My UI Sucks

That's the funny thing about inspiration: you never really know when it's going to hit.

I was playing Wizard101 with my kids last night. (I think I've mentioned that I play that on occasion before.) It's a very whimsical game. The combat speed is good for my 5 and 7 year olds. At any rate, it's a very minimalistic UI. As you can see from the Screen Shot here on the right, there's really not much to it. You have your basic health and mana in the lower left corner. You have your xp bar in the bottom center. Chat and interaction buttons are found in the upper left. A compass and the options button (that also opens up all spellbooks and gear and such) is in the bottom right. (This picture is actually a little old since they've added your various "hearthstones" near the compass.) And I have no idea what it is in the upper right corner; mine is a link to go buy the game or get a membership. (We've always just bought areas when we're ready to go to the next area.)

So, it may not be fair because the combat system is completely different, but after putting the kids to bed, I logged on Wow and started to compare. Holy crap I have a lot of buttons! With 12 standard ones, then another 24 laid across the entire screen just above those, and then another 24 on the right side... And with my shaman (as with my mage for that matter) every single one of those is taken up with something important. Which is actually quite humerous since I know I'm not casting 60 spells!

So, let's focus on the shaman for a second. 3.2 will take care of a lot of these problems since I have a lot of extra buttons just in case I need some random totem. Then, I'm not really sure I need all 3 shock spells. (Well, technically there are 4.) Especially when I'm in Resto (which is only when I'm in a group in an instance).

I know I've put off completely redoing my UI because on my standard screen (non-wide) there's just not a lot of real estate, but really... that's exactly the reason why I should do this.

I really need to go look up my blogging friends' posts. I know I've seen a couple people that have had some great approaches to fixing the UI. Then again... maybe I can put it off so that 3.2 doesn't break all my add-ons. lol.

Browser Usage

Today's post is almost completely non-Wow related. I was reading about Google's new operating system and decided to check out Chrome. It's pretty schnazzy, but Firefox is still my #1 choice. One of the big bonuses is that Chrome seems to load everything really fast. But Ad Block-up Plus (an add-in for Firefox) means that I never have to see all the advertisements... also means that they don't actually load. So, I'll be sticking with Firefox for that reason alone. (Doesn't look like there's a way to block those yet for Chrome. I could be wrong.)

But it seems that I'm not alone in this. According to a small sampling of data from Analytics from my Blog, I.E. isn't the clear cut winner as the media would make you believe. Then again, I doubt the average WoW player (or at least the ones that would be searching for anything they would find on my blog) is anything like the average Internet user. I'm guessing that we're just a slightly be more technical. And with just under 50% of us using Firefox lately, I'm sure that's the case.

Midsummer Festival Flop

I'm not really big on the whole holidays achievements. I think it's really cool that there are holidays in Wow that change the game up a bit, but they're simply not my cup of tea. And every time a new holiday comes out, I forget that for a bit, get all excited to get the achievements for that holiday.

Midsummer Festival was no different. I was all excited about getting this achievement done. With our truly more casual raid schedule, I knew I'd have plenty of time to get it all done. I got the Tabard for both Leiandra and also for Zanderfin. And I even set out to extinguish all of the fires. The key word there being "set out". I got the one in Orgimmar. And then the ones outside of Exodar and Darnassus. There was even going to be the bonus that I could finally finish the Explorer Achievement... which I've never gotten around to doing.

There's a reason I've never done the Explorer Achievement. Because running around the world for these meaningless points is boring. And unless it's a really cool title like "Leiandra, Slayer of all that is Evil"... I'm probably not too interested either.

So, once again, I didn't get the achievement for the holiday. And I'm okay with that. A lot of people enjoy those, and that's fine. It's just not a part of the game that I'm particulary into. I do like however, that you can go back and see when you did certain things. I can tell you when my toons hit 80, for example. Or when I first cleared a certain dungeon. Very cool. But the points for the sake of points... I'm just not that into it.

Healing Through: The PvP Edition

In my attempt to gear up Zanderfin, my resto druid, a bit faster, I've resorted to looking at some PvP gear choices. The thing is: it's not going so well. I find that I feel like the Black Knight after his arms have been cut off. I still try to do something, but it feels rather ineffective. With Earth Shield still up and Riptide cast every chance I get, I'm still just prolonging the inevitable when I'm the only one left guarding a point in AB.

Honestly, I really don't know what to do as Resto besides heal. As a mage, pvp was so much easier when I had a pocket healer. It certainly makes sense that I need to have the same as a healer. But I'm finding that Pug pvp is probably as frustrating as Pug groups. People running all over the place and no organization... It's just frustrating. I guess the only thing that makes it slightly less annyoing that running instances with a Pug is that it usually doesn't last as long.

So, I'm really looking for suggestions here. If I can't get anyone to stick by me, what do I do? I'm thinking the best thing may be simply to start Resto ('cause that's what I want to do), but if nobody will stick by me or leaves me in the dust, whatever... I should use my dual spec and go back to Enhancement. Sure the gear's not quite as good, but may seem to make more sense.

