WorldExplorer


 * This is for the AddOn WorldExplorer which is related to but not to be confused with the Achievement World Explorer.

WorldExplorer is an AddOn to show users exactly where each and every area in each Zone is located to aid in explorations. This is done by drawing transparent coloured areas on the main map for each area (See Figure1).

Download
WorldExplorer can currently be downloaded at the following location:

Features

 * Exact area's drawn on map and shaded in several different colours (See Figure1).


 * Remembers where you have already discovered (as long as you keep the AddOn enabled)


 * IT WORKS WITH [CARBONITE]! - This may not seem too impressive but it took a lot of work as the is very little documentation for the [Carbonite] Public API and in a lot of cases the API was not working as it should.


 * IT also DOES work with Zygor's Guide - BUT you need to disable Zygor's Guides option to show all map! Otherwise it tells WorldExplorer you have already explored it all! ;-)

Version 1 (V1)
WorldExplorer is now in a transition between the original design (V1) and the newer design which is described above (V2). It was originally designed to aid users working towards the achievement by the same name "World Explorer" which was done (in V1) by providing icons (points) on the map that where acquired from several sources:
 * Generated points: These where basically the center of the texture for that area and where displayed on the map with a small square
 * User submitted points: As the users quested and revealed area's on the map WorldExplorer would note down the location of the user which could then be submitted back to the author ([Zasurus]).

While these methods served their purpose they where never very accurate, required a huge amount of data from a lot of users over a long period of time as well as a large amount of time from the author ([Zasurus]) to

V1 was maintained as a Release at the same time as V2 was being developed as an Alpha and Beta

Version 2 (V2)
The author ([Zasurus]) then worked out a way to map the exact edges of each and every area in each Zone. This process takes a long time (40-80 hours per zone) and is a completely manual process. This started with Hellfire Peninsula in Outland with [V2.0.2 BETA] and then the whole of Outland was released with [V2.0.5 BETA].

Area Data: How it is done
WARNING: This will get detailed!

Once the area's have/had been mapped and could be displayed on the map the next stage was to hide area's as we discover them. This is a fairly simple trigger that marked an area as known when you walk into it for each character and is the most reliable method BUT requires the AddOn to always be running from the second the character was created to catch all of the points.

Once the code was in place to store when you reveal an area the next stage was to work out a way of finding out what area's the user/toon had revealed before installing the AddOn as well as any areas discovered while the AddOn is not enabled.

Unfortunately it isn't possible (yet) to ask the game which areas the character knows so some guess work is required. There are two sets of data that can be used to help with this do this: With this information you would think you can just mark the area's with the same name as the achievement/texture names as found... but it's never as simple as that. First the texture names and achievement names don't always exactly match the area names which is OK as you can manually hard code it to link each achievement to an area and basically this is how WorldExplorer works if you tick "Hide Known Areas" and "Hide None Achievement Areas" in the options (more on this later) as it will only show you area's that are required to give you the achievements you haven't got yet! This is also the default behavior of WorldExplorer.
 * 1) We can ask the game for a list of the areas that are shown on the map (the bits of map you see in detailed when you reveal them)
 * 2) We can also ask for a detailed list of explorer achievements for each and every zone on each continent

But what most people don't know is there are more area's per zone than achievements meaning once you have revealed the whole map and get the World Explorer Achievement you will still likely find new area's as you quest and although most people don't care about these some do. There are also a LOT of cases where an achievement can be go by revealing several different area's and NOT just the one that has a similar name to the achievement. The same thing is true about the area's on the map. It is possible to reveal an area on the map by walking into one of several area's in the zone and finally the achievements don't link into the map textures you reveal!

All of these spanners in the works make establishing what area's a character has already found quite a complex task. First linking each achievement to a area is hard as once you have revealed an achievement area/texture on the map by walking over one area you can't find out what other points reveal it... Needless to say it takes a while to create these mappings and involves 4 separate WoW accounts, thousands of new level one toons, a high level Warlock and two other high level toons... ;)

Once the mapping has been made the next step is to work out what area's the toon has found already using the data the game gives us and the mapping created by [Zasurus]. Due to the fact that some achievements and textures could have been revealed by multiple area's we can't always say for sure which area's where found causing the achievement/texture to be triggered therefore we can only use textures and achievements that are ONLY triggered by 1 area. This means that only about half of the area's that triggers achievement/texture can be automatically be marked as found even if you have the whole of the World Explorer Achievement!

As mentioned earlier there are also area's that don't reveal any achievements/map textures so can never be automatically marked as found and will only be marked as found when the user entered those area's while the WorldExplorer AddOn is running.

Database
The area data that is used by WorldExplorer for V2 and onwards is in a separate Library so others can use it in there AddOns (as long as they follow the licencing)