addons
Latest
Breakfast Topic: Do you contribute to your favorite WoW database site?
You know that site you use every day to learn about quests and where things drop? All of that data -- who drops what, the percentages, the map locations -- comes from players who take the time to collect it and contribute. The more people who contribute, the more accurate the data. These lightweight addons collect the pertinent information in the background and upload when you exit the game. The Wowhead Client will let you collect data for Wowhead and upload it at your convenience The WoWDB Profiler addon works in conjunction with the Curse Client to contribute to WoWDB %Poll-84874%
Addon Spotlight: Reforging and gear optimization addons
You all know the score. Siege of Orgrimmar is here, the Timeless Isle has been up for a few weeks, and gear is dropping like rain. But getting that drop you need isn't the end of the road for gearing, no, far from it in fact. Your work is only just beginning. Once you've got your hands on that upgrade (and, of course, actually ascertained that it is an upgrade at all) you will need to enchant it, gem it, reforge it, and consider whether to upgrade it. With the reduced cost of upgrades now, it's a far less significant decision, but nonetheless it is one that you'll have to make. But fear not, friends! There are tools out there that will make your lives considerably easier. Ask Mr Robot What? Olivia, you nincompoop, Ask Mr Robot isn't an addon, it's a website! Silly brits, always mixing everything up. But you're wrong, since January 10th, there has been a great little addon that tags along with the well-known and widely used website. And since 5.4 dropped, it's started bringing the site's robotic advice straight to your characters in-game! So how does it work? It's very, very easy. Head over to askmrrobot.com, and load up your character details. You'll need to choose a region, as well as a server, and type in your name. Pretty easy so far? You'll need to be logged out on the character in question and Mr Robot will pull down all your gear data from the armory. Since you asked so nicely.
oQueue how-to for Flex raiding on demand
So you want to do Flex raiding instead of LFR? Or as well as LFR, you crazy cats? But you don't have a guild or any friends or the time to sit in trade chat forlornly spamming "520 afflock LF Flex /w" for hours on end? You want to be out in the world doing Timeless Isle things rather than stuck in cities? If only there was another way to PuG Flex raids. Well fear not, my friends, oQueue is here to save your bacon. Or any other pork product. Before I get into the oQueue how-to, I am just going to dedicate a moment to openraid. If you're organised enough to be able to say "Yes! I can raid on Monday at 7pm!" then openraid.us or openraid.eu depending on your region should be your weapon of choice. This allows you to sign up for pre-arranged raids, or indeed to set up your own. But if you want to log in, and immediately hop into a queue for a flex raid, without the need for organization or flexibility, oQueue's the way to go. So let's get started.
Addon Spotlight: Reviewing readers' secret addons
A couple of weeks back, I asked, in a discussion topic, for readers to submit their secret addons. I wasn't after addons everyone had heard of, like DBM, Recount, or Bartender, nor indeed addons that most people would have heard of, such as Adibags or TellMeWhen. I was after obscure little addons, maybe addons that didn't do a great deal, but were a huge help, and which their users wouldn't be without. And you wonderful people gave me plenty to be going along with! Side note, though, many of you mentioned that you actually wrote addons yourselves, and that's something I'd absolutely love to do -- feature readers' addons. No matter if they're not on Curse or similar, drop me a line on olivia@wowinsider.com and we'll sort something out. Let's get started! OneClickEnchantScroll Oh my. OCES, as we'll call it from now on, was one addon that immediately caught my eye. It is one of those addons that really does exactly what it says on the tin. I've wanted a way to do this forever, and it's really only a minor efficiency gain, as all it removes is a single click. But man, it's great to remove that one click!
Blood Pact: FinalBoss interviews Sparkuggz and Shinafae
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill fails at predicting patch day. Whoops. So I was moving living spaces and then I thought it'd be only a week before the patch launched. I have the gear drops list set up, and I figured no one wanted 1000 words when the obvious numbers pass happened -- our DoTs went up and our fillers went down. But then the patch release date became September 10th instead of August 27th. You'd think I'd have learned this by now. What I have learned by now is to read up on other warlock things, particularly in aspects of WoW I don't personally play. I am in a 5/13 25H guild, but I doubt I'll reach world firsts any time soon, so it's fun to hear perspectives of warlockery from the likes of Sparkuggz of EU-Twisting Nether's Method and Shinafae of US-Illidan's Blood Legion. Fortunately, new video series FinalBoss.tv got the chance to interview both for its third episode about warlocks in Mists of Pandaria.
