Planetside 2 iPhone App

[Kipper]

I'm planning on having both iPhone and Android apps for Planetside-stats.com; mainly for the reasons of learning to code for both of these platforms (covering some of the cost would be a bonus tho).

At this point though, we don't fully know how the strategic game works never mind what will be available stats wise and how 3rd parties will get to access them. I'm loathe to write anything on the website that might be going off in completely the wrong direction at the moment -

Personally, I see the whole 'kills/deaths' thing as more of a sideshow, with the maps and overall strategy element being the main event.

I'd love to know who the person(s) responsible for this are at SoE, and whether they're here or on twitter etc so we can start a dialogue with them. It'd be lovely to have a hint on how players using 3rd party systems will be able to link their toons with their website/app accounts or whether all of the data will just be public would be a major step in the right direction.

If between us, we can get some good quality stuff on the app stores of the major vendors, it will be great publicity for the game.

[Snipefrag]

Originally Posted by Kipper

I'm planning on having both iPhone and Android apps for Planetside-stats.com; mainly for the reasons of learning to code for both of these platforms (covering some of the cost would be a bonus tho).

At this point though, we don't fully know how the strategic game works never mind what will be available stats wise and how 3rd parties will get to access them. I'm loathe to write anything on the website that might be going off in completely the wrong direction at the moment -

Personally, I see the whole 'kills/deaths' thing as more of a sideshow, with the maps and overall strategy element being the main event.

I'd love to know who the person(s) responsible for this are at SoE, and whether they're here or on twitter etc so we can start a dialogue with them. It'd be lovely to have a hint on how players using 3rd party systems will be able to link their toons with their website/app accounts or whether all of the data will just be public would be a major step in the right direction.

If between us, we can get some good quality stuff on the app stores of the major vendors, it will be great publicity for the game.

Yeah, I know what you mean. By day I'm a C++ developer and thought this would be a good opportunity to add another tool to my belt, so far I've found objective C MUCH easier but at the same time much more restrictive, no pure interfaces.. Or multiple inheritance, provisions for automatic reference counting are provided by the language which is nice.. I think they could have done a slightly better job with their MVC framework, I'm used to using Nokia's Qt which is actually pretty good in these aspects. One thing I have found is too often I'm having to subclass their UI components to make the simplest of changes but so far its been interesting !

My focus has been on things that I know will be in, so right now I haven't planned for anything more than what PS1 provided (although I hope for much, much more). All the development I have done has been focused on layout, navigation and prototyping to ensure that I have solid UI components/API's that I can use for all the different aspects that will be required.

Its also my hope that the live stats stuff can be a major piece for the app, tactical overlays showing where the action is at.. The ability to replay the battle over the last week or so, an exciting prospect !

I've exchanged brief PM's with Higby and Cycles and they are aware we chomping at the bit to get started on all this stuff, my question was with regards to documentation which Higby said they HOPE to have something available during beta but he cant make any promises as of yet which is fair enough (I know as a developer I hate doing documentation, especially when things are changing every 2 minutes).

I'm of the mind that at least initially everything will just be public via JSON/XML in much the way twitter works, authentication would be nice.. But there hasn't been anything to suggest such features are on the cards.

I agree collaboration is the name of the game, if we group our skills and work closely together then we can achieve much more of a higher quality which can only be good for the game. I'm not much of a web developer, my job is much more low level real time systems but I have quite a bit of experience with UI design from using Qt extensively.

[Kipper]

By day (and night, and weekend) I'm a web (PHP) developer and I work for myself, so I like to take on these little hobby projects as places to test out some ideas that aren't on clients sites, then I can filter the best ideas down into the next paid-for projects.

I want to get into mobile too though because its a perfect companion for the sort of database driven web stuff that I mainly do (I code, I don't design).

While I agree with you that the actual data format will likely be JSON and/or XML, which is great - what's holding me back at the moment (other than time) is not knowing whether or not I should allow people to set up their own characters in the web database with faction selection etc, or whether or not that will all be done in game and it can just be accessed by submitting some sort of unique-to-the-player API key similar to how EVE online is (or was, last time I looked).

Unless they're going to allow people to make purchases or set up missions etc externally, then I can kind of see whey they might just put the stats behind a simple developer API key (just so they know who is doing what); after all - you can hardly grief someone just by being able to access their kill/death stats, and the map stuff will be the same to everyone anyway.

[Brusi]

friends list would be awesome, but would obv req authentication.

