Epitrope
The Citadel Manufacturing and Trade Corporation
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Posted - 2009.09.20 01:10:00 -
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Originally by: Blane Xero
Originally by: Pastrami Onrye Terrible idea CCP many of us depend on it heavily.
Then many of you need to learn to play eve without a Walking stick or Crutch. Many of us DON'T depend on it.
Not everyone is clear on what is and is not dependent on the API, and it's found its way into some surprising and not immediately obvious places. For starters, I find the idea of not using EVEMon to be completely foreign -- training is at the core of EVE, and knowing what you're training and being able to easily remind yourself of when it'll finish training is crucial. The API was, quite literally, invented because of EVEMon, as a way to securely allow people to have this information at their fingertips. The pre-API EVEMon needed your login credentials -- your actual username and password -- to parse the e-o "My Character" page.
There are a number of programs and websites that serve this purpose, in fact. Capsuleer, Ceres, Charactr, evehq, GtkEveMon, and inEve.net, to name a few. I also know there are one or more Firefox plugins, Mac Dashboard widgets, and Windows Vista Sidebar applets. The sheer variety suggests that this is a widely-used, commonly needed feature, and having it shut off is, at best, inconvenient.
There are also some more subtle places the API is used. The API provides jump, kill, and sovereignty data. This data is temporal, and cannot be retrieved later -- while CCP may or may not keep it, the player base is losing this data for the entire weekend. One of the more prominent places this data is used is on the dotlan EVE maps, where you'll see a bunch of incomplete system graphs and no outpost or sov updates. You've probably also seen the influence maps, which make use of the sov data... don't anticipate a new one this weekend.
Most killboards these days require an API key, either your own or one of a director in your corporation. Any kills you make this weekend won't be confirmed until Monday. Depending on how the killboard is set up, your kills might not even show up until they've been confirmed by the API, as relying on users can lead to, shall we say, inconsistent data.
Are you in a space-holding alliance? Have fun refueling your POSs. The API provides fuel levels for each of your stations, and as I understand it most anyone with more than a few starbases uses some kind of API-based POS tracker. Reducing logistical pain is a big deal, and while you might not be the one making use of the API, it does directly impact the health of an alliance.
When CCP started releasing the data exports in 2003, they reached out a hand to developers. The API was a huge step forward along that path. The amount and quality of the data they put out has improved over time, and a strong player-based community has formed around it, so much so that it has become a distinguishing feature of EVE.
The API is not a walking stick or a crutch, it's an essential tool. I find it very hard to believe that, however indirectly, the API hasn't had an effect on how you play the game.
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