BigDaddyUI 0.2 - Bars and Bags

Tweaking my UI was one of the things I missed about World of Warcraft. Ahhhh. Good to be back.

I added three new addons to my evolving UI and modified the action bars and unit frames. Let's start with some example screen caps.

Before...


After...


I am experimenting with something different. Instead of stacking slabs of action bar buttons down, I'm staggering the action bars and using the cyCircled addon to create rounded buttons instead of square. Let me know what you think. Never mind the colors for now; all I did was darken the borders because the default is bright white. The benefit of this staggered set up is I can lay my buttons out in a variety of interesting shapes such as triangles, diamonds, and hexagons.

Continuing with changes to action bars, I added OmniCC. This replaces the default cooldown timer on my spells and equipment. The addon is quick to setup and has a good amount of control over details. That is how I like my mods. Easy to setup and modify balanced against breadth and depth of options. The only change was to increase the font size.

Bagnon is my preferred single bag solution. No more clicking through five bags to find something. Bagnon also includes a search feature. For example, I double click the top of the bag frame and type "armor" and everything but armor is shaded. I shrunk the bag frame by 20% and reduced the number of columns, so it slips into the dead space on the right of the screen. Using Bagnon also means I can hide the bag bar and use the B key to open and close my inventory instead.

The bright colors on the player and target unit frames were bugging me too much. I darkened the colors used by Pitbull by about 25%. Much more subdued. Yellows, however, are on the verge of baby poop color, so I may have to tweak the settings more. I forgot to mention before but I grabbed the SharedMedia addon because I like the clean look of the Smooth texture.

What addons am I using so far? Here is a complete list:

• Bagnon *
• Bagnon Options *
• Bartender 3
• ClearFont 2
• ClearFont 2: Font Pack
• cyCircled
• OmniCC *
• OmniCC Options *
• Pitbull 2.0
• SharedMedia

Where am I getting these addons? Most of the addons come directly from the WowAce.com list of beta addons. A few addons are from the WowInteface site (marked with an asterisk above). I haven't checked, but you can probably find all the addons listed above on WowInterface or Curse.com sites if you're not into using beta versions of addons.

Puzzle Quest Complete

Last night I completed Puzzle Quest with my level 46 druid. Fun game. The ending was less climactic then expected, but a good game none the less. I strongly recommend Puzzle Quest. Especially if you have a portable game device like a DS because Puzzle Quest is good for filling those little gaps of time. For example, last week I took my son to the dentist. I could either read magazines filled with celebrity gossip and holiday recipes or save the world from evil. Uh, easy choice. I got a few weird looks, but they're just jealous.

If we bought Puzzle Quest instead of renting it from GameFly, I'd be more inclined to play it again with a different character class. There were side quests I skipped, and I'd like to explore the spell research feature more. When they come out with Puzzle Quest 2, I'll most likely buy it. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a sequel to this game.

Smooth Patching

First time patching World of Warcraft on my Vista box, but I felt confident there would be no problems. I logged in to my admin account and ran the installer from there. No issues. One small bump with my firewall. Again. I don't remember having to reset program permissions every time I updated with my XP box. At least it is one file instead of Lord of the Ring Online's three. I'll have to look into if this is a Vista thing or a Symantec thing.

One unexpected change was support for dual processors. But I didn't see that translate into better performance. Actually things are worse as far as I can tell. Pre-patch my FPS averaged about 20 in town and 35 out in the wilds. Post-patch my FPS dropped to 15 in town and 25 in the wilds. But I hardly notice. Totally playable. I don't have the choppy graphics like I had in LotRO. An occasional stutter in town, but the game just plays smoother. Hoping it was a temporary thing.

Still dreaming of an 8800GT and a big widescreen flat panel...

BigDaddyUI 0.1 - Genesis

One feature World of Warcraft nails is its user interface. The default UI is clunky and sprawling but usable and restricted. The perfect thing for a new player. Advanced players can choose from a massive number of addons, ranging from lesser tweaks to major UI revisions. Creating and modifying WOW's UI is something I missed. Since restarting the game last week, I've spent at least half the time online trying out addons. Then I had a thought... why not blog about the evolution of my UI.

What is my ideal UI?
Words to describe how I visualize the perfect UI: simple, minimal, clean, easy, fast, elegant, sleek.

The perfect UI organizes the outputs and inputs by priority. That is, the information and actions most important are located closest to the combat. I don't want to take my eyes away from the action to monitor my cooldowns or check my mana or whatever.

My ideal UI would use a darker color palette and use visual elements to integrate the different pieces into a single system.

What type of player am I?
I am a "mouse button clicker" type of player. If I was a "keyboard key pusher" type of player, my UI could be bare bones. However, I need action bars and plenty of them. I can keep my UI looking clean by hiding some action bars until I mouseover them, which is perfect for skills, spells, and items of lesser priority.

A few guidelines...

• Stick to the standard color associations such as green for health, blue for mana, red for aggro, and so on. Avoid any confusion.
• The only time I want to have bright colors popping up on screen is when something needs my attention.
• Same goes for movement. Those 3D portraits look interesting but they distract me to much when the picture starts moving around.
• I want to keep one UI for all my characters, but I realize that I may have to create a variant for my healers.
  
