Listing Achievements

[GeordieFly]

Hey, i came across this site when i was searching for ways to automatically show achievements for people that are on my website. I'm building the site in php and i have the basics done, where the members of the "clan" are listed and their gamercard is displayed by linking it from the xbox site, with a few details saved with their gamertag in my database. This looks ok but i was wondering how people manage to retrieve the online status, played games and achievement details?

I read a thread on this site about how xbox chose 50 developers and that they have access to information before others, with special forums. But are they the only ones that can access this information? I guess through the xbox database?

Ive seen several sites with this functionality using things like vbulletin's app, aswell as an application on facebook.

This website is for my software engineering project in my 3rd year of uni, so i need to know if its possible to have this feature on my website or if i need to use vbulletin's, or if i would have to manually have them input their achievement details as on xboxachievements.org #(but for some members that might take a while...). I would prefer to build my own script though as i am hoping to study web development further.

Any advice on this would be a huge help!!!

Thanks!
GeordieFly

[stonyarc]

There is no official way you can access that information without being XCDP member.

However if your users are registered here too you could user our API service.

http://www.xboxlivenation.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=2&id=15&Itemid=81


vbulletin as such is not required, it's just a handy platform. The main website is in joomla and I have written integrations for several other platforms.

Achievement information is currently not available directly not even to xcdp members.

I would highly recommend not to use any scraping scripts like the public vbulletin one (that uses snoopy) as this is considered highly illegal and a violation of the License agreement you have as a live user with microsoft

[GeordieFly]

Thanks stony that helps lots! There's only about 15 or so that will be included on the website im building, so it shouldnt be a problem gettting them signed up on here. Thanks for that link, the links to them xml files will help me to do basically all i wanted... i hope.

The structure is going to be a list off the members with gamercard next to some quick details from my database.

_____________________
|........................................| Name (Database)
|........................................| Details (Database)
|........................................| Current Status (hopefully pulled from the XLN's RSS feed)
|........................................|
|____________________|

Then clicking the name shows their profile which will bring up the card again but under it will be the latest games played and score from that game out of the games score. Like on the profile on here but without the pictures. Basically just the last 5 games played and the score i.e.

bankshot billiards - 125 out of 200
forza 2 - 800 out of 1000
worms - 200 out of 200
overlord - 870 out of 1000
Call of duty 4 - 1000 out of 1000

However these last played games plus achievements are the difficult part as i havent found anything on XLN's API to say how you get these. I dont want the actual achievements, just the points out of points. How have XLN managed to get it on our XLN profiles?

[stonyarc]

I have that data in the database.

however I can disclose a hidden API you can use for that.

Same applies, users have to be registered here

http://www.xboxlivenation.com/api/xlnapigtsl.xml?gt=stonyarc

if spaces just use a + or %20 for the space

http://www.xboxlivenation.com/api/xlnapigtsl.xml?gt=x+m0cha+x

[GeordieFly]

Thanks stony your a legend!

[Diachron]

I have that data in the database.

however I can disclose a hidden API you can use for that.

Same applies, users have to be registered here

http://www.xboxlivenation.com/api/xlnapigtsl.xml?gt=stonyarc

if spaces just use a + or %20 for the space

http://www.xboxlivenation.com/api/xlnapigtsl.xml?gt=x+m0cha+x


First off, I should say.. Hello! I just stumbled onto this site today while poking around for any kind of Achievements XML data that I could pull for my own personal tracking.

Second, I should say... thanks Stonyarc for what clearly is a great deal of work. The site looks great and it looks like you're building some very useful tools for building the XBL community at large.

My own ambitions are not quite so altruistic and much more narrow in scope.. specifically (much like the OP), I was hoping to pull some detailed XML data for just myself and a small handful of friends (just myself, if necessary). But it seems that MS policy on exposing achievement details (description, date unlocked, etc) is very tight. I can't say I agree wholly with the policy, but it is what it is.

I guess my question for Stonyarc is: do you have any other "hidden" APIs that are not posted on your API page? (And that they don't violate your agreements goes without saying).

Being a data hound, I got it in my head that I wanted to track arcane stats like Achievement points by day of the week, month, year, etc, lol.. I know from reading other posts in this forum that that kind of detail is off limits in a feed; but all the same I'm interested in any other XML feeds that might elaborate on Achievement details in ways not covered in the currently "published" APIs.

Thanks for your attention!
~Diachron

[x2i]

Hi I've been reading through and have gathered that it is pretty much impossible to obtain the details on every achievement the user has obtained without being a member to this site first - however the following website seems to be doing just that - although certain elements of the achievement (such as actual date obtained) may be incorrect - it does list the achievements you have/haven't obtained in any one game.

http://www.trueachievements.com/

Any ideas how this is attained?

[stonyarc]

Hello,

This is done either by hand or by using a script technique called screen scraping.

Screen scraping however is considered illegal as in SOME cases it abuses the Live ID (microsoft passport) however I have no specific knowledge about this site.


