MobMap development blog

Oops, I did it again...left some debug code in the code of MobMap 3.54 which did no harm, but spam stuff into the local chat window in certain situations. That was removed in 3.55, thanks to the guy reporting it in the comments to v3.54!

Note to myself: Really gotta implement some kind of check in my distribution system to warn me if there's debug stuff left in code I'm trying to roll out.

v3.54:
- fixed: The query buttons in the standard quest log now correctly search for items, pickups etc. again instead of only searching for mobs
- fixed: Some very specific display issues with the query button results
- changed: The minimap button behavior has been changed in order to allow mods like SexyMap or MinimapButtonBag (MBB) to capture and manage the MobMap minimap button
- fixed: Placement issues of the MobMap buttons on the World Map since WoW Patch 3.3.3
- fixed: Placement issues of the MobMap dots on the World Map since WoW Patch 3.3.3

v3.55:
- fixed: Removed some seldomly called debug code that was left from fixing a bug in 3.54

After a long time of no real need to patch, the latest WoW patch brought with it some positioning problems with MobMap's dots and button on the world map. That stuff is fixed now in this new release, and there are some more minor changes and fixes accompanying it, as you can read in the changelog:

v3.54:
- fixed: The query buttons in the standard quest log now correctly search for items, pickups etc. again instead of only searching for mobs
- fixed: Some very specific display issues with the query button results
- changed: The minimap button behavior has been changed in order to allow mods like SexyMap or MinimapButtonBag (MBB) to capture and manage the MobMap minimap button
- fixed: Placement issues of the MobMap buttons on the World Map since WoW Patch 3.3.3
- fixed: Placement issues of the MobMap dots on the World Map since WoW Patch 3.3.3

So there it is - the new WoW patch and the new MobMap version. I hope it doesn't cause too many unforeseen problems and stuff.

This time there have actually been a number of changes, mostly to adapt to patch 3.3 and the enhanced capabilities of the Blizzard UI. The new "sync completed quests with server" functionality is now supported of course, and I've tried to integrate the new quest helping system of the default UI as good as possible into MobMap's own quest tracker (which I personally still consider far superior to Blizzards' one, even with basic quest helping features now directly integrated into the game). All of this still has to prove its worth "in the field" though, so expect updates during the next days and weeks if any issues arise.

[edit] Just released v3.51, which fixes the error message floods when trying to accept or complete a quest at a questgiver as well as those dot positioning issues with the newest version of Mapster and some button positioning issue. I'd love to fix any Cartographer problems, too, but right at the moment there ain't no official Patch 3.3 version of good ol' Cartographer out there as far as I know, and fixing bugs with an out-of-date addon just isn't the real thing.

[edit2] Another quick release: v3.52 - I unfortunately forgot some debug code in v3.51, so this release should fix that small error (hopefully before too many people got the erroneous 3.51 version).

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changelog v3.50:
- changed: MobMap is now WoW patch 3.3 compatible
- added: A new button to synchronize the "finished" flag of quests with the server was added to the quests database view
- changed: The classic "question mark buttons" in the original quest tracker and quest log have been changed into a MobMap-specific styled button to clearly distinguish them from Blizzards' own new quest helper buttons
- changed: The behavior of the MobMap quest tracker when a quest title is clicked has been altered to match the behavior of the Blizzard quest tracker
- added: When a question mark for a quest target in the MobMap quest tracker is clicked, the corresponding quest in Blizzards' quest POI system is selected too, if possible
- added: An additional "B"-style button has been added in the MobMap quest tracker next to quest titles. This button displays Blizzards' POI marker for that quest on the map.
- added: MobMap can now display the exact positions of mobs in instances (provided that there is a map for the instance, like it's the case with all post-WotLK instances)

v3.51:
- fixed: Error messages when getting a quest or returning a quest at a questgiver
- fixed: Wrong dot positioning on the map if the Mapster addon is used
- fixed: Wrong positioning of the MobMap button on the smaller map

v3.52:
- fixed: removed some debug code I forgot in v3.51 ;-)

v3.53:
- fixed: A bug in the data collection mechanisms

A new minor update for MobMap has just been released which contains some bugfixes and a few little changes (though mostly internal, so you won't see much about those at the user level). The changelog below pretty much sums it up. A small sidenote: as far as I know today, no new bugs have been discovered during the course of the WoW patch 3.2.2 release.

At the same time multiple bugfixes have been applied to the database creation process, so I suggest you to grab a new database copy when downloading the update, even though the format hasn't changed. And you'll probably notice that the MobMapUpdater has received a minor patch, too - changing a few internal things and fixing one or two special issues with the upcoming Windows 7 operating system.

