Working on a player list.

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Cihparg
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Sun Dec 06, 2015 6:24 pm

Twily wrote:...
It might seem unfair- but as I mentioned earlier, the API has existed for ages, and so have people caching it.
This is nothing new, nor is it anything to be concerned about.

As is, the positives outweigh the negatives associated with seeing character history, time played, etc.
Ofcourse, as time goes by, that might change.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Griefmaker » Sun Dec 06, 2015 9:08 pm

Cihparg wrote: As is, the positives outweigh the negatives associated with seeing character history, time played, etc.
I actually disagree with this. It seems another way for players to police/stalk/whatever other players with greater ease than if they had for some reason recorded all of the previous pages, which is enough of a negative to outweigh any positive.

However, I do think this is a pretty cool project and I do like the format. Sorting by character name would be preferable, but otherwise I think this is pretty sweet.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Nathan Brack » Sun Dec 06, 2015 9:23 pm

Griefmaker wrote: I actually disagree with this. It seems another way for players to police/stalk/whatever other players with greater ease than if they had for some reason recorded all of the previous pages, which is enough of a negative to outweigh any positive.
i'm unsure how much police/stalk/whatever would be going on in the first place, really. and if you're trying to be incognito with a character or two, you can just make a new playername. the system would recognize it as a different entity.

while the list promotes looking up player activity, one can very easily create a similar program that would do the same thing. All you would need is a relatively simple scraping script that would log any activity on the portal website. from there, you can take that information and create arrays that show login/logout times, and profile each known player and with a little bit of creativity, create a system that can tell when one player has two or more accounts, within a degree of confidence.

and, if you feel you're being stalked, inform a DM. dealing with it is one of their jobs. that said, arelith is a small community focused on a single video game. i have no idea what kind of damage you could be afraid of, or who would possibly care enough to do said damage. I'm just pointing out that this list, while cool and maybe convenient, isn't as convenient as a homemade script that would actually do a lot more in the way of tracking players.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cortex » Sun Dec 06, 2015 9:57 pm

RPing communities are anything but short of stalkers and sociopaths.
:)

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Nathan Brack » Sun Dec 06, 2015 10:01 pm

Cortex wrote:RPing communities are anything but short of stalkers and sociopaths.
that could be true (i've never been stalked, nor have i done the legwork to know if anyone i see on arelith is a sociopath), but what harm can actually be done? at a certain point, it's simply a matter of emailing the dms with any applicable information and letting the banhammer fall (if they feel it's appropriate... which i imagine they would).

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Sun Dec 06, 2015 10:05 pm

On the topic of general malicious use through Scrying, I'm not seeing it occur beyond people's paranoia/insecurity.
And as mentioned, if there's actual, legitimate cause to believe that such is being done, there are DM's who can help with that in game.

Providing means doesn't necessarily mean it happens any bit more often.

Besides, the primary point of Scrying comes from finding when your friends last played.
Perhaps they've created another character, and haven't gotten to tell you about that yet.
Playtime and the rest of them are more so only statistics, but still relevant information for groups of friends.

And on the subject of the API itself, here's the link to the JSON API dump provided by Arelith itself:
http://portal.arelith.com/api/json/server

One shouldn't worry too much simply because something "can" happen.
After all, this is but a game, and people come to have fun in it.

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Cihparg
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Tue Dec 15, 2015 4:45 am

For those that might've been waiting for it, the first public version of the new traffic code is up.
It should give greater control on browsing the traffic cache.

As usual, if issues arise, or it simply refuses to work, I'll look into it.
Just provide as much useful information as possible! (OS, Browser, and such)

* Forgot to acknowledge an issue where loading up the JSON does not parse it and generate HTML code.
* Slightly increased the view area of the chart.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Green2Bee » Tue Dec 15, 2015 4:28 pm

I can say that I actually have been stalked, which is why I'm so uncomfortable.

That said, I don't think seeing when someone last logged in is too big of a deal. I still find it unnerving, however, that even deleted characters show up. That's TMI to me.

If the part about the last log in on which character (the top part) is the only one that showed, and not the entire vault (the list that shows up on the bottom) is what is shown, I personally would be much more comfortable with it.

But just my own two cents! Overall, I still think the entire thing is beautiful and kudos to you for making it happen!

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by P Three » Tue Dec 15, 2015 4:55 pm

Green2Bee wrote:I can say that I actually have been stalked, which is why I'm so uncomfortable.
I have as well (Because apparently nothing makes you stalkable like being an almost 6' tall chick who likes blades and firearms, but i digress)

However, it's not like this offers any contact information. They can't email you, they can't send you Skype messages. If that were the case, I can say I'd be a lot more uncomfortable, for me and others, but as it is, there's no way shy of a player making a char on several accounts, to link them together.
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by MowerQueen » Tue Dec 15, 2015 5:12 pm

Recite the Sins wrote:My login returns a "null" page - I presume due to the umlaut character in it?

