E3 2006 - WoW Dev Interviews - Community Questions
 

There is a very good chance that I will be attending E3 this year. As such, I've already arranged for one exclusive interview with WoW and am hoping to set up more. So on that note:

This is the official wishes, bugs and comments/feedback thread I will take with me when (if?) I head to Los Angeles May 10th - 12th for this year's E3.

Please be as descriptive as you can. No flaming, no whining, no commenting on other people’s feedback. Only post things related to the interface. Thanks!

Please remember to post details & examples. Without that its going to be near impossible for me to convey your post.

Only interface questions? I was hoping to ask about possable rogue revamp/fixes (hint) but....can we get them to stop breaking everything everytime they do a major patch? :p

Edit: mod/interface stuff that is

Let me start with a Have Fun.

For the rest, I think the default WoW interface is nice and moving along great. All I would like to see is having more elements of it be redone. Like the Guild and rep interface have been. Things to look at would be the Action house and the spellbook.

[edit 1]

Mutual friends, people who have each other in their friends list. When you are mutual friends the information displayed in the friends list is extended to same information available in the guild interface. Possibly more like subzone etc.

some players have asked for more than 16 debuff slots but i think there can be another way to get more efficient:

Could it be possible to stack debuffs from different players but same rank and same debuff? With this the number of different debuffs would be increased slightly.

What about an information in Buff/Debuff functions to get the type of that Buff/Debuff?

Why not including a option for battlegroundplayers to join automatically to the BG? Maybe with an option to set the time-to-join.

It would be nice if you can create hints and POI on your worldmaps like some AddOns do.

Also a possibility to write down your own log (to create a diary or to save important notes).

Thinking about more questions ;)

My wishlist from most to least desired:

Return the ability to join LFG channel from other zones.

It frustrates me to no end to be chained to Ironforge when filling out a group or looking for one to tag along to. If the Blizzard-created LFG tool isn't on the very near horizon, this ability needs to go back in ASAP. I'd like to be out doing stuff as I use LFG, not hanging around the city. I'd also like to fill out a slot if someone left, without sending someone back to the city and losing two instead of one.

A way to determine what is in an actionbar slot.

Currently there's no way to definitively tell if a macro, item or spell is in an action slot. It's something we have to infer. Is the action one line? It cooould be a macro, unless the user has tooltips set to minimum info. Is the macro many lines and its tooltip is the same as the tooltip of a spell? It coooould be a spell, unless they're using a mod that expands that tooltip's info depending on spell name matches. I suggest:

texture,name,type,id = GetActionSlotInfo(slot)
texture : texture of the action
name : name of the action
type : type of that action, one of "MACRO" "SPELL" or "ITEM"
id: for "MACRO", the macro slot id. For "SPELL", the spell id. For item, the item id or link.

Macros can share the same name and the same texture so a way of identifying which macro is on the slot is fairly important.

The ability to put non-usable items on an action bar.

I'd like to put scourgestones, herbs, un'goro crystals and bloodpetal sprouts onto action bars so I can see a count of how many I've got.

A way to determine what is on the cursor.

Currently there are three routes to determining what's on the cursor:

1. Hook all the pickups and then note where and what was picked up, with logic for a previous empty cursor or a swap. This can create some pretty enormous hook chains for a drag-and-drop UI.
2. Drop it onto an action slot and then try to infer its result, then pick it back up. See the second wishlist item.
3. Scan bags/inventory to see if only one item is locked. If so and CursorHasItem(), then that locked item is likely what's on the cursor.

It would be nice to get a function like:

texture,name,type,id = GetCursorInfo()

Make ammo slot return a link.

Currently one of the best ways to get information about what you're wearing is GetInventoryItemLink() and GetItemInfo() from that. I understand the default UI doesn't need GetItemInfo so we're lucky to have that.

GetInventoryItemLink() has always returned nil for the ammo slot. The only way to determine what ammo you're wearing is by making a tooltip of that slot and scanning it. This is a very slow process and very frustrating setting up a systematic way of dealing with inventory and then screeching the brakes to do a tooltip scan.

A way to notify the user outside of WoW that a BG queue is up.

This can be protected like movement functions are, so it doesn't need to give any slippery ability to mods. AV queues on Hyjal can take 4-6+ hours. A popup or the game automatically maximizing is sorely needed.

A function to return whether a player is on a mount or not.

This can and has been done by many mods, so it's not a failing of the UI. But the process is slow and awkward and clumsy and the need to know this is so ubiquitous that it would make sense to skip all the tooltip scanning and buff texture collisions and just get the UI to say yes or no if we're on a )*!@& mount.

I suppose it's not a UI request, but the simple ability to allow people to change their own Public note without giving them the ability to change anyone's Public note would certainly be nice... It drives me mad that something this simple has never been taken care of before, surely I'm not the only person to have noticed this shortcoming.

Cheers, and best of luck on your trip to E3!

