Carbonite crosses line, reams everyone with infinidick

[Ironwood]

In fairness to QH, when it points you to spawns, it also gives you a coloured 'cloud' that tells you where they spawn.

Those guys who head straight to the arrow just arnae bright.

[Dren]

I'm not sure what Lum was talking about, but my Carbonite free-version still works.  I did have to go back a revision a few weeks ago when their latest version broke it self for some reason.  No issue, Curse had the older version back up by the time I went looking and I fixed it.  Still doing fine.

I don't use it to figure what to do or keep me from reading the quests.  I've done that without any help once.  It isn't fun enough, in and of itself, to want to do it again that way.  I want to make the most efficient use of my time to get my alts to 80 along with the large amounts of cash after 80.  The majority of my fun comes from doing instances with my guildmates and that all begins at 80.  The journey to 80 is fine and made only better by add-ons like Carbonite for alts.

The management of daily quests helps a ton too.  I'm sorry, I'm not going to read through each daily quest in detail everytime I accept it.  You guys seem to be discussing the first journey to 80 for your characters for some reason.   I would reccomend not using these programs for 1-80 for your first time.   That "game" for me stopped a long time ago though.

[kildorn]

I'm just strange, after my first run to 80, I just remember where all the shit is.

What does it do for daily quest management? I don't read those quests either. You do them once a day. Click ?, click accept, go about the same circuit you do every day by memory. Go kill some slimes, walk outside and spear drake, land in city, walk to lake, kill elementals, douse fires, go try and find giants that everyone is killing, done.

[Lum]

I'm not sure what Lum was talking about, but my Carbonite free-version still works.  I did have to go back a revision a few weeks ago when their latest version broke it self for some reason.  No issue, Curse had the older version back up by the time I went looking and I fixed it.  Still doing fine.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to, the newest revision was intentionally broken. Since then the download page on Curse, WoW-Interface, and the addon's web site has been yanked. So, um, keep the version you have! (It'll probably break with 3.1, though.)

Full disclousure, I paid for a version of Carbonite. I don't use it anymore because I got tired of the upgrade nags and the adware stuff was just too scummy IMHO. Getting used to QuestHelper now... I'm not as fond of the interface but the featureset (minus PvP autotracking) is pretty much the same for what I need when levelling alts. Most of the time outside Northrend Tourguide is more than enough handholding, though.

[Sogrinaugh]

I have always treated addons as potentially venemous snakes, and reading this thread vindicates my paranoia.

The nerdrage i would experience at the temerity of a fucking addon to stream adds to me would cause my skull to split and spew molten grey matter.

I did use x-perl for a long time during TBC, but now that rangecheck is built into the UI i dont give a fuck about that anymore either.  The only thing i miss as a healer in pug nax25 is grim reaper, so i could shut people up when the offtank taunts gluth and dies in less time then it takes to cast a flash heal.

[Paelos]

If you don't raid, you don't need addons for anything really beyond simplicity. The addons for the single-player side of the game are entirely based around convenience, while boss fights are designed around the fact you are using certain addons in raids. Still, addons are on the whole a good thing if you aren't abusing them. If you carry more than 10, you are probably overdoing a bit, and the updates are crazy (essentially breaking your game on patch day for a good while). If you aren't carrying any at all, you're missing the point and most likely making your life a lot harder in the game than you need to.

[Merusk]

In fairness to QH, when it points you to spawns, it also gives you a coloured 'cloud' that tells you where they spawn.

Those guys who head straight to the arrow just arnae bright.

Yes, but bless their dimness, it also means the other spawn points are typically empty and ready for pillaging with plenty of mobs.   This is even more true in the old world where things follwed EQ's "percentage of " spawn pattern.   Kill off only one type of mob in an area and they don't all respawn as that mob, just a certain % of them, leading to diminishing numbers of the 'right' mob as the 'wrong' mobs keep getting ignored.   

[Musashi]

Hey.  Don't fuck with my arrow.  It never lies.

The one I linked with Jame's just arrows to all the different spawn points.  So ha.

[Nonentity]

Yeah, I basically use QuestHelper to get my alts through Northrend at this point.

If it broke, it wouldn't be the end of the world, I'd just be a little more unfocused when I level alts. I get bored super easy on alts, and I need bright shiny arrows to keep my attention.

[Nevermore]

I don't use many mods and in every case, the ones I use are just for the extra information they provide.

