Everyone's favorite -- well, mine at least -- World of Warcraft database, Wowhead, celebrates its second anniversary this June 26. The database, which originally started as a talent calculator that is reputed to have inspired how the official site's own talent calculators look, was launched in June 2006. Since its inception, Wowhead has steadily grown its features, from small things such as patch annotations and embedded tooltips to big and fancy things like stat weightings and 3D models and characters.

To celebrate, they're holding a contest and a raffle, giving away cool gaming goodies from X-Keys every Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to the main prizes of a top-of-the-line video card, a 24-inch flatscreen LCD monitor, and a custom-built gaming PC. Head on over to wowhead, register (if you haven't already), and give them some Happy Birthday loving. The promotion runs for two weeks starting today, but before you get all excited with the prizes, be sure to see if you're eligible. If, for instance, you're from Asia like me, the best you can do is have some cake and ice cream to celebrate on their behalf.

Wowhead, a site you may have noticed I love to talk about here, just won't sit still. Today they implemented several changes:

• Stat weightings
• Search within results
• Easier filter creation
• Better source listing
• Filtered stats get their own column

Of these, I am by far the most excited about stat weightings. What am I talking about? Well, it all started with agility equivalence points, or AEP. Back in the dawn of WoW (or before BC, anyway), a rogue named Ming thought to himself: How do I tell what gear is best? Surely there is some equivalence that can be established between (say) one agility (by far the best stat for Rogues at the time) and some amount of attack power. And so he created AEP, which tell you how much of any other stat is worth the same as 1 agility. This is what is meant by stat weightings.

Well, this was certainly unexpected. Allakhazam, one of the WoW database sites that has been around the longest, has undergone a complete revamp. There are all sorts of new features, including:

• User-editable pages
• Tagging
• Profiles, with 3D model viewer and upgrade searching

Not to mention a re-skin which makes it look much more up-to-date. That's not all – they're currently running a contest, wherein every contribution to their wiki, forum, or comments, for the entire month of June, has a chance to win one of the following:

• One of 72 60-day game cards
• One of three Wii Galaxy bundles
• Grand prize: a gamer-friendly laptop

So go forth, and make Allakhazam a more complete site. Overall, I like the redesign; it makes Allakhazam feel much more relevant, and helps answer the quest of what's going to differentiate it from sister sites Wowhead and Thottbot. I'll still probably go to Wowhead most of the time, but that's just me.

Wowhead announced today that it has released a download client for Mac OS X. Now the denizens of the cult of Mac can contribute to the collective WoW knowledge base that so deliciously feeds our need for data on lewtz. Just like the Windows version, the new OS X client installs Wowhead Looter, an addon which tallies up information in the background as you play and populates the Wowhead database with stats the game's items, drop rates, quests, and all sorts of other goodness.

Just remember that you need a Wowhead account before the Looter can upload information back to the database. Otherwise, you've just got yourself an addon that's all dressed up with no place to go.

[Thanks, Toras.]

The good people at Wowhead, WoW database extraordinaire, have just warned me that the French, the Spanish, and the Germans are invading! OK, not really. Actually, the site is set to go live with localizations in those three languages, which will appear in the next 24 hours. You will then be able to read descriptions of quests, spells, and items, and everything else on that marvelous site, in any of those languages (plus of course English).

Each language will have its own comment thread on each page, although the forums will remain English-only. I imagine this will come as welcome news to the many WoW players out there who do not have English as a first language; even on the North American realms, there seem to be a fair amount of French speakers. Hooray for multilingualism!

Thottbot and Wowhead, two of the most popular WoW database sites, have been having a few problems with ads lately. There was that brief issue with the trojan in a banner last month, and also apparently some rather irritating ads with flashing and sound have been showing up lately (and I think we can all agree that ads with sound are evil). But, like much of the Internet, these sites are kept free for us because they are ad-supported, so what can they do? Well, they've gone on advertising strike.

A couple of months back, we relayed that Wowhead gained 3D models. Now, they're set to become better. We mentioned in the previous post that player models were in the works, and I'm here to bring you an exclusive preview. Users will be able to see items on any race and gender character model, so if you're trying to figure out how those boots look on a female Tauren, you're in luck (although it's a good bet that they'll look odd). Wowhead sister site Thottbot will be receiving this improvement as well.

Competitor WOWDB has had the ability to preview items on a character model since they launched a bit over a month ago, tying into their profile system. However, they seem to lack Wowhead's impressive high-quality mode.

