Day: February 17, 2010

Altoholic, Blue posts, For The Horde Wallpaper

Blue posters are fairly silent these days, hopefully it won't be long before we see a couple of announcements, keep in mind that a new minor patch is on the way and we will probably hear about it very soon.

Addon Review – Altoholic
Today I'll highlight an addon I've been using a lot lately: Altoholic. Basically, this is the ultimate tool for anyone who spends too much time logging in and out of the game to check if something is or isn't on an alt. It lists pretty much every info you could need about your characters and you will never have to go through all the chars on your account to find who is exalted with the Ebon Hold, or who has 300 Stone Keeper shards in his stash.

Features

  • Languages supported: enUS, frFR, deDE, esES, ruRU, zhCN & zhTW.
  • Account-wide data summary:
    • Characters’ talents: Full talent trees margin-bottom: 0;”>
    • View containers (bags, bank, keyring) of all alts, on all realms.
    • Guild banks : You have 10 alts in 10 different guilds on the same server, all of them with access to a guild bank ? Not a problem, you can see them all here.
    • E-mail: allows you to see which alts have mail without having to reconnect them. The addon will tell you when mail is about to expire on a character. Threshold configurable (up to 15 days). Multiple realm support as well. Mails sent to a known alt (one you've logged on at least once) will be visible in the addon without having to reconnect it.
    • Equipment: See the equipment of the current realm's alts in one screen. Very useful when purchasing stuff for your alts at the AH. Multiple realms supported. Right-clicking any equipment piece will allow you to find an upgrade, this feature is similar to the official wow armory feature, and is quite performant, even though it doesn't match the accuracy of the official one.
    • Search: the most important feature of the addon, it uses an AH-like frame to display search results. You can either search bags on the current realm, on all realms, or a loot table. The loot table is a table based on AtlasLoot, but which contains only item id's, and therefore keeps memory usage minimal.
    • The Search menu allows you to find items based on their name (even partial), level, type or rarity, almost like at the AH. It is also possible to search known recipes.
    • Quest Log: See the quest logs of all your alts, as well as an indication of which alts are on a specific quest. Clicking on a quest link in the chat log will tell you which alts are on that quest.
    • Suggestions: Currently, only profession leveling suggestions are available when mousing over your current level in a specific profession. Suggestions are based on the leveling guides posted on the official US forums (credit goes to their respective authors). The addon also suggests you where to quest/grind xp depending on your character level. Suggestions were also added for the most recent factions. More to come later.
    • Auction house: You can see which auctions/bids you've placed with an alt without being logged in or being at the AH.
    • Professions: You can browse all known recipes in a thotbot like frame (see screenshot).
    • Mounts & Pets of all your alts.
    • Achievements are tracked for all you alts (see screenshot).
    • Guild Members: a list of your connected guildmates, along with their alts (if they're using Altoholic too), and their average item level. Clicking their AiL will also allow you to "remotely" inspect their equipment.
    • Guild Skills: a list of altoholic users in your guild, along with their alts and direct profession links. All professions are available in one click.
    • Guild Bank tabs: a list of altoholic users and the time at which they last visited the guild bank. If you haven't visited the guild bank for a few days, you can remotely update your local data without going to a capital city.

    Blue posts

    Quote from Blizzard staff
    Big Love Rocket Droprate
    The drop rate for this mount is indeed lower than 1-2% and that is intentional. We are okay with the number it is at right now and will continue to see how things for this event. (Source)

    Sticking with the same role
    I'm not entirely sure what the goal of this thread was, but World of Warcraft is a game with a variety of play styles that are there for players to play and experience as they see fit. Just because you started out as a healer (or whatever else) doesn't mean you need to stay that way forever. It is hard to really argue that doing the same exact thing for 5+ years won't be taxing in some way.

    I know some people who love healing and in the situations where they end up DPSing (like when dropping down to two healers in a raid or something) they complain a bit that they don't have as much impact on the raid. There are also the healer types that have nothing but healing specs since they want the responsibility of taking care of the raid and don't want to put that in someone else's hands (these people also tend to get especially irritated when these other healers are causing problems that they wouldn't have done themselves). Then some others may end up being "forced" to heal a fair amount to help out the group and any good guild I've been with tries to prevent the situation where that one person ends up carrying the load week in and week out with no end in sight.

    What I'm getting at here is just to remind players that if you aren't in the mood to do something anymore, try out something else. Whether that's Battlegrounds or a hunter or changing to that other spec you haven't had a chance to try out yet, give it a try and see how it goes. You may find a new style to play for the next few years or you may end up being good buddies again with your original play style. (Source)

    New Wallpaper: For the Horde!
    Blizzard has just added a new wallpaper to the World of Warcraft Wallpaper Gallery featuring some sporty scenes of snowboarding in the Storm Peaks. Take a moment to check out this snowboarding orc in action!