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WoW Rookie: Thanks for the memories
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. For links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's, visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide. There's nothing quite like your first time through Azeroth. Capture those memories by snapping screenshots (pictures of what's on your screen) in game as you explore, level, discover, plummet, laugh, triumph, fail ... All the moments that make life within the World of Warcraft so utterly bewitching. Screenshot basics Take a screenshot by hitting the Print Screen button on your PC or Command+Shift+3 on your Mac. You can set a more convenient key binding in game in your Game Menu; hit Key Bindings and scroll down to Miscellaneous Functions. Screenshots get stored in the World of Warcraft folder on your computer. Look for the folder called Screenshots. Screenshots used to be saved as big, unwieldy TGAs, but now you'll find them in convenient .jpg format.
WoW Rookie: Basic add-ons
New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's. Last week, we talked about how add-ons add zing to your game, and we explained how to download and install them. We hope you spent time poking around some of the major mod sites and found some things that caught your eye -- but if not, we're back to fill you in on some of different types of mods along with some of the most popular add-ons that will streamline and enhance your game experience. What are the major kinds of add-ons? The bulk of what most players consider to be WoW's "must-have" add-ons falls into some half a dozen loose category types.
Call of Duty for the iPhone will track your World at War kills
Activision has released Call of Duty for the iPhone... but don't get too excited, it's not exactly what you think. The first-person shooter hasn't quite been ported yet. Instead, they've released a "Call of Duty: World at War companion," which instead lets you track the activity on the popular World War II shooter game. You can track all of your ingame stats, and even follow your friends in the game and what they've done with their characters as well. And the app also comes with a news browser, to keep you up to date on the latest map releases and updates with the game. It's completely free, though you of course need a Call of Duty: World of War game for Xbox 360 or Playstation to actually get anything out of it.In that sense, this app isn't quite so notable for what it is (World at War wasn't nearly as popular as Call of Duty 4, and this app is specifically about Treyarch's game), as what it portends: with Blizzard releasing their Armory app and a few other game companies releasing "companion" apps like this, we could be in for a very interesting holiday videogame season this year. Ports or translations of games don't do much to sell copies of the real games (as they tend to be either too similar or too different to the parent games), but "companions" like this can represent added functionality, and thus can do a lot to help and promote games on other platforms (imagine a Halo ODST app that sent you a push notification when your friend was playing or got a higher XP score than you did). This is far from the last we'll see of "companion" apps like this.
The Daily Quest: Best in slot
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Wildstorm has hired a new artist to create #20 in the World of Warcraft comic book series. BlizzPlanet has the low down, along with a sample image. No Stock UI takes a look at the Taeo UI Compilation. Skeleton Jack is back, and this time covering the 10 Best in Slot Death Knight Bracers. 4Healz shows how you can Use Recount to its Full Potential. Rolling Hots studies the Resto Druid Gems in Patch 3.2. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Curse releases premium add-on download client
Curse has released a premium version of their add-on client. The service they are offering goes for $30 a year on their annual plan, or $5/month if you choose to pay like that. There are some features of the premium client worth looking at if you're interested in spending the money.The premium client offers one-click updating of all your add-ons, which is a very nice feature for those of us that have a few hundred of them floating around. When I tried this earlier today the updating went smoothly and without any problems.Another feature of the premium service is that you're not subjected to all the ads on the Curse website while you're logged into your account. This is good if you're still going to the site often, but I'm not sure how often you'll go to their site if you're using their add-on downloader client.
Curse, WoW Interface band together to block WoWMatrix
WoWMatrix is a program of dubious morality. It sucks down bandwidth from sites like Curse and WoWInterface like crazy, and displays its own ads while doing so. It does, however, work like a charm. So it is with mixed feelings that I report that Curse and WoW Interface have gotten their heads together and figured out a way to keep WoWMatrix from accessing their files, which means WoWMatrix is of little use going forward. The idea is that we will now use the official tools provided by those sites: Curse Client from Curse, and an updater that is still in the works for WoW Interface. Unfortunately, the Curse Client for Mac is a work of pure evil uses a lot of obtrusive and non-standard interface elements, as well as being pretty unstable, so I'm not a huge fan of it; I'm not sure how the Windows version stacks up. It also didn't find about half of my addons, including some that I know are on the Curse site, like ClearFont2. Furthermore, the WoW Interface updater, the only other game in town as far as I can see, appears to have been in limbo for quite some time. So although I recognize that WoWMatrix was putting a drain on the sites, I'm sad that there is no longer a pleasant way for me to update all of my addons, and at best (when the WI updater is released) I'll need to run two separate programs to do the work that WoWMatrix used to do on its own. But if that's what had to happen for Curse and WI to keep their doors open, that's what had to happen.
