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!

New Addon Version!

After a lot of hard work over the past few months by several diligent WoW-Pro contributers (myself included), a new version of the addon is being released!

Here's the lowdown:

Alliance

• NEW: Jame's Alliance Death Knight Leveling Guide
• REVAMP: Maw's Human Leveling Guide (1-12)
• REVAMP: Snowflake's Draenei Leveling Guide (1-12)
• REVAMP: Boston's Gnome/Dwarf Leveling Guide (1-12)
• REVAMP: Sven's Bloodmyst Leveling Guide (12-20)
• REVAMP: Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Hellfire Peninsula
• REVAMP: Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Zangarmarsh
• REVAMP: Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Howling Fjord
• REVAMP: Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide - Grizzly Hills

Horde

• REVAMP: Snowflake's Bloodelf Leveling Guide (1-12)
• REVAMP: Hosho's Barrens Leveling Guide (12-20)
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide (31-41)
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Borean Tundra
• REVAMP: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - Dragonblight
• FIX: Fixed the Aldor/Scryer mistake in the Terokkar guide

If you have trouble downloading the new version, be sure to clear your browser cache (I had that problem for a while).

Here's the link to the main info page for the addon, which is also where you can download it!

The Adventures of Mokrana - Chapter 3

Mokrana levels yet again! This time, I used the first chapter of Jame's Leveling Guide (level 21-31). It took me from the Barrens, to the mountains of Stonetalon, the forests of Ashenvale, to Thousand Needles, and even across the sea to Hillsbrad.

Jame's Leveling Guide 21-31: 14h 49min
= 1.48 hr/level

Previous Chapters:

• Zerinj's Durotar Guide 1-12: 4h 14min - 21 min/level
• Hosho's Barrens Guide 12-20: 9h 43min - 69 min/level
  

Total /played at level 30.5: 1d 4h 45min

Again, this is pretty significantly behind Jame's rate, who at this same point is at 19 hours /played and averaged 1 hr/level during this section. Again, he is playing a paladin, who level a lot faster.

On that same note, I want to let you all know that I went ahead and bought Mokrana some gear. It was all purchased with her own money (though she's been making serious buck with her herbing skills). She now has several blues, including a [Cobalt Crusher] that I found for relatively cheap. I've definitely noticed a serious improvement of both her speed and survivability, and am enjoying playing her about a million times more. My advice for anyone leveling a shaman - find a way to get some decent gear, it really matters for these melee classes.

Mokrana and her new mount and new gear, ready to take on the world!

Now, on to the analysis!

My only complaint is that I got a bit behind the guide in several places and was forced to grind. This was especially bad for the first half of the guide when I have bad gear and wasn't too fast at killing things. In particular, I was behind during the Hillsbrad Foothills section, and had to grind on humanoids there for a long time to catch up. I also ended the guide half a level behind, but chose to move on rather than trying to grind my way to catch up.

I have heard several complaints about folks getting behind specifically in this section of Jame's guide. I think this may be due to changes in quest drop rate causing less built-in grinding. I know Jame plans to add new quest circuits as he goes through the addon, so I hope this is one section that gets some new runs added to it.

Towards the end of the guide, my inner engineer started showing through, and I made a little spreedsheet to track each quest circuit and it's average hr/level time. I think this will be really useful info for Jame if he decides to tweak or optimize these guides. Here's the results:

• Stonetalon Mountains (27-28) - Harpies Threaten circuit - 1.41 hr/lvl
• Stonetalon Mountains (27-28) - Bloodfury Ripper optional circuit - 1.26 hr/lvl
• Hillsbrad (28) - 1.88 hr/lvl
• 1K Needles (28-30) - Pacify Centaur circuit - 1.55 hr/lvl
• 1K Needles (28-30) - Highperch/Grimtotem circuit - 1.35 hr/lvl
• Ashenvale (30-31) - Felfire Hill circuit - 1.93 hr/lvl
  
• Ashenvale (30-31) - Never Again circuit - 1.97 hr/lvl

Next up, I'll be revamping and revising the 31-41 section on my warlock Tirrigeth, in preparation for Mokrana's next journey!

