Data collector/spoiler site.

D

Dreten

Dalayan Beginner
According to rule 8 in the rules section, I could tell that spoiler sites are legitimate, but I also heard someone say in-game that the devs did NOT like the idea of spoilers on the "main quest", so I wanted to ask about this. Is there anything else that's not allowed in this case? Also, I have my mind on a data collector like Allakhazam's WoW-reader (which does not interfere in any way with the game itself), would this be legitimate to create for Shards of Dalaya?

Best regards -
Dretski
 
iirc

Wiz said:
What precisely would this data collector do?
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If I recall correctly the data collector scaned WOW (When it was open) and checked all the gear on your character then sent the info the site..

Straight from Allakhazam - Q: What is wowreader and how do I get it?

A: WoWreader is the tool Allakhazam.com uses to keep its item, quest, mob and npc databases up to date. It consists of a World of Warcraft Lua UI Addon, and an additional application which is used to parse and upload the information that the UI Addon gathers. WowReader also handles uploading of character profile information directly from the game.
 
That sounds a lot like some type of packet sniffer to me! But rather then using it to provide yourself with npc/player data and their locations in the current zone it farms the data for a website?
 
i've used WoW reader when i played WoW all it did was up stock pile info of items/quests/npcs and stuff then once week or so you just upload all the info straight to allakahzam and they post it, it doesnt really tell where EVERYTHING is just somethings that are overly killed enough for it to pick up on
 
It's fine if all it does it collect the items that the player has.
 
What the tool I had in mind does, is to gather (sniff) the data of every mob I kill and upload it to the web database, for instance:

I kill 3 gnolls in Blackburrow, the loot is:

Gnoll_01

4 copper pieces
1 leather cap

Gnoll_02

5 copper pieces

Gnoll_03

6 copper pieces
1 leather cap
5 bandages


Then it would upload the data (which would be shown publicly) about the average drop rate of every item, resulting in:

Gnoll
Average coin drop: 5 copper pieces
Leather cap (66% drop rate)
Bandages (166% drop rate) (since it dropped 5),
or either
Bandages (33%) since the item dropped once, even if there were 5 of them.

Allakhazam uses it for pretty much everything in updating their WoW database, there's no equal tool for EQ though. The application would be publicly available in that case too, of course.

Basically, it does include everything the player loots, or even finds in the loot window after a mob is killed, it does NOT sniff what the mob is carrying before it's killed (I don't even know if the loot is entirely made up before the mob dies in EQ/SoD). What makes me think it could be legitimate is the fact that it does not interfere with gameplay in any way, what would make it against the rules would be the fact that devs might not like automated database handling through packet sniffing.
 
WoW uses a very customizable interface system that directly incorporates .lua files into the game - allowing for some whacky mods (like the one you describe) - Game's UI customization is far, FAR more limited... I don't see how you'd do this, using the system that's available, but if you could pull it off, it'd be awesome :)
 
Joudas said:
WoW uses a very customizable interface system that directly incorporates .lua files into the game - allowing for some whacky mods (like the one you describe) - Game's UI customization is far, FAR more limited... I don't see how you'd do this, using the system that's available, but if you could pull it off, it'd be awesome :)
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Basically what he wants to do is make a program that intercepts the packages sent from the server to the eqclient and use those to automaticly update a website. It would mean that you'd get very accurate drop rate percentages, HPs of mobs, etc, depending on how much he "sniffes".
 
It is not meant to sniff the HP of mobs (which is actually impossible unless you have pre-set info about their HP regen etc), it would mainly read loot out of mobs. And sniffing drops/mob in EQ shouldn't be too hard to figure out once you get the corpses I believe.
 
Actually

Dreten said:
It is not meant to sniff the HP of mobs (which is actually impossible unless you have pre-set info about their HP regen etc), it would mainly read loot out of mobs. And sniffing drops/mob in EQ shouldn't be too hard to figure out once you get the corpses I believe.
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Actually it is possible... WOW had a Addon like this called Mob Health I believe... To explain how it worked in a EQ sense was it watched the players log and saw how much damage the mob was hit for, then checked by how much of the things health bar dropped (by percent) then by that estimated how much HP the mob had..

For example if a mob was hit for 50 and its health dropped 10% then it has exactly or close to 500 HP..
If a mob was hit for 50 and it dropped 1% then it has exactly or close to 5000HP
 
Dreten said:
It is not meant to sniff the HP of mobs (which is actually impossible unless you have pre-set info about their HP regen etc), it would mainly read loot out of mobs. And sniffing drops/mob in EQ shouldn't be too hard to figure out once you get the corpses I believe.
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One suggestion... avoid the use of the word "sniff" as it has bad connatations. Collect or compile would be a better choice as you are simply collecting data that is already known and compiling it into a central data base. Sniffing implies data collection that the players are not supposed to have access to such as what the mob has in its inventory prior to being killed. This is the data that is "sniffed" by ShowEQ, etc and thus why the use of that program is STRONGLY prohibited.
 
It basically sounds like magelo for live but also tracking what mob it drops off of. So basically, if you could build a magelo like client and then parse your 50 minute logs, you could identify what items were looted from a mob. Wouldn't be as efficient but could be done.
 
You don't need any type of addon to determine mob hp. Just have the tank or another character that is always in close proximity to the mob to turn on all hits (if they can take the spam) and log it. Then run it through a log parser like EQCompanion or Yalp and it will yield how much dmg was dealt to the mob. The numbers wouldn't be perfect due to dot and bard song dmg not being transmitted to all players, but it would give you a ball park figure.

I don't have the math skills to do it, but it would be possible to build a model to calculate % of successfully killing each mob. Tank A has xxxx hp, CH lands every 3 secs, a 2k patch lands every 1.5 secs, the mob has xxx,xxx hp, raid dps is yyyy, clerics have zzzz mana pool. You know the max hit of the mob, can calculate it's hit/miss ratio. Increasing the tanks HP by a certain amount could be extrapolated to increase your win chances by a certain percentage. It is possible to break every fight into a mathematical equation, but too much science can take the fun out of the game :p
 
StefanProdan said:
Man that would be awesome, if allowed.
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I tend to agree and while I think it seems fine I wouldn't actually say Wiz is screwing us over again if this got turned down.
 
dbum said:
It basically sounds like magelo for live but also tracking what mob it drops off of. So basically, if you could build a magelo like client and then parse your 50 minute logs, you could identify what items were looted from a mob. Wouldn't be as efficient but could be done.
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Your logs doesn't say what dropped what. If you kill 3 or 4 mobs at the time, you can't really be sure which is which.

And yeah, you easily estimate an amount of hp. Just compare how much damage 100 different players did to mob X, and then take into account how long the fights were.

Basically, I personally don't see a problem with this, as long as it's very basic (i.e. I wouldn't want to see people starting to break attack formulars, or likewise). Things I wouldn't mind it keeping track of:

Where the mob can be found.
What it drops.
What its abilities is.

BUT this is Wiz's decission.
 
Great Idea! one thing I wanted was dynamic RSS feeds of items for use on a guild roster page and such. RSS feeds of entire characters would be great but that would probably have to be left to SoD dev's.
 
I dont like the idea, i think it gets too close to what gave birth to ShowEq that was one of the tools that help kill EQ.
 
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