Blizzard sets May 19 deadline for add-on policy compliance
Last month, Blizzard released a new add-on development policy. There were several contentious points in it; notably, authors can no longer charge money for add-ons, nor can they solicit donations in-game (asking for donations on web sites is still OK). In-game advertising is also not allowed. In the wake of the announcement, the authors of several popular mods announced that they would no longer be developing and/or distributing their addons, while other addons (Carbonite being a notable example) are switching to an entirely free model. The news today is that Blizzard is giving a 60-day grace period for developers to comply with the new model. That's 60 days from the release of the new add-on policy, which was March 20. So everyone has until May 19 to get their ducks in a row and stop charging for addons, showing ads, or asking for donations in-game. People found violating the policy after May 19 will be "contacted directly" by Blizzard and, I assume, asked politely to stop.
Addon Spotlight: AuctionLite
Addon Spotlight takes a look at the little bits of Lua and XML that make our interfaces special. From bar mods to unit frames and beyond, if it goes in your Addons folder, we'll cover it here. Slightly continuing in the vein of "alternatives to," today's Addon Spotlight looks at an addon that some prefer to the mighty Auctioneer. Auctioneer is one of the all-time great WoW addons; it's been around forever and offers pretty much every auction-related feature you could possibly think of. Unfortunately, massive feature set and good book-keeping facilities come at a cost: system resources. There's no denying that Auctioneer is well up there on the list of mods that use rather a lot of memory and CPU. Enter AuctionLite. The "lite" applies both to its feature set and its resource footprint. It doesn't cover everything Auctioneer does, but the core use cases, at least for me, are covered: Track average prices Suggest prices for listings based on what's on the market right now (undercut) Rapid listing and buyout Calculate disenchant prices Show auctions that look like good deals
Warhammer Herald recommends Book of Grudges mod
If you're hoping to add a little extra something to Warhammer Online's Realm vs. Realm gameplay, look no further than the "Dammaz Kron: The Great Book of Grudges" mod. Valkea, the creator of Dammaz Kron, describes the mod as a "PvP Black-Book" designed to look like a new section of the Tome of Knowledge. All transgressions against you are recorded in The Great Book of Grudges, as are your own acts of retaliation. Best served cold, and all that.It's also gotten the nod from Mythic Entertainment. In their words, "The Book of Grudges transforms your fighting experience by adding a meta game and another objective to RvR. Just in case you need another reason to perpetuate the extermination of your enemy Dammaz Kron has your answer." Dammaz Kron can be downloaded from Curse and all the info about the mod is listed there as well. Mythic has announced the first expansion to Warhammer Online! Check out the announcement itself, the two brand-new classes coming to the game, and the enormous new dungeon/zone slated for a few months away! Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Preparing for Wrath Day 4: Addons for leveling
While many of us have an army of alts, it's probably been a while since we've leveled our mains. Our mains are the special character for us. The main is the character that we agonize over every stat and piece of gear. With that kind of dedication and interest, we want to be sure that leveling our main goes as smooth as possible. Even if you don't take care of your main to that extent, getting out into the world and leveling again can be somewhat of a transition.One of the best ways to help with this transition is to make sure that you have all the necessary addons already configured properly before Wrath of the Lich King goes live this Thursday. While there are hundreds that you can choose from, only a few are going to really help you level quickly and like a pro.Continue reading on after the break for a quick and efficient list of addons that are going to help you level.