In fact, the quality of Wowhead's 3D renders will be increased in the upcoming update, especially in the high-quality Java version. See the gallery below for some examples and comparison shots; the image above is also a Wowhead render (not a screenshot). This has got to be the most accurate preview I've seen on any database site.

The great Mania (purveyor of Petopia) has created yet another extremely useful database, the practically-named Warcraft Mounts. Not only can you punch in your race, level, and riding skill, and get a list of all the mounts you can ride, but you can also search through the database, and browse the mounts (by category or all at once). And just like on Petopia, Mania has grabbed big photos of all the mounts and set up a nice stats page for each.

Very cool. Other plans include resources for "mount hunters," the inclusions of Druid flight forms (do those count as mounts? and if so, should all travel forms be included?), and even a blog for mount news. Looks like another great resource for anyone looking for more ways to get around Azeroth.

There are quite a few WoW database sites out there. Thottbot was the first big one that I was aware of; other big sites include Allakhazam, the Goblin Workshop, and of course Wowhead. Then there are some lesser-known contenders (at least to me; it took me a bit to come up with them), like WoWd.org, WarCry (I use their news constantly, but never saw the database), GameAmp, WoW Guru, WoWDigger, and TenTonHammer (again, I know TTH for news, but didn't know they had a DB).

And now Curse, long one of the big names in Add-On and news sites, is throwing their hat into the ring with the very capitalized WOWDB, which appears to be in beta right now. It seems like a pretty complete database; it's got all the items, quests, NPCs, and so on that you would expect from a serious act like Curse. But hold on a minute, doesn't it looks a bit similar to a certain other WoW database site of which Curse doesn't seem to be too fond? (Update: Curse has contacted us to say that the linked article wasn't written by anyone on their staff-- instead, it was posted by a user of their site, and that they have no ill will towards Affinity Media or Wowhead). Ignore the Wrath of the Lich King-esque blues for a second, and...oh. Oh dear. Well, at least it's a good design they're copying from, I suppose. See the gallery below for more comparison screenshots. What do you guys think -- is this within the bounds of inspiration and homage, or a blatant rip-off?

Update: Someone named Kody, who claims to be a representative of Curse, has appeared in our comments, and claims that Curse has obtained an "exclusive content contract" with WoWWiki for the use of their information. An interesting claim, especially since most of the content on WoWWiki (written by users) should be covered under Wikia's terms of use and the GNU Free Documentation License, and thus available for use to anyone who credits and sources it. We've sent requests to both Kody and WoWWiki for more information.

Another update after the jump.

The best WoW database site (in my opinion) just got better. Several features have been added to Wowhead over the past couple days; as the site's "Adorable Bearcat Overlord" Miyari notes, they are perhaps not strictly essential (her term is "icing"), but nice to have anyway.

My favorite addition is that users' comments will now be annotated with the patch number that was in effect when the comment was made, so you can more easily spot information that might be outdated (see screenshot).

Alchemical recipes that are attained via discovery are now noted as such under the "source" tab, and the corresponded spells will state their provenance as well. Elixirs will now be annotated as to whether they are Battle or Guardian elixirs. Pet skills will now show which pets can learn the skill, as well as which mobs can teach the skill. And finally, tradeskill spells will show at what skill levels they change from orange to yellow, green, and gray.

I say well done, Wowhead folks! If you have any ideas for how Wowhead can improve, hit up the their Site Feeback forum.

My long-time personal favorite WoW database site, Wowhead, is having another one of their contests: "The Lost Screenshots." This time, all you have to do is submit screenshots for NPCs, items, or other things that don't have one already. The winners will be the three people who submit approved screenshots for the greatest number of entries. Win what, you ask?

• First prize – Acer 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor
• Second prize – BFG GeForce 7900 GS Video Card
• Third prize – Logitech MX518 Optical Gaming Mouse

That's some fairly serious prizes. Note that dressing room and model viewer screenshots are disallowed. There are a few other tips and rules for the contest on Wowhead's contest page. I'm pretty excited about this one; it sounds like a lot of fun hunting down things and taking photos of them. (But then again, I loved Pokémon Snap, too.) The contest started at 12:01 AM EST yesterday, and runs until 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, September 11. So get snapping!

[image via this excellent Dark Legacy comic]

Since we last profiled the database site, WoWDigger.com, it has evolved into more than just a WoWHead clone. I found new functions that were helpful in planning my online activities.

