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Reader UI of the Week: Busy busy busy
This week I'm taking a different approach with the UI sent in to me by Vanard, you can see it in the header image if you squint really hard, but for those of us with normal vision, here's a link to the full size image. Vanard sent me his UI with a detailed email telling me exactly what he's using, and you should do the same! We're getting a lot of healer UIs, we had Synchrony's priest UI last week, and my own UI the week before. We need some tank and DPS UIs! If you do email me on olivia@wowinsider.com, tell me what addons you're using, why you're using them, what you like and what you'd change. And don't think you have to use a ton of addons, I'd love to feature a customized version of the standard UI. I challenge you! Actually, let's call that a challenge! Send me your best UI customization that only uses standard Blizzard UI elements. You can use addons to move them around, reposition, re-size, but it has to be exclusively Blizzard frames visible. Points awarded for using fewer addons, and for innovation, or doing things that most of us don't realize the Blizzard UI can do! Do still send me your normal UIs, as well.
Addon Spotlight: Cooldown tracking
I'm certainly not going to pretend even for a second that this is a comprehensive list of raid cooldown tracking addons, encompassing every addon that exists with this purpose. I'm starting off today's column with an addon suggested to me via email. If you want to suggest any addon for review, do email me with download links, a brief description, and why you think I should test it out! Today's topic is the start of a set of raid-related Addon Spotlights. I'm really hoping that our commenters will provide more addons that they consider vital for raiding, with links and all, and that I can have a look at them so we can do this again next week. Inevitably, you'll have raiding addons I don't use, or maybe ones that I don't even know about. Tell me about them in the comments! And, of course, today's addons could also be really, really handy for PvP! Anyhow, a while back in late October, Frego of The Wyld Hunt on The Sha'tar (EU-H) sent me an email regarding an addon he thought I should take a look at.
Reader UI of the Week: Dark and handsome
Welcome back to the second instalment of the new version of Reader UI of the week! Thanks so much for all your comments on last week's column, I'm doing my best to take them on board, but if there are things I'm failing at, do make suggestions! Feedback is always welcome. This week, we're going to take a look at Synchrony's UI, which he sent in via email. If you want to do the same, please do, drop me a line by clicking the link, or send an email to olivia@wowinsider.com with some high quality screenshots of your UI, and let me know what addons you're using, why you've gone for the layout and look that you've chosen, what you like about it, and what you are still working on. UIs are always a work in progress! Anyhow, let's get down to business.
Addon Spotlight: Mapping and Navigation
Carbonite. Carbonite, Carbonite, Carbonite. It's the addon that will not leave my inbox alone! The hugely popular and, just plain huge addon suffered a bit of a rocky period around the beginning of Mists of Pandaria. An update from the developers did not seem to be forthcoming, so a fan named Rythal took it upon himself to create a fan update for the popular multipurpose beast. The developers then reappeared, apparently less than impressed with Rythal's efforts, and launched their own update. Rythal politely bowed out of the official Carbonite threads and forums, and set up shop on his own site, where he continued to post unofficial updates. Then, a while back in late September/early October, the original developers and owners of Carbonite decided that they really didn't have time to maintain this behemoth of an addon. The discussion began about the possibility of making Carbonite Open Source, meaning that Rythal could officially release his patches, and that he and others could push ahead with modularizing, updating, and generally improving Carbonite.
Reader UI of the Week: In the Interest of Honesty
Welcome to the latest iteration of Reader UI of the Week. I'm your new host, and we're back thanks to popular demand. Well, frankly, the popular demand was for Mat McCurley's column. I've taken the reins and am hoping to at least hold a candle to Mat's work. I've been reading back over the past years' Reader UI of the Week columns, and trying to work out what it was that people enjoyed. It's a little bit of judgement, a chunk of advice, a little bit of looking at the good and bad sides of UIs and a big bit of discussion. It seems obvious to me that UIs are intensely personal. There's no right or wrong answer to the question "What's a perfect UI?" The question, in my opinion, should be rephrased to "What's your perfect UI?" Nonetheless, we all like to judge. It's rather like the WoW equivalent of a home improvement show, this column. And on those shows, I always want to see the presenter's house. So that's what we're doing today. The above image is my own UI. This column has been a great motivator to fix up some of the UI elements on my own screen that have been bothering me since the start of Mists, but that I've been too lazy to repair!
