Addon Spotlight: Altaholic

Altaholism is something we've all heard of, talked about and possibly suffered from. I have struggled with this as long as I've played World of Warcraft. I use a variety of addons, as you can well imagine, to enhance my game play. Some of these addons provide information about my alts, although not across servers and factions. The information I am typically concerned with is rest bonus, gold and recipes. I usually use the Armory to check my alt's gear and reputation, or God forbid I relog to the character in question to check something.

Enter Altaholic, an addon I have recently started using to keep track of just about every detail about my alts. Developer Thaoky tipped us off to his addon, and I thought I'd give it a test drive. I'm not going to lie, I was a little doubtful about the usefulness of this one, but I have changed my mind. Altaholic looks akin to Auctioneer (and therefore the default AH interface) to allow the player to navigate different information regarding alts. Some of my addons duplicate features of this addon, but this package brings much more to the table. It's an Ace addon, and the developer seems to be very proactive about the future of this one. One warning, however, this addon will total up your /played time, which may cause you to ask serious questions about the direction fo your life.

Come back after the break for a look at Altaholic.

Alright, there's quite a bit to cover, so lets get started. Altaholic opens up with a list of your characters, which you will want to log into to allow the mod to gather the necessary information. The main window will list your alts, their builds (a summary, not a full break-down), time /played and the amount of rest experience each has. All of this information is great to have, I am using it to track alts across servers, one of my favorite features. Oh, but wait, there is so much more. Subsequent categories will list:

• Professions (with suggestions on how to skill up)
  

• Bag usage
  

• Reputation (which Thaoky plans to change to mirror the default reputation pane)
  

• Containers (does my rogue have the Key of Time?)
  

• Guild Bank (which guild has Void Crystals?)
  

• Mail (who has mail and what is it?) This actually showed what items were in my inbox
  

• Equipment (look at who has what equipped)
  

• Quests (in case you need to know which of your alts still has to finish the Zelda chain)
  

• Recipes (with item information and materials required for each)
  

That is a lot of information you can access on any character, across servers and factions. This addon brings some pretty impressive functionality to us information junkies.

Now for the really fun part; searching. This addon allows you to search the inventory of any character, on any server or the loot tables. This means if you're wondering which character has the Mallet of Zul'Furrak or which dungeon Dragon's Call drops in, you can execute a simple search. Once found, you can link the item and try it on as well, so its got great functionality.

That's about all I've got so far, as I'm still using this one and trying out its many features. Also, finals are still trying to destroy my life, so good luck to my fellow students! For the rest of you, check this out and give me your thoughts, I'd love to hear what you think of this handy addon.

Are you an addon-addict? Is your User Interface a living work of art? Welcome home, my friends! Every week, Addon Spotlight profiles a different addon, brings you mod-related news and dishes out free addon advice. See out what's been said and done in the addon community by checking out past features or our addon and UI directory.