Welcome to Tim's World - a Worldcrafting, Writing, and Experimentation Blog!

The End

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

I made a decision last night to cancel my WoW Account. It was not an easy decision, but it was the right one. Since finally achieving the Loremaster achievement, and even a little while before that, I just haven’t had much fun with the game. I still love the game, but I think I’ve done all I really want to do with my characters – at least for now. I realized that I had not even logged into the game – except maybe once to check my banker’s mail – in almost a month.

Still looking forward to Cataclysm, and I’ll probably renew my account when it comes out, but for now, I feel it’s best to focus on other things, such as Tile Isle, Combat Cast, and other things.

That being said, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I’m discontinuing development on my WoW Armory WP Plugin. Considering Blizzard’s new armory features that let you place your character model and history log on your site, the only thing I’m really offering anymore is the gear list, which isn’t that amazing…

I’m planning to restructure the site a little bit and make it more about general game design (as was it’s original intention), and start moving WoW Armory and related articles to an archive of some kind.

I went ahead and put the source up on Google Code so that anyone who wants to see or use the code for themselves can do so. You can find the project here: http://code.google.com/p/wow-armory-wp-plugin/

I am a little saddened by the need to let it go, but I think it’s for the best. I’ve kept it very close to my chest so I could retain creative control, but I haven’t been able to give it the attention I would like lately, and I haven’t been able to give the users with questions or bugs the help they require.

Well, I think that’s all I have to say for now. Thanks for taking the time to read this. From here on, the posts on this site will focus more on game design, creation, and development.

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The Future of the wow-armory WP Plugin

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

First, let me address an issue that has been popping up since I added the Image Cache: it seems the Cache directory is not always being created in a mode that’s writable by Wordpress when you update the plugin – if you get any errors after you update the plugin, make sure the wp-content/plugins/wow-armory/includes/cache folder is set to 0777 (or something writable) and then clear your cache. If you still have problems, please let me know.

As always, please direct any questions or comments to the wow-guild Plugin Page. Thanks!

Click here to lend your support to: wow-armory WP Plugin and make a donation at www.pledgie.com !

[plugin name]: Download [plugin version] package_go – Last Updated [plugin updated_ago]
Rated [plugin rating]/5 – Wordpress Plugin Info: [plugin link]

I love my wow-armory Wordpress plugin. I’ve really enjoyed shaping it from just a simple idea (“I wonder if I can easily show my character’s names and levels from the armory…”) to what it has become (the 3D model is so awesome!). But I’m starting to feel like I can’t give it all the attention it deserves… There’s so much I want to be able to do with it, but I just don’t seem to ever have the time to pull it off. ‘Minor’ changes or interesting features all seem to turn into a massive project – as can be seen with the recent Image cache change. I’m worried that I’m either going to burn out on the project and abandon it, or get to a point where something breaks it completely that I can’t fix… I’m not really sure how to avoid either of these fates.

So, I’ve been looking into the possibility of making the code for the plugin more public and open. Maybe something like GitHub? Although I don’t know much about it… To be honest, I’m not sure how to go about setting it up in a way that still gives me (or a small group of trusted people) more of an ‘admin’ role to oversee how changes are made…

I guess I’m still looking for opinions and advice – does anyone think that I should move in this direction and/or have any advice on how to proceed? Or should I suck it up and try to keep it like it’s been?

Maybe I could recruit a few volunteers to just lend a hand with some of the maintenance and code… Ginchen has been an overwhelmingly awesome source of code repairs, suggestions, etc. But I wonder if I’m not doing my part at getting the word out about the plugin… maybe not enough people know about it?

Meh, I think that’s enough rambling for me… lol I’m probably over-thinking these things…

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wow-armory 8.4.1 update

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

The wow-armory WP Plugin v8.4.1 is out!

I fixed a bug in the Image Cache logic which was not properly saving Talent Tree icons.

As always, please direct any questions or comments to the wow-guild Plugin Page. Thanks!

Click here to lend your support to: wow-armory WP Plugin and make a donation at www.pledgie.com !

[plugin name]: Download [plugin version] package_go – Last Updated [plugin updated_ago]
Rated [plugin rating]/5 – Wordpress Plugin Info: [plugin link]

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Durngeorns and Dregorns!

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Well, it looks like my idea is actually going to come to fruition.

I have 5 of the 4E books on the way to me right now, and 2 people currently interested in playing the campaign.

So I’m looking for 2 more people, if anyone’s interested – you can contact me through Twitter, email, or by leaving a comment!

Still need a name for the podcast…

Here is the more-polished version of my plan:
(more…)

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Uh-oh…this is how these things get started…

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I’ve been listening (and re-listening) to the Penny Arcade, PvP, Wil Wheaton D&D 4E podcasts. Yeah, again :P They’re so much fun just to listen to. Plus, Gabe has been talking about his Campaign (with pictures!), which has been nothing short of awe-inspiring, and inspiring in general.

So I started thinking about D&D again, and thinking about how awesome it was to play, when I actually had a group to play with…

Uh-oh.
(more…)

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wow-armory 8.0 update

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Well, I think I accidently enabled 8.0 as an actual release… I wasn’t quite ready for it yet, but I don’t see any extreme problems with it, so…. version 8.0 is out!

Features in 8.0 are:

  • Added Guild name display, and link to Guild page
  • Changed progress bars to look better
  • Added image cache for off-site images.

As always, please direct any questions or comments to the wow-guild Plugin Page. Thanks!

Click here to lend your support to: wow-armory WP Plugin and make a donation at www.pledgie.com !

[plugin name]: Download [plugin version] package_go – Last Updated [plugin updated_ago]
Rated [plugin rating]/5 – Wordpress Plugin Info: [plugin link]

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wow-armory 8.0 To-do list

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

I’ve been trying to compile a cohesive to-do list for the wow-armory plugin, but I’ve been procrastinating a little bit… I figure if I type it up here and post it, it might motivate me to actually work on it lol. Some of these are still on my list from the contest.. which I can’t believe I haven’t actually worked on many of these yet… yeah, I’m lame… :(

If you have any other suggestions than what’s on this list, please don’t hesitate to comment and let me know!

  • Guild Name Display
  • New, optional Sections: Stats, PvP Stats, Titles, Glyphs, Reputaions, Statistics
  • Refine cacheing more… seems there’s an issue with Wowhead blocking sites that make too many requests… would like to come up with a way to grab and store the images, and only go to Wowhead if the images change, or something…
  • Better bars. I don’t like my achievement points bar, or the other ones.. will need to come up with something better, probably image-less.

Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought… lol I’m planning to really start working on this release sometime near the end of October, early November.

I’m also thinking of a small incentive to anyone who donates to the plugin’s development… maybe like a special icon or colored thingum on the plugin to show that they’re a supporter.

I really do appreciate any donations, they help keep me from having to abandon this site, and I would like to show that appreciation somehow.

Click here to lend your support to: wow-armory WP Plugin and make a donation at www.pledgie.com !

[plugin name]: Download [plugin version] package_go – Last Updated [plugin updated_ago]
Rated [plugin rating]/5 – Wordpress Plugin Info: [plugin link]

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