Okay so inside of the VMK server there's an API. This lets anyone pull out information from the game, such as item statistics and history (who owned it, when it was traded, etc), room information (how many people are in that room, the rooms ID, layout, the amount of furniture in that room, etc), user information (things like which items are in their inventory, nothing too personal and will probably be opt-outable) and more. The question for this poll is, should I make this kind of thing publicly available? Maybe publicly available but with an option for users to opt-out of people viewing things like their inventory? The inventory viewing one will be quite useful for trading outside of the game because you'll be able to provide a link to the items in your inventory.
Viewing an items history could have some repercussions for deeper rare values (like it does in TF2). You'll be able to find out if the item came from staff for instance, or if it was bought from the catalogue, when it was bought from the catalogue, which players have owned it... This could either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. In TF2 you have people looking for item #42 (as in the 42nd item of that type) and paying more for it. I don't think it'd be quite to the same extent as TF2, and it probably won't affect values that much.
So, the poll question here is, should we make item history available to anyone who wants to look at it through the API? Maybe with an opt-out so that you don't show in the items public history? Maybe staff should always opt-out? It's your choice!
This thread is being reposted a few times with different content in the middle and a different poll for different parts of the API.
EDIT: I should probably clarify. The API is a feature of the gameserver that anyone can access. You can request things from it and it'll reply with JSON containing the information you requested. This stuff won't be viewable on the game itself, but rather viewable on external websites that use it. JSON looks like this for those of you who are wondering: {"success": 1, "data": {"PlayerName": "Amy", "Credits": 5000}}.
Viewing an items history could have some repercussions for deeper rare values (like it does in TF2). You'll be able to find out if the item came from staff for instance, or if it was bought from the catalogue, when it was bought from the catalogue, which players have owned it... This could either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. In TF2 you have people looking for item #42 (as in the 42nd item of that type) and paying more for it. I don't think it'd be quite to the same extent as TF2, and it probably won't affect values that much.
So, the poll question here is, should we make item history available to anyone who wants to look at it through the API? Maybe with an opt-out so that you don't show in the items public history? Maybe staff should always opt-out? It's your choice!
This thread is being reposted a few times with different content in the middle and a different poll for different parts of the API.
EDIT: I should probably clarify. The API is a feature of the gameserver that anyone can access. You can request things from it and it'll reply with JSON containing the information you requested. This stuff won't be viewable on the game itself, but rather viewable on external websites that use it. JSON looks like this for those of you who are wondering: {"success": 1, "data": {"PlayerName": "Amy", "Credits": 5000}}.
