Scams to avoid.
Just a quick note to let you know that I have added a new page to the site. WoW Scams to Avoid. There are plenty of World of Warcraft scam artists out there, and I hope to include a list of how these scams operate so that you may avoid falling into their trap.
Let everyone you know, know about this page, so that they won’t fall into the trap either. If you know of a scam not listed, please, let me know. You can contact me at juices@murlocguide.com and include, if you have them, screenshots and a description of how the scam works. I will post it here for others to learn to avoid.
TinyTip
I always thought that it would be cool if, when mousing over another player, you would get a popup of useful information. Apparently, so did the author of TinyTip.
With TinyTip, you can get all sorts of information: Buffs on the player, Debuffs on the player, Guild name, health, mana, color coded background for guildmates and friends, even an ability to add ‘Friendly’ or ‘Hostile’ to the tag for those that are colorblind. Believe it or not, a large percentage of people are colorblind, and a mod like this could help!
So I loaded it up, and started to use it.
A quick /ttip brought up an extensive customization menu. I can’t begin to tell you how customizable this tooltip is. I wish other add-ons were this customizable. I could turn virtually anything i wanted to know on or off. I especially liked the scalability of the tooltip to insanely small sizes if I wanted. I could even resize the buffs independently of the tooltip! Talk about customization! This author did it right when it came to customizing the add-on.
Here is what it looks like in use. Tarcy is a fellow guild member, and listed as a friend. Here’s how it looked when I turned on the buffs and debuffs.
So, with this add-on, you simply mouse over someone, and you can get a wealth of information. Unfortunately, however, it seems to be broken in more than one way. In this picture, you can see that you don’t see a Prayer of Fortitude, yet, I had cast it on our group 5 minutes before. I double checked to be sure it was still active, and it was.
Beyond this, there is an annoying error that I couldn’t seem to find a way to stop from happening. Well, it wasn’t really an error.. let me clarify.
This add-on works fairly well when there are only a couple people around. however, when you mouseover a large bundle of people, or, a line of people fairly quickly, the tooltip doesn’t regenerate each time. Instead, it ads to the tooltip with each pass. For example, I could mouse over Tarcy here, left, then right, then left, then right. At that point, I would have a single tooltip with FOUR entires inside of it, all of them being Tarcy, with her information each time. That, to me, is a bug, and a bad one.
Beyond that, there’s the annoyance factor. I played with the tip for a while, but eventually had to simply turn it off because I just couldn’t stand the tooltip coming up all the damned time. It was severely distracting, and if i were mousing over multiple mobs, I would end up with a tooltip taking up the entire length of my screen, filled with different mob names (or several duplicates).
I think the author has something here, but it still needs some work. One individual tooltip per player or mob is all that is needed, instead of adding them to an existing tooltip, expanding it’s size, and creating nasty lists. There also needs to be some way to have it work for mobs only, or players only, or SOMETHING. Just trying to do the nightly bank/mailbox/auction house run was HORRENDOUS with this add on activated.
Again, a good idea, but needs some work.
You can grab it here.
I give it one and a half murlocs.
Fizzwidget Autocraft
I don’t know why my guild always looks to me to make all of the potions we need before a raid. Perhaps I never should have mentioned that I was a 300 alchemist, and have been collecting mats for the last 6 months.
So, here I sit, making potions for everyone. This is getting old. My stomach is growling. I think i need a sandwich. If only I could walk away from my crafting for a second to make myself something to eat. Instead, I’ll probably just sit here, and die of starvation and dehydration. At least my guildies will have their potions.
Sound familiar? No? Ok, well, haven’t you ever had a lot of stuff to craft in World of Warcraft (game name inserted for blatent search engine recognition), but hated that you had to sit there and make it all? If so, then you will like this little add-on.
Introducing, Fizzwidget Autocraft. No more are you tied down to your crafting window. With this add-on, your CREATE and CREATE ALL buttons are replaced with QUEUE and QUEUE ALL buttons. This way, you can gather all of the materials you need to make all of the items that you need, and queue them all up. As you queue them up, a small icon is displayed at the bottom of your screen, showing the queue items in the order they are queued.