Tell me about your secret addons
I put the call out on twitter the other day, asking people to tell me about little known addons that they couldn't be without. When you talk about addons you always want to have loaded, everyone thinks of things like DBM or Grid or other very well-known and popular addons, but they're not the ones I have in mind. Instead I want to know about the addons you rely on that not everyone has heard of, that aren't common knowledge, the ones that you happened upon or had recommended to you by friends, and now can't be without. The secret addons that you will always use, now, regardless of what others might say. Me, personally? I love a couple of little addons, one called GoGoMount, which allows you to use Blizzard's keybind menu, the one in the menu that pops up if you hit escape, to bind both a random flying mount and a random ground mount. I like getting random mounts, and it doesn't take up space on my (packed) bars. Another one I love is Steal, Purge and Dispel. It makes a "bong" noise and pops up a little window whenever your target or focus has something that could be removed via Spellsteal, Purge, or Dispel Magic. While there are other ways to do this, it's great to have that little reminder sometimes, particularly on my mage where I have a habit of getting distracted by Pyroblasting everything in the face. So what are your secret addons?
Addon Spotlight: Buffs and the removal thereof
Last time on Addon Spotlight, we took a look at the use of powerful addon Weak Auras to track buffs on yourself, and as promised, we're back with a few other recommendations for you to have a look at. As we mentioned before, but it bears repeating, tracking your buffs is rather important for effective DPS, and for maximising your efficiency as just about every class. There's almost always something to be keeping an eye on, and there are several addons out there to help you with it! We're also going to take a look at something a little different, for your delectation, and that's an addon to help you with stealing other people's buffs! While more class-specific, only really useful for classes with an offensive dispel, it's definitely handy to have in mind. Quoth the Raven We're going to start with my current favorite tracker, outside Weak Auras, and that's Raven. You can see it in action in the video in the header image, on my mage, and I'm showing off both the buff tracker and the debuff tracker. The debuff tracker is the section that stacks up to the right hand side, while the buff trackers sit over to the left of the mage. As you can likely see, there are several different buff tracking elements visible.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's addons
Whether you agree with World of Warcraft's approach to interface design or not, it's hard to deny that it's a fascinating case study. It's a game that was released with a broken interface, one that was very decidedly not the optimal way to experience the game... with the expectation that players would develop a better one (which could then be pinched by the developers to improve the core experience). This is pretty unusual now, and it was almost unheard of back in the day. But WildStar is going down the same road of having UI mods and addons in from day one, and it's one of the places that I think taking lessons from World of Warcraft would not only be prudent but downright smart. Including UI modding from launch means that WildStar will have the opportunity to tread down familiar paths. But some of those paths are familiarly awful, and so perhaps the developers could learn some lessons from those who have made these mistakes before. So let's look at the good, the bad, and how we can perhaps get more of the former than the latter.
What is too much for an addon?
Over the weekend, Blizzard's ever-loquacious Lead Systems Designer, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, responded to a question about raid group reshuffling. As you may well be aware, it is not currently possible for players to change around their raid groups while in combat. The player asking the question wondered why, and Ghostcrawler responded as follows: @incoherenc A little concern about a mod that puts the debuff target in slot 1 and lets the dispeller spam slot 1. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) July 2, 2013 So it seems that the main reason to prevent reshuffles is the potential for mods that make the game too easy. As WoW Insider's addon writer, this is something that I consider a lot -- at what point is an addon adding to much? What crosses the line from helpful augmentation into necessary, and what from there into almost-cheating?
WildStar Wednesday details player-created addons and mods
You may remember that earlier this year, our very own Bree Royce had the opportunity to attend a WildStar press event where she got a nice, tasty scoop on Carbine's hopes of fostering the creation of user-developed UI mods within WildStar's community. Well in today's WildStar Wednesday, Jon "Bitwise" Wiesman takes a closer look at the addon development tools players will have at their disposal and also highlights the first-ever WildStar mods to come out of the game's closed beta. Players will have access to a development tool known as Houston, which allows players to "easily create [their] own addons to extend WildStar's UI," as well as providing "full access to all of the Carbine-authored source code." A player by the name of PacketDancer has already put Houston through its paces, and she has the honor of being the developer of WildStar's first UI mods, which range from a group-finding tool to a roleplaying mod library. The WildStar devs are obviously thrilled to see the community embracing the addon tools this early in beta, and we have to admit we're looking forward to seeing what other craziness WildStar players dream up. In the meantime, though, check out all the addon development details over at the game's official site.