• As a general rule I stick with Ace2 addons, but there are a few exceptions.

Let's start my new UI with three addons to cover the basics. Please keep in mind that this UI will be an evolution, changing over weeks as I add, modify, and remove addons. Plus your feedback and suggestions are always welcome.

• ClearFont2 and Font Pack: The default fonts are difficult to read, especially at smaller font sizes. I changed the fonts to the sans serif font Insomniax. Long term I want to replace this with a better font, but this one will do for now.
• Bartender 3: There are a variety of action bar mods out there. Bartender 3 is my favorite because it is simple to setup and provides many detailed options. My first order of business was to create two 12 button action bars centered under my character. The bag bar is shrunk and shoved to the far corner. The screen captures below don't show it, but I have a third action bar along the right edge of the screen hidden until I move my mouse over it. I've stuck all my infrequently used things like buffs and my hearthstone.
• Pitbull: This is a new (to me) unit frame addon and my favorite. Setup is daunting, but the addon gives you a superior level of control. I created player and target unit frames to start. Colors and texture has to change, but keeping it simple for now. I positioned the unit frames between my character and the action bars. I prefer them there instead of the default up in the corner. I'm not sure if I want to leave them stacked vertically or spread the frames out horizontally.
  

The following are two screen captures. I'm new to using ImageShack, so bare with me while I work out the kinks.

The first shows my baby mage strolling around the woods one evening.



The second shows him playing with woodland creatures. Hello, kitty.



My plans are to add a few more addons at a time and blog about them. Then comes the revisions to make the UI flow and look pretty.

5 Lessons in 5 Years

Stormgaard at Se7en Samurai tagged me with a meme: 5 Lessons in 5 Years. Three will be gaming related and two more general life lessons learned. I'm playing fast with the rules, so my apologies up front.

1. Pay to play is okay.
I missed the boat on many of the earlier MMOs because I was staunchly opposed to paying a monthly fee to pay them. No Everquest. No Dark Age of Camelot. No Ultima Online. I thought how stupid is it to buy the game in the store and then pay for it over and over to play it. Silly rabbit. I finally got it a couple years ago. Fifteen bucks a month isn't outrageous and is actually cheaper compared to buying a new game every couple months.

2. MMOs are like a zillion times more addictive.
Than anything really. I burned through many sleepless nights playing Diablo 2, but nothing like World of Warcraft. I didn't expect that level of obsession. I hate to admit it, but the game was affecting other areas of my life. Lucky me that I pulled out before things got crazy. I see some people I care about starting down that path, and it worries me. I'm no saint though. Since restarting WOW, I want to play more and more. But now I know this beast. MMOs by their design are addictive. They are built to keep you logging in month after month, night after night. Almost all of them reward you for time spent in world. Plus they have no end. No plot that is neatly wrapped up after defeating the final boss. No game over screen followed by rolling credits. The more free time you have, the further you will advance, and the bigger your rewards. I'm just regurgitating what I've read in other peoples blogs. Nothing new here.

3. Vid card specs hurt my head.
I learned that video cards specs, while utterly complex, are necessary to understand. I've made two mistakes with video cards. The first was thinking the amount of memory was the only thing that mattered... 256 MB is 256 MB ... right? Years ago I bought a seriously outdated Radeon card on sale when I was playing Neverwinter Nights. The graphic quality and FPS improved. True. But I couldn't play newer games because the technology was too old. The second mistake was not taking the time to understand that not all 6000 series nVidia cards are created equal. Just like many things in life, vid cards are available in a range from low- to high-end. I'm determined not to get burned again on vid card buying.

4. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.
I'm in the middle of learning a big, fat lesson about life the hard way. Sorry to be cryptic... but you really don't want to hear about it and I am light years from being ready to write about it. Moving right along.

5. Switch jobs to advance.
Quick little quiz for you... to advance your career/paycheck do you stay with the same employer year after long year or do you take a risk and find a new job? Guess what I think. Yes, there are exceptions and maybe this applies only to the high tech fields like IT departments and software development shops. Once upon a time I had old-fashioned notions that hard work and loyalty and perseverance would one day be rewarded with a promotion and raise. My grandpa worked the same job for decades and retired with a pension. Those days are gone. I slugged through eight years in an entry-level position. Eventually I was doing tasks that a senior level tester did before he left the company. I got smart (okay, a little smarter) and found a new job. Almost half again as much money, less work, and more respect. Crazy. It worked for me, it can work for you too.

Time to tag a few people with the 5 Lessons in 5 Years meme. My picks:

• SmakenDahed at Random Ogre Thoughts
• Ethic at Kill Ten Rats
  
• Pixiestyx at Strangelands
  
• Pai at The Pensive Harpy
  
• Natalie at The Game Dame
  

LF2M Training Wheels

Picture the first time we see the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz. Rusted joints. Can't move. That is how I feel restarting World of Warcraft. Solution? Roll a new toon and let the well-crafted newbie experience bring me back up to speed. I rolled a new blood elf mage on my old server and sent him bags and gold. I didn't play much of the new Horde zone before, so this will be a good place to restart. Time to remember how to play WOW again.