WoWDB Feedback

[Schaapa]

It seems to me you're competing with wowhead which is much older, has more comments, more people contributing to their database, and more features. If you want to be better, you need to figure out how to do what wowhead is doing, but better.

Pretty much this. WowDB is a little late to the party.

[Jaese]

want to be better than the others ?
Make sure you have active moderation on the comments on items etc.
Thottbot / wowhead both suffer from an abundance of comments that have zero relevance to do with the item in question.

other than that it is just another database site, its not bringing anything new or exciting to the table.

Thottbot was the first one that back in vanilla I used, so I assume that was the first wow DB site available.
Wowhead brought a better layout, 3D models and a distinct lack of trolls due to people mainly using thottbot still.

if you want to compete with these then you have to bring something fresh that neither of these have done, Which sadly I am not seeing at the moment with wowdb

The community polices the comments (up and downvotes) and mods step in when needed. The bigger problem with the comments on wowhead are the downvote trolls that simply exist to downvote any legitimate and helpful comment.

[Sam the Wiser]

I never really understood the purpose of wowdb. I thought it was just for this site to link items guess not. Wowhead really going to always be top tho if that what you are trying to be like. Wowhead has years on you. so you got a lot of work to do to catch up.

[Ijoemomma]

I'm pretty much in agreement with a lot of what people are saying. There are just somethings that you have to get ahead of early or figure out a way to make it so much better that other people will use it. Thotbot was ok, But Wowhead just did so much more with it. Your site lacks the community, and the design is just meh.

i honestly think another wow item db site doesn't really accomplish anything but fracture the community even more. I'd rather see only 1 site and everyone contributing to that.

That's just my opinion though

[Kiqjaq]

I use WowDB when I want to math something out. Wowhead gives base numbers rather than damage formulas for some reason. Neither has everything I'd like, but at least an (11% AP + base damage) is way more useful to me than them just totally guessing how much AP I would have (and guessing zero, apparently).

http://www.wowdb.com/spells/48721-blood-boil
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48721/blood-boil

That's really about it though.

[Reyzzz]

The question wowDB creators need to ask themselves is "Why should I use wowDB over other similar sites?". If you can't answer that, well I guess it's just another website on the internet.

[Simca]

I use WowDB as my primary database for a few reasons.

A. WowDB admins actually reset data when the drop rates change or new items are added to a drop table. Wowhead data is completely useless after patches change the drop rate because they never touch it.
B. WowDB data is updated every HOUR. Wowhead data is updated once a WEEK. This is a huge issue, especially after the release of a new Patch.
C. I can upload my personal data to it far, far easier than Wowhead. The Wowhead client is very unwieldy.

The only reasons I hit "View on Wowhead" sometimes:

D. Comments on harder or trickier achievements.
E. Model viewing for armor/npcs.

A, B, & C are more important to me than D & E, so I use WowDB.

TL;DR: WowDB's data is far higher quality than Wowhead, but Wowhead has more comments. WowDB is trying to get better on comments, but I don't see Wowhead trying to be more accurate.

[Tziva]

It's hard to compete with the years of comments wowhead has already established. Comments are the most important aspect of a database site, really. I'm personally trying to contribute to wowdb as much as possible to increase the amount of useful comments and screenshots and there are a few of us that do so - but no where near what wowhead has. It's unfortunate, because I think wowdb does a lot of things better than wowhead (the filters, for example), but I think it's pretty impossible to compete this late in the game.

The "best" news for you in this area is that wowhead's repeated java(?) problems that prevent the page from loading for some people have been ongoing off and on for months and it doesn't look like there is a lot of interest in fixing it. So the biggest increase in usage of wowdb may simply just come from a failure in the other site.

The thing that wowdb really needs -- aside from more contributors -- is a model viewer; I see people ask about this constantly.

Some things are a little wonky, too, but those seem to be coming along. One example that repeatedly bothers me is the fact that council-style instance bosses haven't been linked into a "boss encounter" so you have to look up their names individually. Fights like the Valentines day boss, the MV dogs, Will, Spirit Kings, the Protectors in Terrace, etc, etc. It's very irritating when looking them up, looking up loot, or even when I want to post comments.

I'm funneling suggestions and comments about minor things to chaud when I see them.

(personally, I vastly prefer the light colour scheme of wowdb over wowhead -- I'm so tired of black background themes -- but I'm obviously in the minority there)

[Jaese]

Doesn't have to be black, a simple inversion of the scheme would be fine (the eggshell swapped with the green), or at least an option to change to that scheme.

[klaps_05]

Is there any missing feature?

- It's not wowhead.