Reader UI of the Week - Special Patch 3.0.2 edition
Welcome to a special edition of Reader UI of the Week – just for patch 3.0.2. We'll take a look at a few complete UIs submitted by WoW Insider readers that are fully compatible with patch 3.0.2 and Wrath of the Lich King.Patch 3.0.2 is bringing a lot of expanded functionality to the underlying API (Application Programming Interface). The changes will not be as drastic as we all experienced when Burning Crusade was released, however there still will be a fair amount of problems that will have to be solved. After the break are a few complete lists of addons that are reported to at least work somewhat well together.For a complete list of functioning addons, along with download sources, check out our list of essential addons for patch 3.0.2. We'll keep that list updated throughout the day. %Gallery-34425%
Essential addons for Patch 3.0.2 [Updated x6]
Let's take a look at what addons are working for patch 3.0.2. First a simple rule taken from the UI forums post done by Kaydeethree: "Any 'Wrath beta' compatible mod will work in 3.0.2." With that said, there is a long and comprehensive listing of 3.0.2 compatible addons over on WoWWiki. But the fun doesn't end there. The next step is obtaining all those new addons. I've compiled a large set of the essential addons and linked to at least one direct download source after the break. Each download source is either trusted beyond doubt – or tested and confirmed to be virus free. Finally, you'll want to combine the addons into a nice looking UI. Check out our special edition of Reader UI of the Week for a look at five complete 3.0.2 compatible UIs. We're posting this list now, and will continue to update it throughout the day. Begin your addon downloads as quickly as possible to avoid hangups later in the day when download servers become overloaded.
Chinese gamer sued for using WoW add-on
What if World of Warcraft had no add-ons, would you still play? Worse yet, what if they had the add-ons, and you were aware of them, but it was actually illegal to use them? That's the state of the game in China right now, thanks to the country's licensed WoW distributor, The9.As part of The9's ongoing war against add-ons, they introduced anti-plugin software in 2004, and have threatened to close down any accounts that circumvented that software. In fact, the company just recently won a lawsuit that stemmed from a player who got their account closed when they were shown to use an add-on. In an article discussing this subject over at Virtually Blind, they suggest a server made just for add-ons, for anyone who wishes to participate. Taking into consideration the fact that China would probably never allow this, what are your thoughts?EDIT: It seems there was some confusion in the original article's translation, attributing legal add-ons to illegal plug-ins or hacking software. Our apologies for the misunderstanding in quoting the Virtually Blind article, and thank you to all who pointed this out.
WoW Model Viewer updated for 2.4.2
If you're a machinimist or just someone who likes to poke around the game files trying to see what The Ultimate Druid would look like (yeah, I'm guilty), good news; Wow Model Viewer has been updated for patch 2.4.2. I haven't used it since the patch hit, but according to the mod's site a few twitchy issues popped up that have since been fixed.The developer warns that this version will not work with any version of Wow pre-2.4.2, so if you haven't downloaded and installed the patch yet, don't install this update until you do. WoW Model Viewer's main site Download page for the updated version If you haven't had the chance to use WoW Model Viewer previously, give it a shot -- it's a wonderfully addictive little mod and a great way to get a closer look at the detail that goes into the game.
Curse's terms of use deserve a closer look
There's a storm brewing over in the UI & Macros forum, and it's about the terms of use for popular add-on site Curse. If you use mods at all, you're almost certainly aware of the site; I go there all the time. They're probably the biggest mod site right now. So it comes as something of a surprise to me that such a pillar of the scene would have what seems to be a pretty abusive set of terms service. According to the analysis conducted in this forum thread, Curse's ToU "specifically removes any and all copyright that we as authors have on our addons." Yikes! There are other bad parts of the ToU language too, including that Curse can change the ToU at any time without notifying authors. Of course, the site is within its rights to impose any ToU it wants on the users, but it's not nice to take control of creations out of authors' hands. I am not a lawyer, so it's altogether possible that I'm interpreting some of this incorrectly. The forum thread, however, claims that lawyers looked at Curse's terms and agreed that the interpretation is correct.Until these provisions are changed -- and Curse promises that they will be -- I recommend mod authors use other sites like WoWInterface or wowui.incgamers.com. In writing this article I read the terms of use for those sites -- or rather, tried to. IncGamers doesn't even have their ToU up! But they've been a pretty well-behaved site in the past (they used to be worldofwar.net), so I trust them. WoWInterface's terms of service didn't seem to have anything like what Curse has, and a source at the site assured me that "we never touch an author's zip file without their knowledge and consent, ever." WI has a good history of respecting the community and the authors. Curse folks, are we all reading this wrong? Is there something in this issue that's being missed?Update: As several of Curse's employees have helpfully pointed out to me, the new ToU are much better. However, I still have reservations about them.
Two new Folklore add-on packs coming to the US PSN store "soon"
American Folklore fans will soon be catching up with their European brethren as two new add-on packs will soon be released. Already available on the European PSN Store, these expansions each add a number of new quests along with a new folk and costume to collect. Priced at $3.99 each, or $5.99 for both, we're guessing that these add-on packs will be added to the store this week on Thursday. For more details on the add-ons, titled "The Alchemist Pack" and "The Origin of Belgae", check out the PlayStation.Blog.
