WoWDB Feedback

[Deleted]

The only time I use wowdb is when the items are linked on the front page here and the only reason I use it ... is to get to the wowhead link.

I'm a wowhead.

I don't either that much, but I also only use wowdb just to go straight to wowhead link. Tbh, I thought they were the same but wowdb just being some sort of beta...I thought wowhead was going to transfer in the end.

[Zoopercat]

Hey, I'm from Ask Mr. Robot Regarding having a PTR version of our stuff, we're working on it. Of course it's much more complicated than it seems once you start digging into it. We have a few 'quick and dirty' ideas in mind for 5.2, but want to build something out that works well for future content patches.

From a 'fansite' point of view, we LOVE wowdb. They have an API that makes our lives much easier, and their data is more accurate.

We actually used to use WoWhead exclusively for our item data, but switched to WoWDB when MoP came out. In fact, it was late Sunday night before the patch and we contacted Curse in a bit of a panic (it's true, sometimes I panic around expansions!). I let them know we were hoping to use their item data because it was the only accurate source at the time... and we needed it fast (they didn't have the API ready at that time). So they hooked us up with everything we needed, late Sunday night, and continued to help us throughout Monday. Now THAT's service.

Now that we have a really great partnership, we're in a unique position to 'fact check' their entire database. For example, with 5.2 we're grabbing all of their data to add to our site, and checking it twice. Also, after patches, some of the datamined item-data needs to be updated (a few fall thru the cracks in hotfixes). So sometimes a user finds an item on our site that is out of date or has wrong stats, I just email WoWDB and it gets fixed in usually a couple hours. No more than a day.

That all said, wowhead is still a great site with a lot of great information and hard working people (like perculia). But I see no reason why there shouldn't be TWO great sites! The more, the merrier. Competition is a good thing.


Edit (forgot to add this). A lot of people said they click the links from the MMO-C homepage, then move on to Wowhead. I don't want to overlook what makes the links great in the first place though. MMO-C is my go-to place for WoW news. And they take the time to make QUALITY links to the right stuff. For example, on today's home page MMO-C mentioned that you can buy Blood Spirits with Valor, and there is a link to all of the crafted gear that uses Blood Spirits. That is super handy, and saves me a ton of time trying to find those lists myself.

[Saphyron]

Hey, I'm from Ask Mr. Robot Regarding having a PTR version of our stuff, we're working on it. Of course it's much more complicated than it seems once you start digging into it. We have a few 'quick and dirty' ideas in mind for 5.2, but want to build something out that works well for future content patches.

From a 'fansite' point of view, we LOVE wowdb. They have an API that makes our lives much easier, and their data is more accurate.

We actually used to use WoWhead exclusively for our item data, but switched to WoWDB when MoP came out. In fact, it was late Sunday night before the patch and we contacted Curse in a bit of a panic (it's true, sometimes I panic around expansions!). I let them know we were hoping to use their item data because it was the only accurate source at the time... and we needed it fast (they didn't have the API ready at that time). So they hooked us up with everything we needed, late Sunday night, and continued to help us throughout Monday. Now THAT's service.

Now that we have a really great partnership, we're in a unique position to 'fact check' their entire database. For example, with 5.2 we're grabbing all of their data to add to our site, and checking it twice. Also, after patches, some of the datamined item-data needs to be updated (a few fall thru the cracks in hotfixes). So sometimes a user finds an item on our site that is out of date or has wrong stats, I just email WoWDB and it gets fixed in usually a couple hours. No more than a day.

That all said, wowhead is still a great site with a lot of great information and hard working people (like perculia). But I see no reason why there shouldn't be TWO great sites! The more, the merrier. Competition is a good thing.


Edit (forgot to add this). A lot of people said they click the links from the MMO-C homepage, then move on to Wowhead. I don't want to overlook what makes the links great in the first place though. MMO-C is my go-to place for WoW news. And they take the time to make QUALITY links to the right stuff. For example, on today's home page MMO-C mentioned that you can buy Blood Spirits with Valor, and there is a link to all of the crafted gear that uses Blood Spirits. That is super handy, and saves me a ton of time trying to find those lists myself.

Currently im using wowDB to make a database for items as written before thus creating a BiS lsit for all of my raiders. My question to Ask Mr.Robot is that before i used your site to do the same thing since you have a nice way of setting everything and look pretty. Right now im using excell and just doing 1 spec per class can take over 5 hours to get min max out of it. When will we see ask mr robot with the 5.2 items?

