Blizzard have just unleashed The Armory on an unsuspecting world, a searchable database of characters, guilds and arena teams. While much of the same information is available in-game using the “Inspect” option, The Armory also includes things like talents and trade skills (apparently… it seems to be a bit overloaded/flaky, so I haven’t quite got a character sheet up yet). Reaction on the forums is mixed, strangely enough (I don’t think you’ll be stunned to learn that many posters consider it “an outrage”), but personally I think it looks great, and could be really useful for guilds.
(Incidentally, for those of you who may, perhaps, be at work, with, say, a firewall that blocks “Games” related web content… maybe the firewall rules haven’t been updated to block The Armory yet. Not that I could possibly condone browsing it when you should be working, no.)
Check out this comment from the FAQ on the main page: ‘In order to have your lifetime honorable kills displayed, you must have at least 1337 honorable kills.’ Bah, I only have d34d1y honourable kills.
CTProfiles filled in this niche for a long time, and helped raiding guilds/groups share their specs and equipment profiles. I never got to use that, being blocked by a nefarious firewall, but the Armory[sic] looks rather slick.
Ooh: http://armory.wow-europe.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Earthen+Ring&n=Tiger
The argument is that when ladder players come to playoffs, it takes any advatage away from a teams hard work to get the upper edge…. by being able to inspect the other team.