Hadar's Holy Hope - WOTLK Beta disccussion

[Hadar]

(I'm moving beta mod discussion out here.)

For WOTLK, here is how things are turning out:

Blessing circle is pretty much the same. It changes between regular and greater blessings by clicking the center button. The "top" 4 buttons are the blessing spells and the "bottom" 4 are the "Hand of" spells.

Seal circle is also similar in function as on live. The biggest change is that the center circle can cast on of the 3 different judgement spells. You toggle which one by right clicking the center. The center icon also changes depending on which judgement is chosen.

The Spec circle is giving me problems. With the addition of new spells, I've come to the conclusion that I'm out of room to add new buttons without making it look like crap. On live, the spec circle also has some core spells that any spec can use and that has always bugged me. This circle is very far from finished.

I'm toying with the idea of a "DPS" oriented circle. It'd primarily have buttons for offensive oriented spells and abilities. Judgement in the center (working like it does in the seal circle) with spells around it like Divine Storm, Crusader strike, consecration, etc. The issue I have with this is that it is mainly aimed at Retribution spec and others wouldn't find it useful at all. They could just turn it off, but still not ideal. Protection speced pallys may find some use for it if I tailor it to include some of the Prot spec abilities they get. But now we're running back into what the "spec" circle should be in the first place.

I've also thought about moving all the univeral spells and abilities to their own "Misc" circle. This would free the spec circle up some if I went this route. I've given thought to removing some of those spells entirely from the circles since I'm sure mst would have them bound in other ways.

The mount stuff from the original isn't coming back. It's too much work and there are better alternatives to it, especially with the revamp of the mount system and the underlying API.

Configuration is on my mind and I intend to add in a way to configure the circles using a nice UI within the game at some point. It won't be in for the 3.02 patch to the live servers and I'm kinda doubting it'll be ready for WOTLK release itself. There is a way to configure the circles if you're prepared to edit some code, but it isn't simple. It's actually there right now in the current live release, but the code you'd have to edit is changing format with the new version. But, given some time and effort I'll make it happen.

I'd like to put the beta code out at some point but it just isn't ready yet. If you REALLY want a rough version with a messed up spec circle and other bits of crazy to play with in the beta, send me a PM and I'll see what I can do.

Again, feel free to comment and give suggestions. I moved this conversation to the forums here for the purpose of feedback.

Thanks all,
Hadar