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AddOn Spotlight: Comix - The Return
Blizzard's loremeister Chris Metzen admitted to a love of comics in an hour long podcast back in August, going so far as to admit that certain aspects of World of Warcraft were inspired by the comics he read as a kid. Hyping up the new series from Wildstorm Studios, Metzen effused about how they were forging new lore for the game. The first issue of the comic came out last November, with a preview of the second that you can check out before it hits the newsstands. Of course, millions of players are forging lore of their own everyday, even if they don't all make it to the comic pages. But if you're a fan of comics like I am, you might want to check out Comix - The Return, to make your adventures in Azeroth and Outlands more epic -- or should I say, comic. It's a bit of a memory hog as far as AddOns go, and doesn't really improve gameplay to any degree, but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun. Boing! sounds every time you jump, classic video game music when you die or enter zones, and of course -- Bam! Thwack! and Ka-pow! visual effects in the tradition of Adam West's Batman every time you hit or crit someone in melee. Updated for Patch 2.3, Comix - The Return is the perfect AddOn for comic book geeks who want to feel like they're playing a comic book hero -- without having to play another game, that is.
AddOn Spotlight: For the timid
Addons; they can do everything from seemingly changing nothing at all to creating what would appear to many to be total chaos. They can enhance the gaming experience so greatly that to be without them can seem downright apocalyptic. I know that I bond with my addons, and when I finally find "the one" that will do that thing I've been wishing the game would do for months, I feel renewed excitement for playing.At the same time, I understand all too well the hesitation that many harbor about delving into the user customization world. Worries that they'll be difficult to install, require a doctorate to use, and give you a migraine, are all very valid concerns. This week is dedicated to those who are timid or reluctant about using addons, as well as those who have had bad experiences with them. No matter what your playstyle or your level of l33t UI sophistication, I guarantee that there are addons out there that you'll love.
Addon Spotlight: FlagRSP2 and MyRolePlay
FlagRSP and its descendents have long been the de facto standard addons that most roleplayes use to "flag" themselves, letting other roleplayers know at a glance not only that they're interested in roleplaying, but also sharing character descriptions and basic information about what sort of roleplaying they prefer. The original FlagRSP is defunct, but the torch has been passed to two worthy (and superior) successors: FlagRSP2 and MyRolePlay. Both use the same methods to communicate with other roleplayers, so you need only choose one and you'll be able to share information with players who use the other (be careful not to use both at the same time, however). Both addons help a lot with the problem of roleplayers being hard to find.FlagRSP2 and MyRolePlay both give you a space to write things like your character's first or last names, a character title (such as "Priestess of the Dark" or "Wacky Troublemaker"), as well as some description about what your character looks like; and of course they both enable you to see the information other people have written about their characters too. Both have "roleplaying flags," which can tell other people whether you are a "casual" or "fulltime" roleplayer, as well as whether you are in or out of character at any given moment.FlagRSP2 has a cleaner, more intuitive interface, in my opinion, and it has nice little popup windows for character information which can appear whenever you mouseover or target someone. MyRolePlay only has a popup button which you must click on to see other characters' information, but it also has two separate spaces for physical descriptions and story backgrounds, which FlagRSP2 users sometimes mix up together. MyRolePlay also uses less computer resources on my system, and keeps things running a bit smoother. I often switch between the two since I can't really decide which is best.
Addon Spotlight: QuestsFu
In previous weeks we've looked at Lightheaded, which helps you understand how to do your quests, and Fubar, which can present all sorts of information concisely. Today's addon is a Fubar plugin that can work with Lightheaded to show you everything you need to know about your quests without having to click a lot of buttons or obscure your screen with your entire quest log.QuestsFu presents you with a handy quest list in two ways. First of all, you can hover over its space on your Fubar and it'll give you a collapsable list of all the quests you're working on in a tooltip. In addition, you can have QuestsFu put up its own little quest tracker to replace Blizzard's standard tracker. The advantage to either of these color-coded quest lists is that you can just click on any of the quests themselves to open up a little window with all the quest information in it (pictured on the right). This is great for when you're in the middle of a quest and you don't want to stop moving, but you still forgot where exactly you were supposed to go or what the quest rewards are.If you have Lightheaded installed too, then you can arrange an additional Lightheaded comments popup on the other side of your screen, and get hints about your quest without opening the big old quest log. There are other quest managers out there, but this is my favorite because it feels so light weight, looks so attractive, works together with other addons so nicely, and also has such nice features, above and beyond what I've already mentioned: Edit the questlog on the fly, adding or removing quests with ease. Display quest levels, difficulty, zones, and objectives clearly. Put objective info into monster and item tooltips Show the quest level before you accept the quest Show other party members' completion of quest objectives (if they have the addon too) Optionally (I have this turned off) notify party members in /p chat when you complete a quest. Check out QuestsFu at WoW Interface.