QuestHelper:  This one I love mostly for the mouseover information, especially with quests where you have to kill 20 Red Tiptoeing Raptors and all the creeps around are Red Sneaking Raptors and Red Skulking Raptors.  The map location thing saves some time running around, but I read all the text for quests anyway since I like the lore and backstory ( ) even though I don't take it very seriously.  It's since to tell at a glance if you can get a bunch of quests done at once if they're close together, though.

Auctioneer:  Again, I love this one more for the mouseover information than the actual auction help.  Mousing over a white item to see if it's a quest item or tradeskill ingredient or spell reagent helps save on bag space and seeing which quest reward will sell for the most gold if none of them are usable or upgrades helps a poor noob like myself scrape together a little bit more cash.  I probably haven't spent enough time tinkering with the auction help, but so far I've learned to be cautious when looking at its recommended sell prices.  Even with regular scanning, I still check most items manually and adjust my pricing accordingly.  So like with QH, it's the mouseover info that's far more valuable to me.

Recount:  I installed this one recently just to see how I'm doing with my DPS.  A purely informational mod.

And that's it.  I might try tanking some 5 man stuff with my DK at some point, but I never intend to tank raids with any of my characters so threat mods seem superfluous.  Cheating in PvP in anathema to me so I'm glad to see Carbonite getting nuked (tell me that PvP 'functionality' doesn't smack of old DAoC radar hacking).  I might try out one of the Druid cat mods as my DPS skill use gets more complex, but so far I seem to be doing ok without one.  I'm managing fine so far with the default Blizzard action bars even with the eleventy billion Druid skills, though I might need to break down and get one as I level up my Shaman alt with the order of magnitude more totems and crap.  But otherwise I can't think of anything else I'd need a mod for.  Oh, maybe Gatherer.  We'll see.

[kildorn]

I run recount lately as pure information/raid teasing, since nothing's quite as useless bullshit as posting trash dps numbers off an unholy dk <3

A bar mod (bartender right now, I loved xperl for TBC), healbot/libheal (libheal is the crucial one, even if you don't run a raid healing mod personally), bigwigs (raiding with boss mods makes life so much less dramatic), and a closed Omen window out of old habit.

The only thing I may wind up installing from there is a totem mod (totem timers I just can't get to work any way I like), and a rune cooldown mod to change the horribly information starved rune window.

[Dren]

I'm just strange, after my first run to 80, I just remember where all the shit is.

What does it do for daily quest management? I don't read those quests either. You do them once a day. Click ?, click accept, go about the same circuit you do every day by memory. Go kill some slimes, walk outside and spear drake, land in city, walk to lake, kill elementals, douse fires, go try and find giants that everyone is killing, done.

You are simply amazing.  You are right, I'm going to go home tonight and get rid of it right away!  I'm also going to start playing like you do, because at the moment, I'm completely different.

[kildorn]

What dailies are you doing that aren't just circuits?  After the 20th time of doing a set of dailies, they're pretty much mental auto pilot. It's like driving to work, you might need directions to your new job, but after working there for a month you should probably know the route without turning on the GPS every morning.

It's different on actual leveling quests, either you have a good memory for that useless crap or you don't. But daily quest management? Even the random cooking ones are a small enough pool that it's easy to remember what drops where.

[Ingmar]

I never intend to tank raids with any of my characters so threat mods seem superfluous

Setting aside that your druid *will* be doing some offtanking at least  , threat mods are actually more important for DPS than they are for tanks - they're for seeing where you are relative to the tank so you can back off if necessary when DPSing.

[Nevermore]

I never intend to tank raids with any of my characters so threat mods seem superfluous

Setting aside that your druid *will* be doing some offtanking at least  , threat mods are actually more important for DPS than they are for tanks - they're for seeing where you are relative to the tank so you can back off if necessary when DPSing.

I don't consider off tanking the same as main tanking.  One of the reasons I love playing a Druid is because I can shift and fill whatever role is needed in an emergency on the fly, including tanking when the main tank goes down or getting adds in a boss fight that requires it.  Though in the latter case, my Frost DK might actually work out better since on paper the test version of glyphed Howling Blast + Blood Boil might be better snap aggro than the more cumbersome Icy Touch + Pestilence + Howling Blast + Blood Boil we have to work with right now.  Discounting Death and Decay, but using a ground target aggro field has its own issues, though that could be because I just suck at tanking.

In any event, as far as threat mods go if my DPS feral is pulling aggro off the tank, then the tank has failed! 