Thoughts?

Putting the Casual Back In Raiding

I really don't know where to start with the whole 3.2 Patch. Everything that I hear about it seems to be good. I'm sorry, but if there's somebody that's whining about Emblems of Conquest being handed out in Heroics (and all the lower raids) and Emblems of Triumph being handed out through Daily Quests... well... what did you expect? You're obviously Hard Core... and better than all of us (see whut I did thar)... and you'll get your upgraded epics way before the rest of us. So, simmer down, clown.

But one of the best things for casual guilds is the ability to extend raid lock out times. Honestly... one of the best things ever. Take our casual guild now. We run once per week, and generally about 3 hours. It's enough to clear Ulduar's first 4 bosses. And that's about it. There's no way we'd be able to clear Naxx in that amount of time. But in two weeks, completely possible. On our schedule, we'd be "clearing" Ulduar forever and still never see progression in. (Well.. we can skip bosses, but that's not the point.)

The hardcore people still get to be hardcore, but it really opens up some of the deeper parts of raid instances to more casual players. Great move, Blizzard. I wish I would have thought about this myself. (And if I wasn't lazy, I'd dig up the link where I did think this up, 'cause I'm 95% sure I posted about it. I'm 100% sure I've thought that it should have been done before now.)

How Big is Yours?

In light of the recent Burger King ad in Singapore, I decided to play on words a bit with the title. But just so you know, it has absolutely nothing to do with that ad whatsoever.

I am not a chronic switcher. I've been on the same server since I started playing World of Warcraft years ago. I have a small handful of toons on other servers, but I don't think any of them have gone over level 10. I've had Leiandra, my mage, as my main from the very beginning. She's been in 2 guilds. I got my priest to 70 because I leveled shadow (wannabe mage?). I got my shaman to 80... well... maybe that's been the most out of the cookie-cutter thing I've done in Wow. lol. My druid got stuck at 60 (back with the cap was 70). My rogue got to 40, but I didn't really much enjoy the class. Paladin, warlock, and hunter all got to about 30. I got a DK to 68 back in beta, but haven't done more than create one on live.

So, last night, a couple friends signed on that I haven't seen in awhile. They raided with us awhile ago, but RL got a bit too hectic, and so they settled on a smaller server with his brother, but they still have a few toons on Bronzebeard. In our conversation, they said that I should "totally transfer a toon over to" their server. Ultimately, there's no way I'd make any of their raid times (they start at 6, and I can't usually get on until 8), so it won't happen. But they were talking about all the benefits of being on this smaller server. And it really got me thinking.

Bronzebeard was one of the original servers when wow was first lauched back in November 2004. It's certainly never been one of the cutting edge servers as far as progression goes, but there's always been a healthy population of people. We've had a small share of drama (who hasn't heard about Vinkar?), but on the whole, I assume we're pretty average.

But more on general terms, I think there's always going to be positives and negatives for both small and large population servers. The only way you'd really be able to know what another server is like is to spend some serious time there. But with the majority of my friends (both RL and only met in-game friends) on Bronzebeard, it's kind of hard to think about leaving.

We did have a brief guild discussion about other servers. Two guildies actually started playing Wow on Horde on another server. Actually... they started on the same server. They said they should have had me try Horde. Hmm... maybe one day I'll get a Horde toon above level 10.

Deadly Boss Mods: Revisited

Bless WowInsider's heart (or Wow.com as they're now called). They are a great source of information. They compile so much from so many sources. It's just a shame when they miss little things. Like they're little post about Essential addons for raid leaders. The very first mod they list is for Deadly Boss Mods (good). And as is mentioned, it's kind of a necessity for all raiders. But the most important part of that suite for a raid leader doesn't come from Curse as is linked on their site.

Oh no... the most important part comes from the Deadly Boss Mods downloads page. They're two extra packages called "Spell Timers" and "Raid Lead Tools". Let's see the description, shall we?

Spell Timers
"DBM-SpellTimers is a small but powerful addon that uses DBM timers to show spell cooldowns from raid members. It is fully configurable through a simple GUI so you can easily add new spells."

Want to know when Heroism is up? Or how about who cast Rebirth, and who's still on cooldown? Or how about anything with a significant cooldown? (Yep... even portals. lol.) Yeah, kind of important for a Raid Leader to know. Go get this one.

Raid Lead Tools
"Raid Lead Tools uses the DBM API (especially the kill/pull detection) to manage your raid and DKP. You can export tracked raids to eqDKP with just a few clicks!"

Now, I've actually used CT Raid Tracker for this functionality. (Found here... used to be hosted on Curse.) But it sure sounds like a useful Raid Leader Mod to me. :)

Point being though.... the Spell Timers are WAY better than having to ask, "Whose Battle Rez is up?"

Edit: I didn't even mention the best part of these additional mods. Not sure which one it is, but one of them gives a mass invite to all guildies. Saves a ton of time when you have exactly 25 (or less) on. :)