind to a halt because a bot updated its username 70,000 times and every request to load that user would time out. Now imagine how much data would have to be stored for *every single thing you do in combat*. Guess which is faster to query, a table with 50,000 records or a table with 10,000,000 records. In this industry performance, and success, is measured in milliseconds. 

    They are not going to be actively writing things like how many muffins you bought and how many times you hit the froglok king to a queryable, client exposed database. That type of info will be reserved for specific reporting and analysis, because, again, it's expensive from a financial perspective, and hilariously prohibitive from a performance perspective. 

     

    haha i think i get it now XD

    translation:

    everyone on the forums ate a pizza(in the case of damage charts, input from player actions)

    we all stand around for 1 hour in front of a kiddie pool(data storage)

    we all vomit the food up(raw data)

    goodluck sorting out who ate what type of pizza(api sorting data)

    • 2756 posts
    September 20, 2019 10:46 AM PDT

    vjek said:

    disposalist said: ... it's a doddle to look at what's on screen and 'see' the text that is there ...
    Correct.

    *shrug* Well, then I hope they don't put anything that can support third party tools on screen 8^D

    Like I said, I'd be happier with 'immersive' text like "You manage to strike The Monster, but it seems to do little damage" anyway.

    No offense to anyone who wants it.  I just really don't.  It's as bad as quest spoilers.  Worse really.

    • 168 posts
    September 23, 2019 9:55 AM PDT

    disposalist said:

    Another thing they could do is simply not show any detailed numerical data to the client.  As I said, we don't need to see it to get meaningful feedback and play a great game.  In fact, for some like me, *not* having that detailed information available is preferable.  I would *much* prefer to see something immersive and role-playing-ish.

    Completely agree with you here.  There don't need to be numbers flying overhead or spamming the chat to show the group is doing their job.  Grouping with different people, trying new things and different tactics; just seeing that the enemy is dying faster or that you don't die as fast: a wonderfully immersive way of handling it.

    • 2419 posts
    September 23, 2019 10:11 AM PDT

    Kargen said:

    disposalist said:

    Another thing they could do is simply not show any detailed numerical data to the client.  As I said, we don't need to see it to get meaningful feedback and play a great game.  In fact, for some like me, *not* having that detailed information available is preferable.  I would *much* prefer to see something immersive and role-playing-ish.

    Completely agree with you here.  There don't need to be numbers flying overhead or spamming the chat to show the group is doing their job.  Grouping with different people, trying new things and different tactics; just seeing that the enemy is dying faster or that you don't die as fast: a wonderfully immersive way of handling it.

    Given that we're 5 years into this and every stream has shown both number flying over the screen and chat windows showing the running combat information it is highly unlikely, if not completely impossible, that VR would suddenly do an about-face and not give us any of that.

    • 77 posts
    September 24, 2019 11:59 PM PDT

    disposalist said:

    No APIs. No third-party programs. As much effort as possible to obfuscate and secure the data, please.

    All those tools and analytics detract from the game.

    I think most people agree that the best games have you looking at the screen and reacting to 'real' activities in an immersive way rather than playing the UI.

    To allow or encourage use of tools and analytics beyond even the UI would be the ultimate abstraction from the 'real' game.

    If you 'need' a DPS meter to tune your character or you need a combat analytics tool to succeed in a raid then the game is designed badly.

    Also, the elitism that that kind of satistical stuff allows/encourages is just... ugh.  "Dude, your DPS was 0.4% below national average in the last raid and your current items have an efficiency rating 0.15% below the guild average. We have standards. You're out".  "Dude, why are you taking so long to find X? Don't you have Questie-Add-On side-loaded? Leave the group if not".  Yeah.  No thanks.

    Also, an API is just asking for security and data mining problems.

    Yes, third parties will develop databases of 'stuff'. That doesn't mean VR have to make it easy and produce a 100% accurate live lists of items, quests, NPCs, etc, etc.

    this

    • 2756 posts
    September 25, 2019 4:38 AM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    Kargen said:

    disposalist said:

    Another thing they could do is simply not show any detailed numerical data to the client.  As I said, we don't need to see it to get meaningful feedback and play a great game.  In fact, for some like me, *not* having that detailed information available is preferable.  I would *much* prefer to see something immersive and role-playing-ish.

    Completely agree with you here.  There don't need to be numbers flying overhead or spamming the chat to show the group is doing their job.  Grouping with different people, trying new things and different tactics; just seeing that the enemy is dying faster or that you don't die as fast: a wonderfully immersive way of handling it.

    Given that we're 5 years into this and every stream has shown both number flying over the screen and chat windows showing the running combat information it is highly unlikely, if not completely impossible, that VR would suddenly do an about-face and not give us any of that.

    It's in pre-alpha.  No changes are an 'about face'.  Especially not simply turning off text spam that is more test data than immersive UI.