Addon Spotlight: Digging up some Archaeology addons
Archaeology has been subject to some considerable improvements in Mists of Pandaria. For starters, you now get six digs at any one dig site, meaning artifacts complete faster, and leveling the profession is therefore faster. I've also heard of various other improvements that have been applied to Archaeology in Pandaria, but, alas, I have no Archaeologist characters with a sufficient level to do any Archaeology in the new continent. A lot of players have messaged me asking about Archaeology addons, thanks for your emails as ever. Chief among the addon requests are the following: A way to track dig sites and suggest progress between them A way to track progress on artifacts by race A way to track each artifact's fragments A way to see if artifacts can be completed with keystones A way to see which artifacts are still out there, undiscovered or incomplete An addon to replace Biasha's Archaeology Helper I'm going to do my best to deal with all those queries in this week's column.
Addon Spotlight: ArenaLive makes spectating easy, more Addon Mailbag
Writing the PvP column Blood Sport here at WoW Insider, I am a little biased, but PvP is one of the two best parts of the game for me, specifically arena. So when an addon like ArenaLive comes along, which makes a tournament-style UI available to everyone, I have to let our readers know. Opinions vary on whether WoW is a game that's suitable for e-sports. I know some may disagree with me, but I really, really enjoy watching arena matches. I sat in a hall in Cologne for 5 hours watching the European Invitationals unfold, loving every minute of it. But one of WoW's problems as an e-sport is the absence of a spectator mode. Tournaments have to create their own UIs, and the possibility for casual streamed spectator arenas was previously pretty much nil. Until now, with the launch of ArenaLive! For a recent tournament, run by addon site Curse, ArenaLive got its first outing, allowing the author, Vadrak, to iron out any bugs, and it performed fantastically. Nilheniel built this addon from the ground up, rather than adapting existing frames, as he recognized the need for an independent UI for tournaments which didn't simply adapt Blizzard's unit frames.
Make your pet battles look like Pokemon with WoWkemon
Let's be honest, we all saw this one coming! It was just a matter of time before someone wrote an addon that really genuinely converted the pet battles into something remarkably similar to Pokémon. And it's already happened, just a few weeks after the launch of Mists. I am, by the way, sorry for constantly bombarding readers with Pet Battle addons! But, for Pokémon lovers, this is a pretty cool one. Download WoWkémon from WoWInterface. WoWkémon is installed simply by downloading the zip file from the link above, extracting and copying the contents into your Addons folder, which resides within your Interface folder in your WoW directory. When you begin your first Pet Battle with it active, WoWKémon will enter its tutorial, with the eminent Professor Birch. He will guide you through the process of using this heavily adapted pet battle system, which has been cleverly squeezed into something as close to the original Pokémon format as possible. You will need to pay attention during the tutorial, as some of the commands are a little counter-intuitive, and intelligently the tutorial doesn't let you progress until you've actually done what it's telling you to do! Do finish the tutorial on the first battle, though, otherwise it starts from the beginning again on your next battle, and it's not the very fastest process in the world!
Addon Spotlight: Reputation Addons
With Mists of Pandaria, reputation has gone from being something you need a tabard for, to something that's really quite a big deal. Currently, with patch 5.0.5, the only way to spend your valor points is to grind out reputations with the various Mists of Pandaria factions. Disregarding my personal stance on this, it seemed logical, after two consecutive weeks of Pet Battle addons, to move into a category of addon that actually helps you do something useful for your characters! Not that pet battles aren't useful, of course, they're just not directly contributing to your character in the same way as reputation grinding. And they're hopelessly addictive, unlike doing daily quests and other reputation grinds. So, let's get started. I actually think the default interface for reputation monitoring is quite good from Blizzard, as it's a feature that's existed for a really long while, I suppose they've had the time to get it working well. But there are always ways you can improve on it!
Addon Spotlight: Still more pet battle addons!
My colleague Robin posted a brief piece with some of the Pet Battle addons you guys recommended on last week's Addon Spotlight, but you have all commented on her piece with even more addons, which brings us to today's Addon Spotlight! This is why WoW Insider's commenters are awesome. It's impossible for me to know about every fantastic addon out there, and that's where you come in! It's a collaboration, and that's more than fine by me. From the midweek Addon update, I've drawn three fantastic Pet Battle addons, one of which I'm literally blown away by. It's one of those addons that seems so good it's almost cheating! As an aside, do you like my Blizzard Community Manager battle pet team? What have you been naming your battle pets after? Zarhym doesn't get as much battling action as Bashiok and Crithto. Let's get started...
