Blizzard Exposes Detailed WoW Character Data 233
Gavin Scott writes "Blizzard has introduced a new web site called the Armory which lets you get information on any World of Warcraft character, extracted from their live databases, in near real-time. This exposes a great deal of information that was not previously obtainable including profession choices, skill levels for all skills, and the character's complete talent specification and all faction reputation data, along with all gear currently equipped. The complete roster of any guild or arena team is also available. Some players are upset about this, such as arena PvP teams who now have all their gear and talent choices exposed to the world, or players with non-standard or less-popular talent choices who fear they will have difficulty getting into pickup groups now that people can instantly find out everything about them. Are these complaints fair? Blizzard claims to own all the data and the characters, but at what point does this data represent personal choices and information about their players which would be covered by their own privacy policy? In a virtual society, should people be able to present a view of themselves that differs from (virtual) reality, or should all details be exposed?"
I don't see the big deal here (Score:5, Interesting)
I can see where some of the hardcore types might want to conceal their information, but IMHO its not a true "Your rights" issue - they are not revealing any information about YOU, just your character.
The only "risk" here is if someone has some "secret" character build that kicks ass, its now exposed to the world - but on the same token, its not just about the build, but the player behind the keyboard.
So a long-winded post to say "No I don't give a crap"
Re:I don't see the big deal here (Score:5, Insightful)
For the median player, or at least median arena participant it's a non-issue. It's only at the very top of the arena rankings (which are now going to be done like chess rankings...) that anyone will care. Those players will probably just respec before any match anyway so not as big a deal.
Re:I don't see the big deal here (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more of a on-issue then people think...and most already think it's a non-issue.
If you go into the arena, as soon as the battle starts (which is the first time you can see who your opponents are), drop into this website and look up one of the player's gear...by the time you see anything, you're already dead. The website isn't that fast, and you don't have that kind of time to research anything.
Sure, you can look up every arena player on every server in your battle group, and try to memorize it all (thousands of players on each of 8 or so servers), and assuming that no one changes equipment in the mean time, and assuming that no one has equipment that they use only in arenas, and assuming that knowing all that will give you any edge at all (which usually it won't), then you may have an issue.
Me...I'm less than concerned about it, and it's a cool toy whether or not it poses any kind of problems.
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Or you could cache the pages locally
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wouldn't it be possible to make a plugin that uses this information to provide tips or maybe on-the-fly configurations etc to maximize your effectiveness in pvp? I can't see a problem with this site if it isn't possible, but if it can be automated it could very well throw the game balance completely to the side that uses something like that.
I know 'the other side can use it too' (if it's publ
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This whole point about arena matches is rather moot. When an arena match starts you have 60 seconds to hand out food, water, health stones, buffs, etc. During this time, however, you are given absolutely no information about the other t
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I'm a WoW player, just back & very casual in my playstyle. Do I give a crap if anyone can see my Character's build/gear/etc? Not one bit. I can see where some of the hardcore types might want to conceal their information, but IMHO its not a true "Your rights" issue - they are not revealing any information about YOU, just your character. The only "risk" here is if someone has some "secret" character build that kicks ass, its now exposed to the world - but on the same token, its not just about the build, but the player behind the keyboard. So a long-winded post to say "No I don't give a crap" :)
I gotta agree with you. But on the "secret character build that kicks ass"... well, there really is no such thing in WoW. There's about five different ways any class can spend their talent points that actually work well, and everybody who's been playing a while knows all of them and how to fight against all of them. Sure, the added talents and points due to the expansion might have temporarily muddied the waters a bit, but that won't last long. As for gear.. most gear doesn't drastically alter your playst
Bad Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad Idea (Score:4, Informative)
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Anyway, the level and class of anyone nearby is already readily available info, and at one point the "kill count" sort of was (when PVP rankings were in effect).
People knowing what gear you have? All they need to do is look at you; most high-end gear is pretty unique in appearance. Priests have been complaining for a year Benediction (a popular healing weapon) makes them a target to enemy players.
Easier said than done. It's not much an advantage. (Score:3, Insightful)
Easier
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How long do you suppose it would be before you could install
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It would be far easier (and not much more difficult to use) to make a small program that you would have to type the character's name into.
