Posts with tag addons

Garrisons are an integral part of the leveling game in Warlords of Draenor, but they're also part of the endgame, too -- collecting various followers and sending them on the appropriate missions will net you rewards like gear, gold, resources, and more. But although I love the garrison game, when you've got 20 followers, trying to keep track of who does what is almost a logistical nightmare. Sure, there's only a handful of threats that your follower's abilities need to counter, but remembering which follower does what is something that I still haven't mastered.

Beyond that, the mission interface itself is decent and fairly intuitive, but it's not quite as user-friendly as it could be. So it was with great anticipation that I awaited the inevitable addons that would take missions and follower management to the next level -- because if there's one thing I've learned in 10 years of gameplay, it's that addon authors are ridiculously talented when it comes to redesigning UI functions into elegant masterpieces of design. And the addon Master Plan by Foxlit has done exactly that with the missions and follower interface.

Everyone remembers the story of Hexu and Davidian, a completely blind player and his helpful friend who acts as a guide dog of sorts to help Hexu find his way. While Youtube user and avid WoW player Kephas isn't completely blind like Hexu, he has no vision in his left eye at all, limited sight in his right, and no peripheral vision. Despite this, Kephas still manages to play World of Warcraft just fine, and decided to make a video to show everyone just what it's like to play WoW as a visually-impaired player.

In the video, Kephas goes over his UI and the addons he uses to make playing possible, even going so far as to provide a demonstration of his dps on a handy target dummy, then following that up with a jaunt to successfully and easily solo Onyxia's Lair. Kephas followed up the first video with a second that details and explains how he plays a variety of classes through the use of clever macros. Paladin, monk, warrior, hunter and death knight all get a play through and some test time on target dummies in the follow up video. While some characters are admittedly better geared than others, Kephas still manages to pull plenty of dps with each.

WoW Insider heard from oQueue's creator, Tiny, regarding the issues the incredibly popular addon is facing with the arrival of patch 5.4.7. Essentially, various things changed in the API, the resource Blizzard creates for addon authors, that caused issues for oQueue. There was a change to Battle.net messaging frequency, which is how oQueue runs its "mesh", meaning oQueue had to move communications to a newly created channel.

This was fine, and Tiny was able to work around it, changing the channels through which oQueue operates. Then a change was introduced to remove notes from battle.net invitations -- an attempt to remove a way for spammers to advertise their gold and other services. However, this completely broke oQueue's capacity to let people join groups.

Fortunately, Tiny tells me, a hotfix is in the works to repair this latest issue. The hotfix also makes another API change which Tiny will release a new version to work around. This hotfix was scheduled for this week, so hopefully our favorite in-game group-finder will be up and running again soon. Keep an eye on oQueue's host site for the latest updates.

Update: The hotfix is now live and Tiny is preparing the latest version of oQueue for download. The latest version is available at solidice.com

Macros. They're great. For certain classes and gameplay elements they're almost required, and for many others they're terribly useful. Macros can do things like create a keybind that fires your damage mitigation cooldowns and uses a healthstone. Perhaps you want to stop casting whenever you hit your interrupt? No problem. They can allow you to use modifiers to cast your abilities on your focus instead of your target, or to use all your damage increasing cooldowns at once. But the macro interface, as one of WoW's older ones, leaves a little to be desired.

Therefore, today, we're looking at addons that make macros easier, particularly those that generate more space for their use. As you can see from the above, you don't get much from the default system. So let's get started with one addon whose whole purpose is to give you a bit more room to play with.


BindPad

BindPad is an addon designed to give you space, both on your action bars and in your macro pane. What it does is really pretty simple, so I'm not going to allot it a ton of space for explanation. Downloading and installing it is really pretty much the only setup that you need, there are no real settings for this addon. Once you have it up and running, type /bindpad or /bp into the chat to open it up and you'll be presented with a window. As an aside, I couldn't get it to generate a button in the macro window, which might be a great addition.

In case you missed it, Blizzard has announced that they're basically building oQueue into WoW. Not in so many words, I grant you, but they did say that they would be building in a cross-realm group finder for raids and rated battlegrounds to make it easier for players to find groups. If that doesn't replace oQueue, I don't know what will.

Over the years, too, other addons have been built into the game. LoseControl, for example, which I covered back in an early Blood Sport, was baked into the game back in patch 5.1. And the PvP UI is grabbing various other UI elements, from BattlegroundTargets to timers for base captures. The PvE UI, though, seems to be stagnating somewhat. Is that just because it is not in need of any additions?

