WoW: The Coming Add-on Cataclysm

Post soundtrack: “Cataclysm” by Blizzard.

There’s nothing like visiting the PTR to convince you it’s time to re-subscribe to WoW. Hence I’ve returned (albeit not especially triumphantly).

So I’ve started tidying up some loose ends on my old main characters on alliance side  and have been trying to get my solitary high-level horde alt (ding 64!) up in level enough to do the new troll quest chain (despite the likelihood that it’s probably going to be just as truncated and as underwhelming an experience as the Gnomes failure to recapture Gnomeregan was).

But my limited time on the PTR reminded me of one important little detail: when Cataclysm strikes and (insert rampant hyperbole here, describing how things changing ruins the game you know and love, while simultaneously bitching about the game you know and love because it’s all the same and nothing changes and… oh, wait), it’s also likely going to be losing a number of the addons we currently know and love.  (Ask yourself how long it’s been since some of the addons you may be using have been updated? My oldest was last updated Jul 2008…)

I transferred an 80 rogue and 80 priest onto the PTR, and while I can play a rogue with the default UI (well, I can solo; raiding would probably be kind of difficult) there’s no way in heck I could even heal a 5-man without Vuhdo. Looking at the collection of addons in my live install, it’s clear I’m going to have a lot of work ahead of me to get ready for Cata, not just in winnowing out those which are now unsupported, but also in searching for the new and improved.

There are three parts to the UI that my UI layout revolves around:

• Action Bars: The default bars are almost the only part of the UI that I leave untouched – not only are they perfectly functional (and guaranteed to work the day after a big patch), but I also like the art used when you’re controlling vehicles.
• Player/Target Frames: While sparse of information and truly awfully positioned (especially for classes with rapidly changing resources to manage, such as rogues, hunters and warriors) they do the job; in the past I’ve usually replaced them with XPerl, which is the best implementation I’ve come across so far of “It Just Works” in terms of unitframe addons. I find unitframes, once more sanely positioned, are best supported by a HUD in the centre of the screen, so important information is located where your attention is focused. (MetaHUD is my current HUD of choice, having dropped DHUD which hasn’t been updated for a while)
• Raid Frames: I rely upon these for my healing, and experience shows I perform best with spells bound to all four mouse buttons (left/right/forward/back) with shift/ctrl/alt modifiers. My addon of choice for this is Vuhdo, which handles both frames and mouse-over healing quite capably (but isn’t currently PTR-ready, although apparently there’s a version for the Beta).

After those, it starts to get cosmetic.  Unlike minimalists, I like having access to more information than the default UI usually reveals (although not necessarily displayed all the time).  A Data Broker bar addon (and assorted modules) is great for this, my current being ChocolateBar.  The minimap gets replaced and moved to the centre-top of the screen, cue Chinchilla. A more detailed buff/debuff display, Elkano’s BuffBars. Replace Blizz’s Floating Combat Text with MikScrollingBattleText.  Replace chat windows with Prat and WIM. Then there’s Auctioneer, of course. And who can forget DeadlyBossMods?

To that you can add convenience addons like Atlas/Atlasloot, Fishing Buddy, Mapster, Opie, Outfitter, Skada, and little things like No Gryphons. And that barely scratches the surface of the various bits and pieces I’ve accumulated – I have 235 folders in my Addons directory, probably representing near on a hundred addons installed.

Methinks ‘tis time to cut back. And hey, what a great opportunity for it!

/wave

Still Selling

Still making glyphs, still selling them, but now I’m trying not to undercut everyone else out of the market.  (Gevlon wouldn’t approve.)

I’ve been reconsidering my approach (sell often, sell cheap), and will continue in a mostly similar vein, but with a higher limit to my prices.  After reading Gevlon’s old post on his routine, I’m also going to reduce my inventory even further, and I’ve managed to make some sense of the batch-posting system built into Auctioneer which should cut down the workload even further.  A Just-in-Time system will be more efficient, given a sufficient stock of ink.

