World of Warcraft: Must have map addons!

World of Warcraft: Must have map addons!
Page content

The Top 5 WoW Map Add-Ons

Lets face it … the default Blizzard UI is seriously lacking when it comes to looks and functionality. If you are a long time player you already know this, and if you are a new player it won’t be long before you find this out. That being said I applaud Blizzard for making it so easy for 3rd party coders to design Addons for their game client. Whether you are new to the World of Warcraft or an experienced player, Addons can greatly increase the enjoyment you get from the game. There are Raid Addons, Auction Addons, PvP (Player versus Player) Addons, Map Addons, and of course Addons that simply make the default Blizzard UI look better. Can you say “eye-candy!” In this article we will be taking a look at 5 of the more popular Map Addons and what functionality (if any) they offer.

Questhelper

Questhelper: is an in-game guide which will attempt to tell you what quests to do, in what order to do them, and where in the game world to go to complete them. This can cut down greatly on the time it takes you to complete quests and thus level.

Atlasloot Enhanced

Atlasloot Enhanced: is an Addon focusing on loot! Who doesn’t like loot? This Addon will allow you to browse an in-game database of loot tables for your favorite zone, mob (monster), or dungeon. You can find out what mob drops a specific item, how often the item is likely to drop, link the item in chat, and even try the item on in the dressing room!

Cartographer

Cartographer

Cartographer: is a jack of all trades when it comes to the manipulation of the world map. Change the transparency, position, and scale of the world map (my favorite use of this Addon), add notes, see all group/raid members, and many other useful features. One of the most powerful features of Cartographer is the fact it is modular allowing the addition of plugins to the Addon to increase it’s functionality. Highly recommended!

Atlas

Atlas in action!

Atlas: attempts to address the shortcomings of the default blizzard UI when it comes to instance (dungeon) maps. While traveling the world you can bring up a world map of each zone you travel to … except instances. This is where Atlas comes in. It’s basically an image viewer that displays a map of the current instance, complete with the location of bosses and other POI’s (points of interest). This is a simple but very useful Addon that I’d recommend to everyone.

Gatherer

Gatherer: is an Addon that remembers what “nodes” you have visited in the world whether you are a herbalist, miner, or treasure hunter! Each time you visit a node the Addon adds it to its database so the next time you are in the same location the node will show up on your mini-map. The display will show as a solid circle if the node is currently up or as an empty circle if the node is currently on cool-down.

Honorable Mention: SexyMap

sexymap4

SexyMap: This is a fairly new map Addon I have been using recently. It is pure eye-candy but a lot of fun. It allows you to move your minimap, hide buttons attached to the minimap, but most importantly allows you to set some very cool borders for your minimap! It’s true this Addon offers little in the way of functionality but be sure to check it out if you are a fan of eye-candy!

Conclusion

This is by no means a definitive list of map Addons for World of Warcraft. These are just a few of the more popular Addons gamers use to add functionality and flare to the default blizzard UI. Two of the best sources for World of Warcraft Addons are Curse and WoWUI. I recommend you visit each of these sites and take a look at the hundreds of Addons you can use to enhance your World of Warcraft UI. Watch your back and see you in Azeroth!