In the example picture, I have queued up Goblin Rocket Fuel and Superior Mana Potion. Pretty cool, huh? When I click the RUN QUEUE button, my queue takes off, and I can walk away from my machine to grab that Balance Bar and Red Bull I have been craving, knowing that when I return, I will have magically crafted all of the items that I need. If I spot something in the queue that I didn’t mean to add to the queue, I can simply click on that item in the queue to remove it.
Another cool feature is the ability to pause, and restart your queue later. When your items are being made, the bottom of your trade window changes.
See that little PAUSE button? I can click it, and do something else, and return to my queue later. Maybe my auction just sold, and I just can’t wait to grab that cash from the mailbox.
You see that BUY button? It’s a nifty feature. If you leave your tradeskill window open while talking to a vendor, clicking it will buy the items needed to make the item you have highlighted in your tradeskill window. If you change the number to the number of items you wish to make, it will buy enough ingredients to make that many items. Another nifty feature!
I have to note that for demonstration purposes, I used my alchemist. It works with ANY crafting skill, so if you craft a lot, this just might be the add-on for you.
You can grab it here.
I give it 4 Murlocs.
Fishing Buddy
So, I took up fishing today. I had fished as other characters before, but never really did it for more than food for my hunter’s pet. Now, however, I decided that it could be helpful to my alchemist, so I bought a fishing pole.
It didn’t take me long to determine that fishing, while really, really, really, really boring, can get confusing fast. I immediately realized that I would want to know where I caught different fish, so that if I had to find them again, I could.
Along came fishing buddy.
With Fishing Buddy, I keep a running history of all of the places I have fished, and what I caught there (even the non-fish items). I can also sort this list by fish type, in case I am looking for a specific fish, as I likely will as an alchemist as only a couple are worthwhile to me.
This simple feature alone is worth installing Fishing Buddy for. But that isn’t all it does. In fact, in my mind, two of the most important features of Fishing Buddy are it’s Easy Lure and Easy Cast features. Easy lure will monitor your shiny bauble, etc., and reapply one when it runs out. Makes life much easier on us fishermen who are zombies into the cast, catch, cast, catch mode of fishing. Easy Cast is my favorite. It allows me to simply right click on the water to cast my line. Saves me an actionbar spot, since i no longer have to break out my fishing icon from my spellbook. Nor do I have to move my lazy hand too far to click back and forth. It’s a lazy fishermans dream come true.
While you are fishing, you will see a running tally of stats, including the time you 
have wast..errr..spent fishing, and a tally of what you have caught with percentages. No more lying about those catches, Fishing Buddy can prove you wrong!
Who knew there were so many options in fishing? Apparently, Fishing Buddy knew! It’s options tab is chock full of nifty on/off features. Don’t like the Easy Lure? Turn it off here. Want it to tie into Gatherer? Great, it has this option, just turn it on. I won’t go into all of the features because, surprisingly, they are numerous.
There is a reason that Fishing Buddy is the number one downloaded fishing add-on for World of Warcraft. It’s very good at what it does. I didn’t even mention the ‘fishing outfit’ window, which allows you to set up a special outfit for fishing, and switch to it with the click of a button.
Remember, buddies don’t let buddies fish without Fishing Buddy.
You can grab it here.
I give it 4 Murlocs.
Fizzwidget ReagentCost
I’m sitting here, right now, with the beginnings of a cold threatening to emerge. Ugh. I sure wish I could just make myself a healing potion to make everything better. Unfortuantely, I can’t afford to. How do I know? Enter Fizzwidget ReagentCost.
Fizzwidget ReagentCost tells me how much making one of my potions costs by utilizing data that it gathers from one of the following add-ons: Auctioneer, KC-Items or AuctionMatrix. So, yes, you have to have one of those installed to make it work.
Now, before you decide that this review doesn’t apply to you, I have to make sure you know that this is NOT just for alchemists. It is for ANY profession.
