Filed under: AddOns

Curse Client v4 now in open beta

by Gregg Reece Nov 3rd 2009 at 6:00PM

Curse has recently released version 4 of their addon client to open beta. This is a major overhaul from their current client both in looks and functionality. It adds features such as change logs, settings backup, addon package creation, and a healthy dose of added security.

While it still does have some features only available to premium users, it is much less nagging about the process than their v3 client is known to be. Adamar (PC version) and Kaelten (Mac version as well as the addon OneBag) are the developers behind this new version and have been working with ckknight to help integrate some of its features into WoWAce.com and CurseForge addon development sites (both of which are owned by Curse Gaming). This allows players to report bugs via the new client and have them show up as support tickets in the addon sites for the developers to track and work with.

We've put together a couple quick galleries of what both the Mac (thanks Mike!) and PC versions of the new client look like as well as delving into some of the cool new features that are available with premium membership.

Gallery: Curse Client for Mac 4.0 beta

Gallery: Curse Client v4 for PC

AddOn Spotlight: Altoholic

by Gregg Reece Nov 3rd 2009 at 2:00PM

AddOn Spotlight takes a look at the little bits of Lua and XML that make our interfaces special. From bar mods to unit frames and beyond, if it goes in your AddOns folder, we'll cover it here. This week we're delving into the world of alts.

If you're like me, you've probably got your 10 character slots on your main server filled out with supplemental characters to help your main. I've got my enchanter/scribe warlock who is only level 65 in order to learn Northrend recipes. I've got my death knight alchemist sitting at 70 for titanium and gem transmutes as well as the occasional flasks and elixirs. After a while, it gets difficult to keep track of what you do and don't have on each character. Sometimes you want to help outfit your alts with better gear only to log them in and find out they've already got a set. What you need is Altoholic.

AddOn Spotlight: Advanced Trade Skill Window

by Gregg Reece Oct 25th 2009 at 2:00PM

AddOn Spotlight takes a look at the little bits of Lua and XML that make our interfaces special. From bar mods to unit frames and beyond, if it goes in your AddOns folder, we'll cover it here.

For anyone that has tried leveling up a profession, you know that it can be a bit of a grind. This can be especially true with things like engineering or jewelcrafting that have little parts that you have to make in order to make the actual items. Even leatherworking has the ability to upgrade leather from one grade to a better grade and still make something out of it. All of this can be confusing, especially with the categories that Blizzard has setup in the normal trade window. Advanced Trade Skill Window can help out with that problem.

The Daily Quest: Grid healing addon guides and resources

by Dan O'Halloran Oct 19th 2009 at 7:00PM

Our very own Robin Torres is making the plunge into raiding and is looking for guides that help with the setup and use of the healing AddOn Grid. Being the resource nut that I am, I had a handful of links for her in two minutes. And now I share them with you:

Some players prefer HealBot over Grid (here's a good comparison of the two) and still others prefer AddOns that do more than just raid heal functionality (PitBull 4, though still in beta.)

AddOn Spotlight: ThatJustHappened

by Gregg Reece Oct 18th 2009 at 6:00PM

AddOn Spotlight takes a look at the little bits of Lua and XML that make our interfaces special. From bar mods to unit frames and beyond, if it goes in your AddOns folder, we'll cover it here.

For those of you who have ever tried to macro together a message with a skill, you know that it can sometimes be awkward. The skill might still be on cooldown and the macro sends the message anyways. Other times, you decide mid-cast to change your mind, but the message already went off. If you're raiding, this can cause a lot of problems as the macro might announce you're putting up your shield wall, but you really didn't. Some class or role specific addons exist out there for helping out with this purpose, but the free form ones are few and far between.

