Posts with tag aurora

Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same.

Do I need to remind you again that right now is the perfect time for you to tinker with your user interface? WoW feels much more relaxed now. A second cataclysm has been averted, Deathwing has been defeated, and life is feeling pretty good right now. Sit back, relax, and clean up your interface. You'll thank me when Mists of Pandaria comes out.

Grab bag Addon Spotlights are some of my favorite editions of the column because the regular format means a lot of words about just one addon. That's great and all, but what about those addons that just don't have many words worth saying about them? These little guys fall through the cracks and land in my grab bag collection sack, thrown into the back of a shady-looking truck and taken off for "processing." It's totally painless -- no one complains too much.

One of the latest screenshots of Wrath of the Lich King shows a pink-colored sky over Northrend, with some possible cloud-moving effect I haven't seen in WoW before. When I look at this screenshot I imagine all those clouds roiling in the sky and I wonder if Northrend couldn't possibly beat Outland in most interesting skies after all.

It's a tough comparison -- Outland planets floating above the horizon are hard to beat, whereas Northrend will be limited to a more terrestrial skyscape. When The Burning Crusade first came out, I remember being impressed that the skies had any animation at all, whereas now, of course, the bar has been raised much much higher. Still, there's a lot that the skies of Northrend could offer us, especially if Blizzard were to go crazy with clouds and colors inspired by the Aurora Borealis.

What do you expect of future WoW skies? Do you hope for ever-increasing complexity, or do you think simple and realistic is always best?