3 more useful pet battle add-ons
I recently wrote about Pet Quality Glow, a wonderful add-on that tells you the quality of the pet during (not before) a pet battle. It's no longer listed as out of date, by the way. I highly recommend it. Suggestions from commenters and guildies have led me to three more pet battle add-ons that I now can't do without. Pet Battle Teams allows you to form teams that you can load up with a click. The interface is a little awkward in that you can accidentally overwrite any team as long as it is the one highlighted, without confirmation. Right clicking on the team will delete it, but a confirmation dialog does popup for that. Otherwise, whatever team you have loaded in your journal will determine whatever team is highlighted. I find Pet Battle Teams extremely useful for both leveling pets and collecting them. Don't judge me on the levels of my pets. You see, I've been collecting rather than doing the pet battle quests. I want to be the girl with the most rares.
Addon Spotlight: Pet battle addons?
So, from an addon perspective that Mists launch went off pretty darn painlessly, didn't it? I have to say I was impressed, as you may recall from last week's Addon Spotlight, I was not entirely sure how it was all going to go down. Did you have any addon problems? I know I had to switch off addons to actually get myself to Pandaria in the first place, but that is far more a reflection on my abysmal rural internet, and heavy server loading, than on the quality of work of our beloved addon authors. I've been doing a lot of addon mailbags lately, to help people over the hump from Cataclysm to Mists, but this is the last one for a little while. I will, potentially, continue to tack them on to the end of other Addon Spotlight columns, depending on whether I receive questions that I think might be troubling a lot of people or not! If you have questions, or suggestions, do email me on olivia@wowinsider.com. I will try to get back to you! Let's delve into the mailbag once again with a great question about Pet Battle addons!
Arcane Brilliance: Mage add-on guide for Mists of Pandaria
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we look add-ons your mage might want to download or update for Mists of Pandaria. There are some great mage add-ons out there, but somebody needs to make one that tracks warlocks. I just think it'd make things a bit easier if I knew exactly how much killing I needed to do in a given area at all times. We're down to just days now, guys. Days. I've been playing this game for the better part of 7 years now and at this point it's sort of amazing that I'm still capable of getting excited about anything it throws at me, but I have to say that I'm pretty damn giddy right now. I want to make a panda. I want to teach it to conjure pastries and hurl fireballs. I want to gain 5 levels on my main. I want to explore Azerothian Asia. I want to learn to sew new and prettier pairs of pants. I want to put a Rune of Power right outside Hot Topic, then just stand there like Gandalf, making sure all the warlocks most certainly do not pass. But there are still a few items of business to attend to before that expansion hits and I can do all those infinitely fun things. We've already discussed a lot of them. A quick recap: Talent spec guide Glyph guide General guide to mage changes in patch 5.0.4 and beyond Spell rotation guide Guide to stat weights and reforging The item on today's agenda is mage add-ons. Every major patch or expansion is guaranteed to break all of your add-ons. Things you've depended upon for months suddenly stop working, and you look to to the heavens and cry out in anguish, your faith in a benevolent God shaken to its very core because Mage Nuggets is down. Well fear not. Most of the add-ons you love and need are already updated and ready for Mists to drop.
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.
Addon Spotlight: Replacing your broken addons
This is a continuation of the ongoing work in progress that always takes place around a big patch such as 5.0.4. Last time we had a few reader emails, asking some questions about certain aspects of the 5.0.4 addon changes and how to deal with them, and this week we're doing much the same, except that we're focusing exclusively on broken addons and some alternatives that do work in the current patch, and therefore may well work when Mists arrives in two weeks' time! Raeli's Return! First, ladies and gentlemen, I have some great news! A while back, my esteemed ex-colleague Mat McCurley wrote a piece on replacing Raeli's Spell Announcer (RSA). He referred to the Raeli's Apocalypse, which it appeared took place when 5.0.4 dropped a couple of weeks back. Mat did find some alternatives, so if that's what you're after, have a look at the original article. But just the other day, I received an email from Raeli himself with the great news I was talking about: Raeli's Spell Announcer is back! Raeli isn't the guy holding the reins any longer, he has handed that hefty responsibility over to Xadurk and stapler2025. And the updates are coming in thick and fast! There's already been over 12 beta versions for 5.0.4 added in the past 2 days, and the new developers have stated that they are determined to have a stable version up and running for the launch of Mists, if not before. A release version has recently become available. If, like me, you're thrilled to hear this news, get on over to the RSA project page, download the latest version and do some testing for the new developers!
Addon Spotlight: 5.0.4 Addon Mailbag
I've been doing my level best, along with Bluspacecow, Mac Technical MVP extraordinaire and general incredibly helpful person, to keep you in the loop on addons that are ready for 5.0.4, as well as an addon survival guide for handling broken and updated addons. The article on addons that are ready is still being updated, as I'm going to be redoing it for the Mists launch. But of course, I can't possibly anticipate all your 5.0.4 addon questions, and I've been getting a good number of emails with addon problems, addon frustration, and addon-related cries for help. If you want to email me with questions, do feel free. I will try to get back to you as quickly as I can, or reply to you in a future article! Let's get started with your questions.
