CHANGES!!!!

Many changes in this week. Some good, some bad, and some totally unexpected. Awny the rogue has taken all of my non-raiding time. I absolutely love PVP on this killing machine. I went from a Combat Swords spec to a Mut/Prep build and I am loving it. While the PVE spec wasn't ideal for PVP, it got the job done and let me experiment. I'm still working on gear for this toon, but I'm learning a great deal in how to dispatch loads of Horde. I still die from the occassional enemy rogue and the whirlwinding warrior. I was so happy to find my first rogue in stealth and sap him before he could get to me :D

Much more update later in the week when I get some more time :)

Time is Flying

This whole addon thing is going a lot slower than I had hoped for. So instead of learning the Addon Studio, I'm going to shoot for looking at other addons and hacking them up for use. I still need to start programming for my Java test, so the addon might be delayed. No clue yet.

In Wow, Awny has hit 77 and she is starting in on the Argent Tournament. She still has most of Sholazar, and all of ZD, Storm Peaks, and Icecrown to level in. She also got her Cold Weather Flying and is flying around on a slow mount. Eventually she will get an epic. I have the gold to buy it, just not sure I want to spend all that gold right now. With the changes coming soon, I might as well wait it out to see what to do next.

After Awny hits 80 my plan is to get a Shaman up to 80 and then my Death Knight some time. The Death Knight is almost level 71 and after getting to 70 he's done almost solely the Jewelcrafting dailies.

More news when I have some more time :)

-Neo

Name change

I have updated the name to this blog. The story behind it is pretty funny. I was in Heroic: Culling of Stratholme and things were going fine. Being a tailor and having the Northrend Scavenging ability (allows you to pick up extra cloth) I often wait until everything is looted to see if there is any extra cloth on the mob. Well, there was a whole group of dead mobs that I went to go loot the extra cloth off of. I didn't notice that the rest of my group was dead. They asked what happened and all I could say was, "Sorry, I was distracted by the sparklies."

Addon update:

Installing Visual Studio 2008 now
Installing the WoW Addon Studio after that
Working on addon after all that


I am still working on my Sun Certified Java Programmer. I have slowed down on the studying for that to work on a new sign for where my mother works.

In WoW I have cut down on my dailies considerably. I have run out of reasons for doing the ones with rep tied to them. I have instead started working on my rogue and getting her to 80.

Wow, I'm getting lazy :)

I am finally updating this blog. Things have been crazy around here. I've been doing lots of dailies and studying for the Java Certified Programmer certification. So, while I update my video card drivers (apparently Windows 7 doesn't like the drivers that it picked out) I will attempt to update this blog.

I'm still healing as Discipline. I've gotten to the point where I know what is going to kill my mana, and how to keep a decent amount when stretched on healing. I've also gotten the Dual Spec situated and have a max-dps/raid shadow build. I've finished all of my WotLK reps (minus Oracles/mean guys) and the Argent Tournament event.

Summer Goals:

Work on Priest gear
Get Awny the rogue to 80 and kicking butt
Get Necroneo the DK to 80 and earning his keep in Neo Enterprises
Do nothing with the warlock


Don't get me wrong, I was a die-hard warlock fan until Wrath. It was then I realized that I was getting the short end of the stick and stopped playing him. With the lack of heals in the guild, it made sense to try something new and take on a healing priest. I will return to the warlock, just not any time soon.


And to round out the post, an addon review :)

Spartan UI:

Official Site

Just wow on this one! I discovered the use of different artwork in UIs a long time ago. I used kgpanels (and the the previous version eepanels) for a long time. After I became fed up with just using a simple bar, I started using BTex. I used this one for 6 months or so. It was good, but it lacked the *flash* that I wanted. So in stepped Spartan UI.

This UI mod is BEAUTIFUL! It looks decent on my 15" widescreen laptop. It was designed for large, HD monitor use, but it looks very clean when not at max res too. I did opt to use Dominos for the action bars instead of the included Bartender4 for the simple fact I have used Dominos for much longer. This did not affect setting up too much, you just have to fiddle with the bars to make them fit nicely into the slots in Spartan.

I also did not use the included mini map because after using so many different mini map addons, I could not get the Spartan one to work properly (probably just because I'm somewhat lazy and didn't want to reset the settings in MoveAnything). I opted for the appropriately named SexyMap. Nothing sexier when it comes to mini maps.

The addon also has a couple neat features. You can turn off those ugly party frames :) I use Grid so it's not a big deal. The stace/micro-menu/pet bars have a nice little popup that covers them when not moused over. There's also a decent amount of room to put various addons that you may need into the bar.

Some of my complaints are the chat frame, the mini map fix and the XP/rep bars. My chat frame cannot fit onto Spartan UI. It's not that big of a deal, just something that would please me visually. The mini map has a fix for the achievement box, but gives a bug all of the time. The XP/rep bars cannot be easily disabled. So if you are at 80, or have maxed the reps you want, you still have to deal with the little bars and their tooltips.

