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Skylords Marketplace Journal (SMJ)


Maze

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Greetings fellow Skyfolk,

after reaching a point where it just wouldn't make sense to continue working on the now outdated version of the SMJ-Website, I decided to completely rebuild the website with different tools and development strategies.

The redesigned site is now at a stage of development where I think it is viable enough to replace the old version, which broke with the anniversary patch of 2021 anyway.

The new version can be found here:     https://smj.cards/

The old version is no longer available due to changes made by the hoster heroku that would require paying to host it, but it didn't receive any more updates anyway.

The old version was available here:     https://smj.herokuapp.com/

 

The new site provides a lot of the features the old one did and more.

There are a few exceptions though, which I haven't implemented yet due to time issues, as I wanted give you access to the new site since the old one doesn't work anymore, but I will reimplement them in a later version:

  • Deals page
  • Filtering/Sorting the cards by powercost, damage, lifepoints, abilities
  • Using URL parameters to set filters/sorters

Aside from these, the new site has other things going for it, which are best experienced by playing around with the site, but just a few that may be of interest to you:

  • Bigger variety of filters (excluding the ones mentioned above) like:
    •   Playable with certain orb setup
    •   max charges, squad size, starter card, gender, etc.
  •  More price details for each card:
    •   1W/2W/3W/4W Median/Mean/Min/Max
    •   7 Days Daily Meadian micro-chart in the main table view
    •   Differences of current price to 1W median / yestedays daily median to the daily median of one week ago
    •   Short Term chart that updates every 10 minutes but only shows 4 weeks worth of data (limited because of data size reasons)
    •   Long Term OHLC-charts that update every day and give a better sense of price development over a longer period of time compared to a regular single point chart
    •   Card Auction details of what auctions currently exist for each card, when the auctions were approximately started, when they will switch and when they will end (still a small bug in the calculation sometimes, but I will fix that independently of the site)
    •   Average value of the reforged card, when destroying 4 of the same card
  •  General card info:
    •   Maps to get the upgrades from for each card
    •   List of cards that share 5/4/3/2 similarities with the selected card for easier reforging decisions
    •   Button to the wiki page for the card
    •   Button to copy the shorthand card url for sharing
  •  Some other info:
    •    The main search field has a "fuzzy" functionality, try searching "LSS" and you will see what it means 😉
    •    I created my own card IDs to not be as vulnerable to changes to official card IDs (Plague), Promo status (Lord Cyrian), affinity (Sandstorm R -> B), as well as potential name changes
    •    In some cases SMJ IDs as well as official card IDs can be used for some things:
    •    All card images are automatically generated from their static data through an api that you are able to use as well, but I will explain how to use it at a later date

 

The site is still in development and some things might still be subject to change in the future, but I didn't want to make you wait any longer, seeing as the old site doesn't work anymore.

Also, just as an info, the features that the site currently provides represent about 50% of the features that I plan to add in the future. 😉

Just like the previous site, the new one will also only provide information about the prices, the cards were put in the marketplace for and not actual sell prices!

 

If you find anything that is not working properly or is irritating, please let me know and I will look into it. Also, if you have any specific feature ideas that you think would be useful, don't hesitate in telling me about them and I'll see what I can do. Design/Layout suggestions are also appreciated, as I'm not a designer and just did what came to mind, especially the boosters and card details tables with their cells that display the prieces, which I am not entirely happy with yet.

I hope this little project of mine will be somewhat helpful to you all, as that was my foremost goal from the beginning. 🙂

Thanks and I hope to see you all in the Forge. 😉

 

PS:

I would also like to mention that I have a discord server dedicated to the whole SMJ project, where I post about the project more regularly than on the forum and where it's easier to get in touch with me regarding everything related to the SMJ.

You can join the discord server here:     https://discord.gg/m5Dm5fweSV

Over there you are are also able to interact with a discord bot that allows you to set price notifications for cards that you want to buy/sell and a few other usefull features.

Most of the features the bot provides are only listed by the bot itself, but you can read up a little bit of info about it in this forum thread: https://forum.skylords.eu/index.php?/topic/7300-smj-bot

Edited by Maze
Version 0.2.2
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I very much like the idea behind this. More tranparency usually leeds to better prices.

But I am a bit concerned about the "enter price" button. How does it work and how can you prevent prices from beeing manipulated there? (In either way)

How does it work if different people rate the same card on the same day differently.  What does happen, if one persons "spams" a price on your tracker?

Sorry for so many questions about manipulation, but sadly I see too many greedy people out there.

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Thanks a lot for your input.

3 hours ago, Volin said:

But I am a bit concerned about the "enter price" button. How does it work and how can you prevent prices from beeing manipulated there? (In either way)

How does it work if different people rate the same card on the same day differently.  What does happen, if one persons "spams" a price on your tracker?

