Armory updated to include stats and achievements

by Mike Schramm Nov 26th 2008 at 11:00AM

Blizzard has updated the Armory with a new Wrath of the Lich King theme, and achievements and stat information for each player. It's very cool -- not only can you check out what each player has done so far (including all and recent achievements, and all of the statistics available ingame), but you can also compare players to each other, both in the stats and achievements pages, and you even get, as you can see above, the totals for everything, so you can see just how "achieved" you are.

Very cool. We've been expecting this one since patch 3.0.2 came out (if it's in the game, why wouldn't it be in the Armory?) but obviously other priorities rose to the top before now. Blizzard did a great job with it, though -- they can all head off to the holiday weekend now without worrying about the update.

And then, when they get back, maybe we can haz an official API?

Update: Just noticed that Blizzard also has a news feed on the main page when you log in that tells you about goings on and realm firsts for your character specifically, from who's downed the heroics recently to the first characters to 80 on your own realm. I wonder what they'll report on when all the firsts have been taken, but we'll have to see -- that might be an interesting feed to follow (they provide RSS for it as well).

Tags: achievements, armory, blizzard, design, feats of strength, FeatsOfStrength, stats, updates, wrath, wrath-of-the-lich-king

Filed under: Odds and ends, Blizzard, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King, Achievements

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

Mep Nov 26th 2008 11:06AM

With this new information, I will be making long overdue updates to http://www.wow-achievements.com over the next couple days!

Mark Nov 26th 2008 3:06PM

Please update a blog or something if you figure out what they're doing - right now it looks all unfriendly and ajax-y, not nice parseable XML files like I had hoped for, like their other files on the Armory.

Mep Nov 26th 2008 3:41PM

I have figured out what they are doing, however yes, grabbing the info is going to be hard... however I have found the source that I want... just have to find out how to extract it :)

I'm amazing, I'll figure it out lol.

stabbington Nov 27th 2008 11:28AM

It doesn't seem any more difficult than anything else. Pick your HTTP library of choice (I'm a Ruby guy, so Net::HTTP), set your UA to Firefox so you get XML instead of having the XSL applied server-side, then go get the data you want.

Appending &c=[id] to the character-achievements.xml URL gives you the detail view for each category. The IDs are listed in the summary URL.

I love the Armory for this stuff. You know the "API" (even though it may not be an official API) is going to have all the data you need because they eat their own dog food with it.

Mcdreamy Nov 26th 2008 11:10AM

I'm just excited that the armory seems to be updating more than once a week.

Mondryn Nov 26th 2008 11:14AM

What's the URL for the news feed?

Darkwind Nov 26th 2008 11:26AM

Agreed. If you could post the feed here, that'd be great.

The RSS symbol isn't an active link at this point.

Thanks!

crsh Nov 26th 2008 11:15AM

I was afraid they'd add achievements to the Armory to be honest, we don't need more pointless e-peen stroking.

Achievements: the casual end-game for solo'ers?

Thrush Nov 26th 2008 12:02PM

Exactly. I agree that epeen stroking is an unfortunate side effect, but it defiantly extends the gameplay for casual people. I really like the Achievements and look forward to seeing what little toys we can get with the points.

Pepe Nov 26th 2008 11:25AM

One issues is that if you have a toon with a name containing an out of the way letter i.e. Å it gives you an error message and you can t see them

Alan Nov 26th 2008 12:30PM

Good. Maybe people will stop using those asinine characters now.

Risa Nov 26th 2008 1:15PM

They just broke the referencing. If you fix the name in the address bar it will work fine. Use a string converter like the one here http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/topics/urlencoding.htm to find the correct URL code for the special character you need.

Soni Nov 26th 2008 11:29AM

Actually it's updating at least once per day, because every morning when I get up I check the armory on my char (no particular reason) and I see all the new items + enchants I got on the night before.

I also support this improvement. (means a lot to people who wonna track your character and they play on different server)

GG blizz

miked Nov 26th 2008 11:29AM

On the note about the API- character descriptions *are* available as XML, view the armory in firefox 3 and hit "view source" to see it.

You can get this data in your own program by setting your User-Agent to match that of firefox.

Mattias Löfblad Nov 26th 2008 12:19PM

Would you be so kind as to show exactly how that's done?

miked Nov 30th 2008 2:01AM

No, because it's completely different depending on what programming language and libraries you're using. Google will be much more helpful in this regard. Besides, someone who's ever made an application with an HTTP component should have a pretty good idea of how to go about it. I don't mean to dismiss your request for help but it's pretty far beyond the scope of WoWInsider comments ;-)

Also, sorry for how long it took me to reply.

Runstadrey Nov 26th 2008 11:31AM

Was just looking over my achievepeens and noticed something very strange - Items Pickpocketed ... 21. Now how did my weedpicking/mixology shammy manage pickpocketing? He's so clumsy he can't even tie his shoes, he hasta have velcro tabs.

Laynne Nov 26th 2008 12:00PM

Hehe what a great visual, a little shammy with velcro shoes :)

I've noticed the same type of thing. I've been on 1 arena team, and played 10 matches total ever (all in 2v2). But when I look at my stats, it lists things for 3v3 and 5v5, which doesn't make sense...unless my character is doing something after I log off I don't know about...

JohnC Nov 26th 2008 12:34PM

same im a new 70 but under my stats i have hundred of 5v5 3v3 2v2 kills but under the actual arena HK tab i have none:S and my biggest hit is 29k....(im a hunter, i swearr i never hit that high)

FenSat Nov 26th 2008 12:59PM

@JohnC

Those hits are likely either from the bombing runs (those count) or the Wrathgate event (the buff increases damage to insane levels). My lock's biggest hit was around 39k and the biggest hit I sustained was around 37k (I aggro'ed Puttress during the Wrathgate event...Puttress hits hard...)

The only thing I'm not liking about this is the wealth information. I'm not that wealthy, but I'm not necessarily a fan of making my characters' income common knowledge. While it's true that it would be difficult for someone with malicious intent to link a character's name to an account name, I really don't like possibly providing an additional incentive for those people to even try it. I can see the potential for wealthy characters to become targets for hacking...or at least for slacker friends/relatives/guildies to bum gold from. lol

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