Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, please don't berate the clickers too badly in the comments.

Addon Spotlight strives to educate and empower, bringing you tips and tools to enrich your World of Warcraft experience. Playstyles are as varied as the addons that support them, and as a comprehensive writer, I try to cover everyone's specific setups. One playstyle that is a bit of a foreign concept to me is mouse clicking. Clickers are often derided and ridiculed for their point-and-click interaction with the user interface. Sometimes, you will be watching that YouTube video of a heroic kill, and the cursor is flying around the screen a lot more than you are used to. You've found the elusive clicker.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Addons for clickers

Addon Spotlight: Addons for clickers originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week

Each week, WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.

Welcome, friends, to another Reader UI of the Week. It has been an exciting week for addons ... sort of. User interface customization has been enabled on the Cataclysm beta servers, and addon authors are working hard to create some awesome new mods. Hopefully, in the near future, we will be getting some cool new user interfaces coming out of beta, as well as addons and changes.

In the meantime, we've got some awesome user interfaces to cover. Today's reader submission comes from Aanye on the Cenarius realm. Using Fizzik's UI as inspiration and a set of UI-defining requirements, Aanye has gone and made a very capable and very slim laptop user interface for himself. Let's take a look.

Continue reading Reader UI of the Week: Aanye's UI

Reader UI of the Week: Aanye's UI originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: PvP, Add-Ons, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Stevie Wonder. I listen to this stuff when I play arena -- teammates think I'm ridiculous. I think they're ridiculous for not appreciating Stevie. Although, I guess it is a bit weird to hear kill targets shouted while You Are the Sunshine of my Life ... is blaring in the background.

Understanding the big picture

Gladiators look at arena battles very differently than most. This isn't because they're naturally gifted at solving complex riddles or puzzles -- they just have enough arena experience to understand things that others might not. Well, get ready, because this is the start of your crash course in seeing what we see, how we see it.

So sit back, relax and crack open a cold one.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Good momentum

Blood Sport: Good momentum originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, holy crap! There's a bear.

Have I got awesome news for you, dear Addon Spotlight readers. Today, I've enlisted the help of a good friend of mine to come and discuss some miscellaneous management addons that are designed to take all that information and parse it into something useful. I would like to introduce everyone to Mongor the bear accountant. Mongor is a bear that is also an accountant, and he's my good friend. It's time to get your life managed.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Management addons

Addon Spotlight: Management addons originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week

Each week, WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.

Readers, you are in for a treat this week. Reader UI of the Week tries to bring you ideas, information and discussion from all walks of World of Warcraft life: the raid UI, the Dalaran UI and the minimalist UI. One piece of the user interface puzzle, however, has been missing among my ranks -- the PvP user interface. Today, we remedy that omission.

C. Christian Moore, WoW.com's very own Blood Sport PvP columnist, approached me with a myriad of questions about his user interface. The WoW.com war room is a place of utmost professionalism, dignity and focus -- as such, I responded to these questions with detailed analysis. The result is something spectacular.

Continue reading Reader UI of the Week: C. Christian Moore's PvP UI

Reader UI of the Week: C. Christian Moore's PvP UI originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, Grid gets some pre-made loving thanks to Bati!

Thursday is here! Thursday is here! Excitement abounds in my secret addon lair for many reasons. First, my original vanilla WoW character is back in action. Originally, as many of you have read in my past columns, priest was my class of choice. Healers tend to be my forte because of group desirability -- selfishly and selflessly, I always rolled healer to get invited to groups and be there to support the healerless masses back when this was a thing. After a stint in Warhammer Online, tanking became my new love and, after a quick respec and some forum threads, my Burning Crusade healadin became my Wrath tankadin. After almost three years in the freezer, my priest has emerged from cryo-stasis.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Bati's Healer Grid layouts

Addon Spotlight: Bati's Healer Grid layouts originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week

Each week, WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.

Welcome, friends, to another exciting edition of Reader UI of the Week. Reader UI is all about finding interface setups from WoW.com loyal readers, showcasing them and learning a thing or two from our fellow enthusiasts. In this edition, I've decided to pinpoint two interesting features about an admittedly feature-rich interface and go a little analytical. The interface shots show you more than I could say about addon placement, so some analysis was in the cards. Also, people wanted to see a view port interface. You can't say I don't listen to my peoples. Let's get started!

Continue reading Reader UI of the Week: Maritime's UI

Reader UI of the Week: Maritime's UI originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same.

Happy Thursday, addon nerds. I hope your week is going as splendidly as mine is. Why is my week going splendidly, you ask? I decided to begin the Loremaster achievement process on my new warrior in preparation for Cataclysm. Potentially, only a few more months remain until the world goes kaboom, and I'd like to have that title ready to roll -- which, conveniently, brings me to the topic of this week's Addon Spotlight.