To answer your questions, there is currently no check in place for the price input, so anyone can enter any number at any point as the current price. I didn't implement any manipulation-countermeasures yet, as I am someone who initially trusts people to do the right thing, but you are right, there are always bad people.

I will add checks, so only 0 (if no auction for this card is available) and numbers between 3 and 100,000 will be allowed (I don't think that there will be prices above 100k). Furthermore, to not overload the database, I plan to also include filters, so that no new prices can be added for 30 mins (or so) after the last price for the respective card was added. I also plan to display the time since the last update for each card.

About price manipulation, a friend suggested to implement a login feature and only allow trusted people to add/edit prices, but if you have a better idea, please let me know. :)

 

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16 hours ago, Maze said:

but an even better option would be to feed the database with an API of the actual marketplace auctions

This would be the almost perfect solution indeed. Did you speak with the devs about this? Even better would be to get data from the game itself about actual trades in AH - because this does not reflect either supply or demand side, but the price itself.

 

Btw - what does the graph show? Lowest buyout I'd guess?

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9 hours ago, Maze said:

I didn't implement any manipulation-countermeasures yet, as I am someone who initially trusts people to do the right thing

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anyways, potential profits, no matter if real or only in colorful pixels, will lead to people trying to exploit. Self reported prices won't work. Without objective input like through an API I wouldn't trust these numbers. Because I know people try to manipulate prices (and sometimes successfully do so) EVEN IF there is access to an objective graph as a resource.

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On 10/2/2020 at 6:19 PM, Volin said:

This would be the almost perfect solution indeed. Did you speak with the devs about this? Even better would be to get data from the game itself about actual trades in AH - because this does not reflect either supply or demand side, but the price itself.

 

Btw - what does the graph show? Lowest buyout I'd guess?

I haven't talked with the devs yet and yes, the graph shows the lowest current buyout values. (I planned to add another graph inside it that shows the current number of auctions for this card, for more depth of information)

To get the data from the game itself would mean I'd have to use "tools" on the game, but that would break the rules. So I won't do that to acquire the data, as I still want to enjoy playing the game and not get banned.

I know that the way I set up the page is not a completely accurate representation of the auctions, I just wanted to implement this idea of mine, as best as I could. I will probably change the site to just a better filtering site for the cards, if I can't get my hands on the parts of the auction data that I need without risking my account.

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I love your project. But like you said, without an API the information gathering is tedious and manipulatable. Last time I checked the card API wasn't up to date (or at least the devs were not sure if it was), therefore I guess this might take some time until a market API gets released.

I honestly don't know enough coding-shenanigans, but tried to work with the API and lost intetest upon the limited availability compared to a game like Path of Exile. :(

You seem to do better, keep up the work and maybe you can push the devs for better API support. :D

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On 10/6/2020 at 2:19 AM, Mynoduesp said:

I love your project. But like you said, without an API the information gathering is tedious and manipulatable. Last time I checked the card API wasn't up to date (or at least the devs were not sure if it was), therefore I guess this might take some time until a market API gets released.

I honestly don't know enough coding-shenanigans, but tried to work with the API and lost intetest upon the limited availability compared to a game like Path of Exile. :(

You seem to do better, keep up the work and maybe you can push the devs for better API support. :D

Thanks, and yes the card API isn't up to date as far as I have seen (some errors / missing data).

What do you mean with limited availability? As in not much info other that the card values?
I tried to update/sort through the data for my site, but there are still thing I want to add (more information on hover, etc).

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2 hours ago, Maze said:

What do you mean with limited availability? As in not much info other that the card values?
I tried to update/sort through the data for my site, but there are still thing I want to add (more information on hover, etc).

Yes, the data provided is pretty much just cards as you see them in the forge. I was interested in pure stats, which I got in form of a couple of exports as .json files. For you, actual data from the market place would be sweet I'd imagine, I know there is data, but how you'd access it I don't know and if you're allowed to access it is another topic on its own.
I'd highly suggest messaging a dev in PMs or ask them on discord. I'm sure they're able to help more than I can. :D 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 10/5/2020 at 8:55 PM, Maze said:

 

To get the data from the game itself would mean I'd have to use "tools" on the game, but that would break the rules. So I won't do that to acquire the data, as I still want to enjoy playing the game and not get banned.

 

"Scrapping" (or any other tool) is not allowed? 

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1 hour ago, VolvoxGlobator said:

"Scrapping" (or any other tool) is not allowed? 

I asked the devs and yes, as it is technically a bot that fetches the data automatically, which in turn would provide an unfair advantage, to those that use it.

