If its a matter of money I would gladly cough up $50 down payment and $5 a month as long as we get access to the API.
For those of you who don’t know, API keys allow other sites to have in depth stats of your online career. Sites like Halo Tracker and Halo Charts are dependent on it and many other sites use it to track players performance when it comes to tournaments or league play.
Without the API Waypoint is the only place to find stats and as I’m sure many of you will agree, this site is not that user friendly and has a poor UI compared to Bungie.net.
So like I was saying, people will be happy to pay for it as long as we get it. Without the option of having other sites for stat tracking not only does it kill those communities but it also adds more pressure on 343 to do their stat tracking right.
I like Waypoint’s community better than Bungie.net’s, because it’s not people spamming -Yoink!- links everywhere. But the stat tracking isn’t all good.
But I liked Bungie.net’s stats tracking better than Waypoints, because it was easier to navigate, it was more user-friendly, and was a LOT more precise. But the community was a bunch of kids spamming -Yoink!-, bringvictory and other disgusting content links.
> They’ve said a number of times that the stats system will receive a major overhaul and upgrade for Halo 4.
But do you not see how that still leaves a lot to be desired where sites like the ones I mentioned can provide that insight which 343 will otherwise will not?
Its also a matter of competition. If 343 sees that community sites are providing better stat tracking then they are what they will have to do is match or exceed them. Without providing the API they are restricting it to only their site and they can provide you a terrible experience but you will have no other alternative.
I would think an API will eventually come out. However that said there are “OTHER” ways to get the same information without the API it just requires lots of php code and a high power server that can constantly scrape pages… Thats what we did back in Halo 3 for the HaloTech stats.
Personally i would like to have my stuff more petsonal. I would like to have the option to hide my stats from people needing tosee them. Ialso dont want to be part of any stat collecting sites either
> 343 definitely (DEFINITELY) won’t be charging for the API. The real question is, when will they release information about it?
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> As far as I know HTR is still screen scraping - though there are ways around that.
Pretty much. HTR is a big stat-tracker. It would benefit those who love to check up on their stats often. Recently the higher grade 50 ranks received an update, providing an even bigger challenge towards players.
Screen scraping is highly prone to errors from what I have heard. An API is not just beneficial but necessary for many communities to function. If no API is released it essentially means that they don’t want community sites to exist. Perhaps they believe it will drive more traffic here.
If I were any of you guys, I’d just make a halotracker account right now. Bungie.net had superb stat tracking, so I’ll be perfectly happy with anything like that.
I hope they do something like what Bungie did. You can do neat things with an API key for the Halo stats. My friend and I once set up a forum that displayed your Reach rank upon entering your Gamertag.
I have full confidence that 343 will do a great job on Halo 4 stats. That said, no matter how good they do, sites like Halotracker, will always be able to come up with new ways to look at stats, new things to analyze, and provide you a different view of your Halo skills.
Statistics tell different stories when they are displayed different ways. 90% of players will be completely satisfied with 343’s stats. The 10% though, will want to combine the story 343 is telling, with the story that other sites tell through their creative stats.
Halotracker has been able to fill the gaps and PROLONG the gaming experience with Reach. We added True Skills, Divisions for non-arena playlists, and new credit ranks for those who have already reached Inheritor. For some, this not breathtaking, for others, this has prolonged the enjoyment of Halo.
Halo is different than many other games in that, the fans play Halo for years, until the next halo.
$50 is more than a fair price with what this API would do for ANY halo community!!
I would gladly pay this service so I can program and extract data and stats via our website. www.haloscene.com
I am almost certain all users and people will consider this extremely vital to help support all the other halo communities helping the halo atmosphere stay alive.
Honestly, I would pay the $50 bucks, but at the same time - If this feature was enabled and free - Halo would receive much more traffic, rather than charging us for it. The traffic goes both ways when a website succeeds and blossoms.