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04-15-09, 05:45 AM   #1
symbiosis
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Question New Interface= No more Carbonite updates?

With the new interface in WOW will there be any further updates to carbonite? The interface for carbonite is much better as it displays the rewards at the end of the quest as well...after seeing the blizzard (WOW) quest tracker in action i disabled it and renabled carbonite (which was already running in the background). Maybe if blizzard didnt want us to use addons they should incorporate the better ones into WoW (or the most used ones) for bags and characters like Xperl and Arkinventory...but I suppose they are just lagging in that department. But back to the main question....are there going to be Carbonite updates? I know there is a donation tag instead of subscription...but that doesnt mean there will be updates (ie no cashflow...no production)

but hopefully
 
04-15-09, 06:44 AM   #2
Doomlord
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The Carbonite Team already stated their intention to continue with the development of Carbonite.

Also, if you look at the UI improvements in the past 3 years, you can see that a lot of addons became obsolete as their functionality was integrated in the default blizzard user interface. The most recent example is the (delayed) addition of the Wardrobe Manager (a la Outfitter).

I'm sure they ain't "lagging" in that.
 
04-15-09, 02:37 PM   #3
symbiosis
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Arrow

Sorry, i wasn't referring to the cabonite team being laggy, but blizzard....And my point was simply by that statement that some ppl had these addons several years ago, why didn't blizzard think of introducing them then? And get the authors input, with how to make them better?
 
04-16-09, 01:25 AM   #4
Unbelievable
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Re: Blizzards UI

I think I can say, hand on heart, that Blizzards efforts to update the default UI have fallen short of the mods they've attempted to clone in pretty much every single case. Basically, the way it tends to go is Blizzard is inspired by a popular mod. Players try Blizzard's interpretation and then immediately go back to the popular mod simply because it has more features, more flexibility and is usually closer to what the players actually want (given that those who care will have probably fed back to the mod developer re bugs, improvement ideas etc).

This begs the question, "Why don't Blizzard actually employ some of the mod developers to improve their UI?". And the answer? I really don't know.


Re: Carbonite update

Haavok's mentioned there's one in development. Hopefully we'll see a release that addresses the worst issues caused by WoW 3.1 patch soon. I'd rather not play WoW with a buggy Carbonite. By that I mean, I'd literally, rather not login to WoW until Carbonite is fixed.
 
04-16-09, 01:35 AM   #5
Doomlord
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Blizzard always wanted to have a simple interface that even my grandmother can use. That's the principle they guide their business to. If they add a lot of customization , it becomes more complex. See the discrepancy ? That's why they added support for external addons and they continue to develop their SDK.

If you're a granny, you ain't going to use addons. You're going to like the simple interface. If you are one of those gamers that actually care about their efficiency, you are going to use addons. Simple as that.
 
04-16-09, 02:06 AM   #6
Unbelievable
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Sure, but there comes a point when you have to ask if Blizzards default UI is fit for purpose.

- How many healers are out there that don't use something like Grid?
- How many warlocks out there don't play without something like Dotimer?
- How many hunters don't use something like Feed-o-matic instead of managing their pet like some absurd tamogotchi?
- How many players regularly use the Auction House without something like Auctioneer?
- How many altoholics run around trying to remember what tradecraft recipes each of their alts know instead of using RecipeBook or similar?
- Ad infinitum...

There's a point to all these mods. They fill gaps in the default UI. Gaps which in all honesty Blizzard should have filled 4 years ago. Auctioneer is a perfect example. Norganna suggested Blizzard add some auction statistics to the default UI. Blizzard did nothing. Norganna, sick of waiting, built Auctioneer. How granny unfriendly would it be for Blizzard to suggest market values of items based on the last, say 20 sales? Do they? No. But, I digress.

Surely it's inherently less complex if Blizzard actually incorporate features people need, with the flexibility they want, than players having to source mods, work out how to install them, work out how to configure them.. only for WoW to lose data when Blizzard's own anti-datamining system misfires because you try to loot the same item twice while lagging... And it's certainly preferable to granny playing in an arthritic default UI.

Let's be honest, the last 4 years have not treated the default UI kindly. It looks (aesthetically speaking) very dated, especially on large widescreen monitors.

Besides, who says a pretty and functional UI has to be inherently user unfriendly? Most mods work with little or no tweaking. E.g. For all of the complexity of Carbonite, it's perfectly usable in its default configuration.

Any in-house UI team could (and probably would) aim to hide most of the options from casual players by tucking them away in an Advanced Options tab or two... in much the same way most games hide advance graphics settings from you gran

Last edited by Unbelievable : 04-16-09 at 02:22 AM.
 
04-16-09, 02:12 AM   #7
schizophrena
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Originally Posted by Unbelievable View Post
Re: Blizzards UI

This begs the question, "Why don't Blizzard actually employ some of the mod developers to improve their UI?". And the answer? I really don't know.
Employing these people costs money, taking their ideas and codes; however - does not.

Yes, they want a simple UI, but they could/should add customization possibilities that aren't default that add to these functions that "gamers" will turn on.
 
04-16-09, 02:27 AM   #8
moloneyat
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Cool

carbonite 3.1 has been released!
 
 

WoWInterface » Featured Projects » Carbonite » Carbonite Archive » New Interface= No more Carbonite updates?

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