cartographer
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Addon Spotlight: Getting your addons ready for Mists
It's almost here! If you've been living under a rock at the bottom of the Thousand Needles lake, there is a faint possibility that you might not know about Mists of Pandaria's arrival on the 25th of September. We did a lot of work here at Addon Spotlight for 5.0.4 addons, giving you a list of addons that are ready, a survival guide, and a couple of question and answer sessions, which will carry on below. For Mists, the process is all quite similar. I'll be uploading my list of addons that are ready for Mists, much closer to launch day this time, but I'll also be relying heavily on what I've started to call the "big three" addon sites (WoWInterface, Curse and WoWAce) and their lists of addons which are ready. As I'm sure you can appreciate, there are a lot of addons out there being updated, and, unlike for 5.0.4, these sites are running dedicated, automatically generated lists of Mists-ready addons, and I'm just one girl! So, is there much you can be doing in advance? If you're a Curse Client user, then a lot of the updating process will be automated, and if you haven't set up WoWInterface's email alert system, now would be the time. Bear in mind that it's a good idea to try to check the addon's home site rather than just blindly following one site's system. Beta files and versions may not appear on each site. Additionally, these "big three" sites are the places where the vast majority of addons are hosted with the authors' permission, meaning they are in line with copyright rules, ethically sound and home to the authors' most recent updates.
The Daily Quest: Mack rows
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. OutDPS has some great hunter macros for ICC. If you want to know everything there ever was to know about macros, Matticus made a post over at NoStockUI concerning that very subject. While you're over at NoStockUI, check out how to replace the old workhorse addon Cartographer in patch 3.3. Frost mages can increase the output of their water elemental pet by force casting the pet's waterbolt. Quite a nice trick for an extra 3% or so DPS! Tanking Tips looks at all the available tanking weapons for warriors, a very nice list and accompanying analysis. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
The Queue: Guest introduction
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.On the last edition of The Queue, I requested that readers write me an intro for this thing, and I would pick my favorite of the bunch to use to introduce the column. So here we go, an intro from Teregwynn:"Each end every day, except those days when he doesn't, Alex Ziebart takes time out of his busy schedule to sift through your annoying, and often repetitive, questions to find those worthy of answers. Once selected, he conjures answers for these questions which baffle the minds of mere mortals, endowing them with a level of insight which they could not, but for having read earlier editions of this very column, have ever imagined."Search asked..."I have recently started on getting Loremaster and find it quite frustrating that I don't know how many quests I have accomplished in each area. Is there any way to see how much I have already done in an area and how much left still to do? Maybe some sort of clever addon that has eluded my search."
Workaround for WoW.com addon's /note issues.
Since we launched WoW.com late last night, we've had numerous people writing in about an issue that has cropped up regarding one of the aspects of our tracking addon. We'll continue to respond to those reports personally as necessary, but we figured it would be wise to get the issue and the fix out in the open right off the bat.The command that's used for the WoW.com addon's Adventurer Notes function, /note, is a fairly common command used in various addons. For example, Cartographer makes use of it. Since the command overlaps between addons, it causes conflicts and one addon ends up blocking the others from using it. If you've run into this issue, there's a very easy workaround if you're not afraid to look at a little LUA. Don't worry, you won't need to do any serious coding. It's a simple fix, I promise.