I’ve spent a little time (and a little gold – a level 30-ish character shouldn’t be wearing gear in to low 20s) on Tingle, and she finally went up from 30 to 31 yesterday.  I think her new gear will make a difference with the upcoming levels.

Dingle had another 10-man Naxx run, and we may get into the other 10-man instances this afternoon – maybe not Ulduar, perhaps, but certainly Archavon, Malygos and Sartharion.  (She won Thane’s Tainted Greathelm, which was one of the few upgrades left for her outside of Ulduar).

Before I go, some other links that were food for thought about my growing glyph industry:
From QQ pwn more; My Goal: 100k Gold
A guest post on Warcraft Econ; Inscription & Glyph Market II

Time to check my mail (here’s hoping I can afford to splash out on another ten Books of Glyph Mastery – Mingle is getting closer and closer to having the entire range of glyphs available to make!) before getting dailies done.

Oh, and don’t forget that it’s the Midsummer Fire Festival!  Easy xp (and exploration, and flightpoints) for low-level characters!

/wave

Nothing Beats A Vacation

Well, maybe chocolate does, but other than that vacations are great.  Taking a break from 25-man raiding is proving to be very enjoyable, even if it means listening on vent to everyone else raiding (and collecting their epic loots) without me.

I’ve dabbled a little, taking Mingle in for a couple of 10-man Ulduar achievement runs (and picked up a fourth T8 piece for that very nice shadow priest set bonus), but I’ve probably spent more time out of WoW than in it (apart from some extended periods spent fishing and herbing).  Mingle is also sporting a new haircut, to try minimise the really blatant clipping that the priest T8 head has with most hairstyles.  (I find it quite annoying, but I guess it’s the price you pay for being fashionable)

Speaking of herbalism, it’s proving to be surprisingly profitable on Snowfall who has just reached the dizzying heights of level 13; the small assortment of beginning-zone herbs she’s picked and put on the AH (along with some Small Eggs, which are ridiculously profitable) have raised her bank balance to 15g already.  Needless to say, this has clearly demonstrated (to me, at least) that if I ever have the desire to make a clean start on a server, gold won’t be too much of a problem.

Snowfall has finally completed the starting zone quests, and is ready to begin exploring Ghostlands (unless I get distracted again).  It’s quite a change of pace, as the starting zone I usually run is solely the Gnome/Dwarf area.

It’s just unfortunate how…  anorexic the Blood Elf character models are.  The animations are really quite lovely, but the models themselves are personally rather unappealing.  I’m undecided whether to continue leveling her or if I should try rerolling a race that has a bit more substance to it.  (I guess it says something about my aesthetics that I find the dwarves most visually appealing – apart from their really awful dances, of course)

Kringle is facing the possibility of some time spent pet-levelling, and I’m keeping an eye open for a spirit beast (Gondria would be awesome, although it’s me and pretty much every other hunter looking for him).

I’m following with some interest the new addon manager from WoWInterface:  Minion looks interesting, but the early bugs have left me wary of trying it out for now, especially with the large list of addons I run (rough estimate of around 135 or so, between all my characters, including class-specific ones).  But I’ll probably be giving it a try when it’s a little more mature, and the addon-identification bugs have been stomped into submission.

Finally, I’m currently battling an old keyboard, having celebrated a return to drinking coffee by spilling some of my first cup in almost six months on my lovely Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, leaving it with several unresponsive keys.  I’m now looking at buying a keyboard protector and hoping I don’t have to buy a new keyboard (although fortunately the 4000 isn’t a hard model to find) to protect – with luck it’ll be possible to clean the spill off the traces inside the keyboard, but my initial disassembly and examination has left me uncertain about it.

And on the subject of buying stuff, I was reminded of an young-adult fantasy novel from my youth while browsing the comments of a post on Welcome to Spinksville!  As someone who’s ready prolifically all my life, the thought of revisiting fiction from my past is quite appealing, and in that spirit not only have I ordered a copy of So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane, but I’m also getting a copy of Next of Kin by Eric Frank Russell from a local speciality bookstore.  (Yay for literacy!)

For now, though, time to get a couple of dailies done before 10-man General Vezax.

/wave