[WARdrobe] I Love this Site, BUT….

Let me first state that I love getting positive feedback.  It really is a joy to open up an email and read “Thanks for taking the effort into making this.  Hugz!” (I’m pretty sure that was from wargrimnir, as he always signs his emails with “Hugz”)  The main reason I do what I do is to help the community.  I love being part of it, and developing tools to help is how I feel I can best contribute.

With all that said, I wanna hear what you hate.  Yes, hate.  What parts of the site just annoy the hell out of you?  The recent changes to the Armor Listing pages (adding the filtering and sorting) weren’t something I initially thought of.  I hadn’t planned on those pages being so lengthy, so it really made sense to add those features to narrow  the lists down a bit.  But I didn’t realize it until someone had pointed it out.  That change was directly pulled from user feedback.

So, with all that being said… what really pisses you off about the site?  Please be brutally honest.  I can take it.  Your feedback can help shape the future of the site, so lay it all out there.

I look forward to hearing from y’all.

[WARdrobe] Career Builder and Uploading Updates

It’s with great pleasure that I announce the Career Builder is done!  I had originally intended on getting all the data in from 1.3.6, then going back to fill up with 1.4.  Due to the fact that 1.4 is due out tomorrow, that felt kinda silly.  I went ahead and loaded all the 1.4 information in last night, and every career is now up to date and accessible via the main menu (which is still quirky, I know).  Don’t forget you can link to specs just like you did with WARdb’s Career Builder.  Check out my Shaman! I’d like to thank all the people who helped out with sending their specs.  All the info provided in those uploads helped debug quite a few issues that I wouldn’t have found on my own.  Props go out to Kyera, kerbear, Nobwaart, Moddion, Syrioq, Brug, ShadowWAR, Tyanon, Sanyarin, “Mike”, Fez, Lonathe and Ethias.  If I missed anyone, punch me and let me know!

With the current uploading system, there’s a few hangups.  Over the next week or so, I’ll be working the kinks out of that.  In preparation for this, I’ve had to disable the Upload functionality.  I picked “now” to do this, as with the RvR Pack heading out the door, I figure most people will be playing that instead of worrying about uploading anyway.

There’s a big overhaul coming, which should address quite a few issues:

1. Items Mirrored across the realm (Shawl of Nehekharan Priests anyone?)
2. Items will now get Icons
3. Items changed in 1.4 will be versioned up, allowing you to see the 1.3.6 stats, as well as the 1.4 stats
4. You’ll finally be able to track back through your history and see the items you’ve uploaded
5. (Super Secret Plan Item #14 here….)

While it’ll be a pain for a little while, it’s more of an investment in the future of the site.  Good things are still coming!  With the Career Builder out of the way, it’s time to focus back on the “Wardrobe” part of the site.

See you folks out there in the Pack!

[WARdrobe] Well-needed Updates

I knew I loved working on the site.  I managed to bang out quite a few needed updates, as well as some “neat features” that I figured would be fun.

In addition to the Career Builder now having Sorc data, here’s what’s new:

• Filtering and Sorting - The Armor / Weapon listings were really started off rather…small.  I didn’t intend on them being these huge beasts.  Well, I’ve gone and addressed that.  You can now filter these by slot and rarity.  Additionally, you can sort them by various fields and the results are paged for faster loading
• First Seen Time - Now you can see when an Item was first seen.  Additionally, you can now see who found a weapon first (somehow this got left off).
• Report an Item – Something funky with an item?  Report it.  I’ll get an email with what’s up, and I’ll be able to take a look at it.
• Facebook / Twitter Integration – Yeah, this was a fun one…and didn’t take much time.  Now you can tweet an item, or like it on Facebook.  Show the world what a nerd you really are.
• Bugs
  • Sometimes you’d get an error when viewing a weapon listing if you hadn’t specified a class.
  • Fixed a display issue with some CSS on the Item Sets grid.
  • Renown Rank should now show (when appropriate) on armor and weapons

I’m still working on some other big ones, namely the upgrading of the actual Armor Builder.  Look for some changes there next week.  It’ll be worth the wait, trust me.