For reference, the login is Schrödinger's cat has joined, and yet
Oh, so that's you! Makes me giggle every time you leave the server. :)

Edit: It's just amusing to me that there is now a way for people to know just how much time a person spends on Arelith, given how addicted many of us are. I'd probably be a little embarrassed to be outed if I were still having the time to put in 12+ hours a day. xD

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Fri Dec 18, 2015 12:04 am

Traffic:
Fixed the issue regarding year/month options not rendering properly.
* Caused another issue on the matter, which nicely let anyone attempt looking up only a day without a defined year. Fixed!
Changed JSON refresh rate to 5 minutes, rather than 10 seconds. The data isn't likely to change more often.

The page still needs to be optimized greatly, although I'm not too sure if it's as exhaustive as I'm thinking it is.

Player List:
I'm thinking of a feature regarding the next revision of the client code.
That is, to allow players select characters/accounts through scry.
After which the page would give a browser notification when that particular player leaves/changes/joins the server.

And in other news, I'm seeing if I can implement sorting/inline-popups on current client code, without affecting it too much. Doing some minor structural changes to easen that.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Fri Dec 18, 2015 5:08 pm

Deer god.
It feels quite awkward to seem like the only poster on a thread you've posted yourself.
But- in other news, sorting is now a thing on the player list. Various options.

** I just realized the player list is definitely not intended to showing total playtimes. Nor does it show them. Should it?

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by MowerQueen » Fri Dec 18, 2015 5:21 pm

It doesn't? What does "Playtime, Total" mean then?

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Fri Dec 18, 2015 5:23 pm

MowerQueen wrote:...
It's displayed properly when you scry people. But not outside of scrying.
That is, when you scry people, you'll be shown much more information than what is visible on the player list part of the site.

I used to render every single account on the main page, along with their character history.
After a certain point, I compressed that to what's shown on the main page now. That is -
1. Account
2. Character
3. Current Playtime

The rest of the information that was stripped from view can be found in scry.
Although, anyone can pull data as they'd like to from the page through it's API.
There are some limitations on that, however. Amount of days through traffic is limited to 5 max.
Minimum characters for scrying is 3, but it can actually be abused to show everything (I wouldn't advise it!).

If someone wants to scry every single thing that's cached, you'll want to use something such as this:
\w{0,}

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cortex » Fri Dec 18, 2015 9:47 pm

It can be used to judge other people for their total play time, for being too much or too little.
:)

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by andthenthatwasthat » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:03 pm

Any way to opt out of Scry?

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Sat Dec 19, 2015 7:10 am

Cortex wrote:...
Certainly. But then again, that's another can situation.
andthenthatwasthat wrote:...
Not yet. But then again, I don't see why would you.

The problem with implementing the feature would be getting the approval of the actual account owner.
Otherwise anyone could remove anyone from appearing in Scry, which quite frankly is not a good idea.

Which means I'd have to manually write the filters- which would take time from the development, and overall affect the accessibility negatively.

Hence is why I'm waiting to see a conclusion on the matter. The opinion on the matter is still overwhelmingly in the positive.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Green2Bee » Sat Dec 19, 2015 9:00 am

Is the feature for SCRY overwhelmingly positive? Or your list?

I see fairly neutral responses to scry, but I don't really see overwhelmingly positive or negative opinion on -scry itself.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Sat Dec 19, 2015 9:23 am

Green2Bee wrote:...
For scry. Most of the opinions aren't voiced on the forums, as is.
There are several people who don't use the forums.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Ozzy.nl » Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:02 pm

If you dont mind me voicing my opinion on scy.

I kind of feel like a bit of privacy ia being taken away and given to just about anyone that plays nwn.

If you ask me the scry can be taken away as I dont feel comfortable with anyone being able to see when I play at what times in the past and for how long.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Cihparg » Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:14 pm

Ozzy.nl wrote:...
As is, it does not provide information of last times, but the last time.
Nor how much time you would've stayed on for each consequent login.
Nor which character.

What can be found out, is ...
  • When you last played.
  • How long you played.
  • How long you played last time.
  • How much you've played in total.
  • Which character you played.
  • Which characters you've played.
  • When you first played a character.

Beep boop.


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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Ozzy.nl » Sat Dec 19, 2015 6:21 pm

Still to much private info

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by P Three » Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:03 pm

It's literally nothing you can't already see by looking at the Portal and taking notes.
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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by Shadowy Reality » Sat Dec 19, 2015 11:00 pm

All this information is taken from the Arelith API. This API is kept and made public by Arelith Devs.

There isn't anything you shouldn't be doing with it. The API is there for this sort of things to be done. If you do not like what the API makes available, voice your concerns to the Devs, not Cihparg.

I for instance find the Scry feature very useful. Sometimes I have pending RP with someone else and I'd like to know if said person just hasn't logged in or we just haven't logged in in the same timezone.

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Re: Working on a player list.

Post by P Three » Sat Dec 19, 2015 11:56 pm

Shadowy Reality wrote:All this information is taken from the Arelith API. This API is kept and made public by Arelith Devs.

There isn't anything you shouldn't be doing with it. The API is there for this sort of things to be done. If you do not like what the API makes available, voice your concerns to the Devs, not Cihparg.

I for instance find the Scry feature very useful. Sometimes I have pending RP with someone else and I'd like to know if said person just hasn't logged in or we just haven't logged in in the same timezone.
Sums up my feelings well. We're worldwide. Catching that one player who plays opposite of you can be hard, and yes, sometimes we need to know so we know if RP is on hold or should move on.
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