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iloop · Aug 26, 2004, 06:07 PM

Hey all,

I was wondering if anyone knows anything about a web API for World of Warcraft. Essentially, I'm a member of a WoW guild and we're wondering if it is (or will be) possible to pull guild member info from the game for display on a web page.

In fact, I'm sure that this technology already exists since, in the Blizzard WoW forums, members see their character's level dynamically placed over their avatar. Consequently my real question is, is this API public? If so, where does one track it down? If not, are there plans to have something like this implemented by roll-out?

Any info appreciated. Thanks!

Thinine · Aug 26, 2004, 07:49 PM

That would be freaking sweet.

MaxPower · Aug 26, 2004, 08:07 PM

I'm pretty sure the webservers and the WoW servers share the same air conditioned room.

I would suggest using '/suggest' and telling the WoW peeeps you'd like to have access to this kind of thing. It would be cool to use on say, the best Mac guild on planet earth: Reservoir Dogcows

Moof

sideus · Aug 26, 2004, 08:55 PM

Won't happen. Blizzard will cite security as a concern.

iloop · 12:52 AM

Originally posted by MaxPower:
I would suggest using '/suggest'

I'm not in the beta so using /suggest isn't an option for me.

Originally posted by sideus:
Won't happen. Blizzard will cite security as a concern.

I'm not sure how an API, properly programmed, is a security consideration at all. Or do you simply mean making it public?

MaxPower · Aug 26, 2004, 09:46 PM

Originally posted by iloop:
Essentially, I'm a member of a WoW guild and we're wondering if it is (or will be) possible to pull guild member info from the game for display on a web page.

Originally posted by iloop:
I'm not in the beta so using /suggest might isn't an option for me.

?

iloop · Aug 27, 2004, 12:51 AM

I'm part of a clan (guild) of which there are many. Although some members of my clan are in the beta, the majority of us aren't. What's hard to understand about that?

I think there are tons of groups organizing clans and guilds in preparation for playing the game.

gbafan · Aug 27, 2004, 12:28 PM

Originally posted by iloop:
What's hard to understand about that?

Yikes.

Hopeful_Monster · Aug 27, 2004, 02:49 PM

I'm not in the beta either, but it seems to be me that this is basically what Thottbot does (see for example the creator's profile here). I know this data is retrieved directly from the client.

Most of this stuff (as I understand it - ie not very well) is done using Lua, and modifying the game's UI. See the WOW Interface Modifications forum or COSMOSUI.ORG for more details.

As a side note, it looks like us non-beta testers can play for 7 days as part of the stress test sometime soon.

redJag · Aug 27, 2004, 05:25 PM

Originally posted by iloop:
I'm part of a clan (guild) of which there are many. Although some members of my clan are in the beta, the majority of us aren't. What's hard to understand about that?

I think there are tons of groups organizing clans and guilds in preparation for playing the game.

What's hard to understand is you made a post about your WoW guild but you're not in WoW. Without explicitly saying that you are in a guild that has members that are in WoW, it is assumed that YOU are in WoW. Now we can also assume you're a jackass. If you really want help, explain your situation a little better and you won't waste people like MaxPower's time.

sideus · Aug 27, 2004, 09:16 PM

Originally posted by redJag:
...Now we can also assume you're a jackass...

That's uncalled for.

iloop · Aug 28, 2004, 10:22 PM

Originally posted by redJag:
What's hard to understand is you made a post about your WoW guild but you're not in WoW. Without explicitly saying that you are in a guild that has members that are in WoW, it is assumed that YOU are in WoW. Now we can also assume you're a jackass. If you really want help, explain your situation a little better and you won't waste people like MaxPower's time.

Obvioulsy, I have made some kind of mistake here although I'm not sure what. This is the first time that I've elicited this type of response in a Mac forum.

I apologize if I led anyone to believe that I was playing in the beta. If you're big into the WoW community you'd likely realize that there are likely thousands of players who have formed guilds/clans in preparation for playing the game. I guess that MMORPGs, specifically, foster communities to form around them and that's the way I would describe my clan - we're a group of people who will be clanning in WoW when the game comes out. Again, if you take a look around, you'll likely find that there are a lot of clans around.

Essentially, I was looking to get information to see if there's a way to get the game itself to speak to the web using an API. I wasn't trying to be elitist or anything; I was simply trying to get some info because I thought that others would be looking for similar information and it would be beneficial to many upcoming (and current) WoW players. Imagine that you wanted to see where everybody in your clan stood in terms of level of character in the game so you could group with players at around the same level; an API of this nature would accomplish this.

redJag - I'm still quite astonished by your response; quite unusual for a Mac forum as I've stated above. Although low in posts on these fora I'm a very large poster on other fora with different handles and I'm a very very long time mac user. Personally, I feel that an apology is in order but I guess I'll leave that up to you.

For others who have understood my request and posted back with helpful information, Thanks! Much appreciated.

blizzard · Aug 29, 2004, 09:41 PM

You weren't out of line, iloop. I'm not sure what the others' problems are, but I can't see how your presence in the beta makes any difference to your request.

Sorry I can't help with the problem at hand, but good luck in your search for answers.

MaxPower · Aug 29, 2004, 10:46 PM

Hey, no harm, no foul. I had been reading the fourms to try to put some calmness in an otherwise stressful day and ran across your reply. I think WTF? This doesn't make sense. And typed a not-too-helpful reply. However when you replied back, it all came together for me.

I actually put in a /suggest in-game for a way to get a quick read of our stats. I think it's a neat idea. Whether they'll decide that it's a good idea is up to them!

If they don't, there's one last thing to try. You could get a screen scrape from the official wow forums. That would supply you with your name, level, and character photo. Since you can do a similar thing with thottbott.com by putting in 'http://www.thottbott.com/?profile=P.yourcharacternamehere', all you'd need was your photo. And if you pull your info maybe once a day, it should stay off their radar.

Hope that helps!

Edited for punctuation.

Arkham_c · Aug 30, 2004, 08:28 AM

Originally posted by MaxPower:
If they don't, there's one last thing to try. You could get a screen scrape from the official wow forums. That would supply you with your name, level, and character photo. Since you can do a similar thing with thottbott.com by putting in 'http://www.thottbott.com/?profile=P.yourcharacternamehere', all you'd need was your photo. And if you pull your info maybe once a day, it should stay off their radar.

The way thottbott works is they have a local executable that receives information from a custom LUA interface and writes it out to the file system, sending the file off to Thott at a later time. It doesn't work on the Mac right now because the executable is Windows-only. However, there's nothing stopping you or someone else from writing an equivalent Mac client and either interfacing with thottbott or simply directly reporting the results to your own server.