Mend Pet

With Cataclysm looming, we all know that there will be serious addon issues that arise.  Every few months I take an afternoon or so to do a complete UI refresh on my system.  It helps to keep the game from getting bogged down, keeps things up to date and gives me a chance to experiment with some new ideas I’ve had for the game’s look and feel.

I thought I would share my recommended process as it might be something you find useful to prepare yourself for the coming chaos.

Step 1: Take screenshots of your current UI.

Multiple characters, in combat, out of combat, under whatever conditions you think are important.  This will be helpful later when you’re trying to set up addons to look a certain way and so you don’t forget about anything!

Step 2: Move/rename your addon related folders.

You want to start from scratch, eliminating any settings or saved variables that might be left around. The folders you are looking for are your Interface/Addon folder and your WTF/{AccountName} folder.

Step 3: Play WoW.  Naked. (The game, not you… that part is up to you!)

Play around with the in-game Interface settings.  The idea here is to step back and decide what the Blizzard UI is really lacking for you.  I wouldn’t recommend jumping into a raid, but maybe a dungeon or some farming and dailies.  Make a list of what you find annoying or unusable without addons.

Step 4: Set up your action bars so they are usable from the Blizzard UI. (Optional, but highly recommended)

If you’ve been using a bar mod for a long time, your action buttons probably aren’t logically set up to be used with Blizzard’s UI.  I recommend changing that, in case you happen to play at someone else’s place or in case your addon breaks for some reason.  (This is called “degrading gracefully”) Later, when you reinstall your new bar mod, set up your bars around your action buttons, not the other way around!

Step 5: Research your addons.

Maybe you’ve got an addon you’ve been using for a while, but it’s no longer being maintained.  That’s a disaster waiting to happen!  Try to find out if there is a supported addon with equivalent functionality.

Step 6: Install the addons you find necessary.

Enable them ONE AT A TIME and configure it to your liking.  This way you don’t end up with random UI components that you can’t find the source of.  Repeat until all your addons are set up.  If you simply can’t get something to work or look how it did before, you may want to explore your previously saved screenshots and saved settings files.

Blizzard has a done a lot throughout the years to improve the look and feel of the game.  They’ve incorporated lots of addons into the core game, and it’s almost a whole new feeling compared to the ‘original’.

But you know what they haven’t done anything with?  The character management screens.  The screen you see when you’re selecting your character, or creating a new one.  They could really use some sprucing up, and I have a few ideas I’d like to suggest!

Character Selection Screen

Addon Presets: The idea here is that you’d define addon groups, and be able to load a specific subset of your addons depending on what you’re doing.  For me, I’d like to have things like:

• Raiding addons
• Gathering/Auctioning addons
• Leveling addons

I don’t need to have Auctioneer or Quest Helper running when I’m going to a raid, and I don’t need Omen or Recount when I’m leveling an alt or soloing.  But it’s too much trouble, and too easy to forget to check/uncheck those little boxes before each time I log in.  I’d like to say “Switch me to Raiding mode!” and off I go.

Character List Sorting: When I switch my characters over to my new account, I created my new bank alt before transferring Brajana.  Now and forever more, my bank alt is first on my list of characters.  I’d like to be able to manually switch the order they are displayed, or at least sort them by level or something.

Character Creation Screen

Check Name: I’d like to just check if a name is available.  I don’t want to have to create a character and delete it every time I find an available name.  Just a little button beside the name field would do, thanks.

More camera views: Right now, you can only spin the model of the character you’re creating.  What if you want to know what it will look like from another angle?  What about if you want to zoom in and see it close up?  Sorry, you can’t do that here.

Well, that isn’t too difficult, is it?  Just a few little changes and the front-end of the game will be as up-to-date as the rest.  Get on it, Blizz!

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of character jumping.  Raiding on my Hunter, leveling my Paladin and my Mage too.  These three classes do not have very similar playstyles.  In fact, they are almost as far apart from each other as you can get. Ranged with a pet, melee with heals and spell casting clothy.

This makes it difficult for me to switch between them smoothly.  Last night I played my paladin for a bit, then switched over to my mage, who I hadn’t played in a couple of weeks.  It was… a shock.  I was too used to my buttons and keybindings, expecting different things from different abilities, quite a disaster! (Let’s just say Polymorph != Holy Light and Pyroblast != Exorcism)

I realized I need to adjust my alts to follow a similar keybinding strategy to my main.  I need to know where everything is in a pinch.  So I need to decide what abilities I associate between each class.

So here are the major categories of situations/abilities and which spells and abilities I associate them for each class.  Hopefully this will help me sort my keybindings out so no matter which class I’m playing, the same button will have approximately the same effect.