Addon Spotlight: Buff monitoring with Weak Auras
Way, way back in the last Addon Spotlight, we talked about addons to monitor your debuffs on your target, and after a lengthy hiatus, we're back to look at buffs. Why is buff monitoring a good idea? Well, think of DoT classes. The way the game works is that when you cast a DoT, it will take a snapshot of your current situation, so, if you have a buff up that increases your intellect for a few seconds, such as a weapon enchant, then that intellect increase will be applied to your DoT. If you refresh that DoT without the intellect proc active, the second DoT will be weaker than the first. The same applies to healing, to general damage, to so many things, so monitoring your buffs is really important. Regardless of what class you play, there will be buffs you want to look out for to make the best of what you're doing. So how do you watch them? With addons, that's how! We're going to take a look at several addons that monitor buffs, and we're going to start with the one I prefer, which is the oddly named Weak Auras. Weak Auras was originally created as an alternative to Power Auras, which, alas, has rather fallen by the wayside of late. Weak Auras is, therefore, the one to look out for. We've talked about it before here at Addon Spotlight, but Weak Auras is just so good at tracking buffs we thought it was worth dedicating an article to that specific role. Setting up Weak Auras seems daunting at first, but I promise you that this is really, really easy. You just need someone to tell you how to do it.
Unicorn poop, beer cans, and housing dungeons: WildStar's Jeremy Gaffney preps us for closed beta 2
"This is going to be the best game most of us have built in our lives," Carbine Studios Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney said bluntly. The game in question, of course, is WildStar, and it represents Gaffney's 10th or so trip through the beta development chute on the way to release. There's an undeniable note of pride and calm confidence in his voice as he talks about the baby that's growing inside Carbine's womb right now, and he was definitely not shy in opening up about all of the decisions and work the team's made as WildStar heads into its second trimester... er, closed beta test. Before that, however, Gaffney provided a recap of the first closed beta test. He said that it was pretty limited, with only 2,000 players testing out the lowbie Exile zones. The team moved some of the elder game content down in level so that people could test it out, and developers spent some time doing impromptu Q&A sessions with players in the field. As a result, Carbine is ready to shift over to the Dominion side and greatly expand the beta in size and content. Read on for the full scoop on what the next step will entail.
Reader UI of the Week: We've come a long way, baby
A little while back, I put out the call for UIs with a bit of history, a bit of evolution to them. I love seeing how my UI has evolved over the years, starting off with the basic Blizzard UI, until I realised that I could tinker with the overall scale, and then began adding unit frame addons, then action bar addons, castbar addons, and the whole thing got completely out of hand and escalated to the point where I started writing addon and UI columns for WoW Insider! And it's always interesting to see how others' UIs have developed, too. Today, we're delving into the past and present of Alphabot's UI. He's sent over several pictures, of both his current UI and his UIs past. So here, in chronological order, are UI shots one, two, three, four and five, and his current UI out of combat, in combat, and with everything on -- in test mode, so to speak. Let's move into Alphabot's email.
Reader UI of the Week: Remarkably minimal custom-made healing UI
There are several kinds of UI. Lately on Reader UI of the Week, we've looked at several that do specific jobs, that are functional, even those that fulfil particular requirements for specialized players. This week's UI is, instead, one that is supremely focused on form. That is not to say, of course, that Kait neglects the functional elements of the design, indeed, he does an excellent job of integrating the elements he needs to perform his role, whilst still making a supremely pretty UI. Unlike our usual submitters, Kait has sent us a video of his UI in action, which you can see on the header, and watch on his YouTube channel along with videos of his other UIs. Kait has also sent in three pictures, one solo healing, one raid healing, and one of the custom designed talent pane. Let's get into Kait's email.
The Daily Grind: Do you like moddable MMORPGs?
WildStar's announcement this week that closed beta players have already started modding the game's UI to their personal preferences got me wondering once again about whether MMO gamers have been influenced by games like World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic when it comes to acceptance of modding. As recently as last November, when SOE outlawed all mods in PlanetSide 2 -- including benign mods that enhanced graphics and FPS -- our commenters seemed split over whether mods were a good thing. One, who specifically singled out Diablo III and Guild Wars 2 as key offenders, argued that developers' "play it how we made it because we know best" attitude stifles player freedom. Another wrote that on the contrary, Guild Wars 2's anti-mod approach was the right one; he liked that everyone is made to play with the same interface because "the fact [that] you almost need different UIs and addons for endgame in WoW" is a turn off. So let's take this topic's current temperature: Do you like moddable MMORPGs? Why or why not? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
UI Surgery: Downsizing your UI for a smaller screen or resolution
Sometimes players find themselves in the position where they have to downsize. It happens to us all now and then, for whatever reason, you're heading to someone else's house and need to play on their computer, your monitor explodes and you find yourself using that little one you had in the attic to make your raid happen, your desktop decides enough is enough and you're stuck with a laptop, your good laptop goes back to Asus to be repaired for the third time and you've got to use the little laptop with the lower resolution. And your UI's a mess. We've actually had a few emails about exactly these sorts of issues, asking how to rework or resize a UI for a smaller screen, what's good and what's bad, and what works the best for form and function over both different sizes and on a small screen. Last week's Reader UI of the Week, from Thieren, made an excellent job of this. Thieren plays on a 1280x1024 monitor, and, thanks to her preferred in-game activities, requires both large chat panes and a lot of screen space, something that isn't often available on a smaller monitor, but makes great use of what she has to play with.
