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HTC EVO 4G meets magnetic macro lens, shoots gorgeous closeups
As phone accessories go, protruding lens attachments are rarely top of our wishlist, but this one here might just alter our perspective a little bit. Good and EVO have gone to the trouble of obtaining a magnetically mountable macro lens to test out how well the EVO 4G's camera performs with a little more optical prowess. The answer is that in spite of the inevitably goofy appearance, the jumbo Android handset delivered some highly impressive imagery, getting really up close and personal with its subjects and picking out exquisitely tiny details. The results are certainly of a caliber unobtainable with the default optics and well worth checking out -- the source link is where that party's at.
The cynic's guide to World of Warcraft
We tend to be very careful while composing articles here at WoW Insider. We're always mindful that not everyone plays the game in the same way, or has the same experience on different servers or factions, but every so often a certain madness seizes us and we feel the urge to ... tell the truth. In that vein, I am pleased (sort of) to present The Cynic's Guide to World of Warcraft. This article owes a heavy debt to Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary. If you want to see a real master at work, read that.
IntensaFIRE click-on mod bringing programmable / rapid fire modes to PS3 controller
Xbox 360 gamers may have had a solid year head start, but PlayStation 3 loyalists will soon be able to join the programmable / rapid fire party, too. BGRMods has announced that its much-hyped IntensaFIRE controller mod is finally coming to Sony's latest console, bringing with it fewer installation steps and an equal amount of tinkering possibilities. This new board requires no glue and no solder; users simply "click" it into place and enjoy the spoils of having rapid-fire potential at their fingertips. Purportedly, the mod is useful in "all PlayStation games," and it'll begin shipping out on May 21st for those who just can't game without a macro. We're told that the $69.95 device will also be making its public debut at E3, so you can bet your bottom dollar we'll be hitting the show floor in hopes of snagging a bit of hands-on time come June. [Thanks, Kristofer B]
Hotfix deployed for EVE Online invisibility exploit
Last week, we brought you the news that a terrible exploit had made itself known in EVE Online. The exploit allegedly involved filtering network traffic for specific packets which told the server to join the local chat channel. As a result, the player would remain hidden in the local channel and could sneak up on unsuspecting victims for an easy kill. Most of the controversy surrounding the exploit hinges on whether or not a certain group of players from Pandemic Legion alliance had been abusing the bug to kill farmers and macros. "The MonkeySphere" and his crew have spent months killing the macro element in nullsec using an unannounced but clearly effective strategy. Suspecting him of cheating, Russian players managed to recreate a set of conditions under which a player would remain hidden from the local channel. Although posting the actual exploit details is not permitted on the official EVE forums, the thread discussing the exploit and The MonkeySphere's alleged involvement has now exceeded 50 pages. Showing a refreshing sense of transparency, CCP opted to keep the thread open while they investigated. Players used the thread to bring forth evidence of the exploit in action and filed bug reports on the issue. On Tuesday, CCP announced that a hotfix for the exploit had been deployed which should prevent the exploit from being used. Meanwhile, debate over The MonkeySphere's involvement with the exploit continue in the original discussion thread.
Confirmed exploit allows EVE players to sneak up on unsuspecting victims
A nasty exploit has raised its ugly head in EVE Online this week, allowing players to prevent themselves from showing up in the local chat channel. Unless you're in a wormhole system, this channel is meant to show a list of every pilot in the system and must update instantly when a player jumps in. In the deep nullsec regions, the local channel is the primary way a player will know if he's safe or not. If you're alone in the channel, there's nobody else logged on in the system that can attack you. If an enemy fleet rolls by, you'll see a list of names suddenly appearing in the channel and know it's time to get to a safe place. If a pilot were able to somehow hide himself from the local channel, he could sneak up on unsuspecting victims without them knowing he's there. Skip past the cut for an investigative look at this unsettling development.
EVE Online player creates incredible multi-box setup
From irritating spam-bots to automated farming macros hogging the best spots, macros and bots are almost universally despised in every MMO. Multi-boxing, on the other hand, is a much more ambiguous idea that has been common since as far back as the early days of EverQuest. Although there's nothing in the rules of most games against one player controlling multiple characters, there are usually rules against automating gameplay. This includes sending keystrokes and mouse commands from one computer to several clients, the preferred method for multi-boxers to control multiple game clients simultaneously. After a hit from the banhammer for "macro use", EVE Online player Zhek Kromtor engineered a low-tech solution to his rule-breaking problem. With a setup that looks like something out of The Matrix or Minority Report, Zhek has set up eight monitors and eight computers to run a total of fourteen EVE clients simultaneously. To control them all at the same time without rule-breaking macro software, Zhek has tied together six computer mice with packing tape and wooden skewers. Six separate keypads have been taped together, with yet more wooden rods letting him activate the modules on six ships at a time. According to the EVE EULA, using software to send keystrokes isn't allowed but there's nothing about taping together keyboards and mice. Whether you think this kind of setup is awesome or a blatant flaunting of the rules, putting together this kind of setup is definitely a bizarre achievement. [via Kotaku]
Totem Talk: Restoration addons and macros
Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how, brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and the For The Lore podcast. We have come a fair distance so far, starting from the basics up through last week, when we talked about haste and its use to a raiding restoration shaman. Today I would like to discuss macros and addons for the restoration-minded shaman. Macros have been in the game for a long time, and over the course of years, they have changed to allow or deny certain functions. The same can be said for the various addons that have existed over the life of the game. There are some addons and macros that can be particularly useful to you as a restoration shaman.
