Power to the people ...... | EVE Online

Power to the people ......

2011-08-30 - CCP Dr.EyjoG

Knowledge is power, and we want to give EVE Online pod pilots more power (as if they did not have enough already! ;-)  ). Ever since my first Fanfest, back in 2007, I have discussed with pod pilots the possibility of giving better access to the vast data that is available from EVE Online. The main obstacle so far has been making the data available on a consistent basis in a format that fits EVE players. I am pleased to inform you that we have made headway towards having a system in place that would allow us to give EVE players access to historical time series on items sold in the main EVE market hubs.

Exciting news indeed, and we can't wait to see what the human supercomputer that the EVE playerbase is will do with this data. However, before Team Sleeper Cell and the Research and Statistics unit can finalize this project we need your assistance to better understand which data format is best for the community. To do that, we will provide access to EVE market data from 2010 through May 2011. The data will show the average price for more than 6,000 items on the EVE market in the top five trade regions in EVE, along with other basic parameters, as can be seen in the table below. This data can differ from the in-game price history graph, since those graphs use either median price or average price, depending on the number of transactions available. In this case, we opted for calculating both the median and the average price for all items, so both time series are in the dataset. This is a one-time datadump for now, but in the future, the data would be provided on a regular basis. However, the catch is that the data will always be delayed; by how much will be determined at later stages in the development process, but until then, it would be great to hear from you guys what you think would be a reasonable delay: one month, two weeks, several days?

We're providing access to the market data in two different ways during our initial test run. Our intent is to only release it in one format in the future. As we want to know what is the most convenient for everyone to use, we're providing the data in both .csv and a MSSQL backup format. We will be using your feedback and statistics of which is most used to decide on how we will be going forward with delivering this data for you in the future. Please let us know your preferences for format in the comments thread of this blog.

The data is provided in the following format:

typeID

regionID

dateday

transactionCount

totalQuantity

totalValue

avgPrice

maxPrice

minPrice

medianPrice

27904

10000032

2011-04-25 00:00:00

1

1

123649.95

123649.95

123649.95

123649.95

123649.95

CSV: //content.eveonline.com/data/marketData/MarketData.csv.zip
SQL: //content.eveonline.com/data/marketData/MarketData.bak.zip

This is just a test run so that Team Sleeper Cell can continue their work on getting you this data on a consistent basis in convenient format.  But we would also like to hear your comments on the usability of this data; give us examples on how you would use it. If this turns out to be popular, it is my opinion that the more we can directly give to you, the better. 

More data, more knowledge, more power to the pod pilots of New Eden.

Many thanks go to team Sleeper Cell and Research and Statistics. Giving players some interesting data to work with is truly a team effort.  You will see several of us participating in the discussion on this topic, including CCP Stillman, CCP Elerhino, CCP Recurve, and yours truly.

Fly safe but remember to destroy stuff - it is good for the EVE economy!

Best

Dr.EyjoG