Howling Fjord and Other News

Well, Deedlet has completed yet another chapter of her leveling journey. As you can tell by the title, I decided to skip the rest of Outland and travel to Northrend. I will go back and complete Outland sometime, and will write the addon version of those guides if need be, but right now I am very excited about Deedlet's progress and learning to tank, so I decided to head to Northrend for better gear.

In other news, I've been exploring Ulduar on my main character, Honani the tree druid. It looks to be a very fun raid, but so far it's really hard! Flame Leviathan is a joke, but our guild couldn't down XT-002 when we tried on Sunday. Granted we only did around 5 attempts before calling it, and only that one night, and we had some rather stupid PuGs with us. Darrgoe, I know you read this, you better not make us PuG a crappy tank next time! ;)

I've also purchased dual specs for both Deedlet and Honani. Deedlet has ret and prot, and Honani has tree and boomkin. So far I really like both of Deedlet's specs, but Honani is a kind of crappy lazer chicken. Hopefully my good friend Shapa can help her get better, he kicks butt!

Last but not least, I thought I'd make a little list of my goals and projects, like Jame did in his most recent blog post:

• Complete the gear update for my Tree guide (short term)
• Complete that GIMP guide - I know I'm taking forever at it! (short term)
• Speed test Jame's Horde Leveling Guide Chapter 1 (short term)
• Write my "retro raiding guide" (medium term)
• Get Deedlet to level 80, while testing the current guides (medium term)
• Write a fishing/cooking leveling guide (long term, if no one else does it!)
• Speed test the rest of Jame's Horde leveling guides (long term)
• Save for epic flyers for both Honani and Deedlet!

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of Deedlet in Howling Fjord, so you folks don't get one for this blog post. I'll make it up to you and include pictures of my Ulduar exploits next time!

Horde Leveling Addon - Nagrand

Hey folks! Deedlet just cleared out Nagrand, and all the major group quests to boot, including Durn and Ring of Blood. She needed groups for those two, but solo'd all the other group quests in the guide. Yay for prot pallies!

She also got two new awesome experiences tanking. One was for Sethekk Halls, and went pretty well... she even got a [Libram of the Eternal Rest] which buffs her consecrate a little. She did well there, but got her face eaten off in Utgarde Keep. We couldn't finish :( but it was still a really good experience, and she's got some better gear now and hopes to go back soon!

This section of the addon went very smoothly, as most of what Black Cat coded has. I'm going to award it it's first star of quality on the WoW-Pro website. Next up is Blade's Edge Mountains - unfortunately I am going to have to write that section from scratch! So it may be a bit longer between updates.

*Link to Updated Nagrand Addon File*

Deedlet rains death on the ogres of Nagrand!

Horde Leveling Addon - Terokkar

Not much to report today, but Terokkar is down, and Nagrand is next! Haven't got a lot of chances to practice tanking. I am very excited that duel spec is coming out this week along with the patch. This means I will be back on my main, a tree druid named Honani, exploring the new content with my guild. It also means that Honani will be able to become a lazer chicken at will to DPS, and Deedlet can level as ret again if I want her to (though I'm getting used to prot!).

*Link to updated Terokkar Horde Leveling Addon*

I also hope to speed test the next section of Jame's guide with Mokrana soon, so stay tuned!

Horde Leveling Addon - Zangarmarsh

Deedlet has conqured the marsh, thanks to the addon version of Jame's Horde leveling guide, Zangarmarsh! I also made a few minor corrections to the guide as I went, adding a few more coordinates when it would be useful, but it was already at a very high quality.

I also got to tank my first instance! My good friend came along on his level 80 enhancement Shaman, Bloodcrowe, and healed. My other friend came as the only DPS, with his 80 death knight Nodonn, naked! It was the only way I would hold aggro from him :P Tanking is hard, but fun, and I'm glad I have guild-mates who will help me learn!

