Developing an idea

[Shodun]

Hey,

I am a new developer and love playing DDO. An idea occurred to me while I was playing the other day about a management app for my toons. I was wondering who I would contact to discuss possibilities of designing/programming something like this. I would ideally like to work on it myself as a fun project to improve my skills, but would be thrilled if someone already has done it or would be faster at making it themselves. Until I know who to talk to, I want to keep the details in my head. Could you please point me in the right direction so I can have a dialogue with someone concerning this?

Thanks for your time,

Shodun

[BruceTheHoon]

What would this 'toon management app' actually do?

[Shodun]

I apologize for being so cryptic in the initial post. In retrospect, I would just be glad if this was made, or already has been, whether I get to work on it or not.

The idea was that I could log into my account and access my toon's inventories, bank, and shared bank in a graphical user interface. Depending on restrictions that Turbine/DDO has, it could just be a read only spreadsheet that allows you to track what items are where so that you don't end up buying, i.e. an expensive ingredient for100k plat, when you have it on your 5th alt.

Alternatively, if permissions allowed, it would allow you to organize your inventory and move items from character to character using the in-game conventions of a shared bank, or mail as another possibility.

The program could be a stand alone or possibly a plugin to the login client?

I don't know, but it came to me after the frustrations I have had with logging out and in to multiple toons to find if I had 'this' ingredient on 'that' toon. It also comes up when I start running low on space and pull objects that I think are important for new toons to have, but am uncertain whether one of my 10 characters on Thelanis has it banked already.

I just thought that this would be very beneficial and could be portable to other MMOs if it would work here. Just a thought and hopefully something that can be helpful.

[Rheebus]

This doesn't exist as far as I know. It's something I've also been looking for. As you described it in the thread, I am now wondering if this would be a security problem and that is why we haven't seen something like it yet.

[Joseph]

I actually suggested this to SWTOR as a game function.

It would be fantastic if I could manage my character inventory, banking, bio, equipment, etc. without actually being fully logged into the game.

Hopefully we will see it in future games that are developed - and while it would be great to have in DDO - I am looking at my.ddo - and I have doubts :D

Maybe in DDO Next Gen.

[R0cksteady]

I don't think it's possible outside of actually inputting the information intoa spreadsheet yourself.

Many people would like this feature, and it's been suggested forever, yet no one has been able to make this. People have made apps to make it easier to keep track of, but none that actually read the info from your account. But if you find a way, I would DEFINITELY use it.

[Rheebus]

There is an inventory management app called DDO Packrat (http://farpg.no-ip.org/Packrat/Packrat.Html) that will use screenshots of your gear to automatically input your items into an offline database. The setup is a little time consuming, but you don't have to do much typing. The app looks at a folder full of screenshots to create the database. This by no means addresses the remote character maintenance need expressed in the original post, but it does give you an offline database of your items.

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=4155374&postcount=84
http://farpg.no-ip.org/Packrat/Packrat.Html

[R0cksteady]

There is an inventory management app called DDO Packrat (http://farpg.no-ip.org/Packrat/Packrat.Html) that will use screenshots of your gear to automatically input your items into an offline database. The setup is a little time consuming, but you don't have to do much typing. The app looks at a folder full of screenshots to create the database. This by no means addresses the remote character maintenance need expressed in the original post, but it does give you an offline database of your items.

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=4155374&postcount=84
http://farpg.no-ip.org/Packrat/Packrat.Html

How would that even work when so much gear uses the same icons?

[Ganolyn]

It would be neat if they could incorporate something like that into the character login screen where all your characters are listed, but that would mean they would need something that allows for more than one character to be loaded at a time which I don't think is possible right now.

[Shodun]

Not necessarily, the app, or function could 'login' each character to pull the inventory info from each character into a local database for the purposes of listing in a spread sheet.

If the moving option was possible, you would have a section which would 'login' to a character. That character would be the active one and you could manipulate his inventory, moving stuff to the shared bank etc., then change active characters to another and he could pull out of the shared bank. The difference from logging into each character would be the comprehensive view of all the toon's inventories stored on your local machine in a database.

Those are simple ideas for making it work. The primary issue with it would be Turbine allowing access to your character data via your login. I don't know who I would contact to discuss that. Since that is central to what I am suggesting, I would really like to dialogue with them about it before making all the other parts.

Edit:


It would be neat if they could incorporate something like that into the character login screen where all your characters are listed, but that would mean they would need something that allows for more than one character to be loaded at a time which I don't think is possible right now.

I would love it if they would put it right into the login screen. Ultimately, I can see that being the best place as a plugin.