Overwatch Extraction Toolkit
OWET was one of my most-used projects that I had released on Github.
To put it simply, it was a GUI for a commandline program.
A common tool used to extract models and other assets from Overwatch is DataTool. It is developed by a different team of developers with whom I am not affiliated. (Apologies for all the times people asked you guys for OWET support!) Back when I played Overwatch almost every day, I liked looking through the game files and seeing if I can find anything interesting. One time, I even found some info for an unannounced update and got some traction online, it was pretty fun. The only issue was that using a commandline program and constantly copy-pasting directories and repeated commands was tedious... So I made my own GUI
OWET
It started in 2018 as a C# program. I called it Overwatch Extraction Toolkit, or OWET. I decided to release it publicly and as it turned out, other people found it pretty useful. The UI was a bit ugly, with a big console window taking up most of the screen and various buttons and textboxes all around the edges. I ended up refining it somewhat but eventually it became too much of a mess to maintain. But I had some fun with it, including eventually developing a customisable colour theme system with shareable configs.
OWET 2
In 2020, I developed and released OWET 2. It was a complete remake using Electron and React. The UI was much nicer, but it was pretty similar functionally. DataTool changed over time, which required a remake of the underlying code for OWET to keep up. Although I initially had the intention to continue developing it, that didn't really happen. Development of OWET 2 effectively ceased several months after release.
The present day
As DataTool continued to update, OWET slowly fell into a non-functional state.
My initial motivation for making OWET was because I wanted to make datamining easier for myself. Then I continued development of OWET and OWET 2 to make this process easier for others. Unfortunately, I mostly lost interest in Overwatch over the years. With content slowing down towards the end of OW1, and then OW2 releasing with awfully predatory monetisation strategies, and not delivering on the promised PvE content, I rarely play Overwatch anymore. The game isn't bad by any means, I just don't really care for it. My main motivation for playing it has long been removed. As a result, I have not been interested in continuing OWET.
It is September 2024 as I write this page. Maybe some day I'll come back to it, every now and then I come back to this project, wanting to restore it to a functional state again. I'm not sure what the current state of Overwatch datamining looks like these days. Hopefully easy methods exist for those who need it.