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.
Being able to view peoples inventories could come with some risks. For example, say you're a new player who doesn't know what they're doing and doesn't know the value of items. Some generous person gives you a rare, but you don't realise it's a rare. So you go into a room to do whatever it is you do when you're not destroying this facility, and there's someone there. They're watching who comes in and looking them up on the API. They see you, notice you're a new player and notice that you have a rare. So they trade you, ask for it, tell you it's worthless and give you what looks like a good offer of 5 crates!
The risk of this is quite low because new players probably wouldn't have rare items like that. It's more of a problem in TF2 because people play the game and Valve pushes the crate and key system, so they buy a key and happen to get an unusual hat without knowing what it is, so people take advantage of new players in that way. The risk is a lot lower in a game like VMK.
So, the poll question here is, should we make it so people can view other peoples inventories through the API?
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}}.
Being able to view peoples inventories could come with some risks. For example, say you're a new player who doesn't know what they're doing and doesn't know the value of items. Some generous person gives you a rare, but you don't realise it's a rare. So you go into a room to do whatever it is you do when you're not destroying this facility, and there's someone there. They're watching who comes in and looking them up on the API. They see you, notice you're a new player and notice that you have a rare. So they trade you, ask for it, tell you it's worthless and give you what looks like a good offer of 5 crates!
The risk of this is quite low because new players probably wouldn't have rare items like that. It's more of a problem in TF2 because people play the game and Valve pushes the crate and key system, so they buy a key and happen to get an unusual hat without knowing what it is, so people take advantage of new players in that way. The risk is a lot lower in a game like VMK.
So, the poll question here is, should we make it so people can view other peoples inventories through the API?
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}}.