New API: Old characters return "Not Found"

Hello! I am currently working on updating my web site to use the new Profile APIs instead of the old Community APIs. I am running into many issues.

The first issue I wanted to report is that it seems the APIs return a 404 “Not Found” error for many characters. I’m not 100% sure of the reason, but from what I can see, I am assuming this is because the characters have not logged into the game recently. I assume that this was an intentional design choice, but I would urge you to reconsider.

My site is a leaderboards site, which players use to see how they rank among others. If the new APIs only return data for currently active players, this makes it very difficult to see a proper list of leaderboards or an accurate ranking. I feel that my users want to see their overall, all-time ranking, not just their ranking among currently active players.

Some examples are for players that have a world #1 or #2 ranking:

  1. /profile/wow/character/shattered-hand/shnoblec?namespace=profile-eu&locale=en_US&access_token=[token] returns 404 Not Found
  2. /profile/wow/character/shattered-hand/cero?namespace=profile-eu&locale=en_US&access_token=[token] returns 403 Forbidden
  3. /profile/wow/character/shattered-hand/cero/reputations?namespace=profile-eu&locale=en_US&access_token=[token] returns 404 Not Found

You will notice the last character is even level 120, so it’s not like they are even THAT old, yet the new APIs still won’t give me data about them. Thank you for any help you can provide!

This is working as intended.

The Community API returns characters from pretty far back – as far back as Warlords of Draenor, possibly further.

The Profile API only returns characters that have logged in since Rise of Azshara (Patch 8.2). Older characters will either 404 Not Found or 403 Forbidden. While this isn’t set in stone, we’re planning on keeping profiles for a set amount of time moving forward – possibly something like a rolling 2 years of data.

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Yes, my primary concern was how this would affect profiles moving forward. 2 years sounds absolutely reasonable to me. Thank you so much!

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