Moving on to Terokkar forest, and Deedlet is already level 67!

The Adventures of Mokrana - Chapter 2

Mokrana goes to the Barrens! I used Hosho's Barrens Guide (level 12-20) to navigate the savanna of Kalimdor.

Hosho's Barrens Guide 12-20: 9h 43min
= 69 min/level

Previous Chapters:

• Zerinj's Durotar Guide 1-12: 4h 14min - 21 min/level
  

Total /played at level 20.5: 13h 56min

Overall, I am am pretty disappointed in these results. It's crap ton slower than Jame completed the same level range (his total /played was 9 hours compared to my almost 14 hours!). I'm going to give a few reasons why I think this is so:

• The Guide: Hosho's guide needs some reworking. There are places where the mobs are just too tough to deal with. He knows this and is working to fix it. As soon as he releases a revamped guide, I'll give that one a speed test and update here.
• The Class: Shamans are, from what I have head and experienced, a bit difficult to level during the early levels. I ran out of mana constantly, I had a lot of trouble with multiple mobs, and I just didn't kill things very quickly. However, I think part of this also had to do with me being unfamiliar with the class. As I played, I began to die less and deal with things faster. Still, another class would probably have been faster. I also finished up a totem quest during this time. The good news: later on, enhancement shamans are OP!
• Time Wasting: I must have spent almost an hour leveling cooking and herbalism and fixing mistakes in the guide as I went. I've decided from now on I'm not going to take any major time out for professions, so most probably my cooking and herbalism will languish, but my skinning will continue.
• Dying: Not really a cause in itself but a result of number 1 and number 2 on this list. I must have died 3 or more times every level for the first half of the guide. It got better as I went, but it was probably the most frustrated I have ever been while playing WoW, mostly because I couldn't relax since I was trying to test for speed!

Some good things about all this:

• Money: I mailed all the semi-useful stuff Mokrana found to an alt, who auctioned it. So far she's made 30 gold, which funded two netherweave bags with some left over as a cushion for skills. Hopefully she'll be able to fund her mount this way by level 30.
• Flight Paths: Mokrana picked up flight paths in Ashenvale (that run alone probably takes over 15 minutes) and Stonetalon. This will help out during Jame's guide, where you would have to get those if you didn't already have them
• No Grinding: I didn't have to grind any extra than what was done while questing, so I got to skip the periodic grinding sessions Hosho allows for in his guide. Yay!

While the XP rates for this part of the guide were not great, I am confident that they will improve as I go. Mokrana will be heading off to test the first Horde chapter of Jame's leveling guide next!

Here's the story in image form:

Level 12 - Mokrana heads into the Barrens, looking for adventure...


What a nice loincloth I found! Smexy!
.... The funny thing is I got wtfpwned by a patrolling centaur and his little doggies right after I took this picture.

Level 17 - Prowling the Oasis in my new loincloth

Level 19 - Almost to the end!

Escorting this completely idiotic NPC back to Ratchet. Worst. Escort. Ever.

Level 20 - Yay, almost there!

Ended the guide at 20.5. And I got some pants, finally!

Hope you all tune in for the next chapter!

Horde Leveling Addon - Hellfire Peninsula

Deedlet has officially completed the Hellfire Peninsula portion of Jame's leveling guide! As I went, I made a few revisions to the guide, but all were superficial - adding more arrows (to flight paths, for instance), breaking large steps into smaller ones to make things smoother.

Next stop, Zangarmarsh!

Also, I'm about half-way through the Barrens Guide with Mokrana, so an update on the speed testing will come soon. Unfortunately I'm not to happy with the results so far, but you'll have to wait for the details on that.

