Addon Spotlight: 2 quickies and some addon discussion
by Mathew McCurley 
Feb 3rd 2011 at 1:00PM
We're doing things just a tad differently today on Addon Spotlight. I received an email last week that really got me thinking and that I thought answering in the column would provoke some great discussion and commentary. Anyway, before we begin, do not fret, readers -- I'm recommending a couple of quickie addons as usual. Let's jump right in.
Before I begin the meat of the discussion for this week's Spotlight, let me serve up some appetizers for you. Two quick addon recommendations -- go!
Atramedes
If you're raiding in Cataclysm, you will eventually come face to face with the blind dragon A
tramedes, one of my favorite fights in Blackwing Descent. The fight features a new UI element called the Sound Bar, a radial graphic that denotes how much "sound" you've built up over the course of the encounter. When you hit 100% sound, Atramedes "sees" you and instantly kills you. It's like that T. rex in Jurassic Park with the lawyer on the toilet -- except with sound instead of movement, so it's really nothing like that at all.Appropriately named addon Atramedes will track the sound levels for your raid. In order to effectively complete the encounter, you're going to need to keep your sound low -- otherwise, you have to activate one of the precious gongs around the room to reset your sound levels. Sometimes, players are too focused on other aspects of the fight to keep tabs on their sound level, or the graphic is not as precise as people want for pinpointing the exact amount of sound you have built up. Atramedes helps raid leaders and gong-bangers alike by providing concrete numbers that can help choose when to reset everyone's sound during the encounter without relying on the nebulous little graphic. Sounds (ha ha) good to me.
Download Atramedes at [Curse].
Skill helper
Skill Helper is an addon written by the author of the email I received that I will talk about just below. For now, check out one of his addons. Skill Helper is a simple addon that performs a very crucial task: the addon tracks your skills and lets you know when you should train up the next level of profession. As someone who maxed out my archaeology and then accidentally made six extra items, wondering why my skill wasn't going up, I would have benefited greatly from something like this.
Future editions and builds of Skill Helper promise to let you open skill windows from the addon itself, making it a capable professions opener as opposed to keeping all of your professions on an action bar or other dock. For now, I think simple is best. It's a great little addon to keep around while you're leveling up.
Download Skill Helper at [Curse].
Adding up addons
Here's where I take a little turn in the ol' structure to discuss a really interesting concept and issue that I had previously not really given too much thought about. Addon author JerichoHM sent me an email all about getting into Addon Spotlight -- but more importantly, what makes an addon worthy of donations.
Mat,
I'm not submitting a suggested addon for the spotlight or anything, but I wanted advice. I am the author of Skill Helper, which just released what I'm calling the 2.x core. 2.0 has gotten very little negative feedback, and what I have gotten is mostly requests to revert closer to the 1.x look of the addon. I have decided to push the design to the 2.x core around to make it resemble more closely to the 1.x look, while incorporating all of the new artwork and features that 2.x is going to carry with it. I opened the acceptance of donations in the 1.4b release about a month ago and 2.0 released 4 or 5 days ago. 1.4b had over 1,000 downloads and 2.0 is already over 800 downloads. I haven't received any donations, and while that isn't why I do it (I honestly wrote the addon for myself and my friends), it would be nice.
My question isn't really "how to get a donation" but what do the users deem worthy of a donation. Addon development may not be full application development but is very time consuming, and well, gamers are demanding and perpetually dissatisfied customers in every aspect of their lives. I've had mostly positive feedback, but the negative is where I aim the most. I allow the users to join a Facebook group so that they can follow the development and chat with me when I'm available. Curseforge and Curse are great for distribution and basic project management, but Facebook has been a wonderful tool for meeting my users and hearing first hand what they like and dislike in a real time basis.
I guess while I would love to go into the Addon Spotlight with Skill Helper, I know that it could never happen. It resides in the 1,000 user range not the 3,000,000 user range. I can say, however, my users are loyal and admire that I check my Curse mail and comments and sit with my Facebook group chat active every day. I'm constantly updating them on my plans and status. And they all seem to understand that I have a family and full time job ... enough that one of them fixed the addon (partially) for 4.x release in WoW and began porting it to Ace3 thinking I had possibly stopped development. That user is now a contributor and has stopped his Ace3 port because he liked where I was going with the 2.x release and knows I will do what is needed to make them all happy.
