wowinterface
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Blizzard to begin throttling GearScore-like inspect requests
It's no secret that some addons, like GearScore, generate a numerical value for the gear of a player or players by inspecting their gear. Other addons also do inspect requests for other reasons. However, as of patch 3.3.5 it appears that the functionality of addons that automate inspect requests will be limited via server-side implementation during rolling restarts. Nethaera Quote: According to WoWAce, Blizz is going to start throttling inspection requests, thus limiting addons like Gearscore's ability to generate on-the-fly GS of a player's equipment. It's important to understand that the throttling that is being done isn't intended to break any functionality of add-ons, but merely to control the amount of queries that are being sent to the server at any given time. (Thus throttling the queries.) The queries will still occur, it just won't happen as quickly as they currently seem to. You can read the statements that WoW Ace and WoW Interface have up for a bit more information on these changes. We wanted to give mod authors a heads-up prior to making the change so that they could make any adjustments they needed to on their mods. http://wowinterface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33432 http://www.wowace.com/announcements/blizzard-to-start-throttling-inspect-requests/ source Basically, the idea as presented is not to prevent addons from inspecting players but rather to prevent them from doing so as often as they currently do, reducing server lag by reducing the amount of inspect requests addons can flood them with. It's important to note that this is being implemented via rolling restarts; as a result addons that you have that currently make use of automated inspect requests might not function properly. Since this isn't aimed at crippling addons that use the inspect feature, it's likely most or all of them will be able to weather the change.
MMOUI Minion beta released
We saw a preview of it a little while ago, and now it's here in beta form: MMOUI Minion, the addon updater from the people behind WoWInterface. It's written in Java, and runs on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows, provided you have an up-to-date Java runtime installed. For Mac OS X users, the web site might warn you about your Java version, but if you've been keeping up with software updates, you should be fine. As this is a beta, I won't be too hard on it, but I wouldn't recommend using it in its current state. It does show promise, especially with its extensibility (other sites can write plugins to allow Minion to download content from them). I ran into all kinds of problems, from the installer making it difficult to specify a path to the updater maxing out my CPU while idle to it detecting almost all my addons as out-of-date, even ones that aren't, but again, it's beta. The whole reason for a beta phase is to get the software out into the wild for wider debugging, so bugs are to be expected. Overall, I'd say this could develop into something nice, but isn't quite ready yet. The icon, on the other hand, is totally adorable. If you do want to try it out, you would do well to follow their suggestion of backing up your Interface and WTF folders. I am excited to see what it will look like with more polish.
Essential Addons for Wrath of the Lich King
Wrath of the Lich King brings with it a host of new and exciting features. Even with all these new features you'll want the latest addons as you level your way through Northrend. We've compiled a listing of key Wrath of the Lich King addons. We'll update this post as much as is warranted. Feel free to leave a comment if you notice a download link isn't working. But at the same time, please do not post any download links of your own – we'll have to delete it as we want to ensure all the addons we link are virus free and safe for everyone. If you need help installing an addon, check out our handy how-to guide. The essential addon list after the break.
Essential addons for Patch 3.0.2 [Updated x6]
Let's take a look at what addons are working for patch 3.0.2. First a simple rule taken from the UI forums post done by Kaydeethree: "Any 'Wrath beta' compatible mod will work in 3.0.2." With that said, there is a long and comprehensive listing of 3.0.2 compatible addons over on WoWWiki. But the fun doesn't end there. The next step is obtaining all those new addons. I've compiled a large set of the essential addons and linked to at least one direct download source after the break. Each download source is either trusted beyond doubt – or tested and confirmed to be virus free. Finally, you'll want to combine the addons into a nice looking UI. Check out our special edition of Reader UI of the Week for a look at five complete 3.0.2 compatible UIs. We're posting this list now, and will continue to update it throughout the day. Begin your addon downloads as quickly as possible to avoid hangups later in the day when download servers become overloaded.
Hunter's Helper running beta test
If you're a fan of Gazmik Fizzwidget's addons (including Feed-o-matic, ReagentCost, and Linkerator), you'll be happy to know that he's already jumping on top of patch 2.4, and in fact he's working right now on a beta of one of his most popular addons, Hunter's Helper. You can download the beta over on WoWInterface -- it won't work so well under WoW 2.3, but it's designed to be taken out on the TTR (or the PTR, if that comes back before the patch drops), and tested out.Since it's likely that the patch will drop tomorrow, hopefully Fizzwidget has worked out most of the kinks. But it's awesome to see an addon developer ready to go for a brand new patch -- it's too bad that Blizzard hasn't been more proactive in helping these guys out with distributing their new versions around a big patch. Maybe once the Armory has gotten to a point where it's serving all the needs Blizzard wants it to, they can start working on an official third-party addon site.[Via Mania]
Curse's terms of use deserve a closer look
There's a storm brewing over in the UI & Macros forum, and it's about the terms of use for popular add-on site Curse. If you use mods at all, you're almost certainly aware of the site; I go there all the time. They're probably the biggest mod site right now. So it comes as something of a surprise to me that such a pillar of the scene would have what seems to be a pretty abusive set of terms service. According to the analysis conducted in this forum thread, Curse's ToU "specifically removes any and all copyright that we as authors have on our addons." Yikes! There are other bad parts of the ToU language too, including that Curse can change the ToU at any time without notifying authors. Of course, the site is within its rights to impose any ToU it wants on the users, but it's not nice to take control of creations out of authors' hands. I am not a lawyer, so it's altogether possible that I'm interpreting some of this incorrectly. The forum thread, however, claims that lawyers looked at Curse's terms and agreed that the interpretation is correct.Until these provisions are changed -- and Curse promises that they will be -- I recommend mod authors use other sites like WoWInterface or wowui.incgamers.com. In writing this article I read the terms of use for those sites -- or rather, tried to. IncGamers doesn't even have their ToU up! But they've been a pretty well-behaved site in the past (they used to be worldofwar.net), so I trust them. WoWInterface's terms of service didn't seem to have anything like what Curse has, and a source at the site assured me that "we never touch an author's zip file without their knowledge and consent, ever." WI has a good history of respecting the community and the authors. Curse folks, are we all reading this wrong? Is there something in this issue that's being missed?Update: As several of Curse's employees have helpfully pointed out to me, the new ToU are much better. However, I still have reservations about them.
AddOn Spotlight: WoW UI Updater
Here's something I've been looking for for a long time! It's not an addon itself, but it does make the management and upkeep of your addons a lot simpler. Cairnehoof of Dethecus (US) sent this in to Mike, who kindly sent it my way: I read your article on wowinsider (big fan btw) about the addon issue in the upcoming patch. I have come across an great application for windows that updates your addons from all the popular sites. Maybe you could share it on the site. I know many people would love it. It's alot better than the one offered on ui.worldofwar.net because it not just download from one site. It is maintained on sourceforge.net and does not contain any malicious code. (I scanned with 3 different anti-virus programs and a anti-spyware one) heres the link if you want to take a look: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wuu So, armed with that information, I set off to explore WUU.
