Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Addon Alpha - Version 0.12.1 - BETA CANDIDATE

Another round of bug fixes later, and it's that time again folks!

http://wiki.github.com/Jiyambi/WoW-Pro-Guides/

This time through, we had mostly bug fixes. The only new feature added is support for multiple profiles for your display settings, courtesy of Ace3

Our addon alpha files have moved to github. Everything is still available in zip format for the many folks who aren't familiar with git, but we now to have a git repository available for the programmers out there!

Feel free to make an account over on github (it's free) and leave feedback there via the awesome issue tracker. However, I'll still respond to any feedback sent via WoW-Pro, email, blog, or twitter, just as I have been Smiling

Thanks for the hard work everyone, we are almost there!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

WoW-Pro Addon Version 0.12 - BETA Candidate

Alright folks, this could be it. I've uploaded the most recent version of the addon, and I've crossed every bug and needed feature off my list. So if this goes well in testing, I'll release it on the main WoW-Pro site next week.

Bug Fixes:
  •  Double-clicking the titlebar to hide the guide no long makes the guide display an empty window on reopen when resize is enabled
  • Tooltips no longer appear off the screen if the guide is placed on the left side of the screen. NOTE: Itembuttons will always appear on the left side. It was producing a lot of lag to try and move them, and I think they still look better over there even with the guide is on that side of the screen.
  • The guide no longer jumps in position when being hidden or when automatically resizing itself when using the manual step number setting.
  • The lag due to changing the guide's size or the row spacing or size is now gone.
  • Quest tracking now works when you first load up your character - it was not working until guide update or reload in the past.
New Features:
  • Cooldown on Item Buttons
  • Confirmation Message - when the addon tries to load the next guide after you've completed one. You have the option to choose a guide from the menu instead.
  • Optional |O| and Prerequisite |PRE| tags - Full functionality added. |O| tags must be accompanied by a |PRE| tag or a |L| tag to work. The |O| step will display only if the |PRE| quest is complete, or if the required |L| items are in the player's inventory
  • Minimap Button can be hidden
  • Version Number - now displayed in the config panel
Still To Come:
  • |LVL| tag, displayed if you are below that level
  • |T| tag, targets specified mob and marks it
  • |LEAD| tag, for optional lead-in quests that don't show up if you've already completed their follow-up
  • Z step type. Because Horde have zeppelins not boats dammit!
  • Quest dependencies
  • Quest skipping
  • Right click step to share quests
  • Numbered ranking for steps, and a difficulty slider that allows users to skip unimportant / lower XP quests. Intended for RaF, heirlooms, or heavy instancers. (conversely also good for completists, who can use the lowest setting).
 Test away, and let me know if you notice any issues!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

WoW-Pro Addon Version 0.11

This is just a quick patch which fixes some bugs and adds a couple features.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I included the guides which were modified by Shakazam as well as the most up to date guides that others have uploaded here. So if you are working on a guide right now, PLEASE make a back up of it and be careful that your working version doesn't get overwritten when you download this new update!


Bug Fixes:
  • New Character Load: Fixed the issue that was causing multiple errors on load for any new characters other than orcs, trolls, or draenei. Sorry, I thought I fixed this long ago but apparently I didn't!
  • Nil Guide Infinite Loop: Nil guide was set to load itself upon completion, causing an infinite loop. I fixed this and also coded for the case where a "next guide" was not listed, so the user should not see any errors due to this anymore.
New features:
  • Enable/Disable: The addon as a whole and also individual modules can now be enabled or disabled from their config panels. Disabling hides the frames and unregisters events, but leaves the config panels and minimap button in place.
  • Load Default Settings: The main config panel now has an option to reload the default settings.

  • Panda: Thanks to Gylin, who located the in game icon, we now have an actual panda icon which matches WoW-Pro's logo. Yay!
More features are hopefully on the way tomorrow, but I wanted to get this quick patch out to help with those nasty bugs!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

WoW-Pro Addon Version 0.10

A new version of the addon is available for download, and boy is it a big one! This newest version is packed FULL of new features.

