I think Blizzard should ban data mining.

[Aggrophobic]

It undermines the game and never keeps the new content fresh since most people what is already in the new content. The content also barely changes from ptr. If you want to see the new content they should make everyone download the ptr instead of relying on sites like wowhead perculia would be out a job which makes me more happy. I mean back in vanillia data mining didn’t exist and we were fine.

Stay away from MMO-C or sites such as this and don't play on the PTR - Problem fixed.

[HuxNeva]

It undermines the game and never keeps the new content fresh since most people what is already in the new content. The content also barely changes from ptr. If you want to see the new content they should make everyone download the ptr instead of relying on sites like wowhead perculia would be out a job which makes me more happy. I mean back in vanillia data mining didn’t exist and we were fine.

I hear what you say. However, public data-mining and analysis levels the playing field. Now everyone has access. You can't stop it, and to go back to a situation where only a select number of players had access to it (and many thought it didn't exist just because they did not do/had access) would just create a wide gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

[Soulwind]

All the changes I mentioned affect all tools out there, including WoWModelViewer and my own application. Filename removal is probably the worst for such applications because they won't be able to make a pretty list of files to select from. This is why WMV regularly has to update their listfile (list of filenames) with this listfile which is community-updated. If that were to go away, new models won't show up in WMV anymore. The fanart community relying on tools like this is my only hope for Blizzard not getting rid of filename lookups and such.

And Blizzard releasing some of their own tools would be great, but I don't see it happening.

If they deleted the filenames, couldn't they release their own listfiles somewhere? That way they would filter what fans can and can't see, while supporting third party tools.

It could also be somewhat automatic with patch releases/hotfixes, once content gets flagged as public, its... uh... identifier? gets added to the list.

[Heeresman]

@Marlamin

appreciate your comments. Thanks.
Much more insightful.

[Marlamin]

I hear what you say. However, public data-mining and analysis levels the playing field. Now everyone has access. You can't stop it, and to go back to a situation where only a select number of players had access to it (and many thought it didn't exist just because they did not do/had access) would just create a wide gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.

Sadly, we're already heading that way with only WoWHead and MMO-C having the tools/driving force to keep bruteforcing/guessing filenames/updating file format documentation.

If they deleted the filenames, couldn't they release their own listfiles somewhere? That way they would filter what fans can and can't see, while supporting third party tools.

It could also be somewhat automatic with patch releases/hotfixes, once content gets flagged as public, its... uh... identifier? gets added to the list.

They did in the past but stopped in 7.0.3. I'd welcome it if they brought that back, though!

[Deleted]

Ahhhh, good ole Thottbot. Where almost everyone went to find Mankrik's wife.

I still recall requiring a Ph.D in understanding the comments to work out where I was supposed to go! Some of them were so cryptic for some quests!

[rda]

Sadly, we're already heading that way with only WoWHead and MMO-C having the tools/driving force to keep bruteforcing/guessing filenames/updating file format documentation.

Blizzard can stop the bruteforcing easily if they wanted to, even for those who have an army of helpers / lots of computation power to throw at the issue.

The point of the thread, however, is keeping the content fresh and disabling data mining does pretty much nothing regarding that, it doesn't help.

One might ask: why did then Blizzard take measures to close things more if this does not make the content fresher. The answer is: they are doing this for other reasons, like not to leak something they might decide not to ship. They want more control.

[Marlamin]

Blizzard can stop the bruteforcing easily if they wanted to, even for those who have an army of helpers / lots of computation power to throw at the issue.

Sure, I mentioned in my first post. Filename lookups going away would do exactly that.

The point of the thread, however, is keeping the content fresh and disabling data mining does pretty much nothing regarding that, it doesn't help.

One might ask: why did then Blizzard take measures to close things more if this does not make the content fresher. The answer is: they are doing this for other reasons, like not to leak something they might decide not to ship. They want more control.

I think they use the encryption purely for time-gating content. It does make the content fresher as we aren't able to look at it before testing/release. Them adding support for encrypting maps only backs that up more. We would have found out about the wound much later if they didn't forget to encrypt the maptextures/properly finished map encryption before it. There's currently a map in-game that we don't know anything about other than it's non-descriptive name that was bruteforced (bltestmap). It is effectively hidden content until they decide to show it, but I think this map might just be what they used to test map encryption out as that caused a lot of issues for their previous try (Silithus Wound). They also went through the trouble of making the story/raid cinematics only decrypt per-character instead of per-realm as it used to be.

Moving BroadcastText entries to the server also kept us in the dark for a while until WoWHead & MMOC figured out how to ask the server for it. Not all content is available for testing on PTR these days, and there's a lot they can hide from us now. Them wanting more control is right, but I think it's control over when they release content, not if.

[Vargulf the Happy Husky]

data mining serves it's purpose because it gives us a head start in our bitching.

what we data mine today will be the 1000 page forum post tomorrow!

[Corroc]

Thottbot says Hi. We had that back then, and it was just wowhead in another form.

Those who say wowhead is filled with malware never visited Thottbot in the last years.

[Heeresman]

Thottbot -

The people that don't go to ThottBot are the casual players, and they're the ones you need to hold the hand of.

[Rotted]

Personally I'm not fond of data mining, I do avoid looking at stuff until the actual content lands, but I also like coming to this website to see what new announcements have been made etc. Sometimes it's just unfortunate something mined is on the home page

[WowIsDead64]

It's impossible, if Blizzard still need to exploit us as free testers.

[Lupinemancer]

It undermines the game and never keeps the new content fresh since most people what is already in the new content. The content also barely changes from ptr. If you want to see the new content they should make everyone download the ptr instead of relying on sites like wowhead perculia would be out a job which makes me more happy. I mean back in vanillia data mining didn’t exist and we were fine.

Can't you just, I don't know, NOT look at it? I know it sounds crazy, actually using your brain to think to not look at something you are shown, but it works, trust me.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Its easy. Dont come to these websites.

Just like it’s a ''choice'' to min/max or any other 'preplanning' parts of the game- it’s a matter of doing it right or not in some circles.
Take DBM or BigWigs, addons, that 100% relies on datamining and beta testing ...you could chose to not use them but if you do «you’re doing it wrong» comes up.

In the end it has to be a manager/leader descision by Blizzard, if there’s something available that makes you better prepared or more able to play the game then it’s going to be done.
Part of the game now is knowing exactly what to do but make it hard enough to be a challenge.

[Aeula]

Why would they do that? Data mining is part of the hype that keeps their game alive through content drought.

[Noxina]

It undermines the game and never keeps the new content fresh since most people what is already in the new content. The content also barely changes from ptr. If you want to see the new content they should make everyone download the ptr instead of relying on sites like wowhead perculia would be out a job which makes me more happy. I mean back in vanillia data mining didn’t exist and we were fine.

Just because you didn't find any datamined information back in Vanilla, doesn't mean it was none.

And there is a very simply sollution to your "problem", don't read patch notes before they are official. Tadaaa