Some scripts basically logs in pretending to by gamertag X and gets the achievements, friends information or private messages for the otherwise completely private pages.


I'm strongly agains using this as it potentially leads to identity theft, credit card fraud and all kinds of nasty things.

[x2i]

Hello,

This is done either by hand or by using a script technique called screen scraping.

Screen scraping however is considered illegal as in SOME cases it abuses the Live ID (microsoft passport) however I have no specific knowledge about this site.


Some scripts basically logs in pretending to by gamertag X and gets the achievements, friends information or private messages for the otherwise completely private pages.


I'm strongly agains using this as it potentially leads to identity theft, credit card fraud and all kinds of nasty things.

Okay, I wasnt entirely satisfied with the idea of screenscraping either and wouldn't really know how to anyway. I doubt that this is done by hand as they have trackers that continually update to make sure its updated fast.

Its a real shame Microsoft don't release these type of tools to the public - after all,

a) If it is my profile I am extracting data from then I should be allowed.
b) We can quite happily such information if we are logged into xbox.com - and it takes 10 seconds to sign up regardless of whether you genuinly have an xbox or not.
c) They release a lot of the data in the gamercards that you can embed on your webpages.

[richs99]

Hello,

This is done either by hand or by using a script technique called screen scraping.

Screen scraping however is considered illegal as in SOME cases it abuses the Live ID (microsoft passport) however I have no specific knowledge about this site.


Some scripts basically logs in pretending to by gamertag X and gets the achievements, friends information or private messages for the otherwise completely private pages.


I'm strongly agains using this as it potentially leads to identity theft, credit card fraud and all kinds of nasty things.

Wow.

OK, this is so wrong it's unbelievable.

Firstly, the scanner doesn't log in with any xbox live details apart from my own.

All achievement and played game information for any xbox live user can easilly bd viewed by any other user, as long as they have their achievement settings to public (the default setting).

Look:

http://live.xbox.com/en-GB/profile/profile.aspx?pp=0&GamerTag=TrueAchievement

To suggest that we are somehow reading personal information in cookies on people's hard drives is 1) plain wrong, 2) showing a complete lack of understanding of how a browser works, and 3) arguably slanderous.

We even tell people to use a different password to their xbox live one when they sign up, to avoid any possiblity that the login could be used if ever our security were compromised. I notice you don't do that on here...

So I suggest that you get your facts straight before posting such utter garbage on a public message board.

Rich
TrueAchievements Administrator

[stonyarc]

Hello,

There is no reason to get hostile.

There are tons of very nasty scripts out there and you know that as well as I do and some do abuse the live id.


If you opt to scrape a public page so be it, that wouldn't be my choice. You very well know that some others do not respect the privacy and will go the whole length.

Moreover screen scraping hurts the targetted site - it causes additional bot traffic and tends to mess with service availability in general if it's not controlled.


However, I should have checked with you and I'll immediatelly nuance the statement to

Screen scraping however is considered illegal as in SOME cases it abuses the Live ID (microsoft passport) however I have no specific knowledge about this site.


The Live integration here on XLN works on a very different basis as I'm part of XCDP.



Regards

[stonyarc]

If you are just reading the public domain pages but there are sites out there with variations on the "snoopy"-script that check/use the persistent authenticator (liveid with save password) so that users are not required to retype in their passwords or even emulate "official pages"

The danger with cookies is limited to the exposure of sensitive cookie content to unintended recipients. Because the Liveid cookie contains sensitive data, the system encrypts these cookies using triple DES.

Regardless of their actual value or security, these technologies have been shown to compromise user privacy.

[richs99]

Hello,

There is no reason to get hostile.

There are tons of very nasty scripts out there and you know that as well as I do and some do abuse the live id.


You say there's no reason to get hostile but you acuse my site of running scripts that can compromise personal details and access credit card information?

I've worked incredibly hard to get TrueAchievements working properly without the developer license that you have. I've continually requested a Dev license from Microsoft but I have not received a single response from them,

I want to emphasise that we run a site that does not compromise anyone's security. There may be other sites that do, as suggested above, but we are not one of them.

I wrote TrueAchievements because I thought the GamerScore system was flawed and I thought I could come up with something that improved on it, not to steal xbox live profile information.

And to be honest, I would have thought that was fairly obvious from reading the FAQ or forums on the site, or even the registration page.

If I wanted to buy MS credit using someone else's details, believe me, I could have come up with a quicker way of doing it than spending 6 weeks of my spare time writing and improving a community gaming website.


I'm sorry for being so defensive.

But when you've worked as hard as I have, without the dev license you enjoy, you might begin to understand.

Thank you for listening

TA Admin

[stonyarc]

Hello,


I've worked equally hard to make all the applications as the dev clearance is only a small part of what's needed.

Your site does look like you put a lot of effort in it.

However the xcdp dev license currently cannot help you with the functions you require (achievements).

My statement was intended in a much more general fashion and I should have made it so. So, I'm sorry and that won't happen again. Again I should have checked the faq.


Cheers