Pilot like HUD

[Freedots]

I was wondering if anyone lacking a project would be interested in starting one (or if nothing else, pointing me in the right direction in how to go about doing this). I had an idea that would greatly assist in PVP as well as PVE encounters. Basically, anyone who has played any space fighter or dog fighting game will know the incredible HUDs used in these games. One thing I would find particularly helpful would be to build one similar to those used in the space dog-fighting games in which all targets have a resizeable triangle hovering in the center of the target (hostile targets have RED triangles, indifferent yellow, and friendlies green [similar to the WoW con system]). Also a small circular frame in which all targets could be seen around the player (like a minimap with the player at the center and all visible friendlies/enemies on the circle in respect to their direction from the player. I am including link to a VERY poor example I conjured up in a quick moment to give a more visual idea of what I am suggesting. Any more questions or flames, post it or contact me as Freedots on Stonemaul, Horde side.

http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...an/Example.jpg

[Seerah]

Can't be done.

[littlebuddha79]

I agree. Doesn't seem like Blizzard would allow something like that. Basically what you are asking for is a hunter like tracking module for all classes and all mobs at once. I doubt it can be done.

[Kaomie]

Regardless classes and abilities, what you are asking belongs to the game-world and not the UI part, so not much can done with Addons. For instance you have no way to retrieve the exact position of units within the game-world and map it to the UI level. You can extrapolate some information by using the player coordinates and some tricks (like using spells "reachability" to estimate distances), but nothing that would give enough info for the hud "target locks" you are mentioning. However maybe something can be worked out using the nameplates?

[Mazzlefizz]

Originally Posted by Freedots I was wondering if anyone lacking a project would be interested in starting one (or if nothing else, pointing me in the right direction in how to go about doing this). I had an idea that would greatly assist in PVP as well as PVE encounters. Basically, anyone who has played any space fighter or dog fighting game will know the incredible HUDs used in these games. One thing I would find particularly helpful would be to build one similar to those used in the space dog-fighting games in which all targets have a resizeable triangle hovering in the center of the target (hostile targets have RED triangles, indifferent yellow, and friendlies green [similar to the WoW con system]). Also a small circular frame in which all targets could be seen around the player (like a minimap with the player at the center and all visible friendlies/enemies on the circle in respect to their direction from the player. I am including link to a VERY poor example I conjured up in a quick moment to give a more visual idea of what I am suggesting. Any more questions or flames, post it or contact me as Freedots on Stonemaul, Horde side. http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...an/Example.jpg

I think some of it could be done. The red/yellow/green triangles could be attached to the nameplate frame. Sizing it would be difficult since the only distance information WoW will give you is a crude estimate of distance to your current target. You'd probably have to settle for fixed size triangles over all targets except your current one, which may look a bit awkward. Truth be told, I think this could be a moderately useful feature. I think it would be somewhat easier to see than the red colored text over a person's head, which is what most people use in pvp. If someone were interested in making, it would probably be very easy to code into an Aloft module, an add-on that alters nameplates.

As others have said, the virtual minimap tracking idea is definitely not possible. The WoW API does not provide any of the information necessary.

[Taffu]

Or even better than nameplates (because of distance & visibility issues), Raid Marking and how the UI handles this element of the game. IIRC, the range for Raid Marks is much larger than the range of Nameplate visibility.

[Mazzlefizz]

Originally Posted by Taffu Or even better than nameplates (because of distance & visibility issues), Raid Marking and how the UI handles this element of the game. IIRC, the range for Raid Marks is much larger than the range of Nameplate visibility.

Can you anchor things on the raid icon frames? I wouldn't think so, b/c otherwise you'd probably see add-ons that attach text above raid icons that say things like "Kill me!", "Offtank me", "I was once a sheep, but Taffu just hit me", etc.

Hmm, that's not a bad idea for another aloft module.

[Kaomie]

(I think he was just mentioning the idea of using Raid Icons for PvP instead of just the nameplates.)

I also do not believe there is any way to interact with the Raid Icons, and they would still need to be set manually pretty much defeating the whole "auto-target-hud-locks" purpose. Actually I am surprised we still can do that with the nameplates, but shh

[Mazzlefizz]

I was always surprised as well. I would imagine you can indirectly get angle offsets by anchoring a frame to the nameplate, getting the absolute coordinates, which would then tell you which direction the target is. Since they used to have an API function that gave you that information that they later explicitly protected from add-on use, it seems like being able to anchor to nameplates would be a no-no.

I wonder if any add-ons do that nowadays.

[123noob]

lately i feel there's a gnome invasion in the wowi forum...

[Seerah]

what's wrong with that?

[Dreadlorde]

I have a gnome, and his name is Bjorne.

[Kaomie]

<- Please meet Chromie. So technically my avatar is not a gnome, just a Bronze Dragon in disguise