timers
Latest
Blood Pact: Be the boss of your mods
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is using old screenshots because they're pretty. My first post about user interface elements was back in October? Seriously? Sheesh. Since then I've talked about unit frames, how your spells spread in space, macros, two proc tracking addons, keybinds, and shared some of my Weak Aura strings. The final topic is to use a boss mod effectively as a DPS, even when you're not the raid leader calling everything. The two popular boss mods, Deadly Boss Mods (DBM) and Big Wigs (BW), both work pretty fantastically out of the box, but using a boss mod properly can really enhance your spellplay during an encounter.
Countdown for iOS keeps track of everything important to you
Countdown (free) is one of those "I should thought of that" apps. It's simple in concept, but useful all the time. Countdown has an attractive UI for adding upcoming events that are important for you to keep track of. A birthday, a vacation, a deadline for a payment... anything really. You enter the events into Countdown and can even pick an appropriate photo of a person or place to make the screen more useful or attractive. After that, you're done. The countdown clock starts timing months, days, minutes, even seconds if you like, until the event. You can set reminders for each countdown, have the app play a selected tune from your library when an event occurs, or share countdowns on Facebook and/or Twitter. Yes, your iOS calendar and Reminders app keep you on top of events too, but I like that Countdown puts all the events in one place with timers, and you can order those events by date to figure out what's urgent and what's not. If you run out of photos in your library, there are some in-app purchases of other themes, but I don't think they are really necessary. It's pretty easy to find something on the web that will work for you with a quick image search, save the image to your camera roll and then use that image. It would be nice if Countdown automatically scoured your calendar for upcoming events so you don't have to re-enter them, but that's the only downside I can see to the app. Countdown is a handy and free app, and you might find it as useful as I have. Consolidating all your to-do's into a page with timers is going to be pretty useful for a lot of people. Countdown requires iOS 7.0 or later. It's optimized for the iPhone 5.
EVE Evolved: Player justice in Retribution
This week CCP released a new devblog on upcoming piracy and PvP changes heading to EVE Online with this winter's Retribution expansion. In addition to new ships and an as-yet unrevealed bounty hunter revamp, Retribution completely redesigns the Crimewatch system that decides whom you can legally shoot and stops players from docking or jumping out of the system in the middle of combat. EVE's aggression mechanics are notoriously complicated and buggy, but Retribution aims to simplify the system and put players in the driving seat of criminal justice. The new Crimewatch system not only gets rid of old, undocumented code that was written when dinosaurs roamed the earth but also has far-reaching consequences for pirates, people engaging in PvE and the upcoming bounty hunting revamp. Pirates will now be able to escape into high-security space without police intervention, loot thieves will be subjected to mob justice, nullsec ratters won't be as safe as they think, and neutral remote repairing will be a thing of the past. In this week's EVE Evolved, I delve into Crimewatch 2.0 and how the Retribution expansion will change the game for pirates, ratters, and people engaging in PvP across New Eden.
EVE dev blog outlines starbase-related tweaks
Oh those crazy CCP devs! Not too long ago the company was hell-bent on steering EVE Online down the microtransaction dress-up path, and now the folks behind the sci-fi sandbox are posting spaceship-centric blog updates on a daily basis. The title of the latest feel-good entry is Starbase Happy Fun Time (we kid you not), and it's all about introducing the changes that are appearing in advance of CCP's planned starbase revamp. CCP Greyscale gives us the skinny on tweaks to jump bridges, timers, and fuel blocks, and all of the adjustments are being made with an eye towards increasing capsuleer quality of life across the board. If the balance change theme sounds somewhat familiar, it's because CCP is making a habit of saying all the right things lately.
Patch 1.19 bringing leve reset changes for Final Fantasy XIV
The reset timer for leves has long been a point of contention for Final Fantasy XIV players, with the 36-hour interval feeling rather stifling at the best of times. But that system is being changed, and while there will still be limitations on how many leves a player can have at one time, the restrictions will be greatly lessened. The new system has just been outlined on the official site, with a new 12-hour timer for resets being just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. At each 12-hour reset, players will be given an opportunity to acquire four new leves, with up to 99 total allowances stacking. These resets are shared across all leve types, ensuring that players will always have full access to content of an appropriate level for whatever classes they care to level. There's also a new evaluation system in place that allows players to acquire new leves based on recent history, replacing the old evaluation system with the promise of further content enhancements. While 1.19 doesn't yet have a release date on the table, most players will likely be excited enough by the promise of an easier and more straightforward system for leveling any chosen discipline.