OMG I’M GONNA DIE, GET IT OFF ME! (Aggro drop/damage protection)

• Hunter: Feign Death
• Mage: Ice Block or Mana Shield
• Paladin: (What are you talking about?  My paladin NEVER dies.) A.K.A. Divine Shield or Lay on Hands

Crap, he’s a runner!  Get him quick before he pulls adds! (Intant ranged cast)

• Hunter: Arcane Shot
• Mage: Fire Blast
• Paladin: Hammer of Wrath

You’re trying to heal?  I don’t think so! (Stun/Interrupt)

• Hunter: Intimidation (when BM-spec’d) or Silencing Shot (when MM-spec’d)
• Mage: Dragon’s Breath
• Paladin: Hammer of Justice

They’re EVERYWHERE!! (Area of Effect)

• Hunter: Volley
• Mage: Flamestrike or Blizzard
• Paladin: Consecration

YOU! Stay there while I kill this guy.  kthx! (Long-term Crowd Control)

• Hunter: Freezing Trap or Freezing Arrow (depending on mob/location)
• Mage: Polymorph
• Paladin: Repentance

Any other situations that you need to be readily accessible instinctively?

Let me start off by clarifying a couple of terms.  User Interface is the look and feel of the game, what you see and how you interact with it.  Addons are scripts written to extend the game, including addons to modify your User Interface, but also addons to add new features and display information that is not easily available otherwise.  Now, let me tell you what I mean by User Interface Elitism…

You may have not noticed, but I don’t show a lot of images of my User Interface.  I’ve written about the addons I’ve used in the past, and I even write for a User Interface blog.  But very rarely will you see a screenshot with my interface.

Why?

Because a lot of people judge you by how your interface looks.  I once read a post on a blog that I don’t normally read where the author mentioned seeing someone play on their laptop in public.  He said they were obviously a noob, because they were playing with the default UI.

My user interface has gone through many iterations.  Like everyone else, I started out with no addons to speak of.  Then I found Cosmos, then I found CT… this is where I got my start.  I quickly found action bar mods – because back in the day, Blizzard didn’t have native multi-action bar support.

But nowadays – I run with almost completely default looking UI.

With the use of handy macros, I’ve managed to fit all my used abilities into 5-6 bars.  One or two of them are ‘non-combat’ bars, full of things I want easy access to but don’t need to see all the time (fun macros, professions, rarely used abilities like Tame Beast or Aspect of the Wild).

Do you know how many bars the Blizzard UI has?  6.  I keep 4 up on display, and the 5th and 6th are just a short shift-scroll away on my main action bar.  It’s hidden, but it’s easily accessed, thus is not taking up extra space on my screen.

I do use a unit frame addon.  I use Xperl, but not to make things pretty.  I originally began using it so I could see my focus target.  That’s built in now, but I do like that xperl shows specs/types on target frames, and that’s pretty much the only reason I use them on my hunter.

My unit frames are all relatively in the default places.  I don’t move them around to the middle of my screen or anything like that.

Of course, this is different when I’m on a healer.  I do in fact move my frames to a slightly more central area (although they are still at the top), and I use Decursive to see conditions.

I don’t use any mod to modify the display of my buffs, they are in the default location showing default numbers.

I don’t use a mod to move or change the shape of my minimap.

I don’t use a HUD.

Now here is the question: Does this make me a bad player?

User Interface Elitist says yes!

I say no.

I can have just as many keybindings as someone using an action bar mod.  So why are the default action bars so frowned upon?

Yes, I’m aware that adding special action bars, unit frames, HUDs and minimap mods can let me make my UI more appealing to someone’s eye.

But you know what?  When servers came up after 3.1 went live… I got to play the game.  So many people I know spent a few hours fixing their addons and getting things to look right again.  Trying to relearn how to play when their favourite action bar mod wasn’t properly updated.  You know how long it took me?  No time at all.  I disabled all non-essential mods (pretty much everything except Bagnon for me) and I went on my merry way to visit the Argent Tournament and try the fishing daily.

Yes, I was missing some functions and information.  But everything was where I expected it, and I didn’t have to do any rebinding or anything.

I can also play on other machines with no issues.  I can hop on my boyfriend’s computer and I don’t have to worry about not knowing where anything is.

This isn’t to say I don’t play with addons – I most certainly do.

But for me, addons do one thing.

They add to my experience, rather than change it.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with changing the look of your interface.  I’m saying that it’s a choice, not a requirement.

I have Recount and Omen to display information not otherwise displayed.  I have OmniCC, GhostPulse, Class Timer and Power Auras to remind me to do things and help me keep track of my cooldowns and DoTs.

I have AuctionLite to ease my auctioning process, and to tell me which quest rewards vendor for the most.  I even use Quest Helper on some of my alts!

So please, UI Elitists, explain to me why my default User Interface makes me a worse player than you.  Tell me how it affects my DPS.  Tell me why your 3D portrait is important, and why knowing I have 23:41 left on my flask is better than just rounding it to 24 m.

Tell me why it matters where they are placed on my screen if they’re all keybound anyway, and why it makes a difference if I have 3 rows on the bottom and 2 on the side, instead of 6 rows in the middle of my screen.

No Stock UI is a brand new World of Warcraft magazine-style Addon and User Interface blog, originally sparked by an idea of the great Matticus of World of Matticus!  He’s invited me and a few other great writers to help out with this great undertaking to bring the World of Warcraft more information on the Addons and User Interface design you want to know about.

You can get a better idea about the site by reading Matticus’ post about it, or heck… just go to the new site and see it for yourself!

My first post is already up, it’s about how to use Recount to help improve yourself and your raid.

Check it out, subscribe, and enjoy!