[Ingmar]

I never intend to tank raids with any of my characters so threat mods seem superfluous

Setting aside that your druid *will* be doing some offtanking at least  , threat mods are actually more important for DPS than they are for tanks - they're for seeing where you are relative to the tank so you can back off if necessary when DPSing.

I don't consider off tanking the same as main tanking.  One of the reasons I love playing a Druid is because I can shift and fill whatever role is needed in an emergency on the fly, including tanking when the main tank goes down or getting adds in a boss fight that requires it.  Though in the latter case, my Frost DK might actually work out better since on paper the test version of glyphed Howling Blast + Blood Boil might be better snap aggro when the more cumbersome Icy Touch + Pestilence + Howling Blast + Blood Boil we have to work with right now.  Discounting Death and Decay, but using a ground target aggro field has its own issues, though that could be because I just suck at tanking.

In any event, as far as threat mods go if my DPS feral is pulling aggro off the tank, then the tank has failed! 

The druid will always be better than a DK at *emergency* OTing, because the druid can be crit immune in dps gear and the DK can't, and crit immunity is the #1 overriding need, above all else, for tanking. So you might be able to pop into frost presence and grab aggro if the MT goes down, but you won't have any staying power.

[Nevermore]

Well yeah, the DK would be used when there's a specific need for an off tank that's known ahead of time.  I'll be sticking with a Frost tanking spec even after the patch.

Oh by the way, 360° bear Swipe is going to be HILARIOUS! 

[Nija]

I'm really surprised that they let Carbonite operate as long as it did. It was flat out cheating. I'm also really surprised that more people aren't upset with that information I posted so long ago, outlining exactly how it was cheating, since apparently not many people know about it. Oh yeah, Carbonite is used to do quests. Yeah that's it. It was/IS 100% cheating when used on a PVP server. 99% of my overworld kills were directly contributed to Carbonite information.

Does nobody really give a shit about the cheating aspect of it? Is it because PVP death in WoW is so meaningless that nobody even cares if people are outright cheating in order to beat them or catch them off guard? The reactions, or lack of reactions so far, are pretty interesting to me. I'm not sure what to make of it.

[Nonentity]

They need to put in a bear spin graphic for the 360 swipe.

Whirlwind + bear = WHIRLBEAR

[Ingmar]

I'm really surprised that they let Carbonite operate as long as it did. It was flat out cheating. I'm also really surprised that more people aren't upset with that information I posted so long ago, outlining exactly how it was cheating, since apparently not many people know about it. Oh yeah, Carbonite is used to do quests. Yeah that's it. It was/IS 100% cheating when used on a PVP server. 99% of my overworld kills were directly contributed to Carbonite information.

Does nobody really give a shit about the cheating aspect of it? Is it because PVP death in WoW is so meaningless that nobody even cares if people are outright cheating in order to beat them or catch them off guard? The reactions, or lack of reactions so far, are pretty interesting to me. I'm not sure what to make of it.

Most of us probably play on PVE servers and thus don't give a crap is my guess.

For me it is 4 parts that and 1 part "that's nowhere near as bad as the cheating in DAOC was."

[Nevermore]

I'm really surprised that they let Carbonite operate as long as it did. It was flat out cheating. I'm also really surprised that more people aren't upset with that information I posted so long ago, outlining exactly how it was cheating, since apparently not many people know about it. Oh yeah, Carbonite is used to do quests. Yeah that's it. It was/IS 100% cheating when used on a PVP server. 99% of my overworld kills were directly contributed to Carbonite information.

Does nobody really give a shit about the cheating aspect of it? Is it because PVP death in WoW is so meaningless that nobody even cares if people are outright cheating in order to beat them or catch them off guard? The reactions, or lack of reactions so far, are pretty interesting to me. I'm not sure what to make of it.

Even though I don't PvP much in WoW, I care.  And I mentioned it in one of my previous posts.  I'm with you 100%.

Edit: @Ingmar: How is it not as bad as the cheating in DAoC?  It looks like it does pretty much the same thing the old radar hacks did.  The only real difference I see is in DAoC PvP was SERIOUS BUSINESS while in WoW is just meh.  The hack itself seems to provide the same advantage.

[kildorn]

Really depends how it got the information. If it's showing other carbonite users, it's just iffy. If it's exploiting the client for information it shouldn't display, it's radar hax.

