Unique Features in Track Warcraft

There are several similar sites, including beimba, wowheroes, pugchecker, etc. However, TrackWarcraft has a few features that I haven't seen other places:

1. multi-character look up - with the addon you can instantly look up stats on everyone in /LFG or your raid. It lets you easily pick out who's geared enough. Other sites I've seen require you to look up each character individually, which takes a lot of time if there are 20 people in /LFG and you're looking for the best geared. Here's an example multi-character lookup.


2. rss/atom feed for a character - you can subscribe to updates (achievements, gear upgrades, new levels, etc) with your favorite feed reader, such as Google Reader.


3. speed - all of the armory requests are parallelized, so it should be fast, even if you look up 5 characters at once. The site runs on Google App Engine, so it's distributed and should be reliable.

There are also a few features that other sites have that Track Warcraft doesn't yet have, but I'd like to work on:

1. gear score - Currently trackwarcraft only gives the average item level and doesn't take into account enchants or gems. Be.imba has an API that I'll try to use to get a gear score that takes into account gems and enchants.


2. mobile interface - some of the armory lite sites provide a layout that's great for mobile phones. I'll try to make one, perhaps with a single column and larger text.


3. more graphics - The CSS and graphics are a bit weak. I'd like to improve the layout and make the site better looking.

If you have any other ideas, please let me know! You can leave a comment below, or email me.

How to Install and Use the Add-on

The TrackWarcraft add-on lets you quickly look up stats on everyone in /LFG, in your party, or in your raid. It also enables you to right-click a character's name in chat and quickly look up their stats. If you're comfortable with add-ons, you should download it here: TrackWarcraft-addon.zip

How to Install the Add-on
The installation process is the same as any other add-on. First download the add-on. Then you'll want to open the zip file and copy the TrackWarcraft folder in to the World of Warcraft AddOns directory. For example, my AddOns directory is "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns". The next time you start up Warcraft the AddOn will be loaded.

The add-on is 100% safe because it only uses Warcraft's Lua AddOn scripting language. There are no executables or anything else fishy.

How to look up Characters from Chat
Right click on the name of any character that's talking in chat and choose "Look up on TrackWarcraft". For example, if someone sends you a tell, right-click on their name and left-click on "Look up on TrackWarcraft":

Then you'll see a window with a website address already selected. Press Control+C to copy this website address into your clipboard:

Then open your favorite web browser, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome, and paste the website address into the location bar, usually by pressing Control+V


How to look up Characters in LFG
First join LFG, usually by typing /lfg Then select the type of group you're looking for, and go to the "Looking For More" tab. Once you've selected the type of group you're looking for, click on the "Look up on TrackWarcraft.com" button at the top of the LFG window:

You'll then see a window with the website address already selected. Press Control-C to copy this website address, and then paste it into your web browser. You'll see a multi-character list, such as this one.

Similarly, you can look up every character in your party or raid. Open the raid window and click the "Look up raid on TrackWarcraft.com" button at the top of the window:

Track Warcraft!

Track Warcraft lets you quickly look up stats on any World of Warcraft character. Just type in a character's name, choose a server and region, and press enter! You'll get a list of their gear item levels, what raids and dungeons they've defeated, and their recent achievements.

For an example, here's Segolene, a famous priest and a not quite as famous priest.

You can also subscribe to the RSS/Atom feed of any character. This way you can have the character's achievements, gear upgrades, new levels, etc delivered straight to your favorite RSS reader, such as Google Reader. To subscribe, look for the RSS icon at the bottom of any character's list of achievements. Here's an example feed.

To get the latest updates on TrackWarcraft, follow us on Twitter @trackwarcraft or subscribe to this blog.