Customer Reviews

Hacking World of Warcraft (ExtremeTech)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm so disappointed in this title that I'm returning it to Amazon for a refund.

The book's title and description are misleading. The book isn't about "hacking" anything; it's just a catalog of popular add-ons to the game. After an introductory chapter about how add-ons and macros differ, how add-ons can be installed and managed, each add-on is described and reviewed. Unfortunately, the authors don't describe their criteria for deciding which add-ons to include.

Undoubtedly, the term "hacking" was included in the title to make the book appear sexier; the book is really about expanding WoW functionality using available add-ons, not "hacking" in any sense of the word. Perhaps more frustratingly, the authors don't explain why most of the described add-ons are useful. Sure, I can get an add-on that tallies the damage done to me by various monsters, and by myself to the monsters. But why do I Want that? How does the use of such an add-on, for example, help me have a more enjoyable or productive gameplay experience?

Point is, though, that finding add-ons online isn't hard at all. A book cataloging them is practically worthless, as it is out of date just as soon as it is printed. You're better off finding interesting add-ons by searching your favorite World of Warcraft forum and asking other players.

The book's treatment of writing add-ons is superficial at best. Since this book is not a programming tutorial, any reader who wants to write their own add-ons needs to have some software development background. And anyone with some software development background would be able to examine existing add ons to "borrow" code, or learn how to write add-ons by reading the product documentation.

This book is a good book to get if you want an easy to understand introduction to some of the addon's and macro commands that are available in World of Warcraft.

The 2 examples they give for writing your own addon's are very easy to follow and explain what each piece of code does which is helpful. I would recommend getting this book for anyone just learning to program or interested in starting. The title is a bit misleading as to what the book is really about. Overall this book was worth the money in my opinion.

If you are seeing this book in a shop somewhere, pay close attention to the 'Whom this book is for' section in the introduction. It is not for the advanced user who is already creating mods or maintains a large library of addons for themselves. It is for the person who had a couple of addons, but wants to involve themselves further in the modding scene. It is for the user that has plenty of mods, but wants to know what some of the contents means so that they can start tinkering. It is for the person who e-mails people like Dan and myself saying 'Hi. I have downloaded your mod, what do I do now?'.

The book is of a fair length, enough to cover a lot of ground, but short enough to be to the point. It is laid out really well, with the first half more or less dedicated to various mods, what they do and where to get them and the second half dedicated to how to make addons, a simple example and a more complex secure frame example. There is also a really good section explaining the macro system implemented with the Burning Crusade in some depth.

The selection of mods in the first half is quite good, covering how to install and configure the most popular mods around as well as a few really handy mods that might not be so well known. Of particular interest to me and what really impressed me the most was how up-to-date the book was. For example, it deals with the issue in Patch 2.1 of error messages being hidden by default and how to re-enable them if you want to. It also describes what I believe to be the proper procedure for tracking down addon bugs and when and how to report them to the author concerned.

My only criticism I guess is that Chapter 15 probably could have been expanded a little bit. It wasn't immediately obvious early in the chapter (to me anyway, only ever having played a DPS class seriously) where the FocusFrame example mod was going, but once you get into the code a little it is an excellent example of the power of secure frames. The chapter covers quite a tricky area that a number of experience addon devs struggle with, and I think the explanation of the concepts is good. The fact that you come out of it with a non-trival, useful mod is a huge bonus.

In summary, the book is a great overview of the state of play with WoW addons. Most advanced users would know a lot of it already from their own tinkering or collection of mods, this book isn't really for you. For the mainstream WoW player though, it is excellent.

Reposted with permission.

Ok, lets get something straight right off the bat. I am not a total newb when it comes to gaming, programming or tech. But I am new to WoW, and trust me its pretty overwhelming when you first get in.

This book is really good at 2 things:

1. Its a gentle introduction to the whole addon scene for players who either dont use them yet, or who use them only a little bit. It teaches readers how to find addons, how to install them, how to configure them, and how to use them. Addons are divided by their function: Combat, Maps, Loot, Chat, Raid, Class-Specific, Compilations and Misc and each one is covered the same way so thats nice. Can you find all these yourself by scouring the websites? Sure you can. But this book takes some of the pain out of figuring out which ones are best for the job, and how to use them. This is where the book shines in my opinion and is the bulk of the book.

2. It introduces you to the concepts of writing addons and macros in a way that most readers can follow. If you already have some experience in scripting with something like JavaScript or some actual programming experience this section makes more sense.

This book is not an in-depth guide to writing addons, or a complete guide to WoW programming. Addons are written in a language called Lua, but this book is not an in-depth guide to Lua either. If you are looking for that, then you should look elsewhere.

However the book does walk you through 2 examples, and if you can follow that you will probably want to look for something more to develop addons. Follow it up with a good Lua book, and learn about XML.

My only complaint about the book so far is the images are a little small, and I wish they were in color. Still, that doesnt ruin the book and you can still see what they are talking about.