[Nija]

Here's what my normal WoW gaming session turned into after I got bored.

I'd fly to Grizzly Hills and park at the town and then task switch to do something else for about 5 minutes. I'd tab back and bring up the map, which by now would have, no shit, about 30-40 red dots on it. Then I'd mouse over the hotspots and each time I'd hover over a red dot it would give me their level, class, health, and the how long ago they were reported to be in this exactly location. (by other people using carbonite) If the dot was a person who was also using the free version of carbonite, and they were in a group, it returned the entire group information.

Then with that data now known to me, I'd pick out some targets and go grief them. I'd kill one and move on to the next, never ever staying in the same place very long. If it was close to server prime time, I'd fly up a zone to the north and see if anyone was doing the wotlk ring of blood quest, and grief that one too. All thanks to Carbonite. It kept me playing WoW about a month longer than I would have otherwise.

It was also outright cheating.

[Nija]

Really depends how it got the information. If it's showing other carbonite users, it's just iffy. If it's exploiting the client for information it shouldn't display, it's radar hax.

No it would take the data that other carbonite users gathered and present it not only to them, but to the registered carbonite users in the same zone. Essentially every single person using the free version was data harvesting for me and I'm sure countless others.

If an enemy got cached by you as you flew over them, ie, they became available to target (even if you couldn't see them! which was often, of course) they'd show up in a list of clickable names. You'd click them and they'd become your target. Then you'd swoop down and kill 'em.

It was so easy and seamless I actually felt bad about it. It's an incredible application, in my opinion. It was just used for evil purposes.

[Rendakor]

I agree that it's cheating, and I do play on a PVP server. However, dying in world PVP is very meh. There are other mods that do this in Arena (at least, I think; my healer in 3s has a mod that announces name/class of our opponents) which seem similar. Are those also getting the banhammer? I heard this was getting banned because of ads, not because of sploitz.

[Lum]

In Battlegrounds it didn't give me a huge advantage. I can see it being huge in open-world PvP.

Oh, btw - my addon loadout and why (I am a huge addon junkie):

Raiding:
  -- CT RA (more out of habit, Blizzard's raid frames are fine)
  -- Omen (Bilzzard's threatmeter UI isn't good enough)
  -- Deadly Boss Mods (since WoW raiding these days is "stay out of the glowy crap" may be getting superfluous - we'll see come Ulduar)
  -- Atlas (OMG WHERE DO I GO)
  -- AtlasLoot (OMG WHAT DO I LOOT)
  -- AtlasQuest (OMG WHAT DO I TURN IN)
  
Socializing:
  -- Prat (various nice-to-have chat frame improvements in one mod)
  -- Cellular (spawns new windows when you get a /tell so you can wipe the raid because you can't see the screen when omgdrama occurs)
  -- AuldLangSyne (gives you a fancy display for guild/friend lists which integrates very well into FuBar. Displays notes in the list so you can easily tag people's alts.)
  -- Elephant (chat logging - which for whatever reason isn't in the base client)
  -- ImmersionRP (I play on an RP server and by god I want to see everyone's hysterically bad RP descriptions)

Prettiness:
  -- agUnitFrames (I prefer this to XPerl, it's totally an aesthetic call at this point)
  -- FuBar (I like menubars. Necessary addons include DurabilityFu to autorepair and GarbageFu to autosell)
  
Questiness:
  -- QuestHelper (switched to this from Carbonite)
  -- TourGuide (GO HERE YOU FOOL, invaluable when trying to powerlevel your way through content)
  -- Jame's TourGuides (far better than the included ones with the base addon. Note: the Icecrown one sucks ass.)
  -- LightHeaded (in-game browser of Wowhead quest comments, a distressing number of which are "I solo'd this with my huntard")
  -- QuestGuru (quest history, better minion, etc.)
  -- Cartographer (basic map improvements)

Killingness:
  -- Quartz (if you are a caster, uh, get this. Casting bars for you and your enemies, DoT timers, GCD tracking, swing timers, etc etc etc)

Theorycrafting 101:
  -- DrDamage (in-game theorycrafting which gives you estimated damage and DPS for all your buttonz)
  -- Pawn (like DrDamage for gear. You can hit up elitistjerks for the point values for your spec and see at a glance which pair of pants you should wear)
  -- RatingsBuster (gives you the math on how much stats will affect various things, in case you don't want to just rely on Pawn to think for you)

Usability/Convienence:
  -- Autobar (I hate playing without autobar. Autopopulating hotbar for things like potions and quest items.)
  -- CTCore, CTBuff, CTMail
  -- EquipCompare (always shows what you have equipped when you have an item tooltip up)
  -- Sellfish (always show the vendor price for an item)
  -- VendorBait (always highlights at a glance what's the most renumerative quest reward)

[Ironwood]

Fuck sake Lum.  Do you not have at least a couple of hours downtime every patch ?

