Now this is interesting. Our old friend Jesta, who
made the EpicAdvice.com site not so long ago, is working on a new project at
EpicPlan.com, and while it's still hidden away in pre-alpha, you can see what they're up to
in this thread on EA. It's a
slideshow/diagramming web app, basically -- you can take maps of the game's instances, lay out icons and symbols on them as you wish, and then animate and caption boss fights and encounters. The end result is a very clear way to show off different raid strategies, and we're told the slideshows are embeddable on other sites as well (you may even see some here eventually on WoW.com).
Unfortunately, they're only
taking signups for the beta of the service right now, and while you can watch a show in action on
the technology demo, you can't make your own quite yet. But it seems like a very impressive tool for raidleaders, both to share plans with the public and players seeking help, as well as your own raid members. It'll be great to be able to make a quick and easy visual display of where to stand and what to do during boss fights and instance encounters.
Tags: beta, bosses, demo, design, encounters, epic-advice, epicplan, graphics, icons, instances, jesta, planner, raid-planner, raiding, signups, symbols, technology, web, web-app, web-tool
Filed under: Instances, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King
Nov 22nd 2009 at 2:00PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
KarnnExodar Nov 22nd 2009 2:21PM
The the demo of the Thorim 10man is pretty cool since it gives a more visual idea of what to do against boss specific abilities and how to avoid them.
It gives a brief general idea of what to do and where to position compared to the old fashioned actually reading boss strats which most pugs don't ever seem to do.
The only negative comment I have to make is that it doesn't include important or specific extra info such as mind controlling adds, IE dark rune warbringer which grants the whole raid an extra buff called Aura of Celerity increasing speeds by 20%.
Jesta Nov 22nd 2009 4:32PM
Well its a good idea, I don't think we are looking to replace the traditional "essay-style" guide to a fight, merely complement it :)
We plan on integrating abilities and such to Wowhead abilities and link our diagrams to to forums/guides/etc. We want to become a tool used in the strategy community, not replace everything.
Nick Nov 22nd 2009 2:22PM
KOOL!
Po1sN3 Nov 22nd 2009 3:22PM
anyone else not being able to load the pages?
CaffeineRage Nov 22nd 2009 4:14PM
I have a feeling that I'll be seeing a lot of this site in Catta. While Karnn is right, that it does need additions to it, it is a great start. I am really hoping to see this site take off in time for the first raids in Catta.
Jesta Nov 22nd 2009 4:32PM
Sorry we are having some DNS issues right now, completely unrelated to the traffic from the article. Murphy's Law, go.
@CaffeieneRage - Yeah we have a lot of additional functionallity on the way, and seem to be on course for a full fledge product by Cataclysm.
Jesta Nov 22nd 2009 4:41PM
Also, for those of you that are unable to view the epicadvice.com question with the technology demo, our other server is still running epicplan.com just fine.
You can view the plan directly here:
http://epicplan.com/plan/4
Sperge Nov 22nd 2009 5:45PM
There was (is?) an addon called minnaplan which did exactly the same thing. We used it a fair bit back in BC with fights like Vashj and Kael.
synergy24 Nov 23rd 2009 6:19PM
Yep Minaplan was almost the same thing my guild used it as well for Vashj , Kael , Illidan etc..
glad to see someone bringing the idea back, minaplan stopped working towards the end of BC and I think its developer just stopped updating it, it stopped working shortly after sunwell dropped.
Broken_toes Nov 22nd 2009 9:02PM
WOW this sounds epic as hell- I was worried about gettin my pro and wow life mixed up havin to make some sort of presentation for the bloody heap o guild dps that just refuse to youtube/tankspot a fight... now if only I could get the little bastards to look at this... and the guild forums... and never once mention twilight...
Hellwraith Nov 23rd 2009 1:13AM
I think it's a pretty neat idea, specially because there are people that even if you explain it thoroughly they can't seem to get a spacial idea of fight: knowing where things are or should be placed. Sometimes, people having a hard time picturing what a text or guide is trying to say might get frustrated due to lack of visual aid, so I really think this is a big and a great step on helping people with the game.
EZ Nov 23rd 2009 10:13AM
I think it might be better to use smaller class-colored dots instead of actual icons (yellow-rogue, pink-pally, purple-lock, red-dk, etc). Especially when animating 25 people on the slide show, having 25 square icons could get cluttered and unwieldy. Or even little symbols for melee, ranged, heals, tanks. Simplifying the display a little bit.
Yes I understand this is in beta, and I think it's a great idea and it seems really helpful. Hopefully it catches on and gets some publicity.
The Banj Nov 23rd 2009 10:43AM
That looks awesome :o
Agree with the above post 100%, coloured dots, not icons..