WoW Wed-…erm Thursday – Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: What I would add to the Cataclysm Interface

[ September 2, 2010 | Discuss(4) ]

I apologize for not posting yesterday; exhausted beyond belief.

Topic Link

I don’t know about you, but I run a ton of add-ons. I run add-ons for fighting, I run add-ons for rep tracking, I run an add-on for auto-selling grey items and repairing when I go to a vendor. Blizzard, in the past, has taken some of the favorite add-ons and rolled them into the game (loot window follows to mouse, integrated quest map).
One thing that has always bugged me was the “looking for” interface. When out on my warlock in old zones, I like to search for ‘low-level quests’ in addition to pick herbs. On the current interface, this is an either/or option. You can’t do both, while logically, my orc could.
If you could provide input into the game, what would you have added to the Cataclysm interface?

I would put into the game 7 things:

  1. An option to resize and move every window – Seriously, half of the addons people use is to do JUST THIS. I run X-Perl so that I can move my portrait and party away from the top-left corner of the screen. My entire focus is at the bottom and center due to cool downs and reacting to mobs. I can’t sacrifice the time to look to the side of my 28” monitor.
  2. Sortable Character Selection Screen – I made a lot of toons, leveled them up to around 60ish before making my two mains. I want them at the top, together, but one is at the bottom. It shouldn’t be too hard to do…
  3. MORE LOOT SYSTEMS – There are only so many loot systems out there: EPGP, DKP, Loot Council, etc. Blizzard could take a handful of them and add support for them. Currently EPGP lootmaster has bothered me to no end due to it not remembering sort order.
  4. Guild Forum – Remove the need to have an external website; have a in game guild forum. Ultima Online has had this forever; it would allow for more communication between members who rarely see each other.
  5. Quest Item Bar – like QBar, but a standard bar. I know it’s on the quest list, but sometimes I don’t want the list out….
  6. Tabard Tab – I like my tabards, give me an option to store them elsewhere.
  7. Bank Tab (Similar to a Guild Bank tab) to store Holiday Items – I like to collect these, but I will have to start throwing them out because I have too much in my bank…
Filed Under WoW Wednesday

Tech Tuesday – I want a Tablet, not a Tyrant

[ August 31, 2010 | Discuss ]

Imagine if we lived in the future predicted by previous generations:

I jump in my hydrogen powered hover-car and make my way down the highway to the super mall. I get out and onto the conveyer belt to the electronic store. I ask the robotic teller that I want the new tablet and a box of dehydrated food in pill form. The tablet allows me to do whatever I want, without restrictions and without faceless organizations telling me what I can and can not have on it.

*sigh* If only…

Today, the only way to get a dinosaur burning vehicle that heaves itself down the tarred rock road and shift our weight on dismembered cow hides as we trudge into a store with “geniuses” who feed me a large heaping pile of Public Relations BS.

Give me a decent tablet, with the ability to run whatever Operating System I want, Windows, Android, Linux, whatever. Don’t lock me into a certain version, or limit what software I can run on MY DEVICE.

I’m looking to Asus for hope.

Filed Under Tech Tuesday
Tags , , , ,

Monday Update – Great Friday

[ August 30, 2010 | Discuss ]

First things first. We finally killed the Lich King. After months of wanting to, I managed to get my entire core group of raiders on, complimented them with people who can pay attention and do their role well. Within 2 hours of trying and perfecting the fight we downed Arthas with a perfect attempt. No one died, no one gave the defile zones a chance to grow, warlocks were the only ones dropped off the side (hint: Demonic Circle).

Utter perfection!

We were all happy with our success; after being blocked since February due to refusal/lack of healers. Then we realized we had nothing else to do over the weekend…

We also killed Illidan! Not quite as impressive… but still a good time.

The rest of the weekend was just relaxing: fishing and dailies coupled with some classic television.

Filed Under Monday Update
Tags , ,

WoW Wednesday – Update and Blog Azeroth Shared Topic – 8/23/2010 “Group Relations”

[ August 25, 2010 | Discuss ]

WoW Update:

As described Monday we are a GM less, but a much happier guild. I thanked everyone who defended me against the lies being spread around; and we have started a new effort against the Lich King.