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I wouldn't be surprised if similar mods already existed before this site came out. As I said before, much of that information is already available in the game itself. A mod would just have to analyze the combat logs and make some educated guess
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Me (Score:5, Informative)
I personally really like it. I've used similar services in the past (Allakhazam / Thottbot)... but they left a lot to be desired.
I often want to check what people in my group have both gear and talent wise, so I know what I'm supposed to be doing. For instance, I'm a full Prot spec warrior (as you can see on my page above)... so my main purpose in life is tanking and holding aggro... so I really need to know if that other warrior in my group is also full prot-spec and maybe has better gear/talents for holding aggro... 'cause then I can defer to him. Sure we could sit around and talk about it for a long time (which is what goes on now for the most part)... but it would be a lot simpler to just look him up and compare our stats....
Anyway... I think people that get overly worked up about this are just too damn serious about the game... it's just that, a GAME! Cool off and go kill something....
Friedmud
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Re:Me (Score:5, Funny)
Not enough rage.
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Out of Range
Feles L70 Boomkin, Muradin. The most fun you can have with your pans on!
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WoW Companion (Score:2)
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Heck, it even knows which buffs my level 66 Mage had on him when I logged out an hour ago.
Great idea (Score:3, Interesting)
This should have been opt-in. Instead, I don't think you can even opt out.
Sure, 90% of players won't care, but what about the high end gamers who develop a secret 2v2 PvP secret sauce?
Since they don't actually have real lives, their performance and uniqueness in WoW PvP means a lot to them!
Blizzard jeapardises this quite a lot without thinking too hard about the consequences.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Funny)
Err...maybe that came out wrong
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I don't think that is really possible. Despite some peoples conviction that equipment is everything. I don't agree. Playstyles and reflexes do count as does communication between teammembers.
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But WoW is quite simplistic in terms of gameplay (really, it is very simple, warlock for example, dot-fear-dot, it's not complicated). As a result of the straightforward nature of gameplay, skill is a backseat compared to equipment.
I know this because I play warrior a lot, and playing warrior is painful. It's painful because the blizzard developers balance the entire class around the 1% of warriors completely equipped with orange gear.
It's tru
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Not my impression. I have a Mage, a Shaman and a Druid, and it is quite complicated what to do in what situation. Especially the Druid with changing forms at the right moment. By even the Mage allows advanced styles (it is an ice-Mage, fire-Mages are simple: do maxdamage, then die). I think that many players just don't realize what range they have at their disposal.
And what about world PvP? You can now stalk your favourite enemy, work out how tough he really is, and exploit that information. Or, just as likely, he'll do that to you. Think about that next time you stroll out of Tarren Mill. Talk about emergent play.
That may be an issue. But personally I think those playing on PvP servers get everything they deserve. Fairness is not really possible there. I am a bit too old for this type of foolishness.
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Instructions: First read. Then understand. Then comment.
Hint: Fire-Mages can turn into Ice-Mages with small effort.
There is no secrecy in PvP (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no "secret sauce" in PvP. All the stats of a fight are in the combat logs. You can get a pretty good idea of what the other team is doing, just by seeing what they do, as well as the stats. And if you're not looking at this data, then you're probably not the type to look at the Armory stats anyway.
There also isn't a a simple "IWIN"
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ISXWoW [isxwow.net]. Bot your way to success in PVP!
Now, you don't even need to think up your own talent trees and armor sets, and nobody has reflexes that can compare to a computers.
I'm Holy Spec'ed! (Score:5, Funny)
Raid LeadeR: We know you're not Holy spec'ed anymore... your heals are casting way too long, you're always out of mana.
Priest: Look at all my healing gear! I am holy spec'ed!
Raid Leader: We checked you out on Armory!
Priest: Really!? Those bastards. Blizzard is not respecting my privacy!
Raid Leader: Well, also the fact that you're in shadowform doesn't help your case.
[I sympathize with the priest nerfage this patch.]
Great - now fix Inspect (Score:3, Insightful)
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Not a big deal - like sport statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not too concerned (Score:3, Insightful)
What I really like is the ability to get an overview over guilds and to get inspirations about skills and equipment by looking up people I know to play well.
All in all, I think this is an interesting addition.
BTW, it is fun to see how often names are used. Sadly, I don't have a single uniquely nameed character....
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You never really explained why you thought this. Seems ridiculous to me.
Have you tried to read all the TOS? Blizzard revealing information about assets they own is not even comparable to the Warden program.