This week, Addon Spotlight brings you the core collection of addons that make Loremaster less of a giant pain in the butt. For a comprehensive Loremaster strategy, I recommend, nay, compel you, to read Lisa Poisso's excellent Loremaster rookie article. I am here to give you all the information on the addons that make this achievement a snap. Let's read some quest text together! Awww, yeah!

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Loremaster addons

Addon Spotlight: Loremaster addons originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week

Each week, WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.

My condolences, again, to those of you stuck without your server of choice on this 24-hour patch day. The cataclysmic rewards for your patience, however, are without question! In the meantime, how about checking out some tips and tricks for user interface customization while you wait to play?

This week, we dive into Stärs' user interface, a simple user interface that totally doesn't put the minimap in a corner. Stärs is looking for a little advice as well, which is great, because this week was supposed to be all about advice! Shall we?

Continue reading Reader UI of the Week: Stärs' UI

Reader UI of the Week: Stärs' UI originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, Addon Spotlight dishes out some configuration advice for one of the most popular addons around: kgPanels.

One of the tent-pole addons in the addon customization realm is kgPanels, a simple and incredibly versatile tool that allows users to create dynamic panel art and cosmetic accents to any user interface. The concepts may look tough to deal with, but in reality, the addon is simple to learn and offers endless possibilities. People have created some pretty impressive setups using kgPanels as the back end, and this article aims not only to get you interested in working with kgPanels but to understand how to create the simplest piece of the puzzle: the simple bottom box.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Create a simple bottom box with kgPanels

Addon Spotlight: Create a simple bottom box with kgPanels originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week

Each week, WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.

Another Tuesday is upon us, dear Reader UI fans. Before we get this week's user interface discussion under way, I wanted to remind everyone about submitting to Reader UI of the Week. There are three tips to a super successful submission: big images, big descriptions and big ideas! We've been getting awesome submissions, so keep them coming.

We have a very nice submission this week courtesy of Karf from the Greymane server, who sets out a very simple and back-to-basics user interface. It's light, it's minimalistic and it's utilitarian -- my three favorite things! Let's start the engines. And would someone please remind me to sing the engineering song on the podcast one week? I'm getting tired of forgetting.

Continue reading Reader UI of the Week: Karf's UI

Reader UI of the Week: Karf's UI originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, Addon Spotlight gives priest healers some suggestions for awesome healing helpers!

Since there is still no beta addon news to cover and most of the user interface changes have been well documented, I continue to hang my head in shame, waiting feverishly for new word about addons in Cataclysm. Instead, I have taken to occasionally playing a human priest named Helicopter. Back in vanilla WoW, I was a raid-healing priest who basically played like the speeds of a tractor: a turtle for "slow" and a rabbit for "fast." The entirety of my existence consisted of picking one of two heals for the job, and that was that. When I popped into beta, rolled up a priest and set to work, I had no idea what I was doing.

This week's Addon Spotlight is all about the things that I wish I had in beta -- an amalgamation of some awesome healing priest addons that can hopefully help out all you aspiring holy and discipline priests. Shadow, I don't hate, I promise. You'll have your day in the ... shade? You get enough tough love from your majordomo already, anyhow. Healer priests, this one's for you, with some vanilla priest stories thrown in for fun, of course.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Helpers for priest healers

Addon Spotlight: Helpers for priest healers originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, Raiding, Guest Posts

This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

I have been playing World of Warcraft on the road for the last three years now, and what an adventure it has been. I started out on an old HP Pavilion zv6000 weighing in at about 8 pounds, with a 800 x 600 resolution and 800 MB of RAM. Not only was the beast of a laptop fun to haul through security lines at the airport, but it was heavy and slow. 25-man raids were next to impossible (I'm talking to you, Heigan), with frame rates under 5 FPS most of the time. I was eventually convinced to buy a new machine, and I decided to go with a MacBook Pro. I'm currently running version 4, which is the 17" widescreen with the Intel Core 2 Duo with 2.6 Mzh GHz processors and 4 GB of RAM. It's a pretty decent machine, with frame rates in the 30s in Dalaran and 25-man frame rates around 5-25 FPS, depending on the fight (less if I'm trying to FRAPS a fight or Marrowgar's fire is involved).

The biggest changes I have made between playing on my desktop (Dell XPS 720 series) at home and my MacBook on the road have been in regard to addons and special effect details in the video settings. I have optimized every addon I use to keep the lowest memory usage possible (for example, Skada instead of Recount), making use of all 4 GB I have on that machine and ensuring my machine is doing the best it can. I use Addon Control Panel to turn off every non-essential addon come raid time, including Auctioneer, Jamba (for when I am dual-boxing), SexyMap, etc. I love Addon Control Panel, as it lets me save addon sets in different states depending on what I am doing. I have a raiding 10-man version, a raiding 25-man version, and questing-, leveling- and auction-based sets that I can flip between at the click of my mouse.

Continue reading Guest Post: Raiding on the road

Guest Post: Raiding on the road originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 31 Jul 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, Addon Spotlight reaches into the addon grab bag and pulls out some delicious randomness for you.

