Token Female Gamer

External Additions

This is a huge topic. The meta-game for WoW is already incredibly complicated, but the meta-game for the WoW-software dwarfs it by leaps and bounds. From new interfaces to smaller addons; a vast array of options are available. Then of course we can’t forget Ventrilo and all the hardware that that spawns.

Oh you could play without all these fancy gadgets and gizmos but they really help in so many situations by increasing response time, easier access to all raid members, alerts, maps, shortcuts, and so many more wonderful ease inspiring additions that playing without almost seems archaic. Granted on a bit patch day you will be playing without them, until they are patched anyway.

Interface

The interface’s main purpose, while playing, is to facilitate a smooth and productive link into the game, but most importantly to not get in the way.

One of the big keys to having a useful interface is knowing your way around it. No matter how slick it is, it will be of no help if you can’t find anything you need on it. I still use the original interface that comes with the game. It has become quite adjustable over the course of the game, leaving me very satisfied with its performance, plus I am very familiar with it. Mostly I am reluctant to change it because I worry about having to learn an entirely new interface system.

Another reason that I have avoided getting an external interface is that they tend to get messed up during patches. This means you have to play without it anyway until the developer of said interface fixes it.

Here are a few simple changes that I have made to the original interface:

-All my additional skill bars available and filled with skills. This gives me access to almost my entire bag of tricks. The hardest part is just remembering in times of panic what is in my bag of tricks. =)

Also some people like to hotkey all their extra skill bars. This is certainly available through the interface menu and has helped speed up selecting skills for those that use keyboard shortcuts.

-Turn on the target of my target option. This allows you to see whom your target currently has targeted, which helps immensely for assisting.

-Turn on the option to have the camera scroll out past the normal maximum view. No one told me about this until very recently and this makes life sooooo much easier in raiding. Often there are quite a few things going on at the same time while in the midst of a fight and being able to see a larger area of the combat zone makes keeping track off all these vastly easier.

-Turn off bubble chat. For some reason the default for this is on, but during a raid or super busy stressful combat the last thing you need is some bubble popping up and obscuring something vital. Besides when I find myself in a tight spot it helps to have all the chat in one single place so I don’t have to search the screen for instructions, if I need them.

Overall I don’t spend much of my time fighting with the interface, but then both of my characters are DPS characters. Different roles require different tools. So if you find yourself spending most of you’re time cursing at your slow mouse or the windows popping up and obscuring your view consider a custom interface.

Many people do decide to get a custom interface and swear that they couldn’t live without them.

And just remember, learning your way around a new interface is something that should be done way before you raid.

AddOns

Addons, like the interface, are all externally developed. They are smaller software programs that hook into the WoW addon feature allowing you to access the addon functionality from inside the game.

Its quite a powerful portal into the game and has spawned an incredible amount of really great addons. But I can’t talk about all of them; so I will give an introduction and you can take if from there.

For raiding there are a few addons that are required.

Boss Mods – I use Deadly Boss Mods. It’s a vital component to any raiding character as it highlights what is happening in the encounter and prompts for things that will happen soon. You must have DBM or an equivalent addon to raid.

Threat meter – Omen Threat Meter is my favorite one thus far. As almost any class in the game monitoring your threat (aka agro) is incredibly important. A raid can fail quite quickly if the right people aren’t the highest on the agro list.

Those two are a must, but here are some more that are nice to have for combat situations:

DPS meter – Recount not only keeps track of DPS but also of healing, total damage done and taken, total number of deaths, and a whole bunch more. It’s a great way to see how you are doing in comparison to other folks.

Unit Frames – Grid is not something I use personally, but so many of my guild mates swear by it (especially the healers, they say this is a must!) that it has to be added here. It gives you a grid of all the people in your current raid, plus the grid highlights their health and status.

Character specific addons are so many and so different for each class, I can’t add them all here, but each class certainly has some that make play much easier!

Really there are addons for every feature in wow, helping with quests, auctioning, accessing your bank, maps, professions, gathering, guilds, pvp, and the list goes on and on.

It’s easy to see how the game can be taken over by addons quite easily. For my part I like to keep it simple. I have the minimal amount of addons enabled on each character. The game makes it relatively easy to turn them on and off so even if you download a bunch you can take your time and try them one at a time and turn them off if you don’t like them. =)

Ventrilo – Suround Sound Voice Communication Software

Ventrilo (vent) is an external piece of software that facilitates voice communication. It does require a speaker to be heard and a microphone to be able to chat. Most people use a headset that includes both.

Since my husband and I play together and sit right next to each other we use my computers speakers and microphone for both of us. One of the problems we face, because we sit in the same room, is that we hear the other talking and then we hear them delayed through vent. So we have to mute each other. But then we have a hard time hearing each other through the headphones. Sharing just on microphone solves this delayed echo for us, and using the computer speakers mean we don’t have headphones. We also have had terrible luck with the headsets, both of us having tried a few with limited success.

Ventrilo falls into the sometimes required category. It will depend on the people you raid with. It’s a huge help in speeding along coordination. We use it in our guild and while most of the chat is silly, the moments of actual strategy help immensely.

Its best to simply have it installed. And even if you don’t have a headset, you can have vent routed to your speakers so that you can at least listen and follow the strategy.

Just remember that it takes all kinds to make up the 11 million users that play WoW and voice chat leaves it wide open to rampant idiocy and abuse. This is one of our frequently mentioned favorite vent videos. It’s hilarious, but not what a vent session should sound like. If your raid vent sounds like this, I highly recommend leaving. =)

Helpful links for interface, addons, and vent:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/default.aspx
http://www.wowinterface.com/
http://www.wowwiki.com/AddOn
http://www.ventrilo.com/

Tags: friends, guide, links, online, skills, strategy, world of warcraft

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 2:08 pm and is filed under Articles, Computer Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.