We calculate gamemasters characters in World of Warcraft using Python

I once had a website for searching for twinks in World of Warcraft. Anyone could enter a nickname and get a list of characters on the same record (if the data were in the base of the site, of course).

Then one day a visitor from Blizzard came to me:


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99% of people during the first visit are looking for themselves and their friends. A visitor from France was no exception and left several characters in the log view, most likely belonging to the Blizzard employees (which was evident from the activity on the forum and other signs). Of course, it became interesting to me how the characters of gamemasters differ from the characters of ordinary mortals and whether they differ at all.

After viewing the achivok of these characters, it became clear that when they entered the new GM service, they were given a set of collection editions of all the Blizzard games. After a closer examination, one detail came to light: all the collections were received on the same day (apparently, the approximate date of receipt for work).

We use API Battle.net

GMs receive all existing (as of the date of receipt) collectors - and, therefore, the very first, “vanilla”. It was released more than 10 years ago and today you can only get it on ebay for 2-3 thousand euros. That is what we will use to search for other characters.

We will search for characters who have such a pet (it is given as a bonus for activating a vanilla collection):



Since the API does not provide direct access to the character lists, we will look for characters through an auction.

realm = "" # ,      #      r = requests.get("http://eu.battle.net/api/wow/auction/data/%s" % realm) auction_dump_url = json.loads(r.text)["files"][0]["url"] #       auc_data = json.loads(requests.get(auction_dump_url).text) #   /  chars = {(lot["owner"], lot["ownerRealm"]) for lot in auc_data["auctions"]["auctions"]} 

In this function, we determine whether the character is a potential hmus:

 def is_gm(name, realm): r = requests.get(CHAR_API_URL.format(name=name, realm=realm)) if r.text.find("Panda Cub") != -1: return True 

Run the scan:

 for name, realm in chars: if is_gm(name, realm): print(" : %s %s" % (name, realm)) time.sleep(1) 

Note: the script only searches for characters who put up lots at auction. For broader coverage, you can also scan the guilds of each lot owner.

Then you need to look at other signs - how many collections were received in one day, their total number, and so on.
Of course, not every character that meets the criteria belongs to GM. This may be just a collector, for example.

To display the results of the script created a simple website: http://wow-gm-track.website

Of the interesting things: during the scanning process, entire nests were revealed - guilds, in which several different accounts belonging to (presumably) GMs at once. For example: The Call of the Ancients (6 pieces, including the head of the guild).

And there are some statistics: as of today, 1.7 million characters have been scanned in Russian-speaking realms, 1306 characters have vanilla collectibles (0.07%), of which only 380 characters received at least 4 collectibles in one day (0.02% of the total ).