Addon Spotlight: Patch 5.0.4 survival guide
Ladies and gentlemen, the patch is upon us! Brace yourselves for a total UI meltdown. Here at Addon Spotlight, we are as ever here to help you with your patch day UI blues. There was a preparation guide a couple of weeks back, but it's too late for that now. If you didn't take those steps already, you're going to have to pin your hopes on this survival guide. Once more into the breach, my friends! First and foremost, check out last week's post on addons that are ready for 5.0.4. I've been doing a ton of updating on this piece every time someone informs me that an addon is updated. It's a work in progress, of course, but it's pretty accurate right now. If you don't see your preferred addon on there, then have a look on the big three addon sites: WoWInterface, WoWAce and Curseforge. You're looking for recently updated files in the download section. If they don't show up there, have a Google. Your addon may have a stand-alone site. You can look elsewhere, but these 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. Once you've checked for the most recent versions, download any that show compatibility with 5.0.4. If there are none, then make a note of that addon and check back in a few days' time. WoWInterface can also be set up to email you when addons are updated; check out how to set up email notification for addon updates.
Addon Spotlight: Addons ready for 5.0.4 (and where to get them)
Patch 5.0.4 is less than a week away, and we need addons. I've been in touch with various addon authors and established who has addons ready to go for 5.0.4. I've compiled the results here for you, along with the authors' preferred download links. This is far from an exhaustive list -- it's always going to be a work in progress -- so if you know of addons I've missed that are ready to go for 5.0.4, pop a link in the comments or email me and I will add them to this list. There may well be many addons that are prepared for Mists' full launch in September but are not set up for 5.0.4 -- they're not what we're after here! If that's what you're looking for, though, there's a huge list of addons ready for Mists itself at Curse, and another at WoWInterface. Please note that in the majority of cases, the addon page's live download will be updated at 5.0.4's launch, not several days in advance. Use your brain when downloading addons via these links; many of the authors who've contacted me have told me that their addons are ready to go but that they will not be uploading a release version to their live pages until patch day. This list of addons here represents those I have confirmed either through my own testing or directly from their authors that are ready for 5.0.4, and the links provided will be the links to download the addons on patch day or shortly before. If there are addons you use that don't appear on this list, let me know and I will try to look into whether they're ready to go yet or if there is no news. I will do my level best to keep this list up to date and complete as we approach the launch of 5.0.4. [I'd like to say a huge, huge thank-you to Bluspacecow for all their help with this!]
Addon Spotlight: 6 ways to prepare your UI and addons for patch 5.0.4
We've all heard the news: It's begun. Patch 5.0.4 is on its way in just under two weeks. I'm really excited, and I hope you are too! But what I'm not that excited about is the almost inevitable addon carnage that will ensue. You know how it is -- you have your setup just perfect, you've nipped and tucked and tweaked and coded, and it's running beautifully. Then those crafty folk at Blizzard go and release an expansion, and it all goes Pete Tong, as we say in Essex. (We mean "wrong," by the way; I'm slowly educating you all in the ways of English idiom!) It's not Blizzard's fault. All the broken elements are things they're improving, and we love them for doing so. And it's not the addon developers' fault either. They're doing sterling work bringing everything up to date. It's just that things change. But there are steps you can take to prepare for this, so that the transition between Cataclysm's twilight days and Mists of Pandaria is as easy as possible.
Breakfast Topic: What's the one in-game task you'd love an addon for?
We've all had tasks in game that we feel at the back of our minds might be more like chores than gameplay -- things that seem a little too tricky, a little too tiresome, something that's a time sink. Not actual gameplay itself, perhaps, but maybe things like using the WoW in-game mail system, or the auction house, or things like that. And maybe some of us have thought, at some point, "Hey, I wonder if there's an addon for that?" I know that when I was first learning to heal with my new main, a restoration shaman, for example, I found myself ardently wishing there were a better way to display my stacks of Tidal Waves -- the buff you really ought to try and maintain uptime on when healing. So eventually I went online, searched something like "show Tidal Waves buff better shaman," and lo and behold, there was Weak Auras. I'm aware now that Power Auras is a viable alternative and that there are various other addons that allow you to display buffs and debuffs in myriad different ways, but I begin to wonder what I'm missing in other life-improving addons. So, as ever when I have a burning question, I'm asking you. What in-game tasks do you wish you had an addon for? Maybe raiding things, maybe not. Maybe PvP things, maybe using the auction house, maybe roleplaying, maybe just general quality of life. And what addons have you found that make your life easier in a big way or a little way?
