Breakfast topic: Time is the fire
by Amanda Dean 
Jul 16th 2008 at 8:00AM
Somehow I missed the memo that Blizzard was changing the minimap to include an upfront clock, alarm, and stopwatch. It's a pretty neat idea. My favorite part is that you can switch the clock to read local time. This adds to time management tools located in the account setting to limit play time.
As I've mentioned before, I live in
One part of me thinks that Blizzard is acting too much like a babysitter. By the time we start playing WoW, we may have some concept of time management. Though some folks truly have a problem with gaming, I think most players can manage their time responsibly without these bells and whistles. I'm sure at some point it'll come in handy. For instance, if I'm waiting for a friend to come over, I can set the alarm to go over before she's due to arrive. You could set it to remind yourself that the WoW Insider show is starting at 3:30 PM.
The stopwatch could be useful for keeping an eye on queue times, or measuring encounters. If nothing else, I'll probably use it for cooking, since I hate the timer on my stove. I usually use AV for that now anyway, which is imperfect. Or maybe I'll just keep doing what I've always done, and ignore the new toys.
What are you going to do to with your clock?
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Tricks, Blizzard, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Xecnamalain Jul 16th 2008 8:18AM
Most players I know have a hard time managing... time. lol
I think this well help keep things in perspective, like remembering that you can't play for 3 hours when you need to pick up your Gf in an hour... Sorry babe...
dabronx Jul 16th 2008 8:25AM
I can already see many many ppl setting thier stopwatches to 5 minutes for AFK saving jumps in place to save a drop from BGs.
John Jul 16th 2008 8:28AM
I disabled it immediately, it interfered with the display of map coordinates on my minimap and I have titan panel (newly updated!) so I've always been able to tell the time while playing.
Adorenko Jul 16th 2008 8:35AM
"Time is the Fire in which we burn"
-drazy dude from Star Trek Generations
angellusEU Jul 16th 2008 8:51AM
actually the quote is originally from an american poet from the 1930's
and back on topic a lot of people have already had this with titan panel or fubar, so its just blizzard putting some good addon ideas into the standard UI again.
quatermaine Jul 16th 2008 9:04AM
*cough* Scrolling combat text *cough*
yup had fubar since forever so always had a viewable time set to local.
poPixel Jul 16th 2008 8:42AM
The only thing I'll use it for is to keep track of what time it is according to the server I'm currently on.
I don't see a need for a timer, alarm, or anything like that, unless it may add more behind-the-scenes functionality to addons and boss-timers that could use some extra help from the servers.
I suppose, if the timer can be set from the management page, ie: by a mom in the other room when her child has a time limit, that could be useful for parental controls. But if it is limited to direct use via the UI, then even the explanation of 'parents managing a child's time on the game' doesn't hold water.
quatermaine Jul 16th 2008 9:09AM
the only thing i'll use it for is to tell me what time it is..
funnily enough ;)
hoviboy Jul 16th 2008 9:08AM
So you live in a casino?
Rihlsul Jul 16th 2008 8:53AM
@Adorenko - Sorenn
My wife was going to sass you about your inability to read a clock until we both remembered that our GroupCalendar addon replaced the sun/moon spot with a nice analog clock, that it wasn't part of the base UI.
Silverrealm Jul 16th 2008 10:22AM
OMG Me too! I forgot it wasn't a clock to begin with!
Contra Jul 17th 2008 3:46PM
If we have GroupCalendar, how do we access the alarm?
I figured out that /timer brought up the timer, but /alarm doesn't do the same thing :(.
Abedabun Jul 16th 2008 9:02AM
Timer for cooking dinner... :)
Tridus Jul 16th 2008 9:09AM
The clock means I don't need a Fubar plugin to do the same thing. Alarms are handy, suppose I want to play until 2:45 then stop to catch a bus. Set the alarm, and away I go.
I'd find the stopwatch more useful if it had more macro options. Like the old Chronos "/in" command where you could tell it to do something else after 30 seconds. Like this:
/in 30 /rw Get to your cubes!
Or something. :)
Fedwinmorr Jul 16th 2008 9:13AM
I like it.
It has already helped me. I get up at 5 am for work, and was raiding Kara last night. After downing the curator I look up and notice it is 9:30, oooops, bed time. Without that clock I most likely would have run pell mell into Aran and Illhoof and not gotten to bed till later! Thank you blizzard!
I also like how it can display server and local time (west coast server, but I live in Midwest).
Menalaous Jul 16th 2008 9:33AM
Um.....useless addon anyone?
I am not raging against it or anything but it (along with this blog I am sorry to say) seam kinda pointless. I was hoping for a "rogues aftermath of 2.4.3 or something really.)
1) There has always been a "Server time clock"
2)You should know what time zone you and/or your server is in and be able to adjust accordingly, if not perhaps you shouldnt be playing wow.
3) If you cant, or your just lazy, Titan and Fubar as well as a few other addon's have local time clocks.
4)Most people have watches now, look at your wrist
5)Even more people it seams today have phones it seams.
a)both 4 and 5 often have alarm options
6) As mentioned the timer setting doesnt really help monitor time from a parental control stand point.
So, cheat death nerf anyone? :P
Big.Daddy Jul 16th 2008 10:45AM
seam = seem
May seem useless to you, but there are plenty of others who have wanted this type of thing. (The obvious reason why addons were created to do something WoW itself didn't do... so there's a market out there for this.)
If this blog is pointless, why are you here?
Silverrealm Jul 16th 2008 10:25AM
It's 'seems' dear... and I don't wear a watch when I am typing it scrapes against the desk and drives me nutters.
It's not hurting anything, and it's built in, why are you griping?!
Neil Jul 16th 2008 10:28AM
Blizzard often adds functionality that already exists in AddOns. And I have to be honest, before I took the game seriously and started caring about addons, etc, I would constantly lose track of time.
A timer is handy for things like clocking how long an instance run takes, for example. It means I won't have to use the remaining duration on Gift of the Wild to see if I'm on track for my H SP speed runs :P
Korik Jul 16th 2008 10:45AM
They add a clock to the mini-map, but not coordinates. That would have seemed the more logical thing to leverage from commonly available add-on functionality.