[Shaley]

For me personally:

It looks just like Wowhead, but has no community.

If I only cared about stats on the items, I'd use wowarmory's item look up. But I go to Wowhead because normally on a quest, or item, there is a very large discussion going on about a particular item or quest.

Example:

Very recently it was discovered that the Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent was not dropping from Sha of Anger, and it was hotfixed to all it to drop. Wowhead's "Heavenly Cloud Serpent" comments section has 29. Wowdb has 0.

A recent quest completion for me was Breath of the Black Prince. Wowhead has 19 comments on that page. Wowdb has 1.

I don't know how you can "fix" the community.

Edit: Also, because our guild uses Wowstead for our website, we are unable to link scroll-over abilities/items/quests to Wowhead items. We're "forced" to link to Wowdb items that have no discussion / help, etc.

So we opted to have an ugly website that just didn't have any scroll-overs, and just raw links to wowhead. This doesn't really have anything to do with WowDB I guess, but more of the "Curse family" of things.

Edit2: ptr.wowdb.com exists, but there is no link on the main page to go to it. You just have to be "in the know" to get to it. Wowhead links you directly to it on the top left of the screen.

[Deleted]

This is like asking "Why do you use Google and not Bing". Surely WoWDB has some better features (like filtering) but a site like wowhead has alot (alot alot) more comments on items, pictures, 3D modelviewing etc which I have yet to find on WowDB. I have seen 1 comment on an item on WowDB in the last few years. I mainly visit WowDB because Icy-veins and MMO-champion links stuff to WowDB. It's usually 1-2 seconds and then I search for it on wowhead because again, no comments, no images etc. WowDB feels kind of "empty".

[Zoopercat]

Chaosjones, I'll send you a PM with my email. We can probably help you out. We're pretty busy getting ready for 5.2, but while we're gathering data, we might be able to hook you up with some info. The 5.2 data *might* be out early, but we aren't sure. Otherwise, it will be out ON patch day, which is what we've always done in the past.

Also there might be a faster way. It would require some fancy excel magic though. You can export all of our gear to a SimC output file (click on the export button to the right of all of the other buttons on the action bar). The gear is in there - not sure if that will be easy to sift through for excel or not.

I'll also add an 'export to excel' feature to our to-do list. I'm betting a lot of people put gear into spreadsheets. Glad you asked!

[Tziva]

Edit2: ptr.wowdb.com exists, but there is no link on the main page to go to it. You just have to be "in the know" to get to it. Wowhead links you directly to it on the top left of the screen.

Just FYI:

Link in the upper right corner of every page.

[-Superman-]

I tend to just use Wowhead, to be honest.

This. Also, WoWwiki, Thottbot, Google. There are already so many sources out there (some might be mildly outdated). It is tough to move into an already saturated market. Best bet is to make an addon for wow that quick references the material on your site. This would give players an ingmae resource without an alt-tab need. Also, players love addons.

[MoanaLisa]

Best bet is to make an addon for wow that quick references the material on your site. This would give players an ingmae resource without an alt-tab need. Also, players love addons.

I used to have a questing addon that linked to all of Wowhead's comments for quests. And that's how I found out really how useful Wowhead comments could be. I don't use the addon any longer but it's instructive how habits get set. Once you have a reason to poke around on a site...

It's a good idea. I think the focus on WoWDB being more accurate than anything else is a strong selling point. I really do understand the business about comments (and lack thereof) but that will only come with time. The main thing right now I think is for WoWDB to be better at hard data than anything else and let the soft user-generated data build up over time.

[-Superman-]

I used to have a questing addon that linked to all of Wowhead's comments for quests. And that's how I found out really how useful Wowhead comments could be. I don't use the addon any longer but it's instructive how habits get set. Once you have a reason to poke around on a site...

It's a good idea. I think the focus on WoWDB being more accurate than anything else is a strong selling point. I really do understand the business about comments (and lack thereof) but that will only come with time. The main thing right now I think is for WoWDB to be better at hard data than anything else and let the soft user-generated data build up over time.

Agreed. I was the same way with Thottbot back in 2007. Then I made the switch to Wowhead. I may have to check into an addon that references the DB for items. Even after 6 years of playing, I am still reminded how much I still have to learn about the newer aspects of the game.

[Shaley]

Just FYI:

Link in the upper right corner of every page.

