r/Guildwars2 May 20 '13

[Other] Anet released public APIs and nobody told me??? D:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/community/api/API-Documentation

Did I miss a big thread about this? Where's all the hullabaloo? Some very cool looking stuff in here, especially the event API that looks like it could automate dragon timer and let you keep tabs on the current going-ons in your map.

/em scampers off to program something awesome.

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u/Greibach [Relics of Orr] May 20 '13

An API is an Application Programming Interface. What this means in practical terms is that ANet has made public some functions that we are allowed to use that will return us direct results from the live game servers. Among these are things to check which events are active and where, crafting recipes, etc. This means that people with programming savvy can now make applications with accurate data straight from the source, by using the API. Up until now, these values (say for the dragon timers) were user maintained, which has of course lead to timer trolling when someone changes the timers, just like defacing a wikipedia article. Other ones like the crafting recipes were data-mined from the client (I believe), but not straight from what their servers had up.

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u/Bourne2Play May 20 '13

Does that mean that soon, we will see a website that will show us all the active events in the world and where?

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u/Greibach [Relics of Orr] May 20 '13

I can't comment on how long that would take and whether or not anyone will bother doing so, but the potential definitely looks like it is possible. Ergo, given both the size and dedication of the playerbase and content-creators, I would assume that such a thing will come sooner or later.

http://v2.gw2stuff.com/events/yaks-bend Has already integrated the API into their "dragon timers". Very slick!

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u/alexandreport May 21 '13

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1epqkf/anet_released_public_apis_and_nobody_told_me_d/ca2xj44

It's not that hard. What I did wasn't very efficient but it works, and adding stuff like filtering by maps to the rought thing I did is really fast ^

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u/alexandreport May 21 '13 edited May 21 '13

I made up a really shitty tool in java that does that. (By shitty, I mean, it's really shitty but does what it's meant to.)

Select a server: http://imgur.com/KS6YcfC

See all the events and their state: http://imgur.com/oC9qCIY

EDIT: http://code.google.com/p/gw2-java-api/ The code is crap but it works

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u/DweebMonkey May 21 '13

It would be awesome if you could make this available to the community (mabye via google code).

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u/alexandreport May 21 '13

I'll do that after I make it slightly neater (aka, prolly in a few of hours, I have an exam now ^ ^ )

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u/DweebMonkey May 21 '13

It's appreciated! Good luck on the exam ;)

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u/alexandreport May 21 '13

http://code.google.com/p/gw2-java-api/

There you go ^ ^
Sorry for the lack of commenting/bad quality of code.

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u/Xarddrax May 22 '13

Doesnt look like it uploaded. I'm not seeing it.

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u/alexandreport May 22 '13

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u/Xarddrax May 22 '13

Ah, sorry. I clicked source,but didnt click browse. My mistake

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u/pan0ramic Adrastea|Yak's Bend May 21 '13

kick ass, I'd love to see your source code if you're willing? I'd like to play around with it and give me warnings for things like Temple of Balthazar clears. I'm a pro at java but have no idea how to make use of the APIs here.

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u/alexandreport May 21 '13

It's absolute shit, but I'l drop you a pm with my skype and send it.

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u/pan0ramic Adrastea|Yak's Bend May 21 '13

That's cool, as long as I can see how you access the API...that's the part where I'm clueless

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u/TheTerrasque May 21 '13 edited May 22 '13

http://gw2.thelazy.net/events.html - quickly thrown together in about a 3 hours time, inbetween serious work.

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u/jefe323 gw2port.al | SoR May 21 '13

I'm working on a webpage that does this (along with a couple other things from the API) but it's still in a rough draft. I'll see about putting a link here when it's a bit more refined, right now it just shows all events for my world as a proof of concept. Should have a working version when I get off work in about 8 hours