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  • Reader UI of the Week: Magistrum's basic setup makes great addon starting place

    by 
    Mathew McCurley
    Mathew McCurley
    02.28.2012

    Each week, WoW Insider and Mathew McCurley bring you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com, and follow Mathew on Twitter. One of the most amazing things about World of Warcraft's addons is that you're always learning something new or adapting your interface to the new standards because you can build on top of what's already there. Sometimes you do the opposite -- take all of the information you've learned and processed but strip it all away and start from stratch. It's liberating to re-form your UI with years of potentially new and useful knowledge and expectations when going to build your legacy UI. Magistrum sent me a screenshot for his mage's new UI. I looked at the picture first as I usually do when picking out a UI for the column and saw a very basic design that didn't jump out at me while being far from offensive. After reading the short email, it dawned on me that I was looking at this UI all wrong. This wasn't a first attempt at cleanliness with a new player, hitting the game for the first time. No, this was years of learning and understanding what makes your own personal UI yours. The little pieces are all in place where you want them.

  • Reader UI of the Week: Kaikuri's fork formation

    by 
    Mathew McCurley
    Mathew McCurley
    01.17.2012

    Each week, WoW Insider and Mathew McCurley bring you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which spotlights the latest user interface addons. Have a screenshot of your own UI that you'd like to submit? Send your screenshots along with info on what mods you're using to readerui@wowinsider.com, and follow Mathew on Twitter. Welcome, friends, to another edition of Reader UI of the Week, WoW Insider's showcase of your crazy, cool, or just plain useful user interfaces for WoW. This week's tank UI was sent in by Kaikuri and features minimal interface artwork, a clear workspace, and a lot of words to say about it all. But first, we have the matter of the new year to attend to. With Mists of Pandaria most likely coming out some time this year, we're all going to be on auto-pilot for a little while. This is the best time to set some of your precious moments away to work on your UI and tinker around with things. Your raid group might be on hiatus or your buddies just want to take a couple weeks off, but you're still jonesing? This year is going to be gangbusters for Reader UI of the Week, as we keep the hype train going while we wait to roll out our awesome new interfaces when Mists hit.

  • Addon Spotlight: Glance, a multi-use top bar

    by 
    Mathew McCurley
    Mathew McCurley
    01.12.2012

    Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. Keeping your interface neat and tidy while still retaining a lot of your precious information can be a tough feat. Some poor souls never get away from a disaster UI, started and finished in sadness, shame, and wreckage. Do not fret, young ones. There are addons that can help you be neat and tidy without too much work on your part. I promise. Glance was an addon that I first discovered while trolling through the comments on my various columns, as am I known to do. My readers are a steadfast bunch, always willing to show support for their man and recommend some great tools to players in need. Well, as it turns out, I am one of those players in need. A few weeks back, I got an email that asked me what was an easy way to get into LDB bars and addons, and I didn't really have a great answer. The first thing that popped into my head was the concept -- the bar addon works as a dock for other LDB plugins. It didn't feel right explaining the whole thing in that way, so instead I went looking for an addon that resembled LDB but didn't take the setup some LDBs require. That addon is Glance.

  • Addon Spotlight: Get prepped for Pet Battles

    by 
    Mathew McCurley
    Mathew McCurley
    11.10.2011

    Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. At this very moment, I am taking a break from running dungeons, farming for transmogrification equipment, because the instance counter has ticked to five in an hour and I just can't go back in. I am no stranger to farming and farming and farming for something that I want. As an MMO veteran, this is pretty commonplace and something we expect and understand as a fact of our MMO lives. With Pet Battles coming in Mists of Pandaria, those rare pets out in the world are becoming even bigger status symbols, when we gain the ability to finally show off, train, and battle those companions. Like most of my articles, it all started with an email from reader Josh: My question is there an addon that tracks and counts the number of mobs or certain mobs you kill? I'm starting to farm mobs for mini pets and just counting in my head gets boring (doesn't help my mind tends to wander). Thank you very much :) When I asked on Twitter for recommendations for an addon to feature this week, two addons stood out from the pack because of my current obsession with finding every rare pet left for me to catch and bosses just not dropping my transmog items. @Skolnik (of the immensely interesting podcast Warcraft Less Traveled) recommended Bunny Hunter, an addon that tracks statistics based on your farming sessions for rare pets and mounts that have low drop rates. Another addon I've been meaning to recommend, Rarity, lives in the same category, so why not package it all together?

  • Addon Spotlight: Quoth the Raven, Grab Bag 4

    by 
    Mathew McCurley
    Mathew McCurley
    04.28.2011

    Each week, WoW Insider brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, Grab Bag 4 is probably better than Grab Bag 3 but not as good as Grab Bag 2. Once upon a website cheery, awake at midnight barely clearly, Running another troll instance studying their forgotten lore, While on Eagle Boss, DPSing, suddenly I heard his rasping, Annoying me with all that chatting, chatting in my Chatter box. "Who's there?!" I muttered, "rasping in my headphones loudly?" Fine, I'm back to DPSing. "Addon columnist," he told me smiling, Grinning like that stupid Jin'do, Godslayer of trollish Loa, "My addons broke and I need fixing and by god I need it now-ish," Can't you see I'm in an instance, running, DPSing serpents, boas, "TELL ME NOW, my framerate's dying!" he sqawked like Outlands' Arakkoa Quoth the patch day, "Addons broken!"

  • Addon Spotlight: More broker addons

    by 
    Mathew McCurley
    Mathew McCurley
    07.08.2010

    Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, LDB! LDB! LDB! Brooooooker addons! Again. Wow, you guys love broker addons. The amount of emails I received from readers about their favorite broker addons was astounding, and worthy of a second go. You guys are all about the LBD, so who am I to deny you the satisfaction of more broker plugins for your little bars? Let's clutter up those ChocolateBars just a little bit more, shall we? Check out part one first, of course.