Mashing up WoW data (when we can get it) in outside applications
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 11th 2008 at 7:00PM
The New York Times has an article up about Microsoft's latest attempt at figuring out mashups-- squeezing the data from one piece of software into another, and World of Warcraft gets an interesting mention. Apparently students at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts are working on how to put WoW player data into Facebook accounts.We've covered this type of thing before, but Blizzard has a long way to go in making their data open to any players who want to use it. Just recently another MMO named Dungeon Runners decided to break open their player data, into a form that almost anyone could use, and we know that Blizzard has the ability to share lots of data online, but they still haven't opened it up yet. 2.4 is giving us a lot of different ways to view our combat data, and almost every day the Armory adds new features, but none of them have yet been aimed at getting the data out of there and doing cool stuff with it elsewhere.
Maybe the reason for this is that they're planning to do it themselves. At any rate, there is a ton of information on Blizzard's servers that players would love get their hands on, and there are plenty of things on the other end to do with it. All that's required is for Blizzard to give us some hooks in, and then real WoW mashups can begin.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Feb 11th 2008 8:05PM
You mean we could finally answer all those battleground questions that stir up all that whining on both sides? Wouldn't that be nice?
Pzychotix Feb 11th 2008 8:11PM
So wait. The armory isn't enough to get all the info one needs about player data?
Fel Feb 11th 2008 8:40PM
O NOES I needs to see my pet's DPS on Facebook, omg!
I like that the WoW community is so active in making the game much bigger than it already is, but there's a point where time is better spent just playing the game, imo.
fLUx Feb 11th 2008 9:03PM
The Armory is in XML, its easy to get the data out.
Most "APIs" use XML to send the data, so the armory is, in fact, a WoW Api anyway....
danielfe Feb 11th 2008 10:00PM
As #4 points out, Blizzard does make a portion of their database available through Wowarmory.com and Popfly is already integrated with WowArmory so you can display your guild roster and player data through XML provided by WowArmory. That being said, WowArmory is only a fraction of the amount of data that's available in the game and available online, I'd love to be able to make purchases and track Auction House prices for example, or be able to get notifications when my friends are online, or when Southshore is under attack :)
Draelar Feb 12th 2008 1:31AM
The biggest problem with the Armory is the fact that it's often inaccurate, or even worse, offline. It's not a reliable source of information because of this.
I wouldn't mind extracting more info from the game, so I can display stuff on my guild's website.