[Xs]

As with the other comments, I don't see a reason to use wowDB over Wowhead

Only thing wowDB does better from my perspective is it doesn't have the buggy zam scripts that wowhead uses, which cause excessive load times and sometimes huge page load problems with the item link script

[MoanaLisa]

I think WoWDB has some advantages over WowHead which Simca talked about. Specifically how information is updated and current is a major improvement over WoWHead. It's questionable if average users who are looking to figure out how to finish a quest know this or care very much.

On the other hand:

1. I find WoWDB to be more difficult to read due to the color scheme.
2. The head start that WowHead has on comments is substantial and the primary reason I go there. Especially for quests.

I do think at the technical level that WoWDB works better and is less buggy but the information I'm looking for when I do a search (strategies when I'm stuck on something or just where some particular mob/item can be found) is often missing on WoWDB due to the lack of comments.

[Korrah]

I for one only use wowhead over WowDB because of the modelviewer they have.
If I could try on armour and check out models in WoWDB, i would so use it over WoWhead.

[Tziva]

Oh, I mentioned this also: the filter by expansion only allows Mists and "pre-Mists." It can be really really useful to be able to filter by specific expansion when looking for old crafting mats and old gear sets, so it would be really nice if you had a way to expand that so we actually could filter by, say, "Wrath" or "Classic."

So, the important question: Are you a new person I can badger endlessly with suggestions? I'm sure chaud would be happy to unload me. I'm annoying.

[WarpKnight]

What do I think of the site?

It's a crappy ripoff of wowhead and totally unnecessary.

I'm an end user that googles things for more information by the way (source of an opinion always helps doesn't it?)

[Demec]

Wowhead slacks with droprates... they wont reset Lich king 25hc, DW HC, raggy hc etc etc data so it takes years for the mount rates to settle down after expansions. Maybe you could do that better.

[Tziva]

From a contributor's perspective: It would be awesome if you could find a way to link and duplicate comments/screenshots between things like mount items and mount spells.

I uploaded like 4987945786 mount screenshots (and some comments where needed), except I was dumb and only uploaded them to one or the other, which means if someone looks up, say, the item that teaches the mount, they will find no information even though it's all there... under the spell.

Some things, it makes sense to just copy/paste the comments and reupload the screenshot to every related page (say a quest item with the quest and the individual quest credit objectives), but there are some things like mounts where they really really should be automatically duplicated.

[blackblade]

I am Koper, one of the creators of WowDB.

I was wondering if the community had any input or feedback regarding the website, in particular:

• Is there a missing feature or information that you consider vital for a Wow database website?
• Is there anything you consider annoying to use?
• What kind of new filters, pages, or in general features you would like to have?

Any feedback in general is appreciated! I also wanted to point out that you can contact us at feedback@wowdb.com

Couple things, Koper.

I usually search wowhead to get a few ideas where to farm a specific item.
Generally, tracking % drop isn't really effective. If mob A drops 0-3 peices of cloth, but doesn't die as quickly or respawn as quickly as a mob who drops 0-2 cloth, that's worth knowing.

If you had a metric to pinpoint favored farming spots for a given commodity (Cloth, Motes, Old world stuff, etc.) That would be helpful.

Another thing I'll pop onto wowhead for is viability/strats for soloing old bosses.

Really, you need to cultivate conversation. WoWhead ran promotions to encourage people to start commenting when it was in the stage of surpassing thottbot/allakazam. The also have a pretty thorough backlog of intel (and were nice enough to put the date and patch when a post was posted.)

Stuff like the talent Calculator, view in 3d, etc is nice, but not really something I find myself using as much as I used to.

If you want to get it rolling, give people incentives to start pushing screenshots, comments, etc. and offer some swag to those contributing to get it off the ground.
You'll obviously want to be able to report on your end to filter out useless comments, bad screenshots, etc.

I'd also see about importing quest info from something like a leveling guide or something to get the gist of some of the less straightforward quests in the game. (look at the WoW-Pro guides, Lightheaded, etc.)

Really, the thing that works as a draw to wowhead is the community content, and less so the content made by the administrators of wowhead.

[Tziva]

If you want to get it rolling, give people incentives to start pushing screenshots, comments, etc. and offer some swag to those contributing to get it off the ground.
You'll obviously want to be able to report on your end to filter out useless comments, bad screenshots, etc.

I'd also see about importing quest info from something like a leveling guide or something to get the gist of some of the less straightforward quests in the game. (look at the WoW-Pro guides, Lightheaded, etc.)

FWIW, MMOC ran a contest a couple weeks ago for this precise thing, and we approved hundreds if not thousands of comments and screenshots. I agree its a great idea, though; they need to do it more.

(and the wowdb mods and admins do manually approve screenshots and check comments)

Good feedback!

[Zaelsino]

I think the biggest problem is simply accessibility. A lot of people will click on the first thing that appears after a Google search, which (like Wowwiki to Wowpedia) most of the time would be Wowhead.

That said, I prefer the layout of WowDB. A proper model viewer would do the site good imo.