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Pretty simple: In a very real, emotional sense it is your character. Never mind the legalese. Should be quite obvious, though.
What would be most useful (Score:5, Interesting)
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Its a bar graph but its been online for a long ass time. I used it back when I use to play wow.
I'd like to see everyone's /played... (Score:2)
Nevermind... that would be too scary....!
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I think you mean their
Does this mean they can now fix hacked accounts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hacked accounts (Score:3, Interesting)
Problems with that: (Score:2)
They may not be keeping track of every single change. Sure, you could screenshot their website, but that wouldn't prove anything.
Even if they knew with absolute certainty what you had, returning your stuff would be a bad idea. This means they have to track it to whoever has it now, and undo all the transactions that were a result of your account being hacked -- but that could be a fairly large butterfly effect, and c
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I don't know how feasible it is to literally hack accounts in WoW. To the best of my knowledge most "hacked" accounts are usually the result of phishing, kelogging, ridiculously bad passwords, or from giving out passwords/account information for power-leveling services.
Re:Problems with that: (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember back when I was doing the whole oper thing on a well-known IRC network. Every day, we'd get hundreds (sometimes thousands) of complaints from people complaining that their account with the network services had been "hacked". In every single case I ever encountered, it transpired that the individual in question had just fallen for an extremely simplistic con designed to get them to reveal their password. There's no element of "hacking" about it - it's just the exploitation of gullibility, stupidity, and the belief that it's possible to get something for nothing.
I don't play WoW very much (although I do have a semi-active account I log into occasionally, but until the end of last year (when I more or less went cold-turkey), I was a pretty hardcore Final Fantasy XI player. "Hacked" accounts were a perennial topic in FFXI and, once again, it was inevitably the account owner's incompetence that led to the account being lost or vandalised. I'd say that the cases I heard of could be broken down into three broad areas:
1) Keyloggers and malicious software - probably the closest to actual "hacking", these still relied on user greed and stupidity to steal accounts. Essentially, many of the third party programmes available for FFXI (all of which are banned under the TOS) actually contained keyloggers and the like which stole people's account passwords and reported them back to the author. Most of the malicious software in question would masquerade as cheats (eg. movement speed cheats), so frankly, people who lost their accounts this way got what they deserved.
2) Social engineering/phishing attacks - slightly less common - probably the rarest of the three categories - but by no means unknown. The old familiar tricks all applied here: masquerading on forums as admins, offering powerlevelling or gil to people who signed up on sites using their Playonline passwords, the usual rubbish. I dare say a couple of people were stung by this purely on the basis of being naive, but again, most of the people who fell for this did so out of greed.
3) Shared account passwords - in no way does this resemble "hacking". However, it was by far the most common means by which people would lose their accounts (or have them vandalised). I remember being in a linkshell once where a number of the senior members shared account passwords (although happily, I always opted out). When one of the leaders went bad, he did quite a bit of damage with the logins he had. In these cases, my sympathy was again limited - if you share your account password with somebody you just know online, you're asking for trouble. However, there were a few genuinely unfortunate cases, where people would have their accounts trashed after a real-life relationship with another player (often a girlfriend or boyfriend) went bad.
So in short, assuming the situation with WoW is anything like the one with FFXI and Blizzard don't actually have horribly insecure servers, nobody in WoW is actually getting their account "hacked".
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I play a small MMO called Nexus TK -- 2D, nice community, and in-game bulletin boards. Every now and then I post on the boards attempting to clear this up, mostly because I feel the GMs and such who post to the board can do more harm than good with their suggestions.
Essentially, their suggestions are to be paranoid in every way imaginable. Have anti-virus software, firewalls, etc, and don't follow any links anyone gives you, or download any files, at all, the end. So, I suggest that anti-virus is
Easy gold farming, then? (Score:2)
And there's still the problem
Up-to-date means now, not previously ... (Score:2)
"Up-to-date" means what you have now, not what you had previously. There is no reason to believe old database records are preserved anywhere before they are overwritten with updated data. Nothing has changed since day 1
Please (Score:2)
Top PVP guys shouldn't be upset (Score:5, Informative)
Yet, the top guilds remain the top guilds because they're just better at doing what they do than anyone else. So, top WoW PVP folks should probably just have more confidence in their own abilities ^_^
Not Anymore... (Score:2)
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When I click the Ajax link to view a player's details, it takes about 20
seconds to just render the page -- not including download time (I'm on a P2-333).
