The advent of the Logitech G15 keyboard can be considered an innovation to the gaming industry. This nifty gadget can be programmed to do things while away from the keyboard, thus presenting a big advantage to gamers who own the G15. The question: is the use of the Logitech G15 allowed in Blizzard's World of Warcraft? The answer: both yes and no.

The use of the keyboard is okay per se, however if the G15 is programmed to do stuff while the player is away, then that's where accounts get bannable. The key word, according to a blue post in the WoW forums, is "unattended".

A blue post by Issuntril illustrates the point well:

Indeed, the key word is "Unattended".

While I can certainly see the advantage of say, been able to create large amounts of water while away from your keyboard, this is still classed as automated play, and as such is against the Terms of Use.

In short, the keyboard should not be used to perform any action which a player cannot perform himself in-game using the regular macro interfaces. Obviously there is no in-game function which would allow you to cast multiple spells in the way you have specified, meaning it is not allowed with the keyboard.

So well, there you have it. Part of Logitech G15's tagline is The Logitech® G15 gives you a winning advantage, and everyone knows it’s more fun when you win, but players should take note that too much advantage just gives you the banhammer instead.

Among the discussions that goes into World of Warcraft, one topic that's gotten the attention of the devs is the matter of User Interface (UI). With that said, we'll be making mention of Cogwheel's post from months back, which detailed a comprehensive list of UI-related suggestions for the game by the players.

The post has recently gotten the attention of Slouken - Blizzard's resident UI guru - who replied with a series of comments on what UIs the Blizz devs would indeed be implementing in the upcoming patches.

Given that the list was scattered through various posts at the WoW Forums thread, we've got WoWInsider to thank for summarizing the list into one cohesive form. We'll start off with which UIs Blizzard has decided not to use:

• Declined:
• Generic /sequence command
• Spell Queuing
• Vendor value without being at a vendor
• API to retrieve DND or AFK status message from another player
• Finer-grained action button enable/disable events with some logic moved C-side
• /stopcasting
• /swapgroup
• Some way to iterate over the pet spell lists of pets you're not currently using (client doesn't have this information)
  
• In Patch 2.3
• Eliminate the need for /stopcasting in macros that have multiple instant, non-GCD spells
• /petautocasttoggle
• /targetlastenemy, /targetlastfriend
• There is a new Frame member function: registered = Frame:IsEventRegistered("event")
• There will be a function to query which frames are registered for an event: frame1, frame2, ... = GetFramesRegisteredForEvent("event")

View the full list plus a few notes right at the full article!

 

This news just in from Big Blue Blizzard, who have accepted that latency between client and server is too varied and has yet to be fully addressed: the casting latency trick that some expert mages have been using for some time now is confirmed acceptable by administrative standards.

Or so says macro community manager Slouken, who comments, "FYI, we're working on something for [patch] 2.3 to help make /stopcasting lag workarounds unnecessary." Adding another possible fix - and hopefully an effective one - to patch version 2.3's possible change list makes this significant news indeed.

The exploit was reportedly addressed to a game master before, who assured that such an exploit was completely fine in their books - as long as it doesn't utilize automation techniques. The trick required the use of instinctive estimation, a casting latency addon known as Quartz, and a small macro script. It allegedly increased mage's DPS directly by as much as 20%.

 

Since the World of Warcraft Patch 2.1 has just gone live, it seems that some players need some getting used to some of the changes. Just like the unofficial swimming change, players have noticed the change on the dismounting macros (specifically the /dismount command).

Demar from the World of Warcraft Forums noted that the old macro he was using was not working anymore. Reportedly, the /stopmacro command somehow gets overlooked. His macro is for dismounting from a flying mount and then summoning his land mount. According to Blizzard blue poster Slouken (the User Interface pirate), there is a bug with /dismount but after patch 2.1, "/dismount and auto-dismounting via spell cast is effective immediately".

For those of you who are curious as to what UI dismounting macros currently work, you might want to check out the thread by clicking the Read link below.