I see your image and raise you an image.

http://i.imgur.com/2sxLBTE.jpg

No PTR on my screen. I use Firefox, you?

Edit: It appears after I looked something up. Searched for "Deathbringer's Will" just as a test. But the PTR button remains absent from the main page, which should be the most important page it's located on. How are new users going to know to search for an item first, before getting access to the PTR link

[Ajarn]

What part of this does AskMrRobot not already do well? (Other than predefined profiles and useful gem/enchant selection)

AskMrRobot doesn't have PTR support

[Tziva]

I see your image and raise you an image.

http://i.imgur.com/2sxLBTE.jpg

No PTR on my screen. I use Firefox, you?

That's just the general page for accessing the database, news, talents, etc. Go into the database itself.

It couldn't hurt to have it on the main page either, but it's not really a secret "in the know" kind of thing. It is linked on every single database page

[chaud]

Best bet is to make an addon for wow that quick references the material on your site. This would give players an ingmae resource without an alt-tab need. Also, players love addons.

What do you find yourself looking up now that boss drops and quest locations are in game? Personally I have only looked up a few quests since MoP came out, as most of the quests don't need any more guidance. As far as items go, AskMrRobot has my upgrade list already.

(This excludes stuff I look up while working on the news)

No PTR on my screen. I use Firefox, you?

Yeah, that is fixed / planned to be fixed in the next site update.

[Shaley]

What do you find yourself looking up now that boss drops and quest locations are in game? Personally I have only looked up a few quests since MoP came out, as most of the quests don't need any more guidance. As far as items go, AskMrRobot has my upgrade list already.

(This excludes stuff I look up while working on the news)



Yeah, that is fixed / planned to be fixed in the next site update.

Sweet, thanks chaud!

[Ryme]

The main issue with that is the level of tediousness for nett return. Running around trying to find the item, then the url then adding it takes time that frankly most people don't really bother with. I'll admit though I perfer linking via WoWDB because of the item/ability description that drops out with a mouseover. That for me is the main reason to use DB

But, again, that's only because the wowhead mouseover tooltip is disabled on mmo-c, I'm fairly sure it used to work a while back.

[Somarlane]

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?

Known issues that don't need to be mentioned again:

• Not enough comments
• No modelviewer

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

.

Feedback thread! You may regret that I learned of its existence...


--Need to be able to filter by specific expansion. Pre-MoP and MoP is too general.

--Need to be able to set "Difficulty type" filter to "Normal." Using "Any" returns too many results that I don't want.

--A search engine that isn't so finicky with spelling. I'd like it to be more forgiving of spelling errors. (Kind of like the "Did you mean...?" on Wowhead that's powered by Google.)

--Change the appearance of quotes in database comment. Grey text on grey background is hard on my eyes.

--Improved profile page layout. The current layout is better than the previous incarnation, but I'd like the tabs to be up on top instead of to the side. I prefer stuff centered on the page instead forced to the right side.

--I desperately desire a tab on my profile page for Submitted Screenshots so I can keep easier track of what I have submitted.

--I would like to see the ratings of my submitted posts on my profile page, and not click through to each post. It would allow me to keep track of posts that aren't doing well and take action - clarify, update, etc.

--Screenshots on the database need better thumbnails. Or, rather, need to be thumbnails. Currently, it appears that WoWDB simply centers the original image, which makes for... interesting "thumbnails" at times.

--Better titling/captioning for screenshots. Only a small part of the title can be seen before it is abbreviated by ellipses. Clicking to view the whole image doesn't show any title at all, leaving me to wonder what the user intended. I also want to be able to see the name of the user who submitted the screenshot.

--It is annoying that, when I want to view the second page of the second tab of a database page, the entire page reloads. I then must scroll down the page and click back to the tab I was on to view that second page. (Example: Azshara. Select "NPCs." Click on any page number other than 1.)

--I still currently use the Wowhead Looter add-on to expose NPC IDs. Is this something WoWDB can do?

--Transmogrification sets. I still find myself going to Wowhead to view lists of armor with matching art. I can understand if WoWDB chooses not to do this, though, but it would be nice.

More and more websites link to wowDB, but there's hardly any usefull info on the items that are linked. On wowhead, there are comments that usually help out. Maybe try to grab the comments from wowhead

Yeah, I don't think stealing comments from wowhead is the answer

MOAR CONTESTS.