For those that don’t know, the auction house add-ons listed above will scan the auction house, and gather a current list of prices for items. This add-on then takes that data, combines it with the list of ingredients for the item you want to make, and determines, approximately, how much it will cost to make. You can compare that cost to the selling price on the auction house to determine how profitable an item will be. The cost is displayed in your crafting window for convenience.
This is a useful mod for anyone crafting for sale on the auction house. You might think that that one thing you are making is bringing you to riches, but with this, you can know for sure. In fact, you just might find something that rakes in the gold!
So, it won’t take this cold away from me, but it might make me a few bucks in WoW. I’m ok with that.
You can grab it here.
I give it 3 and a half Murlocs.
WoW TexasHoldem
So, you’re standing around, waiting for the raid group to form. What do you do? You and your friends have been ready for two hours now. Those damned unreliable priests are taking forever to get here. They KNEW the raid was scheduled for two hours ago.. but they have to take care of ‘just one more thing..’ *sigh*
You could use a few Elune stones, and watch the noobs stop in the circle of light trying to figure out what the heck it is. You could start dancing, and getting naked. I mean.. what else do you have to do while you wait?
Well, how about a game of poker? Yes, that’s right, I said poker. Texas Hold’em, in fact. You know, the game that has gotten so damned popular on television that they now call it a sport. (Don’t get me started on THAT one..) Anyway.. back to the game. You and your ready friends don’t have to be bored any longer. Now, one of you starts a game by clicking on a radial button around the mini-map, and everyone else joins you by typing /holdem dealername. You start with 500 chips (Sorry, it isn’t using WoW gold.. though that would be REALLY cool.) and play progresses as if you were sitting around a table, blinds and all.
The game, itself, is actually pretty ordinary. If you have ever played Texas Holdem before, you will easily understand how to play.
One issue, that is a big one for me, is the button on the mini-map. It is movable, which is a good thing, because it’s default location tends to stomp on one of my other add-on buttons. So, I will move it to a much safer location, but the next time I log in, there it is again, blocking me from my more favorite add-on. Yeah, it’s a little thing. But over time, it’s an annoying little thing. I wasn’t able to find anywhere where I could lock the button, a feature that is needed. Of course, I would recommend you combine this add-on with something like LoadIt so that you can load and unload it at will. You certainly don’t want to keep it loaded, eating away valuable memory while playing.
In the end, it’s a neat distraction, and fun to see yet another interesting thing that you can do with the World of Warcraft User Interface, but seriously, it’s just poker. I’m not paying $15.00 a month to play a less than stellar version of poker. Feel free to grab it, and use it like it is intended, as a small time waster. Don’t expect anything more than that.
You can grab it here.
I give it 2 and a half Murlocs.
EquipCompare
I have to thank Zil of Stormrage for reminding me of this add-on. It was the very first mod I ever downloaded and used, and has been on my system since the beginning. Why did I need reminded of it? Well, it’s one of those add-ons that once you install it, you forget that it is an add-on and not part of the game itself. In fact, it’s a wonder why Blizzard hasn’t added it as a standard addition to the UI already. It really should be.
Thousands of players are already familiar with this one, but for those that aren’t, here’s the quick sell. Have you ever been going through the auction house, or a vendor, looking for just the right uber-weapon for your character, and you have to switch between your character sheet, and the item, constantly, to see what each item’s stats are? Is this staff better than the one I am currently using?
Wouldn’t it be convenient if, every time you moused over an item, no matter where it is, if a window came up that also showed you the comparative item you currently had equipped? You know, so you could COMPARE the two items? I *KNOW* you answered yes to those questions. So, without further ado….
It works in the auction-house. It works on vendors. It works on corpses. It even works on chat items! It simply works. And before long, you will be so used to it, that you will forget that it is an add-on, just like i did. I guarantee you, once you load this add-on onto your system, you will never unload it. It’s too good. Again, it is so good, that I can’t understand, for the life of me, why Blizzard hasn’t already included it within the game. I suspect they will one of these days.
You can grab it here. If you don’t grab it, you will regret it.
I give it 5 Murlocs.
Thanks everyone!