Mac OS X's Automator: I learned it by watching you!
Mac OS X's Automator has the ability to perform specific tasks from its given set of actions. For example, with a Finder-based action, you can batch move copy, move or rename files that fit a certain criteria. Similarly, image-based actions allow you to batch edit images, be it resizing, rotating or changing their file type (i.e., from JPG to PNG or vice versa). However, there may be situations that call for more unique tasks to be performed. And this is where Automator's "Watch Me Do" feature may come in handy. It performs keyboard- and mouse-based actions based on your movements and inputs during a Watch Me Do session. To initiate a Watch Me Do session, launch Automator and choose a template (you can incorporate it into an existing Automator workflow, service or app as well). Then, click on the "Record" button in the upper right hand corner. A small grey translucent window with an Automator icon will now appear in the upper left hand corner indicating that your inputs and movements are being recorded; to stop recording, just click on the stop button. The whole concept is similar to how you'd record a macro in Microsoft Excel. [Whoops, bad example, as macro recording isn't in the VBA-free Excel 2008 version. How about QuicKeys instead? –Ed.] I've found Watch Me Do actions particularly handy, especially when I'm too lazy to figure out how to do something in AppleScript. Watch Me Do requires that you enable access for assistive devices, so you'll need to hop on over to the "Seeing" pane within the Universal Access section of Mac OS X's System Preferences. Yes, Automator really can learn by watching you.
The Daily Quest: Addon edition
Here at WoW.com we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Today we're talking about your user interface with helpful addons and macros from across the web: The Hunter's Mark offers 6 addons to make your hunter's life easier. Blade Barrier presents some essential death knight macros. World of Matticus explains macros to make your healing life easier. Flow has addon suggestions for restoration shamans. No Stock UI has an addon recommendation for the Blood Queen Lana'thel fight. Cranky Healer offers a lesson on advanced Clique use. Hungry for more addon info? You might take a look at AddOn Spotlight or Reader UI of the Week.
Totem Talk: Save yourself
Axes, maces, lightning, fire, frost, and wolves, and best of all, Windfury. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance at Big Hit Box and pens the enhance side of Totem Talk. A dead DPS does no DPS. It's as simple as that. Whether in a raid, an arena, or out soloing and leveling, staying alive is priority number one. This is as true for enhancement shamans as it is for any class. Thankfully as enhancement we have a few more options than most DPS classes including our saving-throw talent: Maelstrom Weapon. I consider it an absolutely essential duty to toss out MW4/5 heals in a damage-intensive environment, especially if the fight is new progression for your guild or you're in a tough match in PvP. I remember working on Tidewalker in Serpentshrine Cavern, I'd throw MW5-Healing Waves on the tank constantly. The damage was so intense on our main tanks and their health so spiky that at 4 procs of Maelstrom Weapon he'd be at full health then a split second later when I had 5 procs he was dangerously close to dying. My Healing Waves rarely over-healed when we learned that fight it appears my memory is failing me as MW did not exist when SSC was progression content. I do distinctly recall tossing out Lesser Healing Waves to help top off the tank when the MT healers were Watery Graved. Tossing heals on the main tank in the Tidewalker fight was the exception, for the most part when using MW for healing it's a matter of keeping yourself alive. Read on to live to fight another phase.
Spiritual Guidance: Macros for priests
Every Sunday (and the occasional weekday) Spiritual Guidance offers holy and discipline priests advice on how to wield the holy light and groove to the disco night. Your hostess Dawn Moore will provide the music. /target reader /wave /use The Mischief Maker There. I love a captive audience. This week I'll be writing about macros for priests. I will touch on why and how to use them, then provide a few useful ones that readers sent in during the past week. This article will not be an introductory guide for the use of macros because... WoW.com already had one of those. Hit the jump for the link.
Totem Talk: Enhancement 201, spell selection
Rich Maloy is currently working on a distributed processing application called SimIt!@HOME which will calculate all possible enhancement shaman spell rotations for any possible situation given any gear combination. The application will also have an option to calculate all potential scenarios in which "sim it" is a half-a** answer but you should say it anyway. If I told you the enhancement shaman basic spell rotation was: SR, FE, SW, MW5_LB, MT(0), LS(1), ES_SS, SS, FS, ES, LL, FN would you run away screaming? What if I told you that was just for single target boss encounters and there's a different priority for boss fights that require changing targets, another priority for boss fights with heavy adds, and yet another priority for trash mobs. Scared yet? It's OK. Please come back. This is what we Enhancers have bouncing around in our head. I'll make everything alright by breaking it down into a few easy-to-remember chunks. Because we all like chunks.
