It's pretty cool, but you should be able to have the option to make your profile private.

I am having a hard time understanding why people are wanting their character data private? Is the gear/spec you have in a video game really that important in the broad scheme of things?

Web 2.0 is a bad idea. Why does it have to be all Ajax based. Whats wrong with actual links that actually take you to different pages?

I don't want pvp teams to know how my team is spec'd. I just dont see a reason to show everyone all the information about my character. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but I dont want people to ask me where I got X and Y or if I think Z item is better then.. you get the point.

Knowing the specs of members of opposing arena teams before a game is a huge advantage. If I know a mage is AP-Pyro spec'd, I'm certainly going to play very differently than if he is full frost - similarly with warlocks and soul link, etc. If Blizzard is trying to frame arena as a meaningful competitive environment, information about the spec/gear of opposing teams being public takes away from that

Somewhat to my amusement, I got two Rupture invitation codes about an hour after Blizzard announced the Armory. It's more likely coincidence than anything else, but one could assume it was panic.

(Which would be a bit silly, since Rupture is aiming at a slightly different niche.)

I think it's a good thing that spec is avaliable for pvp purposes. If you take the time to know everyone's spec that you could potentially play then you have done your homework and know what to expect. It's good combat tactics to know as much about your opponent as possible.

Yeah, its horrible in the professional sports how teams know who's on who's roster and who's good at doing what

It adds another element where teams have to study how other teams play and their builds etc instead of instantly accessing standing behind poles at the moment.

how does the armory exacerbate this issue? anyone asking you about your gear could just as easily see it from the in-game inspect as from the armory.

i understand the concern about talent builds, but your gear is already public and easily seen by anyone on your server.

or are you honestly worried about people seeing your gear online and creating a lvl1 alt on your server just to send you tells with questions about your gear??

I dont think so. I was waiting one for a bit and just got one today too.


Also I dont think that someone will specifically look for your character unless they already see your gear, likely this person will already be on your server.

Do you really see the same teams so often that you could keep a little handy-dandy cheat sheet of their specs next to your computer so that you could adjust your game as the arena gates open?

Most peoples specs are pretty easily worked out if your facing someone specificly you worry about, and if u say any joe bloggs will be able to find out, the ones that are really bothered about it are most likely the ones who can work it out - atleast by the aparent uber hc pvpers of which this matters most.

If you're a top 10 team, you probably will. I know our guys are all scouring over the top teams in Bloodlust.

10 minutes of effort, the result of which is literally priceless in competitive arena battles.

If I actually bothered to do arena, and were skilled enough to be on a top team (I'm not), I'd be spending hours pouring over the other top 5-10 teams specs/talents and possible team compositions. But then again, I have pretty good memory retention for stuff like that so the details would just stick.

All that being said, I really have nothing to hide, but I'd still prefer to opt out, were that an option.

The thing is, if you play a team enough that it's valuable to know their specs, you also play them enough to have figured out their specs... It only takes one game for anything significant.

Yes. I already know at least the basic specs of the regular members of most of the other top teams in my battlegroup. I'll absolutely look at the spec of every mage on the top 20-25 teams and note if any of them are lacking iceblock.

It costs 50g to respec. I'm pretty sure at least 3 guys on our 5v5 team respec weekly, and I know they pay for our MT to respec MS on a weekly basis. I'm not 100% sure what the refresh rate is on the data, but within an hour or so of me (finally) getting revered w/ thrallmar the site had the info posted.

So, assuming you've got a pretty serious team, there is a good chance they're going to set aside a convenient time for the team to bust out a few games. All it takes is one person knowing when you're planning on playing your games, do a little REAL TIME (for all intents and purposes) research before hand and know more or less who/what you're going to face.

It really is pretty game changing in my very humble opinion.

Has this site even been implemented? It just bounces back and forth between 2-3 servers before it times out.

It has, but as i'm sure you can imagine it's such a brilliant and comprehensive tool that everyone is looking at everyone. Hell, whilst it's been fairly easy for me to check up on people i know in Europe trying to find anything out about Hamlet/Gurg/Xsi/Kaubel/Elendril etc has been nigh impossible due to the server traffic.
kno
In reference to the meta-game Wodin mentioned, having played MtG for many years and now turning my attention to the WoW card game, knowing who I might come up against is incredibly useful. What's also useful is seeing that in the Conquest battlegroup the top teams in 3v3 and 2v2 are a good 100-200 ahead of 5 and below and already edging into the 2.1k ratings.

So we can (at least I hope) agree that Gear doesn't matter because people can just inspect people anyways...also, world first gear like the first Corrupted Ashbringer is always "leaked" onto the Dungeon Forums anyways.

So basically it comes down to Specs that some people might be worried about...and really, is that such a big deal? On the best teams, all Paladins are going to be Holy/Prot, Warriors are going to be MS, Shaman are going to be Elemental/Resto and Priests are going to be Holy/Disc (all of this before the patch). You can argue that for the 2v2 and 3v3, all Druids will be Feral as well. So that leaves Rogues, Mages, Hunters and Warlocks. Warlocks get Assist Trained no matter what, and Rogues specs can be determined by their weapons.

Now, I'm not on a top PvP team, but I still can't really see how knowing the specs of a few people (who might not even be in the game as most 5v5 teams have 7-10 members) is really all that helpful. I mean, it's not like they are going to surprise you with a Prot Warrior, a Ret Pally, an Enhancement Shaman, a Fire Mage and a Resto Druid.

All the data is XML based so assuming it stays this way there is a pretty easy interface. I used the EU site, but pretty sure the US one is similar:

To get the XML data for one character:
Gear, rep, skills: http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-sheet.xml?r=<realm>&n=<character>
Talents: http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-talents.xml?r=<realm>&n=<character>

View source to see the XML data as most browsers will style it using the specified XSL. To get data about each individual item you have to use:
http://armory.wow-europe.com/item-tooltip.xml?i=<item id>&r=<realm>&n=<character>

You seem to have to specify a realm+character that has the item in their listing or you just get a blank result.

For a complete guild listing:
http://armory.wow-europe.com/guild-info.xml?r=<realm>&n=<guild>

The XML data itself still needs some decoding and matching up the id's to human values. Should still be pretty easy to use this data for some good.

It works in Firefox. When it works, that is.

The AJAX on this is... horrible. Sure, they did it to avoid having to process stuff server side, but...

I like the site, I think it's the best char profile site yet. I also don't think the privacy issue is that big of a deal. I guess I can understand for PvP, but really it takes just 1 game to figure it out, and it's not like it's privilege information, everyone has access to it. I do wish they would show stats without buffs, since stats are modified according to whatever buffs or debuffs happen to be on.