Guild Wars 2, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), recently had its API released in its API Development forum. The game maker, ArenaNet, LLC, has created a dedicated thread document on its forum to give information about all available APIs for Guild Wars 2, which are currently in beta form.

Nowadays, MMORPG games pull in millions of players and as a result, there’s not just a community, but an audience of potential consumers of the data that is produced within them–for the most part, the clients of much of that data has been the business running the MMORPG itself and the business would use it to sell to potential advertisers or to better-fit-customer experience. However, there’s another edge to this data: the players themselves outside the game.

MMORPGs such as Guild Wars 2 include timed world events that pull in ten to hundreds of players to participate. Since nobody can play the game 24/7 and word-of-mouth isn’t always sufficient to find where an event is, apps that are capable of displaying when an event is on or when it will happen to a mobile device or web page can really change user experience.

As a result, developers for these apps will be looking for how they can access and use this information. The developer for Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet, has released information on how to access that API.

The API itself–how to get a handle on the data

Here’s is list of released APIs:

Dynamic Events API – BETA

• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/event_names.json
• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/map_names.json
• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/world_names.json

WvW API – BETA

• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/wvw/matches.json
• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/wvw/match_details.json
• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/wvw/objective_names.json

Item and Recipe Database API – BETA

• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/items.json
• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/item_details.json
• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/recipes.json
• https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/recipe_details.json

All these APIs can be accessed using simple REST-style HTTP URLs, APIs run on JSON, and work well with JavaScript.

ArenaNet is also working on implementing OAuth2, a safe authentication system that will allow websites and applications to talk to the API on behalf of players without giving those apps their game password. Once the OAuth 2 API is built, the company is planning to create several other personalized APIs. But there is no information available on the schedule.

“We intentionally don’t have a roadmap for exactly which APIs we will create. Our plan is to use feedback and input from the community to help us choose which specific APIs to make. That said, we do have a longer term schedule that consists of technologies that will make more types of APIs possible.

“OAuth2 support will enable many more personalized APIs to be created. Guild, Chat, Character, and other APIs are all possible. We don’t currently have a planned release date for OAuth2, but we’re actively working on implementing it.”

In another thread, we saw an excellent list of apps that use the API, including what platforms they run on. Let’s take a quick look:

Android

• GuildWars 2 API Explorer (Github project) – Exposes the API for Android users
• GW2 Event Timer – Monitor event timers
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.enragedginger.gw2.companion – Focused on items. It allows you to search for items by name, item type, vendor value, and item rarity. You can sort the results, and view each item individually.

Websites

• http://v2.gw2stuff.com/ – New chest event timer
• http://godcraft.com/x/gw2/default.htm – active events
• http://www.ginkeltjes.nl/GW2/ – Event stats

Desktop

• Gw2InfoViewer – Java app that displays events
• GW2 Boss event overlay
• Dragon Timers