The Light and How to Swing It: The low level tank part 4
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. Here we are again with the final section on the low level paladin tanking guide. You can go back and read parts one, two, and three if you need to catch up. This final part deals with consumables, macros, and addons. As a dungeon runner, you don't have the high requirements usually associated with raids, but there are a couple things you'll want to keep an eye on. You'll want to keep reasonably buffed, have some useful macros to fall back on, and have some addons to help organize some of the more procedural steps. Let's take a look after the break.
Razer Naga now supports key mapping
As previously mentioned in our lengthy review of the Razer Naga, Razer had plans to update their 17-button MMOG-centric mouse to enable key mapping. Heathcliff Hatcher from Razer responded to concerns about the mouse's configurability back then that "software driver remapping of keys is a standard function for most of Razer products and we do have suitable solutions that we intend to release in the near future for Naga that will enable this feature out of game." Razer delivered on that promise with an update to the mouse driver, allowing users to configure all 17 buttons. This addresses the reservations many players expressed when the product launched in August last year. The driver update also supports different profiles, allowing users to configure different key functions according to their current application. Razer has also added full macro capability including timed delays between keystrokes. However, it should be noted that taking advantage of this last function might violate the World of Warcraft's terms of use, something that plagued the first versions of Steelseries' World of Warcraft mouse. Read the FAQ regarding the driver update after the break.
Raid Rx: Maximizing the proc
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the idea of using spells based around procs or on-use trinkets. Now I don't know about you, but I sometimes tend to forget that I have these on-use abilities. Other times I never notice procs going off. But first, what is a proc anyway? A proc is short for procedure. They are events that happen when conditions are triggered. For example, Val'anyr will trigger a buff for the user when they heal players. This buff then grants the player to place shields on anyone they heal.
Lichborne: Elementary death knight macros
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly peek into the world of the death knight. Your host, Daniel Whitcomb, is enjoying the most wonderful time of the year, when a death knight can hang around in his natural habitat all day long without seeming creepy. Or no creepier than usual, at least. As you approach the end game of WoW, one thing you may find out quickly is that the proper use of macros is a great way to take your game to the next level. Sometimes they streamline moves, other times they allow you to perform actions that would be otherwise impossible. Death knights are definitely no exception, and though we'd be here all week if I went through all the ins and out of macro theory, or even death knight macro theory, I figure right now is still a good time to get you started. Let's look at a few basic essential macros for the various roles and trees of the class.
A macro for stacking parry or dodge
I haven't played a tank in a while, so I haven't had to mess with stats at endgame for a long time. Though my paladin is slowly getting there, so this little macro over at Honor's Code might come in handy. Parry and dodge are very similar abilities -- both of them help you to completely avoid damage from bosses as a tank. But they do have a very few important differences (Parry speeds up your next attack swing, and is affected by diminishing returns at higher levels of the stat), so when you're gearing up at endgame, you want to make sure to balance them out in the right way.
Encrypted Text: Macro guide for rogues
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we talk about a few of the most common rogue macros in use today.Over the past couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to play my rogue quite a bit more than I am typically able to. Brewfest and Onyxia have had me busy every night, helping my guild mates slay Coren Direbrew over and over again. I was able to pick up a Direbrew's Shanker 2.0, although it won't see much use, it's still nice to see one in my bank beside the previous versions.I captured this bit of a World of Logs parse from one of the Onyxia attempts, where I was able to my AoE combination macro: it's a very deadly combination. Looking at numbers like these make me wonder if perhaps the great FoK nerf of 3.2.2 wasn't as heavy-handed as it was made up to be. With a Vanish fix on the horizon for patch 3.3 (who's PTR is coming "soon") and the red-hot topic of 'weapon swapping', I decided to do a bit of housecleaning and tidy up my macros and addons in anticipation.
Insider Trader: Gadgets for the modern Engineer
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Engineering has quite a few useful tools in addition to their famous repertoire of toys, but not every player knows how to make the most of them. There are many reasons for this, including: Not being informed on the latest improvements. Consumables may be less cost-prohibitive, for example, than the last time you checked. Believing the "Engineering is useless" hype that lingers from darker days, and feeling creatively blocked after an expensive and tedious leveling process. Being an irrational yet strangely normal cooldown and consumable saving individual. Awkward Zombie illustrates the latter nicely, and we've talked about stingy cooldown use in the past. This week, Insider Trader is going to discuss a handful of the Engineering tools that you really should be using to the fullest, and why.
The Explain-o-matic will explain your macros
This is actually a really cool idea for a site -- Fitzcairn's Macro Explain-o-matic is basically a web script that reads WoW macros, and will go, line by line, through them to put exactly what they do in plain English. Sure, odds are that if you have a macro already, you probably have some idea of what it does, but if you've ever wanted to learn how to write macros, or aren't sure exactly what the macro your friend emailed to you is supposed to do for your character, you can just throw it in a text field, and then Fitzcairn's script will break it apart for you.The site will even let you save (with a permalink) and email any macros you punch in -- though I couldn't find a way to browse them, maybe Fitzcarin is working on that. There are lots of resources online to find macros, but not so many to explain them well, so the Explain-o-matic is definitely worth a bookmark for the next time you need a little help.[via Twisted Nether]