At any rate, keep on logging and keep on having a blast.  See everyone on the battlefield!

[WARdrobe] Bad news. Great News. Medium News.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way.   For the career builder, I had always planned on doing dynamic tooltips.  The tips would scale based on how many points you put into that Mastery.  I was under the impression this was a linear growth that was consistent across the board.  Unfortunately, there’s a hell of a lost more involved in this, and it isn’t something I can pull off right now.  Essentially, you need half the combat formula to make it accurate.  I won’t do it if it isn’t accurate.  (I’ve been told that WARdb did it by gathering each spell at each spec point and saving that.  That’s nuts, and I don’t have that kinda time.)  Live and learn!

Ok, onto some great news.  The development is done.  Yep.  Done.  You can select all your tactics, morales and whatnot from below the builder.  Here’s a full list of changes

• Tactics now wrap in lines of 8.
• Morales are now visible
• Mastery Tactics/Morales will be disabled until selected
• Fixed an issue with loading items from the anchor URL
• Non-mastery abilities for each line made their way up into the builder for a better view.
• You can only select one morale per line, and only 4 tactics total
• Added a buttload of classes

That last point brings us to the medium news.  I still need class data!  I’m missing data for the following:

• Black Orc
• Slayer
• White Lion
• Engineer
• Bright Wizard
• Ironbreaker
• Sorcerer
• Squig Herder

Hit me with an email at rancid @ war4scrubs dot com if you can provide one of those.  They have to be able to unspec, get naked, and not be rank 80.

For everyone else, hit the link http://beta.war4scrubs.com/Classes.aspx?Ret=CareerBuilder for the builder.  Let me know if you find any bugs!

[WARdrobe] Career Builder Alpha

I threw in bit of work this weekend, and I think you’ll like the results.

http://beta.war4scrubs.com/careerbuilder.aspx

That’s the Shaman version.  I’m still collecting Ability Data in order to do the rest of the classes.

There’s a couple outstanding items to do on there, and I hope to have them wrapped up in the next week or so.  The biggest is the tooltip scaling.  Currently, the tooltip for “Brain Bursta” reads “Deals 378 Elemental damage” regardless if you’re +15 Gork or +1 Gork.  I’ll fix this as I move forward though.  Don’t worry.

I’m also working on the ability to select tactics and morales in the lower sections.  This will be like the old WARdb style, allowing others to see your preferred tactics/morales.

Aside from that, I’m looking forward to comments and criticism.  It doesn’t look exactly like WARdb, but I think that’s ok.  What are your thoughts?

[WARdrobe] Abilities? Career Builder? I need YOU!

It’s no secret the community is hurting for a career builder.  With WARdb down and out, there needs to be a replacement.

Well, I’m working on one.  I know there’s a few other projects out there to gather information and put it online, but that seems prone to errors and typos. I’ve figured out something just a little better.  I’ve written an addon to gather such info and store it in the database.  Take a look at the shaman data: http://beta.war4scrubs.com/abilities.aspx. Clicking on a line will expand to show the full info.  Tooltips coming soon.

So, career builder: it’s in the works.  With the ability data gathered (more later), I’ll have to wire it up to a GUI (which is written) and that should be it.  Expect to see it within the next week or two.  Yes.  A week or two.

Now, here’s where I need some help.  In order to run this addon, the character needs to be level 40 and cannot be realm rank 80.  Why can’t they be RR80?  At RR80, you get a passive +1 to all spec lines.  That will affect the base values on all the skills/spells that are tied to that line.  That’s not a good thing.  There’s no way around that.

I need some volunteers from every class (I have Shaman and Choppa covered) to help run this addon.  Send me a PM on the Official Forums, and I’ll get you what you need to run this, as well as where to send the results.

Take a look at the ability list and let me know any comments or criticisms.

See everyone on the battlefield!