That could explain why it seems to be less reliable than OSDN which is just serving text.
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I hate AJAX as much as the next guy, but it's the best we've got. I'd much rather they do it this way than with, say, Flash.
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I for one welcome our RFID medieval overlords (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, this not only violates the Fog of War principle - I can't Inspect someone to far away from me - it is ridiculous.
Now, if it was limited to your Guild
RPG means Role-Playing-Game not Ridiculous-Privacy-Giveaway
Privacy was gone anyway, thanks to 3rd party sites (Score:4, Insightful)
So, that said, I think the data that Blizzard has decided to make public is rather benign in comparison, especially since much of it is data that you can already access anyway (inspecting gear, reading combat logs, etc.). Rather than give a small minority of folks an advantage, who happen to know the right websites to visit or mods to install
Additionally, there's a whole lot of people that want access to this information, and don't mind sharing out their own data. This is true especially for guilds. Why do you think these 3rd party sites and mods existed in the first place? So again, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Re:Privacy was gone anyway, thanks to 3rd party si (Score:2)
--
off topic: Bl
Bad idea - Here's why (Score:2)
I have a level 67 priest and there is a huge misconception that unless your completely holy spec'ed you can't heal well at all. Thats complete BS and always has been. Before all you'd have to do is lie about your spec not use shadow form, now you can't do that.
It might be a little harder for some priests to get into certain guilds or PuG's now. I'd love to see an opt-out feature or something at least.
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It might be a little harder for some priests to get into certain guilds or PuG's now.
Probably not. I play a balance druid, my husband plays a discipline priest. We are well used to being asked is we are Restoration or Holy respectively. Good players will know that you can be a perfectly good healer outside of the two 'preferred' specs. Players who insist generally aren't worth the time.
I say this from being a Naxx primary healer on effectively the same L60 build as I have now as L70 (I put the 10 extra
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Seriously, find a guild that allows you to play the way you want to play. You'll be happier. Besides, the top instances now don't require the huge raiding guilds anymore. You don't need the specially built guilds who only allow certain narrowly constructed type
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Seriously, find a guild that allows you to play the way you want to play. You'll be happier. Besides, the top instances now don't require the huge raiding guilds anymore. You don't need the specially built guilds who only allow certain narrowly constructed types in.
No, you don't need a huge guild. However, with smaller raid groups, there is more pressure on the individual player to be specced right. For example, If I'm taking 3 priests into a raid, I'm going to want 2 disc/holy and 1 shadow. I MIGHT be flexible and take 1/2 instead, but that depends on other healers and the encounter. I won't take 3/0 or 0/3. I need the capabilities of both specs. This applies to pretty much all hybrids, and some of the 'pure' classes.
If you want to be successful, you need ALL
Complaints are fair, but Blizzard has done worse (Score:3, Insightful)
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If build order was all you had then you're a fairly poor player. It's one thing to copy a build but another to copy all of your micro-skills. Even then a
Awesome! (Score:2)
This saves me a huge amount of trouble on my guild website.
I found it useful (Score:2)
Privacy policy (Score:3, Informative)
2. The privacy policy covers stuff like name, age, date of birth, gender, home address, phone number, e-mail address, survey information, etc.
I don't see how any of that was disclosed.
What if I have a question or complaint?
If you have any questions or wish to file a complaint, please feel free to e-mail us at privacy@blizzard.com, call us at (949) 955-1382, or send a letter addressed to Blizzard Entertainment Privacy Policy, Attention: Privacy Policy Administrator, at 6060 Center Drive, 5th Floor, Los Angeles, California 90045.
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That said, it's unlikely any interpretation of privacy laws would cover game statistics.
Reminds me of playing a bbs game called crossroads (Score:2)
Not the first (Score:2)
NOT A BIG DEAL - complaints unfair (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Talent specs:
If you watch them for more than 10 minutes in game, killing things, you easily deduce most of their talent choices - certain builds for certain classes grant certain abilities, other choices make the player use certain spells over other spells. Even if you are on opposing factions, it doesnt matter, you can still easily tell what their spec is.