Later Monday night I purchased 2 copies of Cataclysm Collector’s Edition from Amazon. I was unable to purchase 2 at the same time from the same account; I had to spread it across my fiancée’s account and mine. But they are both Amazon Prime, and paid with my account; so it’s a little annoying work-around, but we got them!

Anyways! Our Tuesday raid had a great turnout… of raiders who haven’t raided together. It was a little bit of a learning experience; we had a new off tank (I was DPSing, check for a blue moon). Aggro was a bit of an issue on Deathwhisper, so I tanked the Heroic Gunship… just in case.

I have been made loot master, so I had to learn EPGPLootmaster; it’s annoying and doesn’t always work… and nearly no one in our raid has it.

We finished Plague Quarter, only 1 wipe the entire night (Putricide; people had never done 25-man before). Not too bad for what happened Monday; I had expected a lot of no shows and QQ.

Lets hope tonight goes just as well!

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic – August 23-29 2010: Group relations: how to assist/protect

There is no official one-liner topic for this week, but it can be summarized:

Topic: How do you assist the group outside of your given role/how can people assist you in your given role?

Given the two roles that I play are Retribution DPS and Protection Tanking; I do quite a bit.

Additional Roles to Fulfill while DPSing:

  • Reduce the need to be healed
    • Stand out of Fire
    • Sacred Shield
    • Instant Flash Heal
    • Bubble Hearth
  • Ensure Healers are Add-Free
    • Kite Mobs (Retribution Paladins have a natural speed boost)
    • AoE Taunt off Healers
  • Ensure someone Survives to Resurrect
    • Divine Intervention Macroed to target my fiancée the Shadow Priest

I take offense to people saying all I have to do as a Retribution Paladin is “roll my face” across the keyboard; I pay attention to the entire raid to ensure we survive, as well as being high on the damage meters.

Additional Roles to Fulfill while Tanking:

  • Dispelling – I do a lot of this, just to help the healers out (one less thing to cast for them)
  • …
  • Looks like I only do my tanking job of holding aggro and watching the situation unfold/announce to the raid

There are more things people should be doing to assist ME while I am tanking:

  • If you peel a mob off, do NOT run away from me; run towards me
    • If you can’t run, stop attacking
  • Do NOT pull before I do
  • Attack the same Mob I have focused
  • Misdirect to me or any stupid Warlock
  • Give me a moment to lay down a few moves to build aggro
  • Understand taunts have cooldowns and can occasionally miss
    • Yelling at me will only make me not taunt once I can again
Filed Under WoW Wednesday
Tags , , ,

Tech Tuesday – License Woes

[ August 24, 2010 | Discuss ]

I hate that to understand software licenses you need a law degree. There are only so many things people want to know from any license agreement:

  • What they can do
  • What they can not do

Those are the basic categories. The categories are expanded to cover: number of users, number of computers, and ability to run concurrently. From a usability standpoint, anything that needs to be explained to the user isn’t very usable; and to describe some licenses you need pages.

Example Licenses I have come across:

  • Select License
  • Standard License
  • Open License
  • Single-User License
  • Individual License

When just glancing at the name of the license I don’t understand what I can and can not do. They are no better than random variable names…

// I decided to name this variable Bob because he told me
// one day that every day is worth living, and that he hated
// Janice so he hoped that she would be removed from his life...
private int Tax_Return(int[] assets)
{
	int Bob = 49;
	int Janice = assets[1];
	// Remove Janice from Bob
	return Bob - Janice;
}
// WTF is Bob?

But there is hope, the Creative Commons license! I can understand everything with a glance. This site is under an “Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike” license, so you can reuse as long as credit is given and no money is made.

License types should include in their names to make them self-descriptive:

  • Amount of Users Allowed
  • Amount of Computers Allowed
  • Concurrency

This would result in understandable license names:

  • Single User/Multiple Computer License
  • Multiple User/Multiple Computer Concurrent License
  • Single User/Single Computer Concurrent License
  • Single User/Single Computer License
  • Multiple User/Single Computer License

I shouldn’t have to read for hours just to find out if I can put software on my laptop and desktop…

Filed Under Tech Tuesday
Tags , ,