Gearing up for WoW: The RazerNaga AddOn

by Zach Yonzon Oct 16th 2009 at 2:00PM

Addon Spotlight: Addon Control Panel

by Gregg Reece Oct 11th 2009 at 12:00PM

Addon Spotlight takes a look at the little bits of Lua and XML that make our interfaces special. From bar mods to unit frames and beyond, if it goes in your Addons folder, we'll cover it here.

Have you ever decided to try out a bunch of new addons in order to reorganize your interface? Or, have you ever walked up to the auction house and had forgotten to re-enable Auctioneer after a raid? Or even worse, have you forgotten to setup Peggle before running Trial of the Champion so you could do something during all of the boring introductions (at least before they sped it up)? If you have faced any of these situations then you know how annoying it can be to log out, swap addons and log back in. Thankfully, there is another way.

Improving the character selection screen

by Mike Schramm Oct 3rd 2009 at 6:00PM

I really like this post over at Mend Pet -- after five years in a game's life, no part of the WoW interface should be remiss from getting the occasional update, and they mention possibly the only part of the game (even the login screen's been updated quite a few times) that's been the same since day one, the character selection screen. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, as you can choose your character and get into the game. But everything can be better, no?

Patch 3.2.2 known bugs

by Adam Holisky Sep 22nd 2009 at 9:55PM

Each new patch seems to bring about its own unique bugs, and Patch 3.2.2 is no different. As of Tuesday evening there are significant lag and server stability issues plaguing Azeroth worse than that night Jaina spent with Arthas plagues her, but that should hopefully be resolved with the rolling restarts tomorrow (5:00 a.m. PDT / 8:00 a.m. EDT). The lag, not Jaina's problem. That's going to take... well, she should see a doctor.

There are currently two major issues Blizzard has announced.

The first is a series of display problems, which Blizzard recommends you do the standard deleting of the WTF, Cache, and Interface folders. Before you do that be aware that removing the folders will delete all your add-ons and add-on preferences. In my experience, you're better off deleting the Cache folder and then updating all your add-ons, or just disabling add-ons which are out of date.

More detailed instructions for Windows and MacOS X can be found in Syndri's post on the official forums.

The other issue that items which are tradable under the BoP rules are not able to be socketed. This appears to not be affecting everyone, however there is a work around in the following steps:

WoW Add-ons panel at Dragon*Con 2009

by Gregg Reece Sep 11th 2009 at 11:00AM

While at Dragon*Con this weekend, I was able to attend a World of Warcraft add-ons panel hosted by Cameron Knight, commonly known as ckknight, the developer of such add-ons as Cartographer, Pitbull, Chinchilla, and FuBar. As a day job, he is currently the Lead Developer for both Curseforge and WoWAce.com as well as working as an add-on developer liaison with Blizzard to make sure the major add-on developers get access to the Cataclysm beta. The questions during the session ranged from how to write add-ons, add-on recommendations for newcomers, and even funny bug reports and anecdotes. After the break is the summarized version of the panel.

New WoW Model Viewer available

by Matthew Rossi Sep 8th 2009 at 4:00PM

Yes, I went out and made a screenshot of a Worgen with two wolf-headed fist weapons. I did this via the latest iteration of WoW Model Viewer, freshly updated this Saturday, September 5th to work for patch 3.2. While it has a posted warning use it at your own risk which I thought I should mention, I should also mention I've been using it for the past half an hour with no harm and no foul. I've even been able to play with Trial of the Crusader loot. Go behind the jump to see a Worgen dual-wielding a Justicebringer and Reckoning. Not that I'm obsess with Titan's Grip Worgen or anything. Okay, so I totally am. At any rate, so far as I can tell, this version of the Model Viewer is stable and working with all current models.

This update by Chuanhsing even fixed the issue I was having where all my models came out textureless. I have no idea what it was happening in the first place, but I'm glad to see it gone.