Could you possibly cover a 10 points of what makes an addon a spotlight addon? As a dev, I'm always looking for this info to try to better my stuff.
Thanks,
JerichoHM
The core issue that seems to be present is what makes a good addon great enough to garner a following, and further, what makes an addon garner a user base that is compelled to donate towards the addon. Each question needs to be taken separately.
Garner the following
The best addons gain their popularity in three distinct ways. First, the most popular addons perform a function that people feel is necessary or incredibly useful. Second, an addon needs to do its prescribed function well and, if the particular addon is breaking into an already established category, better than the other guy. Third, the best addons usually have the best interface and customization options, easily navigated by users but still coming fairly ready to go out of the box. Great addons have all of the customization you could ever want but don't necessarily need, because it is a complete package ready to roll.
The classic example of an addon that hits all three points is Omen. The reigning big daddy threat meter of the day was KLHThreatMeter, which worked for what it was. Back in the day, we never really had a threat meter -- no one really thought to have one. The (always) warrior tank would just say "wait for three sunders" and the DPS would unload. It was not until Vaelastrasz that a threat meter was thrust into the spotlight.
Omen did threat better than KLH. Omen looked better and was more accurate, provided a then-necessary function of threat calculation, and did the job better than KLH. As such, the addon eventually overtook the reigning champion and became the threat staple.
The trick is that Omen or its author Antiarc didn't actively pursue the addon fame. Instead, the work spoke for itself. A better and more useful product eventually rises to the top, especially with addons that travel most effectively by word of mouth.
Donating to addons
Addon development is not necessarily about getting donations or making money off of addons. Sure, there have been cases like Tourguide that sold distribution rights or addons that advertised for premium versions, but for the most part, people create addons because they can. The donations are a product of the complexity of the design and creation process mixed with the apparent complexity of the addon itself. And then, if that wasn't enough, the author's personal connection to the user base creates an incentive for people to care.
You're doing your audience a kindness by being vocal about your addons as well as creating many places for your audience to find you. These are good things. The donations come when the complexity of the addon reaches a level where development of the addon is impaired by the lack of funds. If you write addons in your spare time and they are mostly small utilities, I wouldn't expect donations. If you're going all out and creating something comprehensive like the Atlas team has done with AtlasLoot or a raid warning system like DBM, the development time of your product is probably closer to donation status. Again, it's not about noteriety but about complexity.
The first thing to do is get your addon noticed and get people using it. Once you get feedback and ideas and begin to incorporate those ideas to create new, more plentiful, and better products, people take notice. The best get rewarded.
As for getting on Addon Spotlight, most of the addons I choose are addons that I find personally. There has been the occasional addon that I try out because of an email, but that is rare only because the addons people send me to spotlight are usually ones I've already talked about. I don't care how many people have downloaded an addon when I choose it for the column -- I just want something that does its job well.
What do you guys think? What makes you drawn to an addon, a particular developer, or even want to donate to see a project continue? Sound off in the comments, and thank you for letting me have a little space to talk about this interesting email.
Addons are what we do on Addon Spotlight. If you're new to mods, Addons 101 will walk you through the basics; see what other players are doing at Reader UI of the Week. If there's a mod you think Addon Spotlight should take a look at, email mat@wowinsider.com.Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Aeg Feb 3rd 2011 1:12PM
Speaking of Omen - Did anyone else notice that there is a cap on threat built into the meter. I hit it this week on Halfus heroic and it just stopped building threat. The other tanks that were taunting with me were both capped as well, yet there were no threat issues between us 3 leading me to believe that it is an omen specific thing.
Anyone know of a plan to update this?
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) Feb 3rd 2011 2:14PM
I'm not suggesting you switch away from Omen (people get prickly about their addons) but Skada has an option to track threat and I'd be interested to see if you could replicate the "threat cap" issue in another addon. It'd help to determine if it was addon specific or just a bug in Halfus himself.
