WoW User Interface (UI) Addons
One of the cool things about World of Warcraft is that they provide an engine that will parse UI Addon scripts which are designed to make your gameplaying easier and more convenient.
What do you mean, “More convenient”?
Ah, so glad you asked ;)
Basically, the scripts help automate things. My scripts do things like:
- Feed my pet when his comfort goes below “happy”
- Automatically build a database of what my different pets like and do not like to eat, on the fly (ie: as my pet is trying to eat, it updates and retains the information for next feeding time)
- Automatically switch combat bars depending on whether an opponent is in a Range space or a Melee one compared to me.
- Make creating and maintaining raid groups easier in the battlegrounds like Warsong Gulch, etc.
- Building a database of fish I’ve caught in different areas
- Automatically re-casting after catching a fish or after one gets away
- Give extra information about objects and NPCs when I hover over them with my mouse (auction prices, disenchant information, whether animals are tamable and what skill they’d give hunters if tamed, etc)
Scripts?? I can’t make scripts!!
Me either!
Thankfully, there are many websites available that offer the UI AddOns that other people have created, which means you don’t even have to worry about learning the scripting language to make things work better!
Download notes
Of course, as was mentioned in my previous entry, always be careful when you download things online. Some sites don’t review the content of what is uploaded, and you may end up with a virus or trojan installed. Always make sure you do regular virus and spybot/trojan scans.
Popular sites with free WoW UI Addons
There are some sites that offer membership access to their scripts - I personally move away from those sites very quickly, because I’m not looking for scripts of such complexity that I feel I should need to pay a membership fee. You can make that decision on your own.
Here are the two main sites I’ve used myself for improving my WoW User Interface for my Hunter character:
Bundled or individual?
One of the first UI mods I used for World of Warcraft was the Cosmos UI AddOn, which is a bundle of useful mods put together which also gathers information for Thottbot. However, my computer can’t handle a lot of active UI addons, so these days I’ve been downloading non-bundled scripts.
Things to consider
While Addons/mods are wonderful things, you need to consider how well your computer performs before loading your game down with them.
My computer has 512MB RAM and 64MB RAM on my video card, so it’s in the “low range” of being able to handle many mods. I initially had the full Cosmos UI package installed but I found my game was painfully slow as a result (as soon as I removed the addons everything was nice and quick again)
UI Addons and WoW patch updates
One last thing to note is that your AddOns are disabled every time there is a WoW patch update, which may be every week. You can re-activate your addons and even make your addon list disregard whether a script is outdated or not when it comes time to load.
But I’ll talk about those details in a future entry!
I have not tried any mods yet, I’ve been experiencing the game ‘hard core’ so far! ;-) Although some of these mods and others that I have heard of would definitely make the game somewhat more enjoyable and wouldn’t necessitate me flipping to my internet window open to thottbot.com to find out if this new item I picked up is good for anything.
Having something that would monitor the AH and find out what sells and what doesn’t would be super! I have had a hit/miss relationship with AH. Some days most of my stuff sells and I make a killing, some days I sell nothing and lose out on my deposit. /sigh… I haven’t found that any of my leatherworking sells on Alextrasza yet, maybe I’m trying to sell the wrong items, but heavy leather sells for 50sp a stack since they opened up the war efforts on our server now.
- Rizzo, level 35 troll hunter on Alexstrasza
Comment on February 16, 2006 @ 10:23 pm
I have been playing WoW ‘hard core’ with no UIs yet, I guess I just wanted to try it that way before messing with it! ;-)
But from what I hear here, and from what other people have said about UIs, I think its time to get some… especially one tha will help with the AH, I have had varied luck with it so far, and haven’t found my ‘niche’ yet. Hopefully a UI will help.
- Rizzo, level 35 troll hunter on Alextrasza
Comment on February 16, 2006 @ 11:08 pm
Okay, got and installed my first UIs…. omg that just makes the whole experience SO much better! So much information at your fingertips and makes everything go so much more smoothly. I definitely suggest UIs to everyone. Personally I have the Gatherer, the Auctioneer, Titan maps, and CosmosUI all installed….
Comment on March 21, 2006 @ 11:58 pm