A new quest giver extension
  • frosty1433frosty1433 December 2009
    I have created a program capable of getting information on every quest giver known to the WoW information database industry. Unforturnately I am not so good with Lua, or more like the WoW API. (yet) So I guess you can say I have a whole library full of quest givers, their names, locations, etc... But no shelves to put them on.

    Gatherer is the-most-efficient icon displayer for the Map/Minimap that I've ever seen. I would like to make a few requests/suggestions, in order to give my database a home. I don't expect all requests to be met, and it would certainly be great to have any met at all.

    First request, is to please add an addtional section to Gatherer for quests.

    Second request, is to create a second sister-addon of Gatherer, if developers are unwilling to go for the first one. What I mean by this, is to have an addon exactly like Gatherer, but just for NPCs. If this request were met, I would expand the database I have with vendors, flight masters, trainers, and everything else I can get a hold of.

    Third request, which is probably more practical, please provide some more information on sytanx/format of the Gatherer Wowhead DB. This will make it possible for me to rewrite my program to format my own database, into a database importable by Gatherer. I believe it would atleast be possible then to display quests in place of treasures. However at a cost of some information from my database.

    I would like to team up with the Gatherer development team, to help make this database available to the public domain. If any of my requests are met, I am willing to hand the database over to the Gatherer team, along with my tool to keep it updated.

    Please consider this, thank you.
  • MattBnrMattBnr December 2009
    Posted By: frosty1433
    First request, is to please add an addtional section to Gatherer for quests.

    I can probably bet the author will say no to this request as that is outside the scope of gatherer. But i will let him have the final say so.

    for everything else you want carbonite already does this. most likely questhelper does too. along with other quest addons such as monkey quest or quest guru among others.
  • HirsuteHirsute December 2009
    Developer
    As was mentioned in IRC, as well, before you even consider compiling a database of data taken from Wowhead and making it public, you need to talk to Wowhead and get their permission. I'll let Esamynn comment, when he has time, on your other suggestions.
  • frosty1433frosty1433 December 2009
    @Hirsute, I agree with you to a certain degree. However after month, when I first had the idea, of no replies from Wowhead... I think it would be perfectly fine to proceed, and I'll explain why.

    The content on the Wowhead DB is public domain. It is information collected from by users, who collect this information from a company with a large ToS... I'm no law expert, but afaik it would actually be illegal for Wowhead to refuse to allow me to collect information it's servers. On another note, the HTML source code actually makes it very easy to rip this information from their server. You only need to load 14 different pages (if you use the filters carefully) to get a complete list of NPCs that start a quest. They most likely anticipate people people ripping information from their servers.

    But again, I do agree... it would be more honorable to get permission before doing something like this. If you know of some sure place to get in contact with Wowhead owners, please point me in right direction (zam.com?), because I've tried... Believe me. If it were the original owners of Wowhead paying for the servers, and not an actual company like ZAM, than I would definately get permission among anything else.
  • AnrDaemonAnrDaemon December 2009
    QuestHelper already have this functionality implemented. To some extent.
  • frosty1433frosty1433 December 2009
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't QuestHelper for "completes quest" and not "gives quests" NPCs? Anyways, QuestHelper is nice, and I had fun with it. But I've always had some performance issues with it. I'm glad to have gotten rid of QuestHelper with patch 3.3.
  • HirsuteHirsute December 2009
    Developer
    Posted By: frosty1433
    @Hirsute, I agree with you to a certain degree. However after month, when I first had the idea, of no replies from Wowhead... I think it would be perfectly fine to proceed, and I'll explain why.


    The content on the Wowhead DB is public domain. It is information collected from by users, who collect this information from a company with a large ToS... I'm no law expert, but afaik it would actually be illegal for Wowhead to refuse to allow me to collect information it's servers. On another note, the HTML source code actually makes it very easy to rip this information from their server. You only need to load 14 different pages (if you use the filters carefully) to get a complete list of NPCs that start a quest. They most likely anticipate people people ripping information from their servers.

    But again, I do agree... it would be more honorable to get permission before doing something like this. If you know of some sure place to get in contact with Wowhead owners, please point me in right direction (zam.com?), because I've tried... Believe me. If it were the original owners of Wowhead paying for the servers, and not an actual company like ZAM, than I would definately get permission among anything else.


    You are incorrect. They could refuse your request for data, and simply tell you to find your own way to obtain the data for the game. They can, and do, hold copyright on the web pages they post, which you are scraping. They can, and do, have a legal right to protect their resources.

    The best way to contact someone who has the authority to give you permission is to jump in their irc channel on freenode (#wowhead) and ping Malgayne when he's there.
  • MattBnrMattBnr December 2009
    Carbonite has just started using the questserverquery function implemented by blizzard in the last patch. there is also tourguide, everyquest among others that use it. For a addon that does "quest givers" check out tourguide. i use it for leveling alts and i find it just awesome. especially now with the ability to check and see what quests i have done in what areas. loremaster here i come.
  • AnrDaemonAnrDaemon December 2009
    Posted By: frosty1433
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't QuestHelper for "completes quest" and not "gives quests" NPCs? Anyways, QuestHelper is nice, and I had fun with it. But I've always had some performance issues with it. I'm glad to have gotten rid of QuestHelper with patch 3.3.


    You are wrong.
  • frosty1433frosty1433 December 2009
    Posted By: Hirsute
    You are incorrect. They could refuse your request for data, and simply tell you to find your own way to obtain the data for the game. They can, and do, hold copyright on the web pages they post, which you are scraping. They can, and do, have a legal right to protect their resources.


    The best way to contact someone who has the authority to give you permission is to jump in their irc channel on freenode (#wowhead) and ping Malgayne when he's there.
    Thank you for the information. I guess it would actually be wise to get permission above all else.

    @MattBnr, thanks for the suggestion... I just find Carbonite terribly inefficient, but I suppose I would have no choice if this something I want enough.
Add a Comment
Privacy · Advertising
Norganna's AddOns Network · World Of Minecraft · WoM Realms · Auctioneer Addon · Gatherer Addon · Addon Forums · RDRCT