Thottbot

Thottbot was an unofficial World of Warcraft plug-in and database website.[1] On November 30, 2010, Thottbot was discontinued as a separate database and just returned Wowhead results.[2] Due to this change, separate comments independent to Thottbot, old news, and separate forums were largely removed. On November 16, 2016, the Wowhead-powered Thottbot site was discontinued, and all Thottbot URLs began to forward to their equivalent pages on Wowhead.

The plug-in, which is programmed in Lua,[3] collected information while a person is playing the game— it recorded statistics such as the drop rates of items, locations of specific mobs, and quest information – users could then upload the information to the website's database. The information on the website only came from players using the plug-in and who take the time to upload the data. Simon Carless of Gamasutra described Thottbot as a "major item listing site".[4] As of March 9, 2008, web traffic company Alexa reported that Thottbot.com was the 250th most visited site on the internet.[5]

Information contained on Thottbot includes descriptions of items, weapons and armor pieces. Web users can browse by categories or search by item names. Players may also create a profile of their current status, so that others may search and view different players. This also entailed the user running a plug-in, and since it is a volunteer type of system, not every player is represented, nor was it guaranteed to be wholly up to date.

During the Austin Game Conference in 2006, World of Warcraft lead designer Rob Pardo spoke of the hardcore market and casual market for World of Warcraft, saying "The people that don't go to ThottBot are the casual players, and they're the ones you need to hold the hand of."[6] A January 2007 article in the Detroit Free Press named the site as a good place to find jewelcrafting designs discovered during the beta test of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.[7]

The original Thottbot was a news aggregator created by Bill "Aftathott" Dyess, founder of the EverQuest guild "Afterlife". Its purpose was to comb various video game websites for news and information on a number of MMORPGs with a focus on EverQuest. Though the primary site is now used for the World of Warcraft database, the news aggregator still exists as a sister site. Thottbot is also affiliated with Cosmos, a popular collection of user-interface modifications.

Thottbot owner ZAM Network acquired the World of Warcraft database Wowhead in June 2007 according to Next Generation magazine.[8] The Inquirer noted that Affinity Media, parent company of Thottbot and Allakhazam, bought Wowhead for $1 million, giving them ownership of all three major World of Warcraft databases.[9] Affinity Media was the previous parent company of IGE, which generated revenue from selling World of Warcraft gold, but Affinity Media later severed ties with IGE.,[10] though there is some dispute on this note.[11]

References

  1. ↑ Parker Howell (2007-05-30). "Gamers will take pause: Firm tests easier way to kill orcs and answer e-mail at the same time.". The Spokesman-Review.
  2. ↑ TheOnyx (Nov 30, 2010). "Thottbot Merged with Wowhead Framework". Wowhead News. Retrieved May 26, 2012.
  3. ↑ "Thottbot World of Warcraft: About This Site". thottbot.com. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  4. ↑ Simon Carless (2006-08-25). "IGE: Inside The MMO Trading Machine". Gamasutra. p. 4. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  5. ↑ "thottbot.com – Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  6. ↑ N. Evan Van Zelfden (2006-09-06). "Austin: Secrets of WoW Design". Next Generation. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  7. ↑ Newman, Heather (2007-01-15). "A guide to jewelcrafting". Detroit Free Press.
  8. ↑ Kris Graft (2007-06-25). "Thottbot Owner Acquires Wowhead". Next Generation. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  9. ↑ Nick Farrell (2007-06-25). "WOW fansite sold to ad outfit". The Inquirer. Retrieved 2008-03-09.
  10. ↑ N. Evan Van Zelfden (2007-06-07). "Q&A: Affinity's Maffei Talks IGE Sale, MMO Media Future". Gamasutra. Retrieved 2008-03-10.
  11. ↑ Jeff (2007-07-03). "Gold Selling and the Art of Disinformation". Retrieved 2011-04-20.
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