Salutations, friends. Welcome to another exciting week on Addon Spotlight, where addons reign supreme amongst the pitiful, smelly masses of other crap you could talk about related to World of Warcraft. Addons encompass it all! We are champion.

This week, Addon Spotlight is heading into mount and pet territory, discussing a wonderful little addon called Equus Infinata. Equus not only caught my eye because of how simple and pretty the addon looks, but how it integrates straight into your already existing mount and pet interface pane. As a special treat, I asked Robert, the addon's author, a couple of questions about creating his first addon. Click for more!

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Equus Infinata

Addon Spotlight: Equus Infinata originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week

Each week, WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using, to readerui@wow.com.

Greetings, Reader UI of the Week fans, and welcome aboard the good ship Addons. Today, we travel back in time, way back, to March of 2010, when man still lived in a terrible age of despair and ignorance. We have come so far since that terrible time. A light, a blindingly bright light, shown through the heavens, illuminated one column. One column for you, dear readers, to submit your user interfaces to ...

Fizziks was one of my first reader UI column subjects and has graciously sent in a redux of his awesome-then and awesome-now user interface. I am happy to say that this is the 25th Reader UI of the Week that I have written, and am happy to have an old friend come back for this special number.

Continue reading Reader UI of the Week: Fizziks' UI Mk. II

Reader UI of the Week: Fizziks' UI Mk. II originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, Addon Spotlight reaches into the addon grab bag and pulls out some delicious randomness for you.

Looking over all the columns here on WoW.com must be amazing for you Cataclysm information hounds. All that cool new art, talent trees getting changed like crazy, new races and sound files ... Too bad you'll find no Cataclysm stuff in Addon Spotlight. Not yet, anyway -- addons are currently disabled in the beta. For us addon junkies, then, we can only sit back, relax, drink 30 cans of Arnold Palmer and drift the night away. Or, I can recommend some addons. Both work for me.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Grab bag

Addon Spotlight: Grab bag originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons

Addons 101 is a four-part series for beginners dedicated to understanding what addons are, how they enhance the gameplay experience of World of Warcraft, some popular addons in certain categories, and popular venues in which to research, download and find addons.

Finally, we reach the end of our beginner's journey. We have learned a lot so far, from what addons are and how they affect the WoW gameplay experience, to some of the categories of addons and some examples. For the final installment, Addons 101 will discuss the basics of user interface customization, where to find customization options, and some addons that can be very helpful when building your user interface. In addition, part 4 will be riddled with tips that I have found useful over the years working with my own UI.

Continue reading Addons 101: The basics of customization

Addons 101: The basics of customization originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, Reader UI of the Week

Each week, WoW.com brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs. Have a screenshot of your UI you want to submit? Send your screenshots, along with info on what mods you're using and some background information, to readerui@wow.com.

My condolences to those of you on 24-hour downtime. I've been there, and I feel your pain. Hopefully, some Reader UI of the Week can cheer you up a little bit. We are taking a look at Foofy's UI, which is anything but, emphasizing good color contrast and an interface that is heavy on information, but not so busy that it's distracting. Everyone sit around the campfire, join hands and let me break out the ol' guitar for a little camp song I like to sing called Reader UI.

Continue reading Reader UI of the Week: Foofy's UI

Reader UI of the Week: Foofy's UI originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, Tidy Plates makes its long-awaited spotlight. You can stop emailing me about Tidy Plates now.

Addon Spotlight truly is fueled by users just like you, considering how many emails I get about Tidy Plates. "Why haven't you talked about Tidy Plates yet? It's absolutely amazing." There's a reason I haven't talked about this particular mod before, and I'll get to that explanation, but for now know that I am happy to introduce Tidy Plates to those who don't know of its existence and reintroduce the 'plates to the already faithful.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Tidy Plates

Addon Spotlight: Tidy Plates originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Add-Ons

Addons 101 is a four-part series for beginners dedicated to understanding what an addon is, how they enhance the gameplay experience of World of Warcraft, some popular addons in certain categories, and popular venues in which to research, download and find addons.

Addons 101 has covered a lot of ground for new players looking to get into addons for the first time. We have discussed what addons are and why you would want them, and we have gone over some of the basic elements of the World of Warcraft user interface and how they can be improved upon. I hope that some people have gained some knowledge into addons and have had their fears alleviated somewhat -- addons won't hurt you, I promise!

This week, Addons 101 looks at what I call the other essentials. These are interface elements that have become important over the lifetime of WoW but are not intrinsically understandable just by looking at the user interface the game presents you with. Before I start, let me say that Blizzard has taken steps in the right direction on many of these items, but addons still do the job better, for the most part. We will discuss terms, recommend certain addons and hopefully give some good explanations for any questions that might be had. As always, if you're an interface and addon newbie, I'm more than happy to field questions at mat@wow.com (remember the one "t").

Continue reading Addons 101: The other essentials

Addons 101: The other essentials originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments