Filed under: Add-Ons

With Mists of Pandaria, reputation has gone from being something you need a tabard for, to something that's really quite a big deal. Currently, with patch 5.0.5, the only way to spend your valor points is to grind out reputations with the various Mists of Pandaria factions. Disregarding my personal stance on this, it seemed logical, after two consecutive weeks of Pet Battle addons, to move into a category of addon that actually helps you do something useful for your characters!

Not that pet battles aren't useful, of course, they're just not directly contributing to your character in the same way as reputation grinding. And they're hopelessly addictive, unlike doing daily quests and other reputation grinds.

So, let's get started. I actually think the default interface for reputation monitoring is quite good from Blizzard, as it's a feature that's existed for a really long while, I suppose they've had the time to get it working well. But there are always ways you can improve on it!

So, from an addon perspective that Mists launch went off pretty darn painlessly, didn't it? I have to say I was impressed, as you may recall from last week's Addon Spotlight, I was not entirely sure how it was all going to go down. Did you have any addon problems? I know I had to switch off addons to actually get myself to Pandaria in the first place, but that is far more a reflection on my abysmal rural internet, and heavy server loading, than on the quality of work of our beloved addon authors.

I've been doing a lot of addon mailbags lately, to help people over the hump from Cataclysm to Mists, but this is the last one for a little while. I will, potentially, continue to tack them on to the end of other Addon Spotlight columns, depending on whether I receive questions that I think might be troubling a lot of people or not! If you have questions, or suggestions, do email me on olivia@wowinsider.com. I will try to get back to you!

Let's delve into the mailbag once again with a great question about Pet Battle addons!

It's almost here! If you've been living under a rock at the bottom of the Thousand Needles lake, there is a faint possibility that you might not know about Mists of Pandaria's arrival on the 25th of September.

We did a lot of work here at Addon Spotlight for 5.0.4 addons, giving you a list of addons that are ready, a survival guide, and a couple of question and answer sessions, which will carry on below.

For Mists, the process is all quite similar. I'll be uploading my list of addons that are ready for Mists, much closer to launch day this time, but I'll also be relying heavily on what I've started to call the "big three" addon sites (WoWInterface, Curse and WoWAce) and their lists of addons which are ready. As I'm sure you can appreciate, there are a lot of addons out there being updated, and, unlike for 5.0.4, these sites are running dedicated, automatically generated lists of Mists-ready addons, and I'm just one girl!

So, is there much you can be doing in advance? If you're a Curse Client user, then a lot of the updating process will be automated, and if you haven't set up WoWInterface's email alert system, now would be the time. Bear in mind that it's a good idea to try to check the addon's home site rather than just blindly following one site's system. Beta files and versions may not appear on each site. Additionally, these "big three" sites are the places where the vast majority of addons are hosted with the authors' permission, meaning they are in line with copyright rules, ethically sound and home to the authors' most recent updates.

I've been doing my level best, along with Bluspacecow, Mac Technical MVP extraordinaire and general incredibly helpful person, to keep you in the loop on addons that are ready for 5.0.4, as well as an addon survival guide for handling broken and updated addons. The article on addons that are ready is still being updated, as I'm going to be redoing it for the Mists launch.

But of course, I can't possibly anticipate all your 5.0.4 addon questions, and I've been getting a good number of emails with addon problems, addon frustration, and addon-related cries for help. If you want to email me with questions, do feel free. I will try to get back to you as quickly as I can, or reply to you in a future article!

Let's get started with your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, the patch is upon us! Brace yourselves for a total UI meltdown. Here at Addon Spotlight, we are as ever here to help you with your patch day UI blues. There was a preparation guide a couple of weeks back, but it's too late for that now. If you didn't take those steps already, you're going to have to pin your hopes on this survival guide. Once more into the breach, my friends!

First and foremost, check out last week's post on addons that are ready for 5.0.4. I've been doing a ton of updating on this piece every time someone informs me that an addon is updated. It's a work in progress, of course, but it's pretty accurate right now. If you don't see your preferred addon on there, then have a look on the big three addon sites: WoWInterface, WoWAce and Curseforge. You're looking for recently updated files in the download section.

If they don't show up there, have a Google. Your addon may have a stand-alone site. You can look elsewhere, but these are the places where the vast majority of addons are hosted with the authors' permission, meaning they are in line with copyright rules, ethically sound and home to the authors' most recent updates.

