Discovery Gaming Community

Hello.

I am interested in using the server data offered on the forums (online players, player base status, etc.) in order to amass a bunch of data and do all kinds of cool things with it.

For example, by polling the Players Online page (say every 5 minutes or so) and processing/logging the return, one could approximate time-spent-online for any character since the creation of the tool. I think it would also be interesting to make a visual representation of the population/popularity of each system.

Basically I just love data and doing things with it.

While it is certainly possible to build something to parse the data as-is from the forum HTML, I'm wondering if there's any way to gain access to said data in a more standardized format (XML, JSON, plaintext), because I'm lazy and want to save myself a little bit of work.

My real dream is to make some kind of companion application to Disco Freelancer, web-based or otherwise, that offers real-time (or close enough) server data to promote interaction and stuff, so if there's any data in addition to that offered by the forum pages linked in the sidebar that can be shared that'd be awesome as well.

Thanks in advance for any knowledgeable replies.

Hi, nice project you have here!

A couple of years ago I wrote a script to download players activity data each 5 min. I used it to monitor activity in omicron-theta to identify who was using Freeport 9 or Freeport 5 to raid omicron gamma. I will check if I have still it somewhere, I guess this could help.

Moeb

Quote:My real dream is to make some kind of companion application to Disco Freelancer, web-based or otherwise, that offers real-time (or close enough) server data to promote interaction and stuff, so if there's any data in addition to that offered by the forum pages linked in the sidebar that can be shared that'd be awesome as well.

Discovery Server Watcher?

Oh, look at that! That seriously needs more attention.

Still would be cool to get the data in something easier to parse.

(unfortunately, I am not able to find my script)

The HTML is easilly polled and parsed.
I had some problems when the tables' format was switching between two types for some reason, but it looks like those problems are long gone.
There's no choice because the server itself spits out the HTML and everyone's lazy.

Also I would clarify why I stopped developing the Watcher - I was informed about some (many) groups using it with malicious intent - and I don't like the idea of giving them more powerful statistics suite. AFAIK only Hackers have some real bit cruncher for now, but it's OK since, well, they're Lane Hackers and stuff.

Believe me, after three semesters of data mining and statistics my hands are still itchy to make something neat for Disco.

Perhaps we could work together, then.

Even if it ends up being too powerful for average use, I'd have fun making something for the sake of making it.

Skyp'd

Sounds quite interesting, I would quite enjoy playing around with the numbers as well (At least I'd get something out of my statistics course ). Unfortunately I wouldn't have a clue how to make a program/script that actually records all the information from the players online list.