Bug Fixes:
  • Item buttons work! The code cleanup to prepare for the customization features magically fixed our weird issue with the item button. Yay! We still need to add the cooldown but it's looking good!
  • Code cleanup - anyone working on the code please take note that I've cleaned up a LOT involving the code frames. They have changed significantly so please check them if you are working on something. In particular, I've completely revamped the way sticky frames are handled. Ask me if you need help with this. NOTE: This is all internal code, people writing guide files shouldn't notice anything!
New features:
  • Customization! You can now customize:
    • Background texture and color, both for the main guide window and for sticky steps. Can use alpha to make frame transparent.
    • Border type, and whether it's present at all.
    • Titlebar color, and whether it's present at all.
    • Text - size, color, and font.
    • Notes - hover over or always displayed
    • Enable/disable drag and resize
    • Padding and spacing
    • Manually set the number of steps displayed - guide window will resize to the number specified if this option is enabled.
  • Menu buttons - I added new buttons to the right-click dropdown menu! You can reset the current guide and open up the new display customization from here
  • Quest Tracker - optional. Tracks quest just like the normal quest tracker. Shows under all "complete" steps, or "note"/"kill" steps that complete based on partial quest objectives. Not yet thoroughly tested so please provide feedback!
  • Click to open quest - Just click a step to open it's corresponding quest if the quest is in your log!
  • Progress - displayed on Title Bar. In the future may add an option to display a percentage instead of a straight # / #. Did some corrections to how these numbers are calculated so they will be more accurate.
  • Guide Load On Complete - When an old guide is completed, a new one loads! There isn't a confirmation message for this yet, but it will be added.
  • Minimap Button / LDB Object - For now this only opens and closes the addon's frame on left click and opens options on right click. It might have more functionality in the future.
Known Issues / Needed Additions:
  • Enable/Disable of the addon as a whole or the leveling module aren't set up yet, so don't be alarmed!
  • Frame is generally set up to be situated on the right side of the screen only (in terms of where tooltips appear). No this is not how it will always be, but that's how it is for the time being.
  • When using manual step number, when the guide resizes itself, it anchors to it's center so it's resize acts a little weird. I need to investigate how to go about fixing this - help greatly appreciated. Note that this also happens when the guide is resized to hide it when double clicking the title bar.
  • On guide update and any time the height of the rows is changed, there is a decent amount of lag. I don't like this but I'm not sure if we'll be able to easily change it. The source of the lag is definitely the WoWPro.RowSizeSet() function, which seems kind of strange because it only has 15 repetitions and other functions have much more and don't cause the lag issue. Go go gadget programmers, figure it out! :)
  • There is still no cooldown on the item buttons, I've been meaning to add it back in but haven't got around to it yet.
  • When auto-loading the next guide, there needs to be a confirmation message.
  • Need an option to reload the default display settings.
  • On initial guide load, quest tracking doesn't seem to work. As soon as the addon is updated, however, it works as intended. Can't figure out why this is >_<
Once all the known issues are fixed and the needed additions are added, this version should be ready for beta release. It's still kind of a long list, but I'm confident we'll be able to get them done fairly quickly.

Programmers: I need help most with finding out whats going on with the resize (actually it's a :SetHeight() function) and why there is so much lag when we call WoWPro.RowSizeSet(). Anyone who can shed some light on one of those two issues wins tons of karma, both the intangible kind and the kind that means points and privileges on WoW-Pro!

Friday, July 9, 2010

Real ID on Forums Withdrawn!

I just wanted to update anyone reading this with the situation: Blizzard announced today that they are withdrawing the RealID forum integration - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1&pageNo=1

I am relieved beyond words. I felt such an overwhelming sense of betrayal through all this. I was terrified that I would have to look for a new MMO and lose some or all of the wonderful relationships I've built with my friends and guild mates over the years. I tried to play once or twice during the last few days but I couldn't stay online for more than a few minutes. I was distracted and upset throughout. Finally I feel like I can breathe again.

I am proud of Blizzard for listening to their community, but I still feel a twinge of doubt and distrust now when I think about them. I hope in time my belief in them can be restored - I have always felt in the past that Blizzard was above other gaming companies, that they had a better idea of what their gamers wanted. I sincerely hope that becomes true again in the future.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

The RealID Scandal

I decided it was high time I post an opinion piece on the RealID situation currently rocking the MMO world. Keep in mind everything here is my opinion. I enjoy debates as long as they are civil so feel free to comment and disagree with me (or agree, of course!).

The Overview

Some are calling this the biggest PR disaster to hit the MMO industry. The amount of public outcry on this subject is unprecedented. The forum post discussing the issue has over 34,000 posts - that's over 1,800 pages of people, for the most part, decrying the new feature.