[kildorn]

Really depends how it got the information. If it's showing other carbonite users, it's just iffy. If it's exploiting the client for information it shouldn't display, it's radar hax.

No it would take the data that other carbonite users gathered and present it not only to them, but to the registered carbonite users in the same zone. Essentially every single person using the free version was data harvesting for me and I'm sure countless others.

If an enemy got cached by you as you flew over them, ie, they became available to target (even if you couldn't see them! which was often, of course) they'd show up in a list of clickable names. You'd click them and they'd become your target. Then you'd swoop down and kill 'em.

It was so easy and seamless I actually felt bad about it. It's an incredible application, in my opinion. It was just used for evil purposes.

I can see it legally reporting what comes into your view (even if you aren't looking at it, your client knows about it and it's in draw distance)

I can see it using a hidden chat channel like so many other mods and reporting zone wide between other carbonite users. Still legal/not cheating, even if it's cheap.

If it detects players based on another form of communication that uses data from opposite realm carbonite users, it's crossed a line.

[Ingmar]

Edit: @Ingmar: How is it not as bad as the cheating in DAoC?  It looks like it does pretty much the same thing the old radar hacks did.  The only real difference I see is in DAoC PvP was SERIOUS BUSINESS while in WoW is just meh.  The hack itself seems to provide the same advantage.

I misunderstood how it worked - from Nija's original post I got the impression it only tracked other people using Carbonite.

EDIT: BTW Lum, kick Dr. Damage to the curb. It used to be pretty cool, but if you are basing decisions on it now it is probably misleading you, it is wrong about a bunch of stuff right now (it misreports several of my abilities as a warrior at least) and hasn't been updated since December as far as my updater can tell at least.

[Nija]

Yeah, I'm terrible at explaining things. Carbonite touches naughty places.

[Gobbeldygook]

Fuck sake Lum.  Do you not have at least a couple of hours downtime every patch ?

I run almost as many addons and have found they actually don't break much.  As long as you have it set to allow out of date addons, most of your stuff will still work.  You'll have maybe a half-dozen addons screaming like Blizzard touched them in their bathing suit area, but the rest will be chillin'.  You'll want to update them all sooner or later but you can mostly ignore the problem for now.

I loaded my entire UI onto the PTR and the only thing that's not playing nice is my bar mod, Dominos.  It doesn't handle the new quest item system.  Now when you have a quest in your tracker and you need to use some item, you can click a little button right by the quest instead of fishing through your inventory.

[Hindenburg]

As long as you have it set to allow out of date addons, most of your stuff will still work.

The amount of people that don't know about this always surprises me.

[Ingmar]

Once I started using an auto updater (Ace until they got rid of it, now I use the Curse one) all my problems went away. I do have FuBar plugins disappear for a while at times while they're in a non-updated state but I can deal.

[Sjofn]

I'm really surprised that they let Carbonite operate as long as it did. It was flat out cheating. I'm also really surprised that more people aren't upset with that information I posted so long ago, outlining exactly how it was cheating, since apparently not many people know about it. Oh yeah, Carbonite is used to do quests. Yeah that's it. It was/IS 100% cheating when used on a PVP server. 99% of my overworld kills were directly contributed to Carbonite information.

Does nobody really give a shit about the cheating aspect of it? Is it because PVP death in WoW is so meaningless that nobody even cares if people are outright cheating in order to beat them or catch them off guard? The reactions, or lack of reactions so far, are pretty interesting to me. I'm not sure what to make of it.

I don't play on a PvP server and I don't really PvP in WoW anymore because it's shitty, so. I agree it's totally cheating, but I, personally, had nothing to add to it beyond "Yeah that sounds like cheating."

[Ironwood]

As long as you have it set to allow out of date addons, most of your stuff will still work.

The amount of people that don't know about this always surprises me.

Yup, I know this, but the amount of trial and error you can encounter when just ONE of your shitty things does something odd is annoying.  Doing that on Lums list would sent me fucking Belfry.

So no thanks.