Using their downloadable client, you can create an Armory-like page of your character on the site. Then you can create a Wishlist duplicate template of your equipped gear and swap in pieces that you want to acquire to see exactly how it affects your stats, resists, damage ratios, mp5, crit chance, defense, etc. Great for planning on how to get that last bit of resilience to hit the cap or balancing your +heal and +spell damage.

Another function I like is the personalized quest page. You now have an offline list of all the quests in your quest log. Plan your next step to complete the quest and read up on any strats you'll need to know beforehand. Also, the site tracks all your reputation gains so you'll know how close you are to the next rep level for every faction in the game.

If you're like me and enjoy extensive planning and researching offline, I recommend checking out the latest improvements to WoWDigger. With CTProfiles down for now, its a great alternative. If anyone knows of other sites that provide similar services, feel free to list them in the comments.

I should warn you in advance before we get too far into this review that Possessions has been known to be very addictive, meaning that once you use it, you may not be able to play the game without it. One particular hunter who is very near and dear to me started acting like a drug addict who had just gotten her fix when I showed her this add-on. For people who have multiple characters on the same server and especially characters devoted exclusively to storage, this add-on may send tingles of pleasure through your body that you have not previously experienced in an online game.

Once you install Possessions the first time, you should immediately login to each of your characters and open all your bags in your inventory and in your bank. Once Possessions has scanned all the information into it's database initially, all updating is then done on-the-fly. This is where the sheer beauty of Possessions begins to shine.

Let's suppose you're playing on your warlock who is an engineer, and someone in your guild is looking for silk cloth which would be stored in the bank of your tailor. You can either type "/poss" by itself to bring up a dialog box (and type "silk cloth" in the search field) or type "/poss silk cloth" right in the chat window. Possessions will give you a search engine style report of all the items you have that have "silk cloth" in the name. You can even "link" these results back into chat by shift-clicking the item icons in the search results. Mousing over these icons will give you the usual in-game description of the item, but at the bottom of the tooltip it will also tell you how many you have, and where the items are located on what character.

There are other options in the search dialog you can explore that accomplish a variety of other filtering tasks and that allow you to search a specific character or a specific location, but that's for you to play with later. Packrats of Azeroth, download Possessions today! I should note that I've hot-linked a much larger screenshot of the Professions search window to the tooltip thumbnail above. Click it to behold the true beauty of Possessions!

I feel like I keep mentioning Mania's Arcania, but she keeps doing things worth mentioning! This time around, it's a big one: Petopia has received a big refresh-- it's mostly a code update (the site has been brought over into CSS, which will make formatting changes easier, and the information has been put into a real database), but there are still a few navigation changes that might make it easier for you to find the pet of your dreams.

The biggest change is the navigation column itself-- instead of having lots of different options, the column is organized solely by pet family, so to see information, for instance, about all the gorilla pets, you click "gorilla." Easy enough. But those old options aren't lost-- in fact, they're easier to browse, because since Mania's put all the info into a real database, that database is now searchable by criteria. Want to see all the pets that can Prowl, or every pet that eats fruit available in your level range? Plug your queries into the form and get your own customized list. Nice changes, and we're told we can expect more to come.

I sure thought Thott had given up putting new features on his site (since things haven't changed in so long), but apparently not-- just the other day, he introduced Thottbot 3.10, including a new "scoring system," which is customizable so that you can determine for yourself just which weapons you want.

Basically, every item now has a score associated with it, and that score is based on a number of different qualities, including base stats, armor, gem slots, resistances, spells, combat ratings-- anything that you'd ever associate with an ingame item. And then (and here's where it gets really cool), you can even change those score ratings yourself-- if having mp5 on a certain item is hugely important to you as a Shaman, for instance, you can add value to the mp5 stat, which will give those items a higher score. And custom score settings can even be turned into a permalink, which means players can easily trade their own custom scoring sets with each other. Incredibly powerful little feature.

And Thott's added some awesome Javascript features to the listings as well-- you can now customize listed displays of items much more than ever before, and since it's done with AJAX, browsing loads faster as well. Really amazing job.

Now ever since Thottbot and Wowhead moved under the same banner, players have said they wanted them to stay separate. But if this is the kind of thing we're going to be seeing coming out of these sites, bring it on-- I'd love to see the score feature brought into Wowhead's interface, and I'm sure a lot of people would love to use their same scoring profile on both sites to see what kind of information they can dig up.