Project Lore

Just last week, I was wondering who owned WoW.com and why Blizzard didn't just lay down a few hundred thousand or even million to pick it up. The acronym "WoW" is very common and I'd rather type "wow.com" into my address bar than "worldofwarcraft.com" to get to things like forums and account management.

Well, my question was recently answered. The owners of WoW Insider picked up WoW.com and now WoW Insider has been re-branded WoW.com. They have a new layout and lots of new features.

There are three methods of registration for WoW.com. You can make a new registration or login using Facebook Connect or using your AIM account. I've had a good experience using my Facebook account on other sites, like Digg, so I went ahead and did that. I didn't have to enter any information; I instantly had an account without even logging into the site. I was able to pick a username for my account (Heartbourne naturally) and had the ability to use the new features.

My favorite feature are the user profiles. You can download their addon and application which tracks your activities in WoW. After entering in your user key from wow.com into the addon, it can track quests completed, zones entered or left, achievements, raids, leveling, and guild membership. You can write one line messages that are like tweets. After logging off, simply run the bundled application to upload your data. Users can "follow" or "friend" each other, like on Twitter, to receive updates from their friends and fans.

I highly suggest that if you plan to use the addon that you think carefully about what information you want to submit. Chances are nobody cares about what zones you enter or leave, and it will spam your profile pretty badly, as evidenced by my escapade with the addon. I don't know why that feature is on by default; it really slowed down the upload process. The uploading application was slow and crashed a couple times for me, but that was with dozens of pages of zoning data.

I was kind of hoping it would make an RSS feed or report back to Facebook or something with the updates. I don't really foresee myself using the WoW.com website much, and I already use Hearthstone to keep up with my friend's activities in WoW. My auto-updating Twitter is full of updates already and the updates are pushed out to people who are interested, instead of them having to sign into a website.

Finally, you get your own blog and screenshot gallery setup. I think this may be a crowning feature if users decide to use it. Anyone can start blogging to a huge potential audience at a WoW-centric site. Its a great chance for new people to break the mold.

If you are interested in following me, check out my profile. Do you think this is a worthwhile service, or would you rather spend your time on major blogs and in-game?