Addon Spotlight: Possessions
by Eric Vice 
Aug 13th 2007 at 7:00PM
I should warn you in advance before we get too far into this review that Possessions has been known to be very addictive, meaning that once you use it, you may not be able to play the game without it. One particular hunter who is very near and dear to me started acting like a drug addict who had just gotten her fix when I showed her this add-on. For people who have multiple characters on the same server and especially characters devoted exclusively to storage, this add-on may send tingles of pleasure through your body that you have not previously experienced in an online game.
Once you install Possessions the first time, you should immediately login to each of your characters and open all your bags in your inventory and in your bank. Once Possessions has scanned all the information into it's database initially, all updating is then done on-the-fly. This is where the sheer beauty of Possessions begins to shine.
Let's suppose you're playing on your warlock who is an engineer, and someone in your guild is looking for silk cloth which would be stored in the bank of your tailor. You can either type "/poss" by itself to bring up a dialog box (and type "silk cloth" in the search field) or type "/poss silk cloth" right in the chat window. Possessions will give you a search engine style report of all the items you have that have "silk cloth" in the name. You can even "link" these results back into chat by shift-clicking the item icons in the search results. Mousing over these icons will give you the usual in-game description of the item, but at the bottom of the tooltip it will also tell you how many you have, and where the items are located on what character.
There are other options in the search dialog you can explore that accomplish a variety of other filtering tasks and that allow you to search a specific character or a specific location, but that's for you to play with later. Packrats of Azeroth, download Possessions today! I should note that I've hot-linked a much larger screenshot of the Professions search window to the tooltip thumbnail above. Click it to behold the true beauty of Possessions!
Filed under: Items, AddOns, AddOn Spotlight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Argent Aug 13th 2007 7:21PM
or you can just use sanity2 and not need to type in what you're looking for because it's in your tooltip all the time. woohoo.
never quite grew to like poss, always found it to be a bit too clumsy for my tastes. but i suppose it does what it's supposed to do well enough (unless you use WIM, anyway.)
Adam Aug 13th 2007 7:28PM
The bag management addon TBag (featured here, I think) offers the same functionality, and also lets you view the contents of your alts' bags and bank from any toon, not just search.
Lori Aug 13th 2007 7:30PM
I have used Possesions for over a year and found it invaluable since I have lots of alts with different professions and gear needs.
I believe the example displayed when clicking on the picture is from an old version, though. Mine has more options.
Freehugz Aug 13th 2007 7:36PM
Nifty addon. I don't have any characters that are in the same level range as each other, so I really have no use for this, but I can see how it would be useful.
Baluki Aug 13th 2007 7:50PM
Advanced Trade Skill Window (ATSW) does something similar, but it's all profession-based (and it gives you a HUGELY improved profession interface). It shows what you can make with the materials in your possession, but you can also tell it to consider items in your bank, on your alts, and purchasable from vendors. Can't live without it.
MartinC Aug 13th 2007 8:15PM
A better alternative is the CharacterInfo mod from wowace. Lets you view all the contents of all your characters inventory, bank, and mail slots.
chuck Aug 13th 2007 11:06PM
or you can use the OneBag, OneBank, OneRing set of addons. in that case, you just open up a bank window, and are looking at the actual bank wndow for any selected toon?
linking is an amazing feature? um, shift click ftw?
chuck Aug 13th 2007 11:10PM
engineering being "a good laugh" pretty much sums up how stupid this profession is.
thanks god we can use our trinkets in arena though,... oh wait. no you can't. but at least blacksmiths can't use their crafted epic weapons in arena either... oh wait. they can.
dekulink Aug 14th 2007 12:37AM
@8
"at least blacksmiths can't use their crafted epic weapons in the arena either... oh wait. they can."
So, you're saying because we spend loads of time and money on a profession it shouldn't be usable in the arena? Well, then I guess it's too bad Tailors and Leatherworks can wear armor in the arena.
Seriously, think about what you're saying...
Phil Aug 14th 2007 1:58AM
@8
mt?
Trollyboy Aug 14th 2007 2:05AM
@9 @8
I think he's remarking that other proffessions spend $$ on their craftables and they are useable in arenas.
Engineering spends $$ on craftables too, but can't use their trinkets in arenas.
I think he's saying it's unfair that engineers can't make use of what they spent good money to make. Not that it's unfair that other proffessions CAN.
Seriously, reading comprehension ftw...
Trollyboy Aug 14th 2007 2:06AM
But yeah, it's got very little to do with the topic =\
Keya Aug 14th 2007 2:34AM
BankList does the same and is very minimalistic - in addition you can assign one of your chars as "guild bank" and other members of your guild can whisper you wether that item is available or not.
mike_rochannel Aug 14th 2007 4:58AM
I used "Possessions" for some time until i entirely switched to Ace2 after the BC-Launch. What i still miss EVERY DAY is the ability of "Possessions" to track what you send to your Alts thru Mail the moment it left you hand. Every other Mod out there keeps things you send to your Alt in Limbo until you log on on the Alt and inspect the Mailbox ..
Rapap Aug 14th 2007 5:49AM
First of all there is a better newer version of Possessions. The one the article linked it out of date. You can find the newest Possessions here. It has more features then the one in the article.
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info6443-Possessions2.0.2forWoW2.1.html
Second, As #14 said, You missed the best feature of Possessions. It tracks mail sent to your alts. If you use the mail as extra storage this is invaluable. You know exactly whats in the bank alt's mail without having to log into that alt.
I've tried the a lot of those addons where you can see the actual bank and inventory of other characters but I found them very annoying. Why would I want to look through bags and mouse over everything when I could have it all in one nice list? Its much more efficient to look through a list of text than look at a screen full of Icons.
Also Possessions just doesn't have a search feature by name feature. There are also filters show everything by character, by location (bank, mail, wearing), and type of item (herbs, ore, gloves, etc).
I've been using Possessions for a very very long time and haven't found any addon that is as good as it is.
Anorax Aug 14th 2007 6:53AM
Bagnon also performs a similar function in that if you mouse over an item it tells you every single alt that has it and the quantity.
lumiden Aug 14th 2007 8:19AM
Awesome! I love this mod, tracks mailboxes, bank, inventory... And the command line search is handier that I ever thought.
Eric Vice Aug 14th 2007 9:02AM
@15
Thank you for your comment and your contribution.. not to mention your very valid points.
My point however, is the Possessions I linked was the original add-on by the original author. The version you linked, I believe, was the original version "tweaked" by someone else who for whatever reason couldn't wait for the original author to re-release the add-on.
It's just a judgement call, but I would rather support the original author. The fellow who made the "for 2.1" version should have changed the name of the add-on to avoid confusion.
idburns Aug 14th 2007 9:25AM
Possessions is the bomb, I've been using it for over a year and it's invaluable, a huge time saver when I'm trying to find various items/mats on any of my toons.
@4 (Freehugz):
"I don't have any characters that are in the same level range as each other, so I really have no use for this, but I can see how it would be useful."
Umm...you're missing the point of the addon. Playing a new alt that needs some silk cloth? A quick search in possessions tells you exactly how much silk cloth is on all your toons.
idburns Aug 14th 2007 9:28AM
I forgot to add, another awesome feature of Possessions is the filtering. Being able to see what specific piece of armor my toons have on them is nice if I'm on another toon and see a good deal on a pair of gloves I can filter my possessions search to the specific character and their "glove" items.