Of course, that requires the "cap" to be replicatable at all and not just a one-off thing.
claytybob Feb 3rd 2011 9:05PM
I'm betting it was the cap of the 32bit unsigned integer :P 4,294,967,295. If it was 2,147,483,647 then it was the 32 bit signed integer. I don't see the addon dev being that silly about being able to use negative threat though. (32 1's in binary = 4,294,967,296, but there is a value for 0 as well, making the total ammount of threat "capped" at 4,294,967,295. 2,147,483,647 is 4,294,967,296 divided by two, minus one for the 0 value. [used to store negative (-) numbers])
Radioted Feb 3rd 2011 1:18PM
Quick add-on question, hopefully someone out there has an answer:
Is there an addon out there that will allow you to keybind a macro? I'd like to be able to map my aspect dance macro to the ~ key for easy use. The only thing I've seen that could do that is Spell Binder, but it is out of date and doesn't seem to actually work. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Thrasher Feb 3rd 2011 1:31PM
Couldn't you just assign the macro to a button and then keybind the button using either the default interface or any of the addons that do that (bartender is what I use for my action bars/keybindings)?
rice2007 Feb 3rd 2011 1:31PM
If you're asking what I think you are, pull up the macro UI with /macro or esc>macro. Create your macro and then place the icon on your action bar. Then open your interface UI and map the appropriate key, in this case ~, to wherever you dropped the macro. You can change all of the key mapping for your action bars to whatever you wish.
Alternatively, get domino or bartender and map it from their GUI.
Radioted Feb 3rd 2011 1:39PM
I guess I should clarify: I want to keybind the macro without losing an action bar slot, as said slots are somewhat occupied.
I'll look into Domino and/or Bartender-- thanks!
Revynn Feb 3rd 2011 1:53PM
With Dominos or Bartender you'll have 10 full size action bars available to use, so you wouldn't really be losing any action bar space. You can always load up your 10th bar with all your macros/binds and then hide the bar.
Zippö Feb 3rd 2011 2:02PM
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/q-user-key-bind-a-key-to-any-spe.aspx
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/bind-pad.aspx
haven't tried either, but it seems they do the job :)
halc Feb 3rd 2011 2:06PM
Bindpad will do what you want. It can also track your talent status, allowing you to have different keybindings for your two talent builds.
Pyromelter Feb 3rd 2011 2:06PM
"I guess I should clarify: I want to keybind the macro without losing an action bar slot, as said slots are somewhat occupied."
You can put said macro on an action bar that is hidden. In other words, activate the action bar, put the macro in that slot, keybind it, and then disable viewing of that action bar. Keybind should still work.
Basically what Revynn said.
OneMHz Feb 3rd 2011 2:07PM
I'm pretty sure bartender can do that. Open the macro menu, open bartender (/bt), click the keybinding button, hover over the macro and press the key you want to bind.
nasents Feb 3rd 2011 2:27PM
Clique lets you bind without using bar space. Example shift + left click on an enemy to change aspects or cast misdirect on a player.
zaltais Feb 3rd 2011 3:45PM
LibKeyBound and LivKeyBoundExtra (bundled with pitbull and others) can do this. Do /kb , hover over the macro and hit the key combo you want on it and you're done.
NomNomNom Feb 3rd 2011 5:39PM
As Zippo and Halc have said, BindPad does exactly what you are after with minimal fuss
Sorcha Feb 3rd 2011 5:58PM
You can also try ButtonForge, which lets you create buttons, in as many configurations as you want, hide them, but creates them as additional rather than replacement actionbars.
bean Feb 3rd 2011 6:36PM
Definitely another vote for bindpad. I consider it one of my most essential addons.
Justin Feb 3rd 2011 1:18PM
Just an FYI, Atramedes also works for the Corruption levels during the Cho'gall fight.
Keven Feb 3rd 2011 4:07PM
That it does. While it is not 100% vital to the fight like it is on Atramedes, it is still very helpful. Highly recommended if you are attempting Cho.
When we first started doing attempts on Cho'Gall I assumed that the addon was bugged, but in actuality it really works just fine. My DPS really were getting 100% corrupt just that fast.
(But we got him down 2 days ago so life is okay) ^_^
Sterb Feb 3rd 2011 1:27PM
Doesn't DBM have the sound level tracker built-in now? I get that kind of box when I fight him and I don't have that add-on.