Once you've checked for the most recent versions, download any that show compatibility with 5.0.4. If there are none, then make a note of that addon and check back in a few days' time. WoWInterface can also be set up to email you when addons are updated; check out how to set up email notification for addon updates.

Patch 5.0.4 is less than a week away, and we need addons. I've been in touch with various addon authors and established who has addons ready to go for 5.0.4. I've compiled the results here for you, along with the authors' preferred download links.

This is far from an exhaustive list -- it's always going to be a work in progress -- so if you know of addons I've missed that are ready to go for 5.0.4, pop a link in the comments or email me and I will add them to this list. There may well be many addons that are prepared for Mists' full launch in September but are not set up for 5.0.4 -- they're not what we're after here! If that's what you're looking for, though, there's a huge list of addons ready for Mists itself at Curse, and another at WoWInterface.

Please note that in the majority of cases, the addon page's live download will be updated at 5.0.4's launch, not several days in advance. Use your brain when downloading addons via these links; many of the authors who've contacted me have told me that their addons are ready to go but that they will not be uploading a release version to their live pages until patch day. This list of addons here represents those I have confirmed either through my own testing or directly from their authors that are ready for 5.0.4, and the links provided will be the links to download the addons on patch day or shortly before.

If there are addons you use that don't appear on this list, let me know and I will try to look into whether they're ready to go yet or if there is no news. I will do my level best to keep this list up to date and complete as we approach the launch of 5.0.4.

[I'd like to say a huge, huge thank-you to Bluspacecow for all their help with this!]

We've all heard the news: It's begun. Patch 5.0.4 is on its way in just under two weeks. I'm really excited, and I hope you are too! But what I'm not that excited about is the almost inevitable addon carnage that will ensue.

You know how it is -- you have your setup just perfect, you've nipped and tucked and tweaked and coded, and it's running beautifully. Then those crafty folk at Blizzard go and release an expansion, and it all goes Pete Tong, as we say in Essex. (We mean "wrong," by the way; I'm slowly educating you all in the ways of English idiom!) It's not Blizzard's fault. All the broken elements are things they're improving, and we love them for doing so. And it's not the addon developers' fault either. They're doing sterling work bringing everything up to date. It's just that things change.

But there are steps you can take to prepare for this, so that the transition between Cataclysm's twilight days and Mists of Pandaria is as easy as possible.

This, readers, is the final installment of our TradeSkillMaster (TSM) series. We've previously looked at TradeSkillMaster Crafting and TradeSkillMaster Auctioning, and today we're going to be having a little look at some of the brilliant additional functionality of this fantastic addon.

I really want to encourage reader feedback here. I'm certain don't have the space to write about all the awesome little things you can do with TSM to make your gold making life easier, and I'm even more certain that I don't know them all. So please, do share your clever TSM tricks and any tips you think might be useful to other readers. Then we can all learn something.

Download TradeSkillMaster: TradeSkillMaster.com, Curse

TSM Destroying

Firstly, I'm going to talk about a feature that I use a lot and have recommended to guildmates on several occasions. What does it do? Well, with a little setup and the click of a button, it can disenchant all the greens in your bag. OK, so you actually need to click the button once for every green, but quite frankly, that's a vast improvement on the other options for disenchanting.

Last time on Addon Spotlight, we talked about TradeSkillMaster (TSM) crafting. It was a bit of a slog, but I hope some of the readership were able to take the instructions and get TSM and have a bit of a go at setting it up. The setup is definitely a trial, but it's so worth it in the end.

This week, we're taking our hard-earned crafted items, and we're going to sell them on the auction house. It is kind of the idea, after all! Just like last time, if you haven't already, please ensure that if you're trying to follow these instructions that you've got all the relevant modules of TSM installed. PowerWordGold helpfully and correctly pointed out in the last column's comments that TSM Gathering is outdated and should not be downloaded, but get the rest. As you get more accustomed to the addon, you'll be able to work out what you use and switch things off if they're not necessary.

Download TradeSkillMaster: TradeSkillMaster.com, Curse

Again, with this column, I'm not going to be getting into the really detailed super-user aspects of TSM. Like I said before, it's not really necessary to just get up and running with it. Once you've begun, you'll inevitably start working out how the additional elements work, and the more advanced guides will start to make more sense.

I linked setup instructions for these guides in the past, so I won't be delving into the details for each profession. This is just a general guide.

Right, that's the housekeeping out of the way. Once more into the breach, my friends!

WoW Insider has received a tip that preordering Mists of Pandaria makes a change to your account in the API that may cause some addons to malfunction. Rosanera sent us the following message: