Thottbot

The original Thottbot was a news aggregator created by Bill "Aftathott" Dyess, founder of the EverQuest guild "Afterlife", in March 2001. Its purpose was to comb various video game websites for news and information on a number of MMORPGs with a focus on EverQuest, and later grew to include other games such as PlanetSide, Meridian 59, Dark Age of Camelot, and World of Warcraft.{{cite web |url=http://www.thottbot.com:80/ |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20040612130425/http://www.thottbot.com/ |archivedate=June 12, 2004 |title=Thottbot |author=Thott |accessdate=August 13, 2017 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} In August 2004, Thottbot was re-written to become a searchable database that focused exclusively on World of Warcraft three months prior to the game's retail release. Thottbot would also become affiliated with Cosmos, a popular collection of user-interface modifications.

The associated World of Warcraft plug-in, which is programmed in the Lua programming language,{{cite web|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080913044346/http://thottbot.com/?p=about |archivedate=September 13, 2008 |url=http://thottbot.com/?p=about |title=Thottbot World of Warcraft: About This Site |accessdate=2017-08-14 |publisher=Thottbot.com |author=Thott}} collected information while a person is playing the game. Users could then upload the information to the website's database. The information on the website only came from players using the plug-in and who took the time to upload the data. Information contained on Thottbot included descriptions of items, weapons and armor pieces which web users could browse and search. Users could also create a profile, so others could search and view different players. This required the user to run the plug-in, and since not every player had the plug-in, not every player was represented on the database.

In June 2007, Thottbot's parent company ZAM Network acquired the World of Warcraft website Wowhead for $1 million.{{cite magazine |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120820031947/http://www.edge-online.com/news/thottbot-owner-acquires-wowhead |archivedate=August 20, 2012|url=http://www.edge-online.com/news/thottbot-owner-acquires-wowhead |title=Thottbot Owner Acquires Wowhead|date=2007-06-25|accessdate=2008-03-09|author=Kris Graft|magazine=Edge}}{{cite web|url=http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/06/25/wow-fansite-sold-to-ad-outfit|archive-url=https://archive.today/20070621131847/http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/06/25/wow-fansite-sold-to-ad-outfit|url-status=unfit|archive-date=2007-06-21|title=WOW fansite sold to ad outfit|date=2007-06-25|accessdate=2008-03-09|author=Nick Farrell|work=The Inquirer}}{{cite web|url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14235|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609155556/http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14235|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 9, 2007|title=Q&A: Affinity's Maffei Talks IGE Sale, MMO Media Future|date=2007-06-07|publisher=Gamasutra|accessdate=2008-03-10|author=N. Evan Van Zelfden}}{{cite web|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308085810/http://wanderinggoblin.com/2007/07/03/gold-selling-and-the-art-of-disinformation/ |archivedate=March 8, 2012|url=http://www.wanderinggoblin.com/2007/07/03/gold-selling-and-the-art-of-disinformation/|title=Gold Selling and the Art of Disinformation|date=2007-07-03|accessdate=2011-04-20|author=Jeff}} Thottbot continued to run alongside Wowhead for over 3 years before it was discontinued on November 30, 2010; the website's URL now redirecting to Wowhead itself.{{cite web|work=Wowhead News|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204055331/http://www.wowhead.com/blog=175371/thottbot-merged-with-wowhead-framework|archivedate=December 4, 2010|url=http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=175371/thottbot-merged-with-wowhead-framework|title=Thottbot Merged with Wowhead Framework|author=TheOnyx|date=Nov 30, 2010|accessdate=May 26, 2012}} While some pages of Thottbot were still accessible through Wowhead, these were completely removed on November 16, 2016 with all Thottbot URLs forwarding to their equivalent Wowhead pages. With the launch of World of Warcraft Classic in 2019, Thottbot.com now redirects to Wowhead's Classic version with an optional Thottbot visual theme.

Simon Carless of Gamasutra described Thottbot as a "major item listing site".{{cite web|url=https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/ige-inside-the-mmo-trading-machine |title=IGE: Inside The MMO Trading Machine |access-date=2008-03-09 |author=Simon Carless |date=2006-08-25 |publisher=Gamasutra |pages=4}} As of March 9, 2008, web traffic company Alexa reported that Thottbot.com was the 250th most visited site on the internet.{{cite web |url=http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/thottbot.com |title=thottbot.com – Traffic Details from Alexa |accessdate=2008-03-09 |publisher=Alexa }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

During the 2006 Austin Game Conference, World of Warcraft lead designer Rob Pardo spoke of the hardcore market and casual market for World of Warcraft, 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."{{cite web|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080128194855/http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3757&Itemid=2|archivedate=January 28, 2008|url=http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3757&Itemid=2 |title=Austin: Secrets of WoW Design |accessdate=2008-03-09 |author=N. Evan Van Zelfden |date=2006-09-06 |work=Next Generation}} A January 2007 article in the Detroit Free Press named the site as a good place to find jewelcrafting designs discovered during the beta test of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.{{cite news |first=Heather |last=Newman |title=A guide to jewelcrafting |work=Detroit Free Press |date=2007-01-15}}

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• {{official website|http://www.thottbot.com}} (redirected to [https://classic.wowhead.com Wowhead Classic])
• {{wowpedia|Thottbot}}

{{Warcraft universe}}

Category:Defunct websites

Category:Internet properties established in 2001

Category:Internet properties disestablished in 2010

Category:Lua (programming language)-scripted software

Category:Online game databases

Category:World of Warcraft