Addon Spotlight: Prat (and PitBull_Prat)
The basic chat interface in WoW is pretty limited. It's easy to miss what's happening in the chat window while fighting, for example, and there are many other ways in which the chat windows are not very user-friendly. Prat helps solve a lot of these usability problems, and since it's modular, you can turn its features on or off easily. New functions are being added over time, too. Here are a few of the things it can do: Enable mouse scrolling in the chat window. Abbreviate the channel names (from [Guild] to [G], or just the green color, for example) Add keybindings for various chat channels. Add a slash command (or keybinding) to whisper to your current target. Add timestamps to the frame (so that you know when someone sent a message). Color player names according to their class, and add their level beside their names. Toggle the chat buttons on or off, or move them about. Turn on chat logging. Move the chat input box (the Editbox) to a different location. Copy text from the chat frame. Shorten existing commands to your own personal alias comands. (eg: "/say "Get ready, I'm pulling now!" could be shortened to "/pull". This is like a macro, except that it is executed with your own shortened command instead of a button to click on, which is handy for things you say or do often, while out of combat.) As for that problem many of us have, where, in the thick of battle, someone will say something like, "WAIT! DON'T PULL!" or "Help me! I'm being attacked!" and you miss it because you were looking at the fight, not at the chat window: a recently developed addon, blandly named "PitBull_Prat", helps solve this problem by working in conjunction with PitBull and Prat together, by adding the text of what you and others say to a colored speech bubble right next to that player's unit frame in your interface (as you can see in the screenshot above). Since you're more likely to be looking at your friends' health bars to keep aware of how the battle is going, hopefully this will help you to see what their saying in time to help them too. Click here to download Prat and PitBull_Prat from files.wowace.com, and remember, PitBull_Prat will only work if you have both PitBull and Prat installed.
Addon Spotlight: PitBull
I've been putting off writing about this addon, mainly because it's one of the greatest addons out there, so it's hard to do it justice -- what doesn't PitBull do? Well it won't win the game for you by itself, and its name doesn't really describe anything about it, but other than that it does pretty much anything and everything you could expect from a unit-frames replacement and then some. You can, of course, personalize your unit frames to your heart's content, more than any other unit frames mod I've seen, and that in itself is worth the download. On top of that, though, you get a ton of other features, all of which can be enabled for functionality or disabled for performance, whichever you like. Here are a few of my favorites:
Addon Spotlight: SuperInspect
Nowadays you can inspect someone's items from a full 30 yards away, but back in the day, you had to be within 10 yards in order to do it. And if someone moved out of that range while you were inspecting them, then the window showing all their items would go away. I got fed up trying to catch up to people all the time when I wanted to inspect them, so as soon as I realized that an addon could help with this, I adopted it and never went back. SuperInspect has truly been the super hero addon of player inspection because not only does it preserve the inspecting window no matter how far away your target gets, it also gives you a good view of the target's graphical model, whether a player or an NPC. This feature lets you rotate or zoom in on the target model to your heart's content. Just love the look of that monster or enemy player in front of you but can't get close enough without getting attacked? Just use SuperInspect and zoom in!There are several more features which make SuperInspect feel fleshed out and useful, such as colored borders for displayed items that indicate their quality, and total item bonuses added up from all your target's gear. It can also save the various characters you've looked at in each session so that you can look them up later. Mainly, though, SuperInspect just looks good, with a movable, scalable window, and even a pretty background behind each character that adds that certain flair that all good addons should have.
AddOn Spotlight: WoW UI Updater
Here's something I've been looking for for a long time! It's not an addon itself, but it does make the management and upkeep of your addons a lot simpler. Cairnehoof of Dethecus (US) sent this in to Mike, who kindly sent it my way: I read your article on wowinsider (big fan btw) about the addon issue in the upcoming patch. I have come across an great application for windows that updates your addons from all the popular sites. Maybe you could share it on the site. I know many people would love it. It's alot better than the one offered on ui.worldofwar.net because it not just download from one site. It is maintained on sourceforge.net and does not contain any malicious code. (I scanned with 3 different anti-virus programs and a anti-spyware one) heres the link if you want to take a look: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wuu So, armed with that information, I set off to explore WUU.
AddOn Spotlight: Totemus
TOTEMS! Yes, I'm the quintessential WoW Switcher. Vlambaard is sitting on a shelf, gathering dust, decked out in Judgement gear with his Herald of Woe. In his place, Wyahld has leveled like a madman, busting out totems and frostshocks all over the place. In my eternal quest for better living in the World (of Warcraft), I came across Totemus, a UI mod for shaman in the spirit of Necrosis. As you can see in the illustration above, Totemus is essentially a big round button, with some little round buttons surrounding it. Let's break it down, so you can see how it'll be of use to you. It's pretty darn configurable, so I'll just reference my installation, and let you rock your own from there.
AddOn Spotlight: LootLink
Regardless of how long you've played, I'm sure you've run into LootLink at some point or other. LootLink is an in-game item database that's populated as you encounter new items in Azeroth. It's searchable, and the items within the database can be linked in game to other players. (Yes, this is how you end up with countless linkings and relinkings of every new and awesome piece of gear in the game.) However, besides the infinite amounts of fun you can have with this mod by playing around in the dressing room or teasing your friends with epic items, there's some good utility to this mod as well -- though perhaps it's just my poor memory that makes me say that.Have a favorite mod, or a unique mod you can't live without? Send us a tip and maybe it will wind up in our next AddOn Spotlight!