[Snipefrag]

Originally Posted by Kipper

While I agree with you that the actual data format will likely be JSON and/or XML, which is great - what's holding me back at the moment (other than time) is not knowing whether or not I should allow people to set up their own characters in the web database with faction selection etc, or whether or not that will all be done in game and it can just be accessed by submitting some sort of unique-to-the-player API key similar to how EVE online is (or was, last time I looked).

Yeah, true. I haven't looked into how EVE does things, that's probably a good thing to keep in mind, for the most part the back end at the moment is really simple (hardcoded, simple arrays). If the example you suggest is how things end up working then it wouldn't be much work to remove the add character dialog and source that table directly from SOE after you add your auth key in. I know for sure I will be reusing the text entry boxes and horizontal picker views elsewhere in the app, so no time wasted really .

[Kipper]

Originally Posted by Snipefrag

If the example you suggest is how things end up working then it wouldn't be much work to remove the add character dialog and source that table directly from SOE after you add your auth key in.

For sure, but it might not work like that either :P On http://www.potbs-companion.net I allowed people to organise themselves into their own societies (outfits) on the site and get their own page, in that instance, the data isn't published from the game at all.

If that IS available for PS2, then a whole bunch of admin work can be saved - but a way has to be found to allow people to keep outfit membership fairly secure, if there's to be anything like an internal message area or anything going on.

[Snipefrag]

Originally Posted by Kipper

If that IS available for PS2, then a whole bunch of admin work can be saved - but a way has to be found to allow people to keep outfit membership fairly secure, if there's to be anything like an internal message area or anything going on.

Yeah, all these things are stuff I'm lumping into the nice to have, hopefully will be there category. We're after all slaves to what the dev's provide us. The focus at least for me is to make everything at the moment extensible so that should these things come in beta or later on they can be added in without much fuss.

[Snipefrag]

Seems like I had a bit of a Matt Damon moment and didn't turn the last video I posted to public earlier.. So here it is:

watch in 720p !

In addition to this after a nice long chat, Kipper and I have decided it would be most efficient if we combined forces on this venture. I will be working closely with http://www.planetside-stats.com making good use of any web feeds he provides.

[Figment]

Weapon modification and cert calculator / unit (option) overviews? Load out settings (favourite inventories per class)?

Class inventory builder is also an option, if we still have some freedom. Especially if you could share it with other people to show how you'd do it.

Any data you want to share with others via the App?

[Rainfur]

So, as Sniperfrag should know, I'm working on an android guide for Planetside 2. Want to have a bit of collab going?

[Snipefrag]

Originally Posted by Figment

Weapon modification and cert calculator / unit (option) overviews? Load out settings (favourite inventories per class)?

Class inventory builder is also an option, if we still have some freedom. Especially if you could share it with other people to show how you'd do it.

Any data you want to share with others via the App?

The weapons modification overview/cert calculator/unit overview stuff will be in the about the game section. If I run out of things to do whilst waiting for stats details I'll definitely start on the info side of things..

I know that in PS2 the inventory builder will work very differently from in the first game so its up in there air if an inventory builder will be appropriate. It might just be like BF3 where you can select a different weapon for each slot.. In that case there isn't much point in having something configurable so you can play with different 'load outs'. If inventory/favorites are available via stats i will most likely make it available to view in some manner.

There is lots of data I want to share, you will see over time .

Originally Posted by Rainfur

So, as Sniperfrag should know, I'm working on an android guide for Planetside 2. Want to have a bit of collab going?

Yeah, I don't mind helping out.. Just send me PM.

[Figment]

Nice.

I suppose you will have map info and all in the about section as well.


What of an App to share intel and plans with outfit members?

[Snipefrag]

Originally Posted by Figment

Nice.

I suppose you will have map info and all in the about section as well.


What of an App to share intel and plans with outfit members?

This could be part of the integration between the App and Planetside-Stats.com, maybe the ability to plot outfit targets on the website which could be pushed to the app.. Lots to do before we start thinking about these sort of things though. A simpler (but equally cool thing) I was thinking about last night about a possible 'Call to arms' system on planetside stats that would push notifications to outfit members with the app to come join the fight, would be useful for outfit events and the like.

[Figment]

Event reminders would be quite interesting for outfits indeed.

Outfit organization tools in general could be handy. Would be ideal if applications to join the outfit could be send there too.

[golfmasta34]

This is good stuff Snipefrag! I don't have an iPhone . Hopefully the collab work you do will bleed into an android and web version.