I agree with Tziva. Don't copy/paste comments from Wowhead unless you wrote them yourself - in which case, go ahead! As a side note or FYI for everyone: Wowhead started adding watermarks to the screenshots in their database a couple of weeks ago. If you didn't hang on to your originals, then start saving the pictures back to your computer before they're watermarked. They've also updated the site ToS to state that user-submitted content (comments, pictures, etc) become the property of the website, though I don't know how recent that update is. So... yeah.

MOAR CONTESTS. I'd be willing to contribute a prize or two for this.

[chaud]

--Need to be able to filter by specific expansion. Pre-MoP and MoP is too general.

Yeah, just a matter of finding old copies of WoW and then flagging everything, then crying when there are 100s or 1000s of items that have to be tracked down and fixed manually. Will likely do at least some of this in the next month or two.

Need to be able to set "Difficulty type" filter to "Normal." Using "Any" returns too many results that I don't want.

This is being changed in the next site update to include any type of "green text" there on an item, so the Season 12 and such will be included. There isn't really a good way to filter to normal, as normal items aren't labeled as such. You can do this though.

--Change the appearance of quotes in database comment. Grey text on grey background is hard on my eyes.

Already planned, will be in the next update.

--Improved profile page layout. The current layout is better than the previous incarnation, but I'd like the tabs to be up on top instead of to the side. I prefer stuff centered on the page instead forced to the right side.

Profile pages aren't very popular yet, but that page is designed for all of the sites that run on this platform. I would imagine some sites have more tabs than can fit at the top, which we might as well someday.

--I desperately desire a tab on my profile page for Submitted Screenshots so I can keep easier track of what I have submitted.

Not sure what the ETA is on this, but it is something we want to do.

--I would like to see the ratings of my submitted posts on my profile page, and not click through to each post. It would allow me to keep track of posts that aren't doing well and take action - clarify, update, etc.

I'll see if this is possible.

--Screenshots on the database need better thumbnails. Or, rather, need to be thumbnails. Currently, it appears that WoWDB simply centers the original image, which makes for... interesting "thumbnails" at times.

We already generate some more reasonably shaped thumbnails for the latest screenshots page, so maybe we can use those on the pages as well.

--It is annoying that, when I want to view the second page of the second tab of a database page, the entire page reloads. I then must scroll down the page and click back to the tab I was on to view that second page. (Example: Azshara. Select "NPCs." Click on any page number other than 1.)

I *think* this is in the next update. Not 100% sure on that.

--I still currently use the Wowhead Looter add-on to expose NPC IDs. Is this something WoWDB can do?

I haven't tested it myself, but if all you want is the ID, maybe take this addon, make the fix from the comments, and remove the other things it is displaying? I don't think that is something we will add to the main addon, as 99.99% of the people won't need it.

MOAR CONTESTS. I'd be willing to contribute a prize or two for this.

No lack of prizes, just of time to moderate the comments that come in. When things slow down after 5.2 release maybe we can do them more often.

[HardCoder]

So provide something useful about where it comes up short. What does WowHead not do that you'd like to see happen either there or somewhere else?

WoWHead does a poor job handling the "recipe/spell-the-recipe-casts/object-the-recipe-creates" problem. In the case where a spell and a recipe are essentially equivalent, or a spell and an ability are essentially equivalent, they shouldn't appear as separate items in the UI. That is exposing the internals in a way that is unhelpful to users. (Especially when there are 20 spells with the same name.)

WoWHead's gear upgrade selector-thingy is clunky. The interface for finding DB items is clunky. Having armor types off on the right hand side is extra clunky.

I feel like you should be able to get more information by hovering/tooltips.

I would really like an easy way to get undermine-type auction house stats for items. And could that please be in an addon?

In fact, could the whole site be in an addon?

[chaud]

WoWHead's gear upgrade selector-thingy is clunky. The interface for finding DB items is clunky. Having armor types off on the right hand side is extra clunky.

Can you expand on this any, especially looking at the way we are doing things?

I feel like you should be able to get more information by hovering/tooltips.

We are going to go back and make a pass on adding more information to some other tooltips in the next few months, but we already have done a decent job exposing data in spell tooltips, see Arcane Shock as an example. You can see the damage it does in all different versions of the raids.

What else would you like to see?

I would really like an easy way to get undermine-type auction house stats for items. And could that please be in an addon?

TUJ and wowuction vis TSM already have addons.