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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsMore options for party communication
by Mike Schramm 
Dec 17th 2009 at 3:00PM
Not only is it a bummer because some people used to use it constantly to keep party members in line, but this also means that there's one less means of communication between all of these random parties forming out there on the realms. Sure, in a perfect world, everyone would know the fights and chat would be enough to make sure everyone was on the same page (or depending of your vision of a perfect world, everyone actually uses the in-game voice chat -- a quick survey of our staff here presumes that it works in cross-realm PuGs, but given that I've never actually seen it used on the live realms by anyone, who knows?), but we're hardly running instances in a perfect world. Sometimes chat is not the best way to get a complicated boss fight organized and ready.
One idea that I've seen popping up on the realms is an addon that would copy a boss strategy for any given instance into party chat for you, just to avoid having to type out "stay out of the fire, run away when you get this debuff on you, etc." all the time. A search on Curse doesn't pull up too much in that vein -- there are certainly tactics addons that will help, but usually they're just warning addons (like DBM), or they require everyone to have the addon installed. There's nothing simple for just putting a strat into chat during a PuG.
Other than that, though, options are limited. You can still mark targets (and in fact, anyone can now mark targets in a party), and of course there are optional items -- flares and such -- used to show placement when needed. But what other options could there be? It seems a little lame for Blizzard to start building some strategies into the interface (though we do already get some automatic raid warnings on major events), but that's probably preferable to spending five minutes explaining the Devourer of Souls fight yet again.
Filed under: Fan stuff, Walkthroughs, Odds and ends, Add-Ons, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
pinkysan Dec 17th 2009 5:09PM
the easiest site for short boss fight reminders (instead of full description) is probably wowwiki. where because it's a wiki, you can actually put the short version in yourself. Or short of that, look up the individual bosses in wowhead and scan through the highly rated comments (as in the green/blue/purple color text).
This maybe a good question for the queue too, you should post it over there and see what other people come up with.
Chi Dec 17th 2009 6:33PM
I really liked the addon "TacticsGD" when I was a raid leader. Does exactly what you described (but you have to add strategies by editing the LUA file). Link: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/tactics-gd.aspx
artifex Dec 18th 2009 1:57AM
I just wish everyone had DBM. Mine told me GET BEHIND when the mouth was about to start blowing on that boss, and so I jumped behind. The tree stayed where it was, though, and died. Luckily we were almost done.
zweitblom Dec 18th 2009 2:42AM
To all those repliers recommending wowwiki - the OP actually quoted the tactic from there ;-)
zaphon Dec 17th 2009 3:19PM
I just want to know why I can't private msg people from other servers when I use the new LFG tool to find a random heroic. Unless I'm mistaken it works in BattleGrounds.
murrlot Dec 17th 2009 3:34PM
Just think of the potential griefing this would open up :(
This is coming with the updated b-net
uncaringbear Dec 17th 2009 4:44PM
The inability to whisper other people in cross-realm dungeons is particularly annoying. I can understand the reasoning behind it, but Blizzard must really expect 90% of the players to be sociopaths with evil intentions. Oh wait...
GDkitty Dec 17th 2009 3:21PM
While myself as a raid leader for our guild (as tank or healer), we dont use RW much for annoucements, etc persay for strats or anything..
The BIGEST thing i am missing is the announcments from Bigwigs/littlewigs.
Even if only say the raid leader had bigwigs in the instance or raid, it would annouce certain things over the /rw channel (person X has debuff). Now it doesnt do that..
Sort of a pain while tanking/healing, to now specificaly be shouting to someone about stop DPSing or whatever, when before the RW told them so.
bean Dec 17th 2009 3:31PM
YES, I tried using it the other day to communicate with the group I was leading, and it didn't work. Very disappointed, and I can't see any reason why they'd want to remove it (besides just being a technical cross-realm problem, like whispers).
Andrew R. Dec 17th 2009 3:34PM
Wouldn't the removal of the /rw being Less options for party communication? Or am I just having a brain fart today?
Reuben Dec 17th 2009 4:16PM
Yes, the removal means less, but the article is about finding more ways around the losses of communication.
Mersedes Dec 17th 2009 3:49PM
There use to be a mod on the old ace site that was similar to this. I cant remember the name of it. Funny though the people at wow.com searched curse as if they are the only addon site for WoW.
PallyRogue Dec 17th 2009 3:54PM
I've used the in game chat before.. it worked great for about 2 days now I can record and play back but no one can hear me
Barinthos Dec 17th 2009 4:18PM
My first experience with the in game chat was a total failure. I couldn't hear anyone and no one could hear me. Never used it since.
Wistin Dec 17th 2009 4:30PM
I have tried the in-game comm. The lack of being able to individually alter user's volumes made it impossible to use. From the same group, not changing any of my settings and equipment I'd get "you're too loud", "your too quiet" and the rest I was just fine for.
With Ventrillo I can change the volume setting for people who are too quiet and too loud.
bushkanaka86 Dec 17th 2009 4:29PM
Sometimes I really wished everyone used the in game voice chat. I play LOTRO on the side casually and they have a built in voice chat as well. In that game, EVERYONE uses the voice chat. Every single pug I join, everyone is using the chat. Pugs in that game are way more coordinated because even the most casual people turn their voice chat on. It is really amazing actually and I love being able to easily communicate with any group I join.
People in WoW are too cool for school or something to use it. Not sure why.
thebl4ckd0g Dec 17th 2009 8:06PM
the problem with the ingame voice Blizzard uses is it has the crappiest codecs I've ever heard.
tatsumasa Dec 17th 2009 5:06PM
when it came out it sucked. people tried it and didn't like it, so they stuck to vent. it has nothing to do with being 'too cool.' different games evolve differently. for wow, if you plan on raiding you need to have vent. i don't care if you can't talk, you need to be able to listen. and if you can talk, you might want to consider being quiet and listening anyway. seriously though, if you're 80 and you pug and you get an attitude about getting on vent, you're getting kicked. i don't care how leet you are with your 6k gear score and that you've got every achievement for the boss on every alt, you need to be able to hear how we're going to do it this time.
alexut.voicu Dec 18th 2009 5:57AM
This and if the gameservers are down or the user gets disconnected midfight (I am refering to you Outland-EU!!) you have no means of telling your raid that you are actually able to login soon...
Belaanna Dec 17th 2009 4:31PM
BossTactics used to have copy-pasteable explanations with TONS of visuals... but doesnt seem to have been updated since Ulduar..