EVE Online's answer to GPS
EVE Online is a vast setting where all players interact in one galaxy. While other MMOs are sharded across different servers, some with different locales, EVE places all of its players together. Its implementation ensures that many servers seem to be just one from the perspective of any pilot flying in New Eden. However, given the daunting size of EVE's explorable environment, there have been some players who took it upon themselves to map the known universe and release their findings as a resource for other pilots. Shayne Smart, aka Serenity Steele, is one such player. He's been getting some media attention in recent months as Vice-Chairman of the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). Beyond his duties on the CSM, Smart is also well-known to many players as the creator of EVE Strategic Maps, a spiral bound collection of star charts which some fans of the game find indispensable. You would think Smart would find mapping out 5000 solar systems (each with its own myriad planets, moons, stations, and other resources) a feat hard to top. But what Smart's done is found a way to use the in-game browser in the EVE client to act as a sort of GPS, tracking your position as you jump from one solar system to the next, and allowing you to better see your relative position in the galaxy as part of your overview. The cartographer's latest 'minimap' effort is presently 2-D only and in beta, though is well worth a look and quite simple to use. Click the gallery below for Shayne Smart's instructions on how to use the free 2D minimap within your in-game browser. Add GPS to your overview >> %Gallery-31177%
The little mod that could
I'm not the world's most sophisticated interface tinkerer. In comparison to people like Taeo, my UI looks like it was a low-bid government contract job by Oog & Sons. I'll grant that Taeo's UI probably isn't a fair comparison anyway (I maintain that it's hands-down the most beautiful UI we've ever run on Reader UI of the Week), but the point still stands. I download mods I need. After reading Addon Spotlight and getting curious, I often download mods I don't need. I get them up and running while trying to navigate an oft-bewildering number of options. If they're movable, they're irritably shoved around the screen depending on the job I'm doing in a raid or just ignored entirely (e.g. Decursive while tanking). Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Where'd my screen go? Man, it's a cruel world out there for the lazy. But every so often you find offbeat but amazingly helpful mods that just work, and best of all, work unobtrusively without having to be diddled with every day or between characters and specs. For my part, I am completely ready to nominate OptiTaunt for whatever Total Slacker's Mod prize might exist. It's a tiny mod for tanks that tells your group, raid, and the player you're trying to taunt off of when a taunt is resisted or when the target is immune. It can also announce when you've had to blow mega-cooldown abilities like Challenging Roar, Shield Wall, and Frenzied Regeneration. Best of all, it whispers cute class-specific messages to the player who's pulled aggro (e.g. for Priests: "Warning! My Growl was resisted! Time for a final prayer!"). And you don't need to spend time worrying about settings between characters or specs as the mod will simply never activate on a toon that won't have to (or can't) taunt anything. I love Titan, Cartographer is amazingly helpful, and we all depend on things like Omen, but OptiTaunt still wins the proverbial desert island contest for me. Sean could probably name dozen of mods like it off the top of his head, but I find any mod announcing a thinly-disguised version of "YOU'RE ALL SCREWED NOW!" pretty tough to beat. With that said, I'm trying to level some taunt-free classes to 70 before Wrath hits, so I'm on the lookout. Any suggestions for, say, a Shaman?
Gaming without Guides
Is WoW really player friendly? Tobold doesn't seem to think so. Says he, there's a lot of things that it doesn't tell you or you can miss the first time around, such as spending talent points, and that at the end game, he constantly has to check outside sites to figure out what he needs to grind to get certain drops and recipes. WoW does things better than most other MMORPGs, he says, but it is far from perfect. But, me, I'm not sure he has it quite right.
Insider Trader: The crafter's toolbench
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.This week's Insider Trader rounds up some of our favorite professions-related add-ons – and more importantly, it's a spot to share your favorites. I've learned that no matter how much time you spend poring over add-on sites and forum threads, as soon as you mention your latest cool find to a friend, he'll pop back with the name of another great new mod that you've never heard of. It's a fast-moving field, certainly.As you browse the list of mods we've discussed in the past, be sure to scan all the comments for more ideas. Keep in mind, too, that some of the mods mentioned may have been replaced by newer, shinier mods or might even be defunct and no longer maintained. Read on for a taste of some of the sweet little tools that make life easier for every profession.
Addon Spotlight: QuestHelper
We love quests, but they can be excessively frustrating sometimes. Usually they annoy you most when they make you wander all over, back and forth, without seeming to accomplish things efficiently. The fastest levelers will tell you to try to "stack quests," or do all the quests in a small area first, then gradually move around the map to other areas. But often the best way to do this isn't clear -- you may not even know exactly which area a quest is asking you to go to.Addons to the rescue! First, there was LightHeaded: an in-game database of comments from Wowhead.com that could help you when you get confused. Now, there's QuestHelper: an in-game guide which can tell you which direction to go, what to do, and what order to do everything in, all before you even get confused in the first place. QuestHelper isn't always right -- you still have to use your own brain, for sure -- but using this addon you'll be much less likely to make silly mistakes in your questing that slow you down and waste your time.