 

One of the rules that would be effected by the usage of such a tool is:

Quote

15. Cheating
This should really go without saying, but in addition to the rules above it's important to emphasise that the usage of any tools, trainers, software or other methods of affecting the game in order to cheat, gain advantages, or for any other purpose whatsoever, is strictly forbidden. We enforce a zero tolerance policy on cheating, and as such cheating will result in an immediate and permanent ban. These programs or forms of abuse provide us with enough reason to act immediately. Having such tools linked to the game or affecting it in any way, even when unaware thereof or when they aren't used at all, is considered in conflict with our code of conduct. Only using them in singleplayer, only using them for yourself, or assuming other players are not affected are invalid excuses and such reasoning will be directly ignored, as will subsequent ban appeal(s) and their reasoning. Affected networks or other accounts will not be taken into consideration when cheating players are banned, and we hold the infringing player accountable for any such results affecting those around them. We consider this to be common sense.

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Interesting.
I have proposed to devs month or two ago that it might be interesting to build an interim server (e.g. elastic or whatever), which would sync with their main server in a civilized manner (not overloading it). And this interim server would then be open to external applications, like exactly what have you created. In case it will get bombed/overloaded etc, it wont harm the main server
They didnt mind the idea but said that things like these (assuming they will be given a go) would have to wait after the release

Edited by VolvoxGlobator
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@Maze I find myself using SMJ again and again as a card database since it includes more datapoints than any other I've found so far.
Species, Class, Off/Def/Att/Mov Type, Building Type and Spell Type are just great to for the kind of searches I use it for. But I miss the option to have multiple choices selected. It may not make much sence to a marketplace search function though... That's probably why you didn't add it. I'd just love to see a box I can check to allow multiple choice. :D

Also, IMO the reset placement is a bit unintuitive. ;)
Maybe left or right of "Name" would be more intuitive, especially when you select a "Type".

image.png.c1a620d47e61d0ce32f01e6a92cfda9c.png
 

If you're interested in making a seperate card database with more search options/features check out this thread: 

 

Anyways, still love the project.

Edited by Mynoduesp
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@Mynoduesp thanks a lot for your input.

I jut put together some additional search features, that were easily available/addable, so there is always space for improvement.

I am open to any search improvement suggestions, so if you have a more detailed vision of what options the search should provide, go ahead and tell me.
The addition to search for the skills of the cards, from your post in the other thread was also something that I thought of adding, but for that I would need to manually expand the database and I didn't have the time for that yet. I also thought of adding a selecting, where one can adjust the upgrade level of the cards and filter the new cost/attack/defense values of the cards, but for that I would also nedd to expand the database, as well as get additional images of each upgrade level for the cards.

But that's all something that is doable and that I could implement in the future. ;)

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37 minutes ago, Pigslord said:

Great job on the tool! Very good idea, we keep seeing people on discord asking for prices for specific cards. I tried adding prices but it didn't seem to work when I clicked "Add Price"

Thanks. I disabled the feature to add the prices, as I hope to someday add the prices automatically, as the manual adding of prices is not secure enough and could be abused, also it's not very time efficient either. :)

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19 hours ago, Mynoduesp said:

But I miss the option to have multiple choices selected. It may not make much sence to a marketplace search function though... That's probably why you didn't add it. I'd just love to see a box I can check to allow multiple choice. :D

I kept it simple, but multiple filters would be more fun. I thought a bit about it and implemented the layout just now, but for the filtering to work I will have to completely adjust the way the filtering works, but I already have an idea of how I could implement that. ^^

 

grafik.thumb.png.e9057aefeca20db16422a77d9338b306.png

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Just for comparision in the wiki on the mainpage we got it like this:
image.thumb.png.156b688757259d50dd464d8d5e2a8676.png

Only if u hover over card icons they show the actual card image, making the loading process faster. Clicking on them links to the content page but only about 20% exist so far.

https://skylords-reborn.fandom.com/wiki/Skylords_Reborn

@Maze you should be able to get ur missing images from there too. :)

Edited by LEBOVIN
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@LEBOVIN Thanks for the info, looks good, but I am not sure if this style and functionality fits for my page, as I orientated myself on the setting of the auctionhouse. Sure the checkbox version of the in game inventory has it's advantages, but also it's limits.

I plan to add some hover info at some point as well, but I don't know when.

As for the images, on the wiki only the card border is an image, all the other information is extra, so it's not as simple as copying the image link. But the images are not one of my priorities right now anyway. :)

Edit:

But I think it could be a good idea to use some other images from the wiki for the checkboxes, so that it's no so plain. xD

Edited by Maze
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I played with the design a little bit more and added some images that I thought were fitting to the species/class/building type/spell type filter, if you think others would fit better, tell me which, once I deployed the new version.

grafik.thumb.png.1b76944f1d49da5df77d59afd8670239.png

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Hey everyone,

I got a little bit more into it than I anticipated (40h worth of coding and data adjustments in the last 4 days :D ), but I managed to implement a ton of new filter and sort features that I think you will like @Mynoduesp. ;)

Have fun with version v0.1.2, which went live just now. :)

 

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  • Maze changed the title to Skylords Marketplace Journal (SMJ)

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