I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone that has visited thus far, and that has offered suggestions. I really appreciate the positive response to this site, and the suggestions. I will be working hard to implement most of your ideas, as well as some of my own, and still try to keep up with reviewing add-ons. It should be a fun ride.
Now, I need your help, again. First, click on the ‘Suggest and Add-on’ link to the right. That will send me an email, where you can give me a list of your favorite add-ons to review. I currently pick add-ons based on my experience with them, or if they just sound interesting. I would like to include your favorites in my giant list of reviews (Yeah, laugh now, but one day, it will be giant, and this post won’t seem so funny!)
Next, I need help getting the word out. The site has only been here for a week or so now, and has experienced REALLY good traffic, but I need help making it better. Let people know we exist! I do believe this might be the only review site for add-ons, which means we have a head start on making it the biggest and best available. Tell everyone you know. That said, though, please don’t spam it in the WoW servers, as I’m not looking to annoy anyone.. but just mention it to your friends or guildmates. Eventually, we’ll have the entire WoW community here, checking us out!
If you like the reviews, or agree/disagree with a review, go ahead and post a comment. I promise, I’m not here for flame wars.. I’m here to give an honest opinion. My opinion will not always agree with your’s. That’s what makes them opinions. Everybody’s got one…. and you know what that makes them like! So go ahead, post yours.. (Your opinion, not your other thing!)
Sanity Inventory
j00w1lld13: Man, this quest makes me find frost oil.
You: Oh, don’t worry about it. I have some of that in my bank. Let’s just hearth there, and get it, then fly back here.
*hearth*
You: Crap. Sorry man, I could have sworn it was here.
j00w1lld13: Damn.. ok, ok.. I’ll go get it off the auction house.
j00w1lld13: DAMN! They want 1 gold for this stuff! Are they crazy? Oh well. Gotta get this quest done cause I’m uber leet and all.
“You have just won the auction for Frost Oil.”
You: Oh, wait.. here it is! Don’t buy it, I have it!
Ok. Admit it. Something like this has happened to you before. You are looking through your bags or bank, logging in and out of different characters, trying to find that one item you just KNOW you have somewhere, but you can’t find it. Of course, when you finally find it, you no longer need it. Frustrating, isn’t it?
This icon will help you with this type of problem. Sanity Inventory isn’t an inventory replacement, it’s an inventory enhancement. It will list everything in your bags, bank, mail AND your other characters, and allow you to sort them by various means. Find out quickly if you actually have what you think you do.
It also has a really nifty ‘compress’ feature which will take your items, and combine them into full stacks in your inventory. This is especially handy when you are carrying multiple items with the same icon, or when your bags are full, and it is difficult to sort through your stuff, trying to make room for that oh so important purple item that you won.. but found that you had no room left in your packs. It’s amazing the amount of stuff you can miss in your inventory, and this add-on will find for you.
So, check it out. You just might be able to save your friend a gold or two.
j00w1lld13: Cool! Chuck Norris would use this add-on!
You can download it here.
I give it 3.5 Murlocs.
SimpleHealthFade
Ok gang, a quick and dirty one today.
SimpleHealthFade quite simply enables a feature that Blizzard originally put into WoW, but disabled for some reason. What it does is takes the healthbar of not only your targets, but of yourself, your party or raid groups, and fades it slowly to red as they lose health.
That’s it. That’s all it does. There’s no configuration. There’s no control panel of any sort. Just install it, and all of your health bars start to fade.
Why is this useful? Well, at a glance, you can see who needs healing first. Once you get comfortable with the add-on, you can see when YOU need to heal. It gives you a ‘level of healing’ graphical representation. How much health does a Superior Health Potion give me? How much does a Major Health Give me? Yeah, we know that all of you pocket calculator, protractor toting guys out there can give us the exact numbers involved, but for the casual player, this gives them something pretty to look at.
On a raid level, I think it helps your healing team determine the critical level of raid members as well. “Ok, healers, only heal when a player is orange to conserve mana”, etc.
I like this mod, and I think I’ll keep it. It isn’t fancy, it doesn’t do much, but it IS helpful and is kind of neat.
You can grab it here.
I give it 3 Murlocs.