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v3.45:
- changed: Quest targets which have you collect items dropped by a lot of different mobs will now display a maximum of only 4 mob names below the auto-generated TomTom waypoint arrow
- fixed: The small quest item buttons in the MobMap quest tracker will now work correctly in every situation
- changed: The "collapsed/expanded" status of the quest group headers in MobMaps quest tracker and Blizzards quest log are now synchronized (was required to fix the bug above)
- fixed: Clicking on a quest title in the MobMap quest tracker will now correctly display the WoW quest log at its correct position, not sticking at the top of the screen
- fixed: A problem has been corrected which caused a few quests with more than one quest target to only display the distance to the first target in the MobMap quest tracker (however, you will also have to fetch a fresh database copy for this fix to work)
- changed: Several minor internal improvements and tweaks have been made to the quest tracker

v3.46:
- fixed: The quest tracker item buttons which I accidentially broke in 3.45 are now fixed (and yeah, they should finally work fine in any situation now!)

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edit: There have been numerous reports of people not being able to see the quest item buttons in the MobMap quest tracker anymore. I am currently tracking down this issue and preparing a fix, as soon as it is ready I'll push out version 3.46 to correct this rather big issue.

edit 2: So there it is, v3.46, fixing this one issue.

This update primarily changes a few things with the boss loot lists, but I think the changelog speaks for itself ;-)

v3.43:
- changed: Boss loot tables have been revised a little to include the new distinction between 10 and 25 player raid instances. An icon next to the "heroic" icon will mark loots which are only available in the 25 player version. The new instance "Trial of the Crusader" will also appear in the instance list now.
- changed: DATABASE FORMAT CHANGE! You will have to get a new database copy when updating!

The updated packages are already online for download!

[edit] There still was a small bug in the data collection subsystem which was fixed now in the just-released v3.44.

There was a bug in the MobMapUpdater upload procedure which could cause the tool to crash with an access violation message (which would probably be in German even on english versions of Windows, so it would read "Zugriffsverletzung...") when trying to upload larger amounts of collected data, especially if the data was collected with the old version of WoW (3.1.3).

That bug has been fixed now, if you click that "upload" button now it should upload that data just fine :) I'm sorry for the inconvenience, though fortunately the functionality of MobMap itself hasn't been harmed at any time by this bug.

Another day, another new version - this one just does some more bugfixing. It's already online for download via the MobMapUpdater tool, manual downloads and installation package will be updated automatically in a few hours, too.

For the sake of completeness, here's the changelog from version 3.40 (the first with WoW Patch 3.2 support) onwards:
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v3.40:
- changed: The addon has been updated for Patch 3.2

v3.41:
- fixed: A nasty bug which basically made the MobMap quest tracker non-reactive to user input and quest log changes
- fixed: Updated the version of the Astrolabe library to rev. 107

v3.42:
- fixed: An internal bug in the data collection system
- fixed: Mysterious Cooldown.lua errors (hopefully, was unable to replicate those for debug)

With the German servers slowly coming back online, I finally had the opportunity to investigate the first bug reports concerning primarily the quest tracker. I revealed a nasty bug that caused the tracker to do irratic stuff, like not updating properly, or sometimes not even display anything at all, as well as not responding to clicks - I'm truly wondering how I could miss that one on the beta servers, I'd even swear it wasn't there when I tested MobMap 3.40 on the PTR.

However, the bug is found and fixed and a new release, version 3.41, went online right now. The quest tracker should work fine again in that release (I hope so, at least). If you encounter any other bugs, just leave me a message below this posting...let the post-patch-debugging madness begin ;-)

[edit] I just saw that the installer package was still happily delivering version 3.33 of the addon. Saw it and fixed it - you'll now get the newest version in that package right from the start.

So there is it, just in time for all that Patch 3.2 updating that'll no doubt be going on in the next few days: MobMap 3.40, fully compatible with WoW 3.2 (at least it should be ;-)) This new version is already online for download via the MobMapUpdater, the manual download packages will follow in a few hours.

There ain't much new stuff, basically this is just a compatibility update without any new features, so there isn't much point in posting the full changelog here ;-) nevertheless a few things had to be changed for 3.2 compatibility, so if you encounter any new bugs while playing please leave me a comment in this posting and be sure that I'll investigate any real issues that may come along.

I've upgraded the MobMap backend server last week, to ensure that there are more than enough resources for all that database processing work and stuff. However, the new setup did some...strange things...I still don't understand the problem in-depth, as I unfortunately cannot replicate it on my testing machines, but for some unknown reason the server decided to compress some responses to the MobMapUpdater on-the-fly which is something he should never have done. This most probably caused error messages for some people (I'd guess that ~1% of the user base was affected) while using the updater. I hope to have it fixed now (hard to tell if you haven't been able to identify the true source of the problem, but the logs indicate a