A lot happened this time, and some of it is still fresh. Almost everything new is experimental or a preview: it is fully built but has not been tried in the game yet. So switch it on under Settings › Experimental, test it and tell us what breaks. Everything is in v1.20261023.1.
Own inspect window (experimental)
When you inspect someone, our own window can now open instead of Blizzard's (Settings › Inspect › Display: Own window). On the left you see the gear with the best upgrade per slot and the 3D model to rotate, zoom and enlarge. On the right there are tabs:
- Help: what the group can craft for them, which BoE upgrades are in your bags, where they find upgrades.
- Talents: the whole talent tree with ranks, the three trees side by side.
- Professions of group members.
- PvP: rank, progress and honorable kills, as far as the game sends them.
With the option "Replace Blizzard's inspect completely" only our window opens, without Blizzard's flashing up first. That already worked well in our first tests. The talent tree and PvP are not tested yet, so we don't know yet which values the game sends for them on Forever.
Player ratings (experimental)
After a dungeon with randoms you can rate the players outside your fixed group if you like: social and skill with 1–5 stars and a short note. Your group sees them later in the tooltip, for example "Calm tank, waits for mana". That way all of you know who is worth grouping with again. You can also rate later via the right-click menu or `/ch rate`.
Ratings stay in the addon and only go to your group. They never reach the website, and there is no leaderboard. Members of your own group can't be rated.
New style as a preview
The addon has grown over the weeks, and the pages ended up looking more and more different. So there is now a style guide: the same page heads, filters as a segment bar, cards with titles, number tiles, real empty states instead of empty lists, and scroll bars only when you can actually scroll.
Under Settings › Appearance › Style (or with `/ch style`) you switch between classic and new, right away and without `/reload`. Classic stays the default until we decide together. Almost every page already has its new version: Quests, Hidden, Travel, Watchlist, Goals, Farming, Runs, Events, Camp, Cooldowns and Group. Skill-ups now show arrows for how likely a point is, instead of colour words.
Tell us what you like about the new style and what you don't. Then we decide whether it becomes the default.
Goals with their own bars (experimental)
Each goal now sits in its own box with a big percentage. For riding, level and gold each get a bar that turns green once that part is done. Reputation goals show a bar made of blocks, one per standing up to the target. Gold uses the coin icons like everywhere else in the addon.
Upgrades: class restrictions
Items with "Classes: …" in the tooltip used to count as an upgrade for every class that can wear the armour type, so shaman sets showed up for hunters too. Now they only count for the classes named there. This applies everywhere: Upgrades, Atlas, dungeon suggestion, loot hints and tooltip. Checked in the game, it works.
The model in the Upgrades tab also stands closer now, without a grey box, and a thin line separates the worn item from the suggestions.
The Upgrades tab in the game
Loot window and tooltips
- Loot and roll window: the gain is shown only once. If someone else in the group gains more, a short note says so, e.g. "better for Tolga +5.0". As always it is only a hint; the addon never rolls or passes for you.
- Bag space: "does not fit" only shows when there is really no free slot left.
- Settings tooltips are structured like the game's: title, a short summary, details as bullet points. "Extra lines only with Shift" is no longer experimental.
Also new
- AH watchlist in the AH panel with column heads and a trend under each price. The panel may be as tall as the AH window.
- Group: adding someone starts a full sync right away.
- Enter now confirms the input dialogs (add member, rename, profiles).
- Farming: "Last finds" names the right character, also for alts on the same account. The page scrolls in small windows instead of overflowing.
- Diagnostics: `/ch diag` now counts per minute what went to the server. After a disconnect we can see whether an addon might be behind it. By the way, it wasn't our addon in the last disconnects.
In progress and next
The launch on November 4 is twelve days away. Coming up:
- Testing, testing, testing: the inspect window, ratings, the new style and goals need your feedback from the game. Only then do they leave "Experimental".
- Big pre-launch check (from Oct 26): website and addon get a full review, covering usability, data and security. Whatever still has to go in before launch goes in.
- Launch night: pull item data from the live client, check the addon folder, switch on the version check.
- Goals on the website: shared goals are meant to show up in the journal too.
- Dungeon quests: the list of 66 quests is still being cross-checked, plus reputation goals with sources (faction → mount).
- After launch: raid loot as soon as there are sources. And once Blizzard opens an API for Forever, the journal on the website should update by itself.
Ideas not planned yet: an SOS ping ("Olli needs help" with an arrow to the spot) and a small companion app that sends addon data to the website after you log out. What comes of it also depends on you, so send us your wishes.