For those who have been hiding under a rock the last few weeks, here is a FAQ about RealID provided by Blizzard: http://us.battle.net/realid/faq.html - note that this FAQ does not yet seem to cover the forum change. Additionally WoW.com has continuing coverage of the issue and Blizzard's responses to it: http://www.wow.com/2010/07/06/official-forum-changes-real-life-names-to-be-displayed/ and http://www.wow.com/2010/07/06/blizzards-responses-on-the-real-id-situation/

If you don't want to read the articles, here is a brief overview of what's been happening:

Initial In-Game Implementation

First, Blizzard implemented a new stage of their Battle.net integration (this effects both WoW and Starcraft). In this new feature, you can add a friend as a "RealID" friend. This means the person can see your first and last name. Blizzard cautioned us that this feature is intended for people who know themselves in real life, but that it is ultimately up to the users how they use it.

This original implementation created a minor stink because your friends' friends (who are not necessarily people you know) are able to see your real name. They are not informed of what character belongs to that name, but the inability to block this feature resulted in many players not using the RealID system. But, at this point the system was completely optional and had very little effect on gameplay.

Addon Security Vulnerability

However, after the system had been around for a few weeks, it was soon discovered that addons were able to exploit a security vulnerability in the system and display your real name to anyone and everyone (Reference: http://www.wow.com/2010/07/06/security-flaw-allows-addons-to-expose-full-real-life-names-witho/).

The Big One - Forums Use RealID

Shortly after that fiasco, Blizzard dropped what some are calling the biggest PR disaster ever to hit the MMO world - The WoW official forums will, in the future, display your RealID name. There is no way to opt out of this service: if you want to post in the forums, your real first and last name will be shown.

Let me do my best to make this abundantly clear. By "Official Forums" Blizzard includes not the normal QQ my class is broken lol Blizz noob posts. It includes (but is not limited to):
  • Suggestion Forums, where players have an outlet to suggest ideas for the game
  • Guild Recruitment Forums, without which a guild would be at a significant disadvantage in recruitment
  • Tech Support Forums, where users can report problems and request technical help.
Relevance - Can They Find You?

Before I discuss the consequences of this change, I want to put to rest some arguments about whether this all even matters. The first is the belief that no one will be able to find you just given your name. I'd like to share a story with you folks that puts that belief resoundingly in it's place - as a naive fantasy.

First of all, you can hear the story from those involved here: http://seewhatyoudidthere.com/2010/07/07/realid-changes-the-very-real-ease-of-stalking-in-the-internet-age/

In the huge forum thread I sited at the beginning of the article, one user decided he would support his argument that no one can find someone based only on their name by actually posting his name. Within 20 minutes the blogger in the above article found him and called him at work. He talked to the exposed user and confirmed that he knew not only his home address and home phone, but also:
  • What the user did for the 4th of July
  • The color of his bedroom walls
  • The name of his dog
  • The names of his parents
Luckily for the user, the blogger is a nice guy. He helped the user regain some privacy by improving his settings on various websites, and the user of course immediately removed his name from the forum post.

You may believe that most of this information must be from Twitter or Facebook. But you can just as easily find phone numbers and addresses from public phone books and census data. Think also about employer websites which may list your work information. And keep in mind that this user did not have a particularly unique name in any way. Just because your name is common, do not believe you are somehow protected.

Relevance - Safety

The above story is a cautionary tale but has a relatively happy ending. However, that's not always the case. In the following article, we see the other side of that coin: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101031-Counter-Strike-Knife-Fight-Leads-to-Real-Life-Stabbing

In this story, a user upset over losing a knife fight in Counter-Strike planned and plotted for seven months. He then drove to the knife fight winner's house, rang the doorbell, and stabbed the winner in the chest with a real, honest to goodness knife. The second gamer was extremely lucky - the knife barely missed his heart and he survived.

This occurred in a game where death is a momentary inconvenience. In WoW, our characters represent hundreds of hours of invested time. Ninja'd loot, for one example, is a far more serious event than killing someone in Counter-Strike. Would you like to make it one step easier for angry psychopaths to find you via your guild recruitment post using your real name? I know I would not.

Relevance - Reputation

Safety isn't the only reason that a user might wish to remain anonymous. Though it may seem foreign to many of us, some people could be harmed via WoW in a completely different manner - through their reputation. Sadly, not all successful businesses, law firms, hospitals, universities, or other "prestigious" organizations view gaming with a tolerant eye. Being a gamer openly can hurt your chances of receiving a job and can make it harder for you to be taken seriously in your chosen field. I'm not going to go into this too much, but even if this doesn't effect you please consider the people that it does effect.

