1545 pets
Blizzard recently announced some changes regarding data and their API. These mandated changes will be going into effect on Blizzard's end in early 2020. [source] WarcraftPets will be in compliance as of January 8th, 2020.
What's changing?
Websites that pull data from the Blizzard API (such as your pet collection data) must purge any stored data that's older than 30 days.Those that do not follow these new guidelines will lose access to the API until their practices are inline with the new rules.
How will it affect WarcraftPets? We're currently taking the necessary steps to meet the new API requirements.This updated system will not negatively impact most active WarcraftPets accounts. However, there are some steps that need to be taken to ensure your collection remains active and visible on the realm leaderboards.
What do I need to do? Starting Wednesday January 8, 2020, in order for a collection to remain active on WarcraftPets, you will need to log into the website and re-import your collection at least once every 30 days. This will ensure your collection data does not expire.Note: To successfully re-import your pet collection, you will need an active Character Amory page. Here's more information on troubleshooting missing pets in a collection.
What if I can't log in regularly? Should you be unable to re-import your collection on a regular basis, don't worry! Your WarcraftPets account will not be deleted.All collection preferences (including your 'want list' and 'excluded list'), comments, forum history, etc. will be saved. While your collection data and stats will no longer be visible on our leaderboards, a re-import will restore your full pet collection on WarcraftPets.
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How can I help with this please? I have been trying to update my collection here for some weeks now without any success :/ (EU realm)
Would it be possible to permanently exclude pets? Some pets are EU or Korea only for example, and they showed back up on my wanted list. It would be nice if these stayed excluded so we don't have to manually exclude them every month.
Thanks for all your work keeping this site up!!
This is no doubt a compliance issue with the new law just passed in California, and Blizzard must comply as well as those who use their APIs. This is a legal issue folks.
Speaking as an engineer, plz avoid telling people how easy it is to "just do it this way". You have no idea how much they spend on compute cycles or bandwidth consumption, which would surely spike if they did auto updates on every single profile. Not to mention development costs.
Thanks for the great site!
We understand there are concerns about this change. We're entering into an era when data collection and stoarage policies are being questioned in the US (as they have been recently in the EU) with an eye on giving users more control over their private data. That's a good thing. But the side effect of that in WarcraftPets' case is, unfortunately, less than ideal.
That said, in order to preserve the spirit of the leaderboards, we're planning to capture the last known pet score and pet count BEFORE deleting the imported data of a user's collection. This will allow folks to retain their positions on the leaderboards, even though their collect data is removed.
We'll continue to monitor these changes and do what we can to make our site as useful as possible while still remaining in compliance with Blizzard's API.
Mehetabel,
While it may not be difficult or time consuming, it *is* completely pointless. Requiring people to refresh their collection when they already know their collection hasn't changed is idiotic. If someone has more pets than you they should show up on the list as having more pets than you, regardless if they refreshed their list yesterday, or haven't logged in for the past year.
And for WarcraftPets.com, Blizzard's new requirement simply directs developers to:
"... start refreshing player data no less frequently than every 30 days, as it could belong to a user who has asked for their data to be made private or erased... "
This directive says nothing about deleting player data. That clause implies that upon refresh Blizzard will let you know if a player has requested their data be removed. And you can then comply with that removal instruction.
Sounds to me like it's time for this site to implement auto periodic refresh of their members accounts.
Sorry, but the implementation of this new change is just terrible. Two thumbs down.
There are active, top 20, collectors on my realm, that can easily go a month without importing (especially once they've reached max pet collection). This change means they drop off until they log back on and re-import making the entire concept of a ranking system completely irrelevant, since it is completely dependent on the data available at that particular moment of time.
Also, as a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ng time user of this site, you come to experience a sense of camaraderie with those names you've seen on your realm for years and years. Their sudden periodic disappearance is just... bothersome and a bit unsettling.
I still can't update my collection, I don't know why and I don't know what to do....
@Radriegal as someone fairly near the top of the leaderboards, it takes me barely no time at all to quickly log on once a month and update and I don't mind doing it in the slightest. It's not difficult or time consuming.
@Caanrial: Automating re-imports for every account would tax our system too much and severely slow down the site for all users. We decided to go with a method that would not impact the site as heavily.
@Radriegal: It's not stated directly in Blizzard's announcement blog, but it would seem there are new online privacy laws in California that Blizzard has to comply with, and as a result, those that utilize Blizzard's API must also follow the new rules.
Can someone explain the point of this change? Why does Blizzard care if people on this site, or any other site, are active??? There are people on the leaderboards who literally have every available pet. What the hell are they supposed to be "refreshing" every month?
Well, you *could* just automate it. Every 30 days delete, then automatically reimport all pet data for people.
Mehetabel: Good point this will freshen things up a bit.
I quite like this. It will mean only the most active pet collectors are show in the rankings, which is nice.