Here is an idea that I have been toying with for a while now, and I'd really appreciate some help with it, as I'm not a great coder. I can get by, and will probably work out the intricacies of implementing this, all by myself, but it is going to take me quite a long time. I'd really appreciate some help with making this happen, so that I can use it on my upcoming Trap17 website.
The MMOG that I am playing, Travian, creates a daily update file, which is essentially just an SQL file full of INSERT commands, that is made available to the public daily. Travian can be played on multiple servers, and there are also country-specific servers, and they all produce these map.sql files each day. For instance, if I am playing on the first international server then I can grab the SQL data from http://s1.travian.com/map.sql whereas, if I were playing on the fourth Australian server, I would use http://s4.travian.com.au, or for the second Hungarian server I would use http://s2.travian.hu/map.sql, etc.
These map.sql files are already being used for some pretty complex things by other websites. For instance, there are Travian World Analyzers, that allow you to query the data over a period of time and see how players have progressed, which Alliances they have moved to, how fast their villages are growing, etc. Some websites use the map.sql files to generate a forum signature image that automatically updates with daily stats. Some are using the map.sql data to generate on-the-fly graphical maps of the Travian worlds, plotting on grids the locations of the villages. It is really useful to have a collection of these map.sql files. I want to get some for my new website on Trap17.
In order to achieve this, I can see that I will need a CRON job to action a script every day that will go to the necessary sites and download the map.sql files. I will need to specify which servers to go to, as I will only be interested in the servers where my clan members are currently active. This will save my hosting space. Also, the map.sql files will need to be renamed with a datestamp and server name.
There are several downloadable freeware programs that also use the data in these map.sql files, and I intend to have a selection of these tools available for download by my clan members. One such tool, TrUtil (by Lamb) is what got me started on this idea in the first place. This program allows you to specify a server to download from, adding it to your list of servers, then you select a server from your list and press the Download button, and it gets the latest data for that server and saves it as a file to your local computer, renaming it with a datestamp and server-name. But you have to remember to do that every day for every server that you play on. It becomes tedious and is often forgotten about, so my collection of map.sql files has pieces missing from it. I want to provide a useful resource for my clan members, a full, complete, up-to-date collection of all the map.sql files for all the servers that they are playing on. They will need to be hosted somewhere, probably separate to my Trap17 site as they can be up to 10MB each, and I will no doubt be making use of them myself also, for team badges for my own forums, and other ideas, by inserting the data from each one into one of my own mySQL databases on my upcoming Trap17 website.
So, this is the idea for my upcoming website here on Trap17. Any help and advice that I can get for implementing it would really be appreciated. I have also created a thread on the forums for help with specific mySQL database issues relating to this project. If you may be able to assist with this, please have a look at the thread entitled Need Advice On Setting Up Mysql Database. Thanks!