One thing I'd love to see baked in to the default UI in a more user-friendly way is VuhDo, Healbot or Clique, depending on your personal preference. Yes, you can do what these addons do with mouseover macros, but man, it's hard work to set that up. And complicated, if you don't know how macros work. So adding in something along those lines to make raid healing a slightly easier task might be a smart move. What do you think? Addons that should be built into the game, for PvP or PvE... go!

You know that site you use every day to learn about quests and where things drop? All of that data -- who drops what, the percentages, the map locations -- comes from players who take the time to collect it and contribute. The more people who contribute, the more accurate the data. These lightweight addons collect the pertinent information in the background and upload when you exit the game.

You all know the score. Siege of Orgrimmar is here, the Timeless Isle has been up for a few weeks, and gear is dropping like rain. But getting that drop you need isn't the end of the road for gearing, no, far from it in fact. Your work is only just beginning. Once you've got your hands on that upgrade (and, of course, actually ascertained that it is an upgrade at all) you will need to enchant it, gem it, reforge it, and consider whether to upgrade it. With the reduced cost of upgrades now, it's a far less significant decision, but nonetheless it is one that you'll have to make.

But fear not, friends! There are tools out there that will make your lives considerably easier.

Ask Mr Robot

What? Olivia, you nincompoop, Ask Mr Robot isn't an addon, it's a website! Silly brits, always mixing everything up. But you're wrong, since January 10th, there has been a great little addon that tags along with the well-known and widely used website. And since 5.4 dropped, it's started bringing the site's robotic advice straight to your characters in-game! So how does it work? It's very, very easy. Head over to askmrrobot.com, and load up your character details. You'll need to choose a region, as well as a server, and type in your name. Pretty easy so far? You'll need to be logged out on the character in question and Mr Robot will pull down all your gear data from the armory. Since you asked so nicely.

So you want to do Flex raiding instead of LFR? Or as well as LFR, you crazy cats? But you don't have a guild or any friends or the time to sit in trade chat forlornly spamming "520 afflock LF Flex /w" for hours on end? You want to be out in the world doing Timeless Isle things rather than stuck in cities? If only there was another way to PuG Flex raids. Well fear not, my friends, oQueue is here to save your bacon. Or any other pork product.

Before I get into the oQueue how-to, I am just going to dedicate a moment to openraid. If you're organised enough to be able to say "Yes! I can raid on Monday at 7pm!" then openraid.us or openraid.eu depending on your region should be your weapon of choice. This allows you to sign up for pre-arranged raids, or indeed to set up your own. But if you want to log in, and immediately hop into a queue for a flex raid, without the need for organization or flexibility, oQueue's the way to go. So let's get started.

A couple of weeks back, I asked, in a discussion topic, for readers to submit their secret addons. I wasn't after addons everyone had heard of, like DBM, Recount, or Bartender, nor indeed addons that most people would have heard of, such as Adibags or TellMeWhen. I was after obscure little addons, maybe addons that didn't do a great deal, but were a huge help, and which their users wouldn't be without. And you wonderful people gave me plenty to be going along with!

Side note, though, many of you mentioned that you actually wrote addons yourselves, and that's something I'd absolutely love to do -- feature readers' addons. No matter if they're not on Curse or similar, drop me a line on olivia@wowinsider.com and we'll sort something out. Let's get started!

OneClickEnchantScroll

Oh my. OCES, as we'll call it from now on, was one addon that immediately caught my eye. It is one of those addons that really does exactly what it says on the tin. I've wanted a way to do this forever, and it's really only a minor efficiency gain, as all it removes is a single click. But man, it's great to remove that one click!

I put the call out on twitter the other day, asking people to tell me about little known addons that they couldn't be without. When you talk about addons you always want to have loaded, everyone thinks of things like DBM or Grid or other very well-known and popular addons, but they're not the ones I have in mind.

Instead I want to know about the addons you rely on that not everyone has heard of, that aren't common knowledge, the ones that you happened upon or had recommended to you by friends, and now can't be without. The secret addons that you will always use, now, regardless of what others might say.

Me, personally? I love a couple of little addons, one called GoGoMount, which allows you to use Blizzard's keybind menu, the one in the menu that pops up if you hit escape, to bind both a random flying mount and a random ground mount. I like getting random mounts, and it doesn't take up space on my (packed) bars. Another one I love is Steal, Purge and Dispel. It makes a "bong" noise and pops up a little window whenever your target or focus has something that could be removed via Spellsteal, Purge, or Dispel Magic. While there are other ways to do this, it's great to have that little reminder sometimes, particularly on my mage where I have a habit of getting distracted by Pyroblasting everything in the face.

So what are your secret addons?