All in all the book does a good job at what it's trying to do. So if you are newer to WoW or Addons this is a great guide. And even if you are already using some addons the book might point you to some new ones or even get you started writing your own.

I've followed many online tutorials but since most of them were disjointed, being written by various different people the writing styles & techniques used could kind of become confusing at times.

The first half of the book gets you started in using addons and introduces you to some of the better know higher quality addons available and takes you through configuring them. If you are new to WoW then this is the part of the book you will be interested in.

The second half is all about how addons work, and then takes you through the creation of a very simple to some fairly robust addons. For those that learn by doing and find it easier with a book than online this is the book for you.
It doesn't assume knowledge on your part which makes it very easy for the novice with little to no programming knowledge to pick it up, follow the examples and write your very own addon. It may take 2 or 3 passes before you fully grasp the concepts however.
Those of you who are already familiar with other programming languages like Javascript, PHP, C or anything of the like, you will find this a great primer.

The best part is the addons you create with the book are genuinely useful, in fact the first one, a coordinates system is something I've been looking for myself, and it handles the function better than other addons I've found.

I'm going to rate this book for what it is, not for what it is not. This book is primarily about using addons with a sidebar on the basics of making them. And for what it is it was done pretty well.

A few things I would have liked to have seen is a more robust rolling your own addons section and reference. As an addon developer I think it needs a better overall progression and it assumes a little too much at times.

The sections about using addons seem only to cover the absolutely most popular addons or subjective favorites in their respective categories. And this is good for most people but I personally would have liked to have seen a more objective view and more options. This wouldn't have required very much work or time.

Bottom line if your new to WoW and want to get into the whole UI customization stuff then check this book out. It'll get you started and definitely enough to get your feet wet. If you know nothing about coding addons then you might find some of it useful but you'll definitely need to reference online materials such as the wowwiki, wowace's site, and probably a few chat rooms.

If your an experienced developer who has made a few addons this book probably doesn't hold much for you. Its pretty lacking as a reference material and won't add much to your overall knowledge.

I hope you find this useful. And please ignore the trolls.

Over half of this book lists and briefly describes add-ons that are available on the web. This may be a reasonable introduction for players who have never used add-ons, but it's no substitute for web sites like ui(dot)worldofwar(dot)net that have more content that's organized better and is more up-to-date. Still, there are those who won't know what to look for and a catalog like this one may be what they need to see what they're missing.

The section on writing macros is a good way to get started and it's fairly up-to-date (for now). This section is why the book rates 3 stars and not 2.

The section on writing add-ons takes up about a third of the book and is an unqualified disaster and a meaningless sacrifice of innocent trees. It goes on at length to haphazardly say almost nothing and is littered with advice like "if you want to do X, download an add-on that already does X and read its source code." Thanks, bub. Glad I paid $20 for that gem.

The good news for prospective authors is that the niche of "How to Write World of Warcraft Add-Ons" books is still vacant and ready to be exploited. A reasonable book on that topic would include well-written tutorials and clear sample add-ons that cover, even if only superficially, the many things a player may want to do. It would also include a well-organized reference for the APIs (both lua and GUI), along with short snippets illustrating the use of each function. Such a book, if it existed, would undoubtedly sell very well.

I bought this book and two others to create a couple of interfaces for things I do often.

This book referenced many of the existing add-on applications, and some basic calls. I could have used this info a year ago when I started, but I had already pass beyond this info with stuff from some of the sites listed here. Also two of the links I tried had already either changed or gone dark, so my take is the printed reference does have a time-line.

I did find it well written, and organized, and had I seen this a year ago it would have been ideal.

I myself had been using mods for some time, but Dan explained a lot I never knew, and right from the beginning he quoted Blizzards opinion on using mods in World of Warcraft.I recommend this book to anyone at any stage of using mods.
And if you want to make your own mods to use in WoW, there is many chapters that cover that.....along with making two of your own mods.

So, not only has he and his co-author made some wonderful mods for a great game, but they have also made a fine book together!

First of all, I didn't buy this book, my wife bought it, which could easily entail an entire discussion about how the impossible can, in fact, REALLY happen...but that must wait for another time! Quick take away regarding this book: I liked it a lot!

I am a software developer turned business man, so I have a background in programming (but haven't had to write code for about 7 years now). So, from that perspective, the code sections weren't much of a problem, but getting an understanding about how WoW addons function was very helpful. I wasn't quite as interested in the early sections of the book (although it was good to know about some of the existing addons)...my interest was on creating my own addons from scratch. In that regard, the book was great, and the steps were clearly laid out on how to create the Whereabouts addon.

This book is not intended to be a complete primer on EVERYTHING you need to know about writing WoW addons, nor is is meant to be a review of every single existing addon (they change)...rather, it is a nice balance that starts with what existing addons do, and leads into what to do if you'd like to try writing one of your own. In that regard, I think the book did a very decent job!