Overview of Cartographer Routes
We have highlighted the addon Cartographer in past AddOn Spotlights. In fact, it was even named one of the essential must-have addons that will work even for a beginner. Now, The Khorium Toolbox has written up an in-depth, step-by-step guide to Cartographer Routes, an addon that let's you track your gathering nodes and map out a farming route that's comprehensive and efficient. While this addon was featured in a recent Insider Trader column, I believe the guide deserves its own spotlight. As the author of AddOn Spotlight: For the Timid, I was skeptical once I saw the screenshots provided. It looked complicated, and impossible to set up. Fortunately, this guide will walk you through what to download, where to get it, and how to install it. The guide also helps you configure the addon so that in the end, you will have a map complete with farming route to optimize your farming time. It also walks you through the mechanics of gas cloud tracking and harvesting. This is a great guide, not only for engineers, but for any gathering profession. Even if you are weary of complicated addons that take time and know-how to set up, this guide will walk you straight through it. What addons have you been using for your gathering and farming exploits?
Insider Trader: Connect-the-dot gathering
Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling and using player-made items. The experienced gatherers among us know something we don't know – they know where to find stuff. The real old hands know where the nodes are based on years (yeah, literally) of experience. They've collected so much for so long that they've developed time-tested, favorite routes for every zone. And then there are the tech-savvy gatherers who let technology map things out for them. We all know there are mods out there that show you where the nodes that you've gathered are, and most of us even know that you can download data packs that show where other players have found nodes. There's yet another tool out there that puts all that information together. This mod maps out the easiest route from node to node, connecting the dots in a single, efficient path. All you do is follow the path! Find out how after the break, as well as how to nab a pattern for Green Winter Clothes or Red Winter Clothes if you didn't receive one in the mail at the start of the Winter's Veil season.
AddOns for the beginning player
There isn't a web site on the planet that loves it's readers more than WoW Insider does. So when Brenda from Florida wrote to us and told us how much she loved World of Warcraft, and asked us for opinions on what "essential" add-ons she would need to get started, there was no choice but to respond and offer up this recap of addons for beginning players.There are hundreds of add-ons out there, and as your journey progresses through the game you will find new ones you like. This is just, as Baloo from The Jungle Book would say, the simple bear bare necessities.Lightheaded - Since they inflated the experience benefit in the last patch, using Lightheaded to quest brings experience so quickly it will make your head spin. Lightheaded adds quest information from the comments on the Wowhead.com database site to your quest log. All the information you would have to tab-out for is at your fingertips. I heartily recommend using Doublewide in concert with Lightheaded, which will put your quest log in two panes instead of one to make it fit more easily on the screen. It's like peanut butter and chocolate, two great tastes that go great together. If you want to learn more about Lightheaded check out this awesome article (with accompanying awesome screenshot) from our own David Bowers.Cartographer - You need Cartographer. Cartographer is essentially "the" map add-on as far as I'm concerned, You'll find all the great features of Cartographer on the page I linked, but the most important Cartographer feature to a new player (who uses Lightheaded) is that when you click a set of coordinates in Lightheaded, it will show you a floating arrow on your screen that points the way to your destination. (As a free tip, I will also mention that you can ditch the arrow and clear all waypoints by typing /noway. Yes, I know you can do it with the mouse, but... I'm one of those weird keyboard people.)
Easy macro for getting your coordinates
Here's an awesome tip from amib over on WoW LJ. Sometimes, we all could use a little location check from time to time. While I usually am OK with finding quest coordinates, every once in a while, I'd just kind of like to know where I am. So here's amib's tip-- a macro that will easily and simply tell you (no addons required) where you are in game./script px,py=GetPlayerMapPosition("player")/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(format("( %s ) %i,%i",GetZoneText(),px *100,py *100));(As commenters have noted, the formatting is weird here on the blog-- it's meant to be two lines, both starting with script. The other line breaks will need to be taken out.)Just put that on a button, call it "Where am I?" or something like that, and then click it to get your current ingame coordinates in the chat channel. Considering how poor my addon-updating abilities are, that's perfect.Of course, there are lots and lots of addons floating around that will do this even better-- showing your coordinates and cursor coordinates in the window, and all kinds of other ways. But if you only use coordinates every once in a while, and never remember to update your addons, this little macro could be pretty useful to have.