Niryk of Dark Iron

Along with Gello's requests


Show a macro's internal id
Currently GetMacroInfo() is based off the displayed index in the Macro frame, but macros themselves have a consistant, unique identifying number. All of the game's internals appear to be based off this number, and it only gets translated in to the sorted index when displayed to the interface. I'd love to have this internal index be the fifth return of GetMacroInfo();

name, texture, body, local, id = GetMacroInfo(index);

Subsequently, a GetMacroIndexFromId(id) would be nice as well, but not as important. This is mainly for dealing with keeping references to same name macros since the macro sorting appears to be by name only and the order of same-name macros in the index can change each time a macro is added or removed from the list.


GetInboxItemLink
Another "why can't we get an item id here?" place. On one hand this one is understandable since you should technically be able to take the item from your mailbox and link it then. An example of a valid use for this that Iriel came up with is COD items. Being able to link an item you receive COD to your guild / friends to ask if you should accept it for the price. You currently can't link the item unless you accept the COD.

Another example would be you're out of bag space, but that's probably a lesser concern for Blizzard.

itemLink = GetInboxItemLink(index)

You can decide whether this is considered interface related or not, but i think it is.

'WoWBuddy' or a way to talk on select channels from outside of game would be a spectactular boon to World of Warcraft. Even if it is just whispers, party, and guild, this would make communication and organization for guilds much easier. Maybe have a jabber server that we can connect to even?:)

OK, I'll add some requests here, too :)
functions to identify tooltip data
A function to tell what kind of data is shown in a tooltip (unit, spell, item, 100% custom) and another function to get further information eg a link to the item shown. This would reduce the amount o hooked function wrt toooltips significantly and would also give as the oportunity to make sure all tooltips are catched. Currently this can only be done by matching the tooltips first line against a list of known items that has to be localized :/

more unlocalized values
having more functions returning non localized data that can be localized with other functions would give addon authors better ways to make their addons compatible with other language versions without having to worry about the exact terms used in localization.

One of the biggest problems I have with the current buff system is if I and 3 other priests SWP the mob, I can never tell which one is mine (or when mine runs out) One of the things I would like to see is a way to identify if it's my debuff. At the moment it returns a flag to say if the buff/debuff isCastable, I would simply like another flag isPlayers, then maybe I (or they) could put a green border around the buff icon to show me that it's my debuff i'm looking at. (oh, and stacking sounds cool too)

Oh, and a question from the wowwiki page on FollowUnit(): Is there a way to StopFollowUnit()? No? Would it be possible to add one?

Wish list is nice. Feedback is good too though. You know, things like:

a) What was your goal when you created the interface?
b) What prompted the decision to remove "X"?
c) How do you feel about "Y"?
d) What are your plans for the interface in the future?
e) What started you in designing interfaces?
f) If you were a tree .... ;)

etc and so on.

I have no problem with taking a list of requests, but I'd love to be able to ask other questions as well. Don't forget here folks, it is an "interview".

Spell FeedBack
CHAT_MSG_SPELL_FRIENDLY_PLAYER_BUFF is triggered whenever someone outside of your party begins to cast a spell. You get the "<Player> begins to cast <spell>." message in your combat log. Question: Why does this not happen with CHAT_MSG_SPELL_PARTY_BUFF?

CHAT_MSG_SPELL_HOSTILE_PLAYER_BUFF triggers when a raid member heals you. Why is that?

What do you think about the empirical data mods such as the so called Threat Meter?

Now that you've taken out the ability to SpellStopCasting() in an OnUpdate (to presumably stop Mana Conserve type functionality), how do you feel about the new mods that display all the heals currently being spammed?

Where do you see the UI progressing in the future?
Are there any mods you are considering for the default UI?
Do you want to see more of the player base use mods? If not, why not? If so, why and which?

i'll come up with more at some point.

I'll help you out, however obvious these may be..

• Is there any certain aspect of the UI that you're immensely proud of, or is there anything that has turned out better than you had originally planned?
• On a related note, what aspects of the current UI would you say you're "happy" with, and most likely won't be seeing any development on in the near future? Conversly, are there any aspects of the UI that you feel could use some more work, or that you plan to make improvements on in the near future?
• Does your UI team have a motto, or a stated methodology, that you try to employ during development?
• Do you have any tidbits of forthcoming changes/additions that the UI community (either addon developers or end-users) would find exciting?
• We realize you've been working on an improved LFG system for quite some time, and with the change to channel functionality that now disallows us from accessing certain channel from out-of-zone (LFG being one), many have become frustrated with trying to find a group to the point of simply not grouping. Can you give us any updates or news pertaining to what you've been working on?

Well, it unfortunately looks like I won't be attending after all. Sorry guys. Will try again in the future ...

=/

What was your Intention to create the UI in that state? Have you looked at some specific idols or did you just use a 'What looks cool' idea?

Did you play with the standard UI or did you have found some mods, who will be more comfortable for your playstyle?

When did you look at a mod from the community? Is there any special point of interest to get your attention?