Thottbot is an unofficial World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

plug-in and database website. The plug-in, which is programmed in Lua, collects information while a person is playing the game— it records statistics such as the drop rates of items, locations of specific mobs

Mob (computer gaming)

A mob, mobile or monster is a computer-controlled non-player character in a computer game such as an MMORPG or MUD. Depending on context, all such characters in a game may be considered "mobs", or usage may be limited to hostile NPCs and/or NPCs vulnerable to attack.-Purpose of mobs:Defeating...

, and quest information — users can then upload the information to the website's database. The information on the website only comes from players using the plug-in and who take the time to upload the data. Simon Carless of Gamasutra

Gamasutra

Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...

 described Thottbot as a "major item listing site." As of March 9, 2008, web traffic

Web traffic

Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit...

 company Alexa

Alexa Internet

Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...

 reported that Thottbot.com was the 250th most visited site on the internet.

Information contained on Thottbot includes descriptions of items, weapons and armor pieces. Web users can browse by categories or search by item names. Players may also create a profile of their current status, so that others may search and view different players. This also entails the user running a plug-in, and since it is a volunteer type of system, not every player is represented, nor is it guaranteed to be wholly up to date.

During the Austin Game Conference in 2006, World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

lead designer Rob Pardo

Rob Pardo

Rob Pardo is Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard Entertainment. Previously he was the lead designer of World of Warcraft...

 spoke of the hardcore market and casual market for World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

, saying "The people that don't go to ThottBot are the casual players, and they're the ones you need to hold the hand of." A January 2007 article in the Detroit Free Press

Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Sunday edition is entitled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "Freep"...

named the site as a good place to find jewelcrafting designs discovered during the beta test of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, often referred to as TBC or BC, is the first expansion pack for the MMORPG World of Warcraft...

.

The original Thottbot was a news aggregator created by Aftathott, founder of the Everquest

EverQuest

EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...

guild

Guild

A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

 "Afterlife." Its purpose was to comb various video game websites for news

News

News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...

 and information on a number of MMORPG

MMORPG

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

s with a focus on Everquest. Though the primary site

Website

A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

 is now used for the World of Warcraft database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

, the news aggregator still exists as a sister site. Thottbot is also affiliated with Cosmos, a popular collection of user-interface modifications.

Thottbot owner Zam Network acquired the World of Warcraft database Wowhead

Wowhead

Wowhead is a search database for the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft . The site first started out as a talent calculator. It was in beta from April 4 to June 25, 2006, and the database was released on June 26, 2006...

 in June 2007 according to Next Generation

Next Generation Magazine

Next Generation Magazine was a video game magazine that was made by Imagine Media publishing company . It was affiliated to and shared editorial with the UK's Edge magazine. Next Generation ran from January 1995 until January 2002. It was published by Jonathan Simpson-Bint and edited by Neil West...

magazine. The Inquirer

The Inquirer

The Inquirer is a British technology tabloid website founded by Mike Magee after his departure from The Register in 2001. In 2006 the site was acquired by Dutch publisher Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen...

noted that Affinity Media, parent company of Thottbot and Allakhazam, bought Wowhead for $1 million, giving them ownership of all three major World of Warcraft databases. Affinity Media was the previous parent company of IGE

IGE

IGE was one of the largest services company buying and selling virtual currencies and accounts for MMORPG. During its peak time, it had offices in Los Angeles, China , and headquarters & customer service centre in Hong Kong. IGE was one of the main monopoly in virtual economy services, also known...

, which generated revenue from selling World of Warcraft gold, but Affinity Media later severed ties with IGE., though there is some dispute on this note.

External Iinks

• Thottbot
• Cosmos
• The Thottbot news aggregator
• World of Warcraft Home Page
• Allakhazam's WoW Portal, another World of Warcraft database
• Thottbot-Legends, a forum created by a former moderator of Thottbot.com for old Thottbot members to talk