Gear:
You can walk up to any player (on your faction) and inspect them and see their gear. Even if you can't inspect them for some reason (on pvp servers you can only go one faction per server) - a lot of gear has unique graphics. Those that don't
The only possible thing to complain about with knowing someone's gear is when you are in PVP and want to know what trinkets the opponent has. Ok, there is potential here: trinkets let you do certain stuff and if you are ready for that stuff, you might have a small adventage. Thing is, the data is not real time! It is possible to instantly switch trinkets (out of combat) and whatever info you just got is out of date! To make this point even less relevant/less impact, most trinkets have visual/combat log notification to everyone nearby when they are used!
Another point to consider: In the past (i am not sure if this still happens) there was a number of mods which upon the user inspecting another player, would suck that data and upload it to thottbot. I was quite surprised to find a few of my characters having character's gear profiles on that site - obviously someone insepcted me while running that mod.
So why is this such a huge issue?
People love to whine. Especially people who do nothing important/special whole day, maybe they are bored, they want to feel wronged, then they want to feel like they are doing something, then they want to feel vindicated. It doesnt matter how dumb it is, they just go for it..
Lets look at one of the coplaints from the summary: "they will have difficulty getting into pickup groups now that people can instantly find out everything about them"
This is probably the dumbest thing i have ever heard and i read the WoW general forums:( If you join a group that is super picky/elitist and your gear is crap/you are a newb, you will get booted with this information or without. If the group doesnt care you dont have the best gear or is not picky or can carry your weight or is not elitist, then this Armory thing will not matter one bit.
Quite often, yes, there are elitist groups/guilds/people playing when you approach them to group/quest/join/etc they will scrutinise you. They will ask for your spec and check your gear. With or without the Armory, if you do not meet their expectations, you will lose. I really don't see what the difference between having it or not having it makes.
If you have a non-standard talent build (you have no clue how to play) or non-standard (read:crap) gear you will get kicked out of the group as soon as it becomes apparent - and it will. If your gear is good enough and you are not a newb, this Armory will once again make no difference.
In reply to the article's closing: the question of "In a virtual society, should people be able to present a view of themselves that differs from (virtual) reality, or should all details be exposed?" is irrelevant, borderline sensationalist when their virtual details are virtually exposed to all other virtual people.
Virtually non story about virtual whiners/complainers virtually looking for virtually something to virtually do.
Go outside, get job, girlfriend/boyfriend, learn to code or paint or spear fish. Do something meaningful so that you don't jump on dumb whiner-wagon just to feel improtant/like you are acomplishing anything by puffing up your hairless chest about small stuff like this.
And no, don't talk about "slippery slopies" or "but what about government..." or "
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You are assuming that people are familiar with the possible talent builds available to other classes (or sometimes even other talent builds for thier own class.
Last night I had another druid ask me if I was feral spec as I was PEWPEWLASERBEAMZOMG in Moonkin form with my tree pets out...
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Anyway, yeah, it's funny how people ask that.
Speaking of which, I haven't played my Druid in a while, is Moonkin Form still a 31-point talent in Balance? I know some things got moved around when 2.0 went live...
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Great tool for exposing trolls (Score:2)
There are always trolls that claim things like:
1) X class/talent is over-powered, I always die to them, Blizzard needs to make my class/talent a lot better
- Well, looking at Armory, your talent spec is a mess. Plus, you've made some poor item decisions. No wonder you're having so much trouble. Anyone would in your condition.
2) I'm uber be
Lvl 70s! (Score:2)
flash text input field!? (Score:2)
Re:flash text input field!? (Score:4, Insightful)
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That sums up most flash on the net - and more annoying than the old blink tag becuase that didn't crash browsers.
IT'S ABOUT TIME! (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2)
Wrong department (Score:2)
SETECASTRONOMY
TOOMANYSECRETS
The reference is from the movie "Sneakers".
One use: Checking names BEFORE you create your alt (Score:2)
Being able to look at other people's gear is just a bonus.
RP'ers nightmare (Score:3, Insightful)
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So they're basically souped-down versions of 3D multiplayer FPSs where any element of skill (say.. being able to hit someone in mid-air with the spinfusor) is replaced by a button that automatically does the thing.
also, no jetpacks.
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Hint: it's about immersion.
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I've actually had in-game spams from characters with names like "Xfxfqqfx" and the like, advertising those very things. Received two of these within the last two weeks, and I'm only a fairly irregular player.
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The only way to get dynamic data from an external source on the fly is to constantly reload your UI via console (triggering a loading screen) or to use something that violates TOS and can get you banned.