Addon Spotlight: Slackers, beware! RSC is on to you
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. Are you ready to pull? The ready check says you've got the green light, people look ready, and your current raid boss stands in front of you, cruising for a bruising every moment you wait before initiating the fight. Stop. Is everyone flasked? Did everyone eat the feast? Who pre-potted on a progression encounter? Has someone dropped a repair bot that was not noticed? Are you sure that you're ready to pull? There is little more annoying than raiders giving half their effort to the team effort, 10- or 25-man raiding. It's game time, people! Stop slacking! We've got bosses to kick in the loot bags and gear to grab. Maybe with a little help from RaidSlackCheck, you can whip your cadre of nerds into shape and get these fights down at a quicker pace.
A clock of all trades for your iPad
There's no shortage of clocks and timers for the iPad. One of the most complete is Clock Pro for the iPad, which is on sale this weekend for US$1.99. Clock Pro is an alarm clock and uses notifications so you can get that important wake-up alert without leaving the app running. There is both an analog and digital clock design, a chess clock, a world clock, sunrise, sunset and tide clocks, a sleep timer, an egg timer and a countdown clock. Most clocks can run full screen and are beautifully rendered. We took a brief look at this app last year when it was $5.99 and gave it a positive review. Now it supports multi-tasking, and it's 4 bucks cheaper. A couple of caveats. The app can't wake you to your own iPod music if it is not running, but the app does allow you to choose among several different sound options if you are using notifications. Not all the clocks work in full screen, but otherwise this app does pretty much every kind of time keeping you would want. If you'd like a free version that doesn't multitask you can get it here, but I think the paid version is more useful. There is also an iPhone and iPod touch version on sale this weekend for $0.99. %Gallery-123647%
Persistent issues and Final Fantasy XIV
There are certain recurring complaints heard about Final Fantasy XIV's beta, especially with players freely able to share their experiences. The fact that guildleves are on a 48-hour timer and the lack of easy and efficient mana regeneration are two of the more persistent ones, and a recent interview with Hiromichi Tanaka at Gamescom address just those complaints among others. But it's not all roses and sunshine -- if you're one of the testers hoping for the guildleve timer to be reduced, you're flat out of luck. Tanaka makes it clear that several of these issues are part of the intended design -- guildleves, for instance, are doable solo or in groups, but they aren't meant to just be burned through solo each time they're up. As a result, the team is looking into how to give better incentives to group up and share guildleves. MP regeneration is meant to be difficult, and spells are supposed to be a choice of using up limited resources. There are several interesting answers in the interview, but not every Final Fantasy XIV player will be happy with the content of those answers
Global Agenda's latest Sandstorm patch hits today
Hi-Rez Studios brings us word of the latest round of Sandstorm changes coming today to Global Agenda. The sci-fi MMOFPS is rolling out Sandstorm Version 1.36 to the live servers, and with it a plethora of improvements to the Agency-vs-Agency (AvA) system. Seasons will now last for two weeks, and each major geographic region (North America, Europe, etc.) will feature one open zone from Monday through Thursday. Another zone will open up on Saturday and Sunday, and each will be open for six hours per day. In addition to the timing tweaks, AvA rewards have been adjusted, token daily limits have been raised, and consumables have been removed from PvP. Be sure to view the full list of changes via the patch notes on the official Global Agenda website.
AddOn Spotlight: SexyCooldown
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, we get real sexy. Timers for spells is an imperative addon for many classes that rely on steady rotations of DoT management and keeping debuffs up on enemies. DPS can be greatly altered by the careful balance of spell effects lasting for certain periods of time on enemies. There are a lot of good timers out there for spells and abilities, but today I want to introduce you to my favorite. If this addon is old news to you, and you already know how powerful it can be, help out the less fortunate! If you're new to his wonderful piece of code, stay a while and listen, as I sing a love song to SexyCooldown.
EVE Evolved: EVE Online's aggression mechanics
The aggression mechanics are something that every pilot in EVE Online should learn about. This is a set of rules that determines who you can attack in high security space, who can attack you and whether you can dock or use a stargate. Knowing them inside and out can mean the difference between losing your ship and keeping it in one piece, even if you have no intent of getting into a PvP situation. Nevertheless, it's a part of the game that a lot of players don't take the time to properly acquaint themselves with. In this technical article, I give some important tips that will improve your survival. Can you afford not to learn about EVE's aggression mechanics?