Keybindings and how to change them

by Mike Schramm Sep 6th 2009 at 5:00PM

Xella has a great post over at WoW LJ about keybindings, and it got me thinking. I play with what I thought was the "standard" way -- with the left hand sitting on the home fingers of Shift, A, W, D, and the spacebar, and then jumping up to the 1-6 (or further down the number line if necessary, though truth be told, I usually mouse-click those when I have the time to do so) to hit various abilities. But xella does it very differently -- she maps her fingers to the top abilities keys, using only her ring finger for movement. I would probably never have come up with that on my own (my habits come directly from FPS games, where the 1-6 keys are mostly for weapon switching, something you don't do quite as often as casting abilities), but it does make a lot of sense, even if xella says her ring finger, with all of those movement motions, is getting somewhat worn out.

And then she hits on something else I've been dealing with lately, too: changing what you've got. Setting up your keybinds is one thing, but actually changing them can be tougher.

The Explain-o-matic will explain your macros

by Mike Schramm Sep 3rd 2009 at 6:00PM

This is actually a really cool idea for a site -- Fitzcairn's Macro Explain-o-matic is basically a web script that reads WoW macros, and will go, line by line, through them to put exactly what they do in plain English. Sure, odds are that if you have a macro already, you probably have some idea of what it does, but if you've ever wanted to learn how to write macros, or aren't sure exactly what the macro your friend emailed to you is supposed to do for your character, you can just throw it in a text field, and then Fitzcairn's script will break it apart for you.

The site will even let you save (with a permalink) and email any macros you punch in -- though I couldn't find a way to browse them, maybe Fitzcarin is working on that. There are lots of resources online to find macros, but not so many to explain them well, so the Explain-o-matic is definitely worth a bookmark for the next time you need a little help.

[via Twisted Nether]

BlizzCon 2009: Hands-on with Creative's World of Warcraft headset

by Mike Schramm Aug 25th 2009 at 6:00PM

When they stopped by the WoW.com meetup last Thursday before BlizzCon, Creative not only brought along a prototype of their upcoming World of Warcraft headset to show some readers in attendance, but they invited us by their booth at the show to hold it in our hands and see just what those lighted glyphs on the earcups were like. We happily obliged, and as a result, we're also happy to bring you the first look (along with some exclusive prototype photos) at what Creative's new headset will be.

Keep in mind that they're still in the prototype stage right now: Creative's Ryan Schlieper told me that the way it works is that they make a mold and a prototype first (which is what we held -- not a fully working version, but a 1:1 model with the exact weight and size of the final version), and then make 1000 of those in a fully working version to test. If those 1000 work and are right, then they go on to production, and if not, then they go back to the mold and start over again. Schlieper says they're in the prototype stage right now, and once testing is done (including Blizzard's approval), then they'll roll out the final headsets. So how did this prototype look and feel? Hit the galleries below to see pictures both on the floor and of Creative's 3D designs, and check after the break for our very first impressions.

Gallery: Creative World of Warcraft headset

Gallery: BlizzCon 2009: Creative World of Warcraft headset hands-on

BlizzCon 2009: Hands-on with Razer's Naga MMO mouse

by Mike Schramm Aug 25th 2009 at 5:00PM

We posted last week that Razer had released an MMO mouse fittingly called the Naga (technically after the Sanskrit word for "snake," but c'mon, who plays WoW and doesn't know what Naga really means, right?), and when we did that, we mentioned it would be usable on the floor at BlizzCon. Sure enough, when we ran into the hall (hey, had to get to the store before those plush murlocs sold out) in Anaheim, there it was. We sat down with Travis Wannlund, community manager for the mouse and accessory company, for a quick demo and hands-on.

In that demo, we learned that Razer has actually developed their own WoW addon for the mouse's use, allowing you to map your abilities right into on-screen slots that correspond to the 3x4 touchpad of buttons on the thumb side. He also let us in on some of the design reasoning for the mouse itself, and what they've got in store for the device's future. Read on to learn more.

Gallery: BlizzCon 2009: Razer Naga MMO mouse

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