Where is Blizzards official World of Warcraft API?

Question

I want to know if I can access World of Warcraft in an API.

My requirements are very precise:

1. MUST be official blizzard API
2. MUST be accessible out-of-game.

Ictinus

Answer 1

No. They do not allow any "outside" software to interact with the game's executable environment. Google "wow glider lawsuit" to find out more.

Sassan

Interesting, however, I have no desire to mutate the game in any way. And I'm also not going to let legal action for an application that annoyingly changes the look of your character in game, to affect my path forward. The question is most definitely still open. – Ictinus

Blizzard hasn't, and most likely never ever will, publish an API to interact with WoW, even if it's only for informational purposes. If you want character information, there's the Armory. Otherwise you're stuck with patching into the executable environment, which automatically puts you in violation of the TOS and revokes your license to the software. You might be able to code something using the built-in LUA engine - I know it can write out data, but you wouldn't be able to reach the LUA api from the outside without violating TOS. – Sassan

Marc, you definitely seem informed on the issue from both a programming, and legal perspective. I value your input. If this truly is the case, then is this not an unprecedented amount of strategy on Blizzard's part to be as isolated as possible? I await the advise of other peers so that i can weigh a more objective take on this grim looking issue. – Ictinus

Well, there's not much point to being "open" in an MMO. Open standards in an OS are fine, but in an MMO they're useless. You'd never want to hook WoW up with EVE or Conan. Any kind of chink in the armor that even a read-only API provides will just be exploited by gold farmers (think: moveCharTo(findNearestPurpleDroppingMob())) – Sassan

Expanding on that, I guess you could consider WoW/Blizzard to be the gaming equivalent of an iPhone. Nice to look at, beautiful/fun to use, but don't you dare look under the hood or Steve Jobs (and whoever the equivalent at Blizzard is) will make sure your kneecaps end up a mile away from your legs. – Sassan

Well, then. I'm going to continue in another question Marc. – Ictinus

@Marc: Protecting what's under the hood is extremely vital to the experience of all the other players in the game, which is completely unlike the iphone. What kind of API do you want? What are you trying to do? – Sadism

@Falmarri: while you and I might agree that 3rd-party iPhone dev doesn't hurt the user experience, that was one of the original arguments against providing a native iPhone SDK... (and then Apple changed their mind) – Suitcase

Answer 2

Blizzard has now released a Community API that allows you to fetch information directly from the Blizzard Services; such as Realm Status, Player and Auction data.

https://dev.battle.net/io-docs

I don't think that this was what the original question was intended for, but I think this can help other people searching for similar information.

Meilen

Answer 3

Depends on what you are trying to do, here's the wiki on it

http://www.wowwiki.com/World_of_Warcraft_API

Quinidine

Answer 4

I know its an old threat and I dont know if you still want the API but here is the new api.

All documentation: http://blizzard.github.com/api-wow-docs/ use api like eu.battle.net/api/wow/character/realmname/charactername?fields=All-parameters-found-in-documentation-and-they-are-comma-seperated

Thats should do the trick ;)

Mow

Answer 5

Take a look at the wow armoury - you can consume wow related data. The page on armoury is XML transformed into a web page via XLST.

But if you request the page and look at the source, you will see a nice XML file - perfect for making rest based queries against.

Iminourea