Horde Leveling Addon 51-60

I have officially completed the first draft of the addon version for Horde level 51-60 of Jame's guide. You can download it here. I feel pretty good about it overall, though there were some unexplained hiccups in the guide as I went (some things auto-completing when they shouldn't, mostly) so it needs more testing.

I also created optional guides for the Searing Gorge and the Burning Steppes, which the user can select if he or she chooses (it's also explained in the main guide at the points where those guides would branch off. Additionally, I made a separate two-part version of the Hellfire Peninsula guide to help folks who want to go there at 58, then come back to Azeroth to finish up the rest of Jame's guide after getting a few upgrades and training professions.

Feel free to post here or on the Addon Works-in-Progress page with questions or comments!

Horde Leveling Addon Speed - Chapter 1

After consulting with Jame, I have decided to do my own series on leveling speed with the new addon, but for the Horde side.

Today I tested Zerinj's Durotar guide on an orc shaman, who happens to be named Mokrana (Mokra, my usual shaman name, was taken >.< ). While leveling, I'm also following Trollvink's Shaman Leveling tips. The end result:

Zerinj's Durotar Guide 1-12: 4h 14min
= 21min/level

I was actually within a few XP of dinging 12 at this point, but so close that someone could easily have made it to 12 had they killed a couple more mobs. I tend to avoid non-quest mobs like the plague, so I figure it's okay to assume level 12 at that point.

After seeing Jame's results, I was actually very dissapointed with this - it took over an hour longer than the human starting area. There are several possible reasons for this:

• The human starting area may be simply a better place to level. I know there are some pretty irritating quests in Durotar, such as the Echo Isles, Dark Storms, and the Skull Rock quests.
• A Paladin may be easier to level from 1-10 than a Shaman. I did take about 15-20 minutes to do some shaman quests, but the paladin probably had paladin quests to do too.
  
• Jame may just be a better player than me!

Like Jame, I tried to make this character as realistic to what someone would actually be playing as possible, but also a "worst case" sort of character. To this end:

• I started on a fresh server, with zero twinking of any kind.
• I purposefully logged out outside of an inn, so I had zero rested XP.
• I played like a reckless noob! I actually died several times, mostly during the Dark Storms and Skull rock quests.
• I leveled two gathering professions as I went, and also cooking. I actually want to use this character someday and I don't want her professions gimped! This seems reallistic enough as well, and probably added a decent chunk of time to my leveling.

Here are some screen shots of Mokrana in her journey to level 12:

Level 6 - Valley of Trials Complete
38min

Level 10 - Achievement
2hr 32min

Level 12 - Durotar Guide Complete
4h 14min

All in all, this isn't bad, but it isn't really as good as I had hoped. I disliked the bit of grinding that was required by the guide at certain points, and I know there is a little of that in the Barrens guide as well. We'll have to see how that goes.

I hope to do a speed test of the Barrens guide next, but that won't be for another couple weeks.

Horde Leveling Guide Testing, Part 2

So, if you read my previous post about my plans to test Jame's Leveling Guide Addon, you probably thought I was being pretty ambitious. I had originally planned to test, revise, and then speed test all of Jame's leveling guides in order from 1 to 80.

I since realized that this is sort of a waste. I have lots of alts at in between levels that I am really interested in leveling. There are also a LOT of people at WoW-Pro to help out with testing. I think it's probably a better idea to just level my alts normally and test and revise the addon as I go. At the end, if Jame hasn't already gotten around to it, I'll probably try my hand at speed testing the guide. But for now I think I'm going to be focusing on leveling my paladin Deedlet, who I hope one day to make a kick ass tank.

However, I'll go ahead and post here when I do make progress on the addon. My google site is already linked on this blog, and you can check it to see my most recent revisions.

Since my last post, I've updated two guides:

• Arathi Highlands (35-37) - Added coords when needed, added missing turn-in, various small note fixes.
• Desolace (37-38) - Added coords when needed, fixed some broken notes and other broken steps, added some notes and details for clarity (particularly when NOT taking a follow up to a quest).

I'll continue to post here when I update guides, and especially when I start speed-testing.

Durotar Guide Revamp

I've finished my first wave of revisions for the Durotar portion of the WoW-Pro leveling guides. It can be found here, on my google site. I'll be uploading all my revisions to this site as I do them, for Jame to put into the next release of the addon as he so chooses.

Summary of major changes:

• Added lots of coordinates where they were missing, even when it was sort of obvious where to go - the idea is completely streamlined leveling where all you do is follow the arrow
• Added all class quests from level 1-10. Some will be continued in the next guide, if they take players into the Barrens.
• Clarified and updated a few notes, added notes if it seemed pertinent.
• Rearranged a couple of things for more streamlined questing.
• Corrected mistakes in spelling of a few quests, and a few wrong quest IDs, which were causing auto-complete, coordinate, or quest gathering issues.
• Added a couple missing steps, where quests were not turned in.

I do want to thank and give credit to Clearasil, who did the original coding for this section. While it needed some revisions, it was overall very nice and a great backbone to build off of. I am NOT looking forward to starting from scratch in some of the later guides.

I'll be speed testing this section again later, but that's it for tonight. Hope you folks enjoy it!

Horde Leveling Guide Testing

I've decided to help Jame (of Jame's Leveling Guides) out with his new addon by testing (and writing, where guides are missing) the Horde side of the addon. Following Jame's example, I'm going to first revise a section, then speed test it with a fresh, non-rested character. Since Jame is using a Human Paladin on the Alliance side, I'm thinking of using an Orc Shaman for Horde - that matches the traditional achtypes nicely :)

Here is a tentative order by which I will test the guides:

• Durotar - Zerinj's Orc/Troll Starter (1-12) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• The Barrens - Hosho's Barrens (12-20) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (21-31) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (31-41) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (41-51) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (41-51) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide (51-60) - Writing - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Hellfire Peninsula - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Zangarmarsh - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Terokkar Forest - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Nagrand - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Blade's Edge Mountains - Writing - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Netherstorm - Writing - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Howling Fjord (70-71) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Borean Tundra (71-73) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Dragonblight (73-75) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Jame's Guide - Grizzly Hills (75-77) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Shinke's Tauren Starter (1-12) - Writing - Speed Testing
• Snowflake's Blood Elf Starter (1-12) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Snowflake's Ghostlands Guide (13-21) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Manovan's Undead Starter (1-12) - Revisions - Speed Testing
• Sinvelknight's Silverpine Guide (13-21) - Writing - Speed Testing
• Jame's Death Knight Guide - Writing - Speed Testing

Note that some of these may be done by other WoW-Pro people before I get to them.

I know this is quite a hefty list, and I don't have any dates set for when I will be finishing each one. I have a pretty busy schedule as a college student, but hopefully I can get a good chunk of them complete for Jame while he works on the Alliance side. The final version will of course still be subject to Jame's approval, but by making sure these guides are up to his standards, I hope to streamline this process so he can get back to writing the guides we all love!

The Leveling Interlude

As a raiding guild, AEAE has had to make some changes while our members level in Northrend. We want to keep folks active and interested in the guild while they level, but our normal activity - raiding - is obviously not available yet. I've been brainstorming some other fun stuff that we can do:

• Have a leveling contest, with cheers and recognition for the first to each level.
• Organize LOTS of instance runs, to keep group skills up.
• Continue our screenshot contest - there are lots of great scenes in Northrend.
• Level in groups - it's both fun and more efficient.

Despite the urge to rush to 80 and raid, there are a lot of folks (myself included) who want to enjoy the content while it's new - too soon we will be burnt out on it. AEAE has always been a guild that played to have fun, not just to be the best - enjoying leveling to 80 is part of that.

In other news, leveling my resto druid is very very slow. I tried going boomkin but was sadly bad at it (like really bad). I am debating whether to continue with my druid right now or bring up my rogue to 80, or even start my death knight.