BigRedKitty: Patch 2.4 AddOns

Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the Hunter class, sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary.

The technology wonks in the BRK Copyright-Violation, Trademark-Theft, and Patent-Infringement Squad were let out of their cells and set loose upon several WoW addon developers' servers and code. The reports they've returned are staggering in number, detail, graphic violence, and lewdness. It would seem that, to be a WoW addon developer, one must have a brilliant mind, a single-mindedness of purpose, and a truly disturbing love of cheese and cheese-like products.

We'd go into more detail, but this is a family web site. /shudder.

But aside from the high-cholesterol levels in the blood tests our spies sent to us, we've also become privy to what those coders have been doing. Golly gee but they have been putting in some really long hours and have come up with some truly fabulous ideas! What great updates can we expect for our favorite addons for Patch 2.4? Holy cow, you're not going to believe it!

Do you love Omen? Foshizzle, of course you do! And Omen is getting upgraded in a big way for the new patch. How? Well those certifiable geniuses have developed a way to accurately measure and monitor your guild members and their threat towards you!

Have you been ninjaing loot, sneaking extra Warp Burgers from the guild bank, running heroics with other guilds, honking up your Kara instance with bad pulls, or always missing elixirs before those 25-man boss fights? Omen will now tell you just how angry your guildies are with you, who among them is truly the most hostile towards your presence, and who is secretly gunning to /gkick you.

Watching that Omen Guild-Threat Meter like a hawk will allow you to grease the palms of those who are in positions of authority when you start getting to the top of their threat-lists. No need to Feign Death when a quick mailing of some Primal Mights to your guild's GM when Omen says he's gonna aggro on you just might keep you in your guild a little longer. Omen for Guilds! We can't wait.

Perl is a very popular UI addon, X-Perl is a very much loved modification to the base version. Come Patch 2.4, get ready for XX-Perl and XY-Perl. Specifically designed to appeal to the player's gender, XX-Perl and XY-Perl allow for easy custom designing of your UI to your exact tastes.

Of course, the quality of the product is dependent upon the player. If you have no sense of style or just have bizarre desires, you could create a UI that frightens small children and cause those with delicate constitutions to collapse in shock. XX-Perl and XY-Perl make no guarantees as to the aesthetic pleasantness of your new UI. Be ready; these UIs could be as deranged as you are.

Just how customizable are the new XX-Perl and XY-Perl addons? Well guys, your XX-Perl will allow you to change sounds-schemes so all the female NPCs speak to you in breathy, sexy sighs. Ladies, your XY-Perl will change the NPCs so you get to buy reagents from Brad Pitt or any of 64 hot-n-tasty, deep-voiced actors, athletes, and powerful captains of industry.

The developers of XX-Perl and XY-Perl are promising sound and voice modifications, color-schemes, backgrounds, action bars and buttons, unit frames, and emotes that will thrill and amaze you to the point you ignore that special someone in your life for good. WoW-widows and widowers, you've been warned.

Outfitter is going Hollywood with the latest version of the popular gear-swapping addon, Queer Eye for the Warcraft Guy. Do those gloves completely clash with your Tier 4 armor? QEWG, (pronounced Kweg), will tell you in no uncertain terms that you can NOT go out of the bank looking like that. It's sorry, but that hat is atrocious and you should've sharded it AGES ago. And don't get it started on those boots! They're for shadow priests, not holy priests! Shoes make the man, fellas. Ladies notice them RIGHT away.

And yes, QEWG is fully capable of letting your female toon know just how slutty those robes are, how indecent the holiday outfits make your tushy look, and why a great, glowing, purple staff may be just fine on a tauren's back, but you female gnomes need to accessorize appropriately in order to emphasize what you've got and not what you're lacking. QEWG, the next generation of Outfitter, coming to a spyware-laced addon-download website soon!

Deadly Boss Mods has something special in store for its users, yes you guessed correctly. For those who aren't familiar with its design, DBM is a modular addon that allows developers to update the DBM-associated instance-files and not the addon core itself. Thus, the new DBM Significant Other (SO) module is going to make life much easier for the gamer whose spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend gets upset with all the time you spend in WoW.

The DBM SO module will splash a warning on your screen when your SO is about to Frenzy, Enrage, or become immune to mind-controlling effects. It'll warn you when your SO is exiting Phase 1, Anger and entering Phase 2, Violence.

But the feature you gamers with non-gamer SOs are going to appreciate most is the Evade warning. Is your SO planning on walking out the door with someone else? DBM SO will pop a "SO is Evading!" alarm so you can quickly exit WoW and rush to their side to stave off their imminent departure. The days of coming to bed at 3am and finding your sleepmate abandoned you at 10pm, the time you said you'd get off the game, are over!

Lastly, we have news of a brand-new addon, specifically designed for Patch 2.4. A little history lesson first.

Many Hunters are familiar with the Snake Trap Bug. If a Horde hunter places a Snake Trap on the ground near a non-PvP-flagged member of the opposite faction, the Snake Trap will ignore the lack of a PvP flag and the trap will trip if an Alliance toon gets in the trap's range. Not only will the trap go off, but the player who tripped it will automatically flag for PvP combat, and the hunter, or any Horde toon, can attack the Alliance guy.

We've talked about the uncoolness of abusing the Snake Trap Bug, but apparently this glitch is the core for the latest and greatest addon from the sweet-smelling folks at WoWAce.

Get ready for AFKNuker!

Fully Ace 2.0 compliant, of course, it works perfectly with FuBar and has an AFKNuker_Fu component. But what does AFKNuker do? Simply put, whereas the Snake Trap Bug causes unflagged players to flag, AFKNuker causes flagged players to switch sides.

You're a member of the Alliance in the Alterac Valley starting tunnel. The gates go up, you see Afkallthetime, a level 70 paladin, run straight ahead, into a mountain, and just keep running. AFK player farming honor, that bastard.

But you're a hunter and you have AFKNuker! Run up to the pally and drop a Snake Trap. That pally will trip the trap and, whamo, he's now Horde! Kill that piece of garbage just like you would any other member of the opposing force!

AFKNuker only works with hunters at the moment, but the WoWAce geeks are hard at work trying to figure out how to exploit the Snake Trap Bug for all classes to enjoy.

We cannot wait to see a five hour Alterac Valley match where the two sides never leave their tunnels except to camp their own graveyards and just blast away at the same five AFKers, rotating people out of the battle, new people coming in. The AFKers come back to see how their bot has been running, and their reports shows that they've got zero honor and have been killed 3500 times. Justice, sweet, merciful Justice. Elune bless you, WoWAce.

Patch 2.4's addons. We hope you're as excited as we are!

Daniel Howell continues his quest to commission an addon that gives hunters more pet-stable slots as the hunter-pet duo extraordinaire known to lore as BigRedKitty. More of his theorycrafting and slanderous belittling of the lesser classes can be found at www.bigredkitty.net.