It's a mod, mod world, says WoW's Drysc
Let's face it - if you've played any MMO for any significant amount of time, chances are you've made use of one mod or another during the course of your experience. Whether you picked it up to help you heal your raid, maximize your DPS, or to optimize your crafting efficiency, mods have always fallen into a sort of gray area as far as the terms of service are concerned, and have the subject of heated moral debate amongst players. After all, is it really fair to modify a game in such a way that gives you a decided advantage over the competition? We've always assumed this was the stance taken by most developers -- if it's not part of the game code, it's not sanctioned by the developers. That is, until we caught this bit on the blue tracker last week.Drysc, a "blue" mod over on the World of Warcraft forums, came out in support of mods -- citing how they help demonstrate features that the player base feels are lacking in the retail code. He said that many of the features that WoW employs today were inspired in whole or in part by fan-created mods. He even punctuated one post on the subject with, "I <3 mods." Now, we know that Blizzard has at least acknowledged the usefulness of mods in the past, but they've taken some more contrary measures, like patching games in such a way as to fundamentally break certain mods. To hear a dev step outside of this tenuous acquiescence and throw full-on support for mods still threw us for a loop.
CoX Splasher
Poking around on the CoX forums this morning I came across an amazing little tool brought to us by the blossoming development community surfacing in the player base of the game. This fabulous bit of coding is called Splasher, and it's a program that allows you to customize the login and character selection screens for your client. Beyond simply letting you put up a custom screenshot, the program includes a music function that will let you change the music played for you when the game loads. In this way you can create a custom anthem for your hero to serenade you while you select which character you would like to roam Paragon City with. In addition to the customizable music, there is also a randomizer function that will select a random custom login screen for you from a selection that you put into the program. I created a login screen that featured my favorite moments from Trick or Treating last month. You can download Splasher here, and soon you'll be on the road to a custom login of your very own.
Officers' Quarters: Zero-pressure raiding?
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.For many WoW players, the prospect of seeing all the raiding content the game has to offer is just a dream. They don't want to be part of a hardcore raiding guild with all the attendance requirements, strict loot systems, and, for lack of a better word, pressure. But can zero-pressure raiding work? The writer of this week's e-mail wants to know.Dear Mr. Andrews,I found your column while searching for other information, and findmyself up at 6:30am after reading almost all of your articles. Theyare very informative and I thank you for sharing your experience.I am seeking advice on how best to move our guild forward. I shouldprovide some context and maybe it will provide you with some insightinto what I am looking for.I inherited our guild from a personal friend (outside of WoW). [. . .] After one to two months of managing a guild with about 30 players and maybe10-15 active, my friend decided it was too much work and handed itover to me.
Copy as HTML plug-in, amongst others, for VoodooPad
As I am finally wrapping my head around just how useful Gus Mueller's VoodooPad can actually be, I'm getting more interested in tinkering with how it can be extended and made to do my bidding. Dubbed as a "garden for your thoughts," VodooPad is a great place to jot down ideas, lists and notes with a wiki-like document format that makes it dead-simple to link one page to another. Out of the box VoodooPad comes with a lot of great features, but Gus also maintains a VoodooPad plug-ins page with a number of add-ons for making VoodooPad do everything from adding some handy keyboard shortcuts to more complex abilities like rendering math in your documents and allowing plug-in authors to use Python for writing VoodooPad plug-ins.At the top of my list, however, is the HTML Tools plug-in which allows you to preview the current VoodooPad page as rendered HTML, Textile or Markdown, as well as copy the text you've written as HTML (with styling attributes and all) or Simple HTML with just the plain markup. It's a handy plug-in for anyone who, like me, prefers to compose blog posts (or of course websites) in desktop software in order to take advantage of all the power Mac OS X has to offer, then simply copy and paste the blog post as HTML into their blogging engine or CMS. This Simple HTML feature needs a little work, however, as it isn't creating entirely proper HTML just yet. Lists, for example, are created simply with <br> tags instead of actual <ul> and <li> tags, but it could do the trick for those who aren't exactly trying to pass every HTML validation test available across the web.The VoodooPad plug-ins are provided for free, though some of them are still PowerPC-only. Demos of the $29.95 VoodooPad are of course available, with a $49.95 VoodoPad Pro version that offers a few key features for power users, as well as a free VoodooPad Lite version for those who don't need quite as much.