The Issues - Tech Support is Optional?

Now that we've determined that revealing first and last names is indeed a relevant concern, lets talk about what that means in this situation.

The most glaring and obvious issue, to me, is the tech support forums. If a user wants to report a tech support problem, he or she has no choice but to reveal their first and last name for anyone and everyone on the internet to see. Now, you might say, you can just call Blizzard or leave an in game ticket if you want to contact them. I beg to differ. I have had three friends hacked in the last month and another two had their accounts locked out (it turns out completely unjustly). In order to talk to someone on the phone they had to wait at least 45 minutes, often much longer. In game ticket queues can take days. And even when one of those methods result in an actual conversation with a Blizzard employee, things are seldom immediately resolved (a good friend still has not received his hundreds of emblems of triumph lost to the hacker). In this situation it's important that every tech support avenue be used and fully open to users.

I maintain, therefore, that it is completely unacceptable to require this blatant disregard for user privacy if a user wishes to post in the tech support forums.

The Issues - The Morality of Intimidating the Trolls

One of Blizzard's officially stated motives is that they hope to use this new feature to reduce trolling on the forums. Now, I don't like forum trolls and I would love to see less of them around. But I think the real logic behind this "encouragement" for us to act more appropriately needs to be examined.

Clearly, the way they hope to accomplish this is that, with the knowledge that their real name will be posted with their comments, users will think twice about making rude posts. But what will cause them to think twice? Will they reflect whether or not this will be a suitable way to treat other human beings? Not likely. The fact is Blizzard is hoping that user will be motivated by fear: Fear that any negativity generated by the post will cross over to the "real world" to haunt them. If all they were going for is accountability, a simple unchangeable gamer handle would suffice - the fact that it must be your real name means they want this to cross over to your life outside WoW. As I've shown in the two examples above, this is not an unreasonable fear. The fact that Blizzard is utilizing this fear to accomplish it's goals, however noble those goals may be, is disturbing.

And the sad thing is, this is very unlikely to actually stop trolling. People who troll will still find ways to troll, whether they do so with disregard to their in game or real life reputation, or whether they use false names, trial accounts, or other ways. In addition, the possibility of character assassination (there is nothing to stop you from purposely listing the name of an enemy as your account name) has been introduced as well.

I maintain that Blizzard's use of fear to attempt to intimidate users into good behavior is both ineffective and reprehensible.

The Issues - Discrimination

Possibly the most important (and most easily overlooked) issue present in this brouhaha is the unequal effect the change will have on minorities, particularly women and gay gamers. It is pretty unarguable that a very significant portion of WoW's player base is extremely homo-phobic. Women gamers, while becoming more and more common, are still often treated with disrespect or with inappropriate stalker-like behavior. It will be pretty easy to determine whether a user is male or female based on name alone. Additionally, users with names from other nationalities could also be threatened. We can agree, then, that revealing the first and last names to these threatened groups would be highly undesirable and could cause emotional distress, stalking, or even violence.

Many people are simply saying, as a response to those uncomfortable with this feature, "Just don't post!". Even without the tech support issues discussed above, we need to examine how this threat, both emotional and physical, is unequally effecting the player base. Consider, for example, a cis ("normal" sexuality), white male when compared with a female, a male with "alternative" sexuality, or another minority group. Do you honestly believe this new "feature" will be affecting them equally? Is it fair to say to the more threatened, less comfortable group, "just don't use this feature"? Is it fair to deny them this privilege?

Here is an artical from another woman gamer discussing this issue: http://www.spiderfarmer.com/2010/07/07/blizzards-burqa/

I maintain that by revealing real names for all forum posts, Blizzard is driving away minority groups and allowing those in the majority more access to privileges, in this case the forums.

How can I help?

If you are as angry as I am about this, send complaints to Blizzard's privacy email: privacy@blizzard.com

And to the ESRB: privacy@esrb.org

The more outraged voices they hear, the more likely they are to make a change! 

Closing

I'd like to include a few succinct comments from WoW.com's threads to close. One user said:

They told us it was by invite only, then they displayed our friends of friends.
They told us it was secure, but addons have already found vulnerabilities in their security.
They told us it was optional, but now if we want to post on the official forums, it's required.

Finally, another user summed up the whole mess: "RealID: So optional, it's mandatory!"


I'm very happy to discuss any of the points in the article with you. However, please be civil in any comments you make, or they will be deleted.