WoWDB Feedback

[Deleted]

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

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

____________________________________________________________

Why does WoWDB exist / why another database site?

Wowdb was created to replace db.mmo-champion.com which was created because Wowhead refused to work with us years ago and we needed it to run MMO-Champion. There is absolutely no way for a company as big as Wowhead/Zam/Tencent Games to work with MMO-Champion in the first place because it would require us to have access to absolutely everything they have, which is a pretty good reason to refuse.

The first goal was to provide better content on MMO-Champion compared to what we had with db.mmo-champion.com and we achieved that goal pretty easily. It also brought some competition back to the market and improved things indirectly for everyone, including people who use Wowhead. Competition is always good.

WoWDB is mostly a "hey let's see what we can do with this" project with no real goal. It's a 100% money sink for the company and even if we added an ad slot somewhere it would still be a pretty huge money loss. The main goal is really just to support MMO-Champion's news and make our life easier on this side.

However, I'm glad that some people/other major sites adopted it because it lets me work with smart minds that provide us with a decent amount of feedback and let us improve our database platform altogether (contributing to the success of gw2db.com for example) but I'm not really on a crusade to destroy Wowhead, otherwise I wouldn't have them listed as the most obvious link on every page you click.

WoWDB is used to power most of what's behind MMO-Champion's news. It replaced db.mmo-champion.com that was becoming super obsolete and wouldn't have survived MoP. It's also a way to try to improve user experience on MMO-C over db.mmo-champion.com pages we had because those were pretty bad.

It's a technological sandbox to let us improve the database platform on a company level. The improvements on wowdb are partially the reason why gw2db was more succesful than other databases for example.

The original reason why MMO-C had to create a DB was already mentioned in the thread, Wowhead got too big to be able to work with us and we were stuck with the choice of either doing our own thing, or posting really shitty news. The amount of data processing that goes into patch news requires way too much access than what we could have gotten from another company.

Some people also mentioned that competition is good, and I tend to agree with that. WoWDB was the first database to support a bunch of things such as spec variable spells or item upgrades. We also focus a lot more on newsing, so our spell parsing tends to be much cleaner to keep the unofficial notes clear: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=100780/jab / http://www.wowdb.com/spells/100780-jab

We also have random features like reagents breakdown http://www.wowdb.com/spells/93328-vial-of-the-sands

The goal isn't really to compete with Wowhead, it's more of a pet project to see if we can find new ways to improve MMO-C and make the experience more enjoyable for users with what we have.

[Potassiumgluconate]

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.

[Deleted]

Agreed, sadly for you, I tend to follow Wowhead to do all the stuff they do, plus I like the wowhead theme more, but that is a matter of personal taste ofc...

regarding both DB, they are quite good and easy to navigate/work with, sadly when I see things in wowdb, i tend to just skip entirely to the wowhead link because, again, style/theme and comments.

I'll try to pay more atention to wowDB from now on so I can give you a pros/cons when compared to wowhead!

Hope my personal experience helped out, and that wowDB grows to be as good or even better resource as wowhead. Good Luck!

[Shiny212]

what's wowDB?

[Deleted]

I tend to just use Wowhead, to be honest.

[Deleted]

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.
At the moment, there just seems to be no real reason to use wowdb rather than wowhead - other than personal preference maybe. :/

[Herecius]

The model viewing feature of WoWhead is almost certainly one of its best features. The lack of such a feature on WoWDB is extremely noticeable.

Being able to create a custom-made list of gear is also a great feature of WoWhead.

That WoWhead is also accompanied by a darker background makes extended viewing on a large monitor less eye-straining.

[bsm0f0]

Pretty much this.
At the moment, there just seems to be no real reason to use wowdb rather than wowhead - other than personal preference maybe. :/

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.

[Viradiance]

WoWhead is more established and has more or less better features. I've not felt any reason to make a change, so I continue to use WoWhead for my searching.

WoWDB does have better filters though, I feel.

[Jaese]

I, too, often just use the wowhead link, especially if I want to see what the item looks like (model viewer). Comments are helpful and are generally tertiary as reasoning for searches on wowhead, however.

If wowDB had a model viewer (that worked better than wowhead's--it bugs a little sometimes), I'd use wowDB more often directly.

[edit] Also, yes, darken the negative space (a dark green would be nice--doesn't have to be black).

[Sildor]

Wowhead has a very large amount of user-generated content which simply makes it much better. The WowDB design is clearly inspired by Wowhead, in fact it looks more or less like a clone but with a lot less content.

Once it has a lot of useful comments, screenshots, maps and other things it can outdo Wowhead, but it'll be hard to get there since there currently isn't much point in using it next to Wowhead.

[Nelle]

Wowhead background is black and much more relaxing for the eyes to view compared to WowDB

[The High Druid]

Everytime I've used WoWDB: I find at item, see a lack of comments and extra information, and go over to wowhead where I find exactly what I want.

I honestly don't know what you could ever do to catch up - the comments offer a wealth of information that's just not there on WoWDB and until I get better information from you (better than wowhead that is) I won't switch.

[omni]

I've tried using wowdb but linking an item simply isn't enough for the majority of the database. The user comments, screenshots, model viewer etc. are essential and wowhead has this covered due to it's age. Wowhead is visually nicer as well, I'm not a big fan of the wowdb color scheme. Seems like a wasted effort sadly.

Thottbot and Allakhazam, now those were the days!...

[Gurbz]

You need a model viewer feature such as wowhead's very badly. Aside from that, the biggest reason I tend to use wowhead more is that I prefer that overall visual design. Wowdb can be hard to look at for an extended time.

[Azrile]

Honestly, unless wowhead does something terribly wrong, it will just be hard to get people to switch. Wowhead improved a lot on thotbot y alka, which made those sites (and their useless comments) obsolete. Wowhead has a big lead on WOWDB just based on name recognition, but also in regards to their extensive (and mostly useful) comments.

The other thing I would mention that I don´t like about wowdb is how big it appears on the page. Most tables are built to be the entire width of my screen, which means the content is very big, and requires excessive scrolling. A lot of time when you are looking at something like a professions crafting chart, you want to see a lot of data on one screen. Every time I use it, I need to change it to 75%

[Puri]

I honestly don't know what wowdb would be for. It is pretty much a exact copy of wowhead, with less comments and contents (missing modelviewers and very few screenshots) and different colors (and I have to add I prefer the wowhead colors).

I cannot complain about the speed or usability of wowhead, so I really see no reason to use wowdb right now for me.

[Herecius]

Vaguely formed suggestion:

Consider creating some manner of addon that can fulfill some manner of easy and useful purpose by syncing up to WoWDB. I'm not talking about parsing addons or the like, perhaps something related to gear lists, or maps, or even some manner of customized model viewer in-game. These are just random ideas, but my point is that WoWDB isn't doing anything WoWhead doesn't already do. It needs to stand out, which means it needs a GOOD feature that WoWhead really doesn't have.

[Deleted]

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

[Deleted]

Yeah, I actually don't see the pro either. The only time I come there is because the frontpage linked it and I only find the Wowhead link and move on (why do you even link to your main competitor, it's a bit odd). I'm not sure why WowDB exists, it does nothing that hasn't been done and done better (mostly by wowhead).