Reader UI of the Week: Small screen, big ideas
Everyone has specific goals to achieve with their UI, it's one of the things I particularly like about writing this column, is seeing what people are up against, and how they've worked with their UI to adapt to that. And this week's UI is no exception. While many of us are playing the game with big monitors, with big computers, or with big budgets, there are others who aren't. This week's Reader UI comes to you from a 1280x1024 monitor, and the submitter, Thieren, has had to work around their resolution to create a UI that allows them the maximum of screen space, and visibility, so that they can be at their most effective. As a result, the header image is oddly cropped, but fear not, Thieren sent in several screenshots for us all to look at in environments where size doesn't matter. There's a solo shot, one in a ten-man raid, one in LFR, one solo, in combat and one in a party, out of combat. Let's jump straight into Thieren's email I've largely run with this UI since early Wrath when I sat down to reign in the mess I'd created when I began tinkering with addons during Burning Crusade. There have been alterations, but they're more quality of life stuff and replacing out-of-date addons. The most recent, and the reason for the delay, was moving my SUF bars down from the typical Blizzard position.
Addon Spotlight: DoT trackers
DoT trackers are addons which monitor your DoTs, or Damage over Time effects. If you're playing a class whose damage relies on DoTs, and there are plenty, you should definitely consider using one of these addons. What they do is provide an easy-to-read representation of what DoTs you have on a given target, be it your focus, your target, or any target in the area, depending on your choice of addon. This is important to ensure DoT classes are maximising their DPS, and yes, the Blizzard standard UI does represent them, but the time display is not that clear. To maximise DoT damage, efficient re-casting is key. You should certainly check out guides for your specific class to ensure you're using the right method, whether that's clipping -- replacing a DoT before it's expired -- or allowing something like a mage Living Bomb to explode. It's often useful to be able to start the cast of a DoT to time it with its expiration, and of course, to maintain maximum DoT uptime for the minimum of GCDs and mana, and for all those reasons, you need to track your DoTs. Tidy Plates What the heck? Why am I starting with a nameplate addon? Well, dear reader, I understand your confusion, but for PvP purposes, Tidy Plates, or any similar addon such as the built-in ElvUI nameplates, is a pretty decent way to track your DoTs.
Reader UI of the Week: Custom Creation
I've been sitting on this UI for a while, and I'm really not sure why, as it offers a lot of great elements. Kiebs, the submitter, send in a very short email, simply because he had very, very few addons to share with us, the majority of the work behind his UI is, as we can see from the header image, covered in the design. Kiebs designs his UI elements himself. He covers this in his very, very brief email, which I'll pop in below. Kiebs writes: Here's an artsy one for you. I noticed you don't see many of them, but I like designing UI artwork in photoshop, and I use KGPanels to add them into the game. I then rearrange the bars with bartender and change cast bar etc. This is my PvP Monk so... very few addons, I like to keep it real simple. KGpanels, CoolLine, Bartender, CoolDownCount, Chatter, TidyPlates. (unseen ones as well obviously for PvP, Gladius, Afflicted3 etc..) Also threw in my Mage one that I'm working on at the moment for PvE. Like I said, nothing crazy raid worthy, just some fun! Kiebs also sent in several screenshots, showing off his rather minimal UI.
Do the Harlem Shake with ElvUI for April Fools' Day
The above video shows what awaits for ElvUI users when they log in today. I must say, I've been using addons and UI mods for years now in WoW, but as one YouTube commenter says, "Trolled by an addon, that's a first for me." Personally, I got a good kick out of seeing this on my main and I'm looking forward to logging onto my alts, at least just to see my dwarf scream "DO THE HARLEM SHAKE" to Zangarmarsh. However, for those ElvUI users among you who may have been less than diligent about keeping on top of updates - and who can blame you really, I swear ElvUI goes out of date every three days - it seems that instead of the Harlem Shake, you get a message saying all your gold has been donated to the Orgrimmar orphanage. I personally can't confirm this, because for once I did update my UI as soon as it said to. Let us know if you can confirm/deny the orphanage joke! Big thanks to @Vixsin_LiG5 for bringing the video to our attention, as well as the other commenters who tipped us on ElvUI's goofy prank. Happy April Fools' Day!