Players in World of Warcraft's Public Test Realms detected a macro bug a few days ago, and posted the report at the WoW official forums. Delving into the details of the problems, Tuhljin reports to have started receiving the "Blizzard_FeedbackUI has been blocked from an action only available to the Blizzard UI. You can disable this addon and reload the UI." error message upon every attempt to use Macros, with this problem starting shortly after the PTR's latest patch release. 

What followed this initial report was a discussion on the possible causes for this Macro error, with Blizzard representative Slouken suggesting that Tuhljin send texts of sample macros that were reportedly not working. Guys interested in reading up on the inner workings of how WoW's troubleshooters resolved this Macros bug are invited to click on the read link below. Consider this a quick update on one of PTR matters, before patch 2.10 gets released to the public servers.

It's a new day, so here's three more World of Warcraft mods. Our three-mod batch today is composed of three Inventory/Item Enhancement mods, namely HoB_DKP v2.8.4, Sell-O-Matic, and Give Me Health 2.0.6f. Let's take a look at HoB_DKP v2.8.4 first.

   

According to ScreamerBG, his HoB_DKP mod is a fully independent WoW addon for calculating an item's DKP value based on its stats. It can accurately calculate the DKP value of a mixed-class/class-specific item and, as an extra effect, the addon suggests which class should use the item.

To install HoB_DKP, simply install the addon to your WoW addons folder. No additional libraries/mods are required. After installing, click on an item link or hover your mouse over an item. The field "DKP Value" will appear at the bottom of items tooltip, showing the value and the item class suggestion.

Holding the Shift key while clicking over item links will produce the DKP sum of those items. Holding the CTRL key suppresses the DKP output. You can change the "Multiplier" and "Period" values in-game by using the commands "/hdkp multi [value]" and "/hdkp period [value]", so the mod will multiply the output DKP value by Multiplier and round it to Period.

Here are the available command line options for HoB_DKP:
/hdkp [help] - showing help and mod version
/hdkp debug - switches on/off debug mode
/hdkp item_id [enchant_id] - will produce item tooltip for item_id with enchant_id (if supplied). Example '/hdkp 18534 2568'
/hdkp multi [value] - changes the multiplier of the reported DKP value
/hdkp period [value] - changes the period of the reported DKP value

Download: [HoB_DKP v2.8.4]

More mods after the jump!

You guys seem to have wanted that patch for Knight Online really bad, despite the game being around 2 years old already. So we thought that you guys might appreciate a good nostalgic look at the teaser, cinematic videos, and gameplay trailer for the game.

Complaints about the numerous in-game "bots," the cheating, or even the "odd" (or so sentiment says) K2 Network service, seem to have not deterred fans of the game. Because despite the fact that (lets be honest here) the graphics for the game isn't really all that, and the in-game annoyances (cheaters, macro users, etc) are rampant, there are always people out there posting about how fun the game is.

Oh how "fun" redeems.

Below is the teaser video. It's the cutest among the lot. Given that it's almost Halloween, it's nice that it actually made me go, wtf?



More videos after the jump!

Plumac's Warrior Button is a World of Warcraft mod that lets you play and enjoy the game instead of having to do a quick impression of a spastic speed addict whenever you're kicking someone's behind. Just use WarriorButton() in a macro to call the function, or use your battle shout key if it's hooked in the options menu, and the mod will choose the best action to be taken based on the options you have selected.

Warrior Button has three modes: Standard, Tanking, and Off Tanking. Standard is optimized to produce as much DPS as possible given the rage available. Tanking concentrates on producing the maximum amount of threat possible given rage available. It also automatically uses taunt and mocking blow. Off Tanking is optimized to maximize threat and use thunder clap to assist the main tank. In this mode, the mod will not use taunt/mocking blow, so you should manually use them as necessary.

The version we have for download today, Warrior Button 0.99.00 Stable, is a stable version of WarriorButton Beta and can be used until the beta issues are all worked out. This is definitely a boon for all you warrior-playing tankers out there, so click on the download link below and give this mod a whirl.

Download: [Warrior Button 0.99.00 Stable]
Buy: [World of Warcraft Expansion: Burning Crusade]