This is definitely an addon that I would recommend for anyone trying to spice up their UI.



The big bar at the bottom (the art, the unit frames not grid, and popup part) are all Spartan UI. If you have any questions about my current UI, post them in a reply :)

Addon of the Week: April 14, 2009

It's patch 3.1 time and I can't wait to get home :) Unlike every other person around I will not be talking about 3.1 until I've had some time with it. So, I will implement a weekly post on those terrible patch days :)

Addon for this week:

Minimalist

Auto:

• Auto-Ignore Duels - As it says, auto ignores duel requests.
• Auto-Repair - Similar to DurabilityFU
• Auto-Resurrect - Automatically accepts Resurrections
• Auto-Sell Grey Items - Similar to Auto-Profit, though you cannot add new items, that I am aware of.
• Auto-Skip Useless Gossips - Skips 'extra' vendor chatter and goes right to the sell screen.
• Smart Taxi - Bypassese taxi chat box, auto dismounts and un-shifts druids.
  

Interface:

• Better Reputation - Displays reputation numbers on the reputation window, and displays progress, when you are awarded reputation, in the chat box.
• Disable Gryphons - Removes the Gryphon graphic from Default action bars.
• Display Quest Levels - Displays quest levels.
• Fixed Inspect - Removes the distance checking on inspect.
• Honor Progress Percent - Shows % on honor progression.
  

Chat:

• Fix Arrow Keys - Lets your use [Left] and [Right] to move through the text you are typing needing to hold down the [Alt] key.
• Hide Buttons - Hides the buttons on the chat windows
• Move Input Box - Moves the chat input box to the top of the chat frame
• Mouse Scrolling - Enables using the mouse wheel to scroll chat frames.
• Reduce Chat Clutter - Shortens chat channel names, IE. [Guild] becomes (G), [Party] becomes (P), etc.
• Time Stamps - Adds a time stamp to messages.
  

MiniMap:

• Hide Clutter - Turns off the zoom in/out buttons, titles box and the sun dial.
• Location X, Y - Adds your X, Y coordinates to the lower portion of the minimap.
• MouseWheel Zoom - Allows you to use the mouse wheel to zoom the minimap.
  

I mostly use this addon for the auto options. I hate dueling (especially as a pve specced disc priest). The only problem I have had is when I switch to low level alts and they are learning how to use the flight paths and the npc has the quest, I have to turn off the skip gossip portion. Most of the other options I have addons that take care of the function Minimalist has. I can see this as an addon most inexperienced addon users should get. It doesn't have terribly confusing instructions, doesn't get in the way, and still allows for much of the ui to remain stock. A user like myself might already have addons covering these things, but it's still a nice little addon to have.


On another note: I have started work on my own addon. Don't expect it to be out soon. I finish this semester on the 28th and will be moving back home for the summer where I will be looking for employment. I won't say what it will be for as well, but I will say that I hope that many raiders in my guild will use it at one point and I haven't found an addon like this that wasn't outdated or not on major sites. Based on success and reviews from my guild, I will consider releasing it publicly. :)

-Neo

Time to Kick Off This Blog

I think it's about time to kick off this blog. I have let it just sit there for some time and since I started a project in one of classes this semester using blogger.com, I will be using what I learned from there to help me get this started.

So a little about me

I am currently attending Florida Gulf Coast University (yes I realize you've probably never heard of it :) ) in pursuit of a BS in Computer Science. I have lived in Florida all of my life. Before WoW I had never really thought of playing a MMO. I didn't like the idea of a monthly fee, or the MMO part of it. I was, and to some extent still are, a solitary gamer.

So Neokia the Warlock was born 2 years back. I played him for a good long time, looking at everything I could to help me be a better player. Some time after I hit 70 the guild I'm in (Soldiers of Fortune) started raiding Kara. It was good fun and helped me even more to become what I am today. During my Kara raiding time I started a baby Shadow Priest. This was mostly to kill the downtime in summer. I found myself reaching 70 much faster that time around. I mostly did dailies and did a little raiding with Neombra.

WotLK came around and I swore to myself that I would get Neokia up top first and Neombra (staying Shadow) would be second. I got Neokia up to 80 and was very disappointed where the Warlock class was heading, so I started on my Priest. I breezed through Northrend, still having much of Icecrown and Storm Peaks left to go. Then the unthinkable happened. I specced to a healer. Mostly it came from Plusheal.com's members experiences with Discipline in the Beta.

I got into healing pretty slow at first, doing a couple of the WotLK regular dungeons before moving onto heroics, and now I can say I have cleared Naxx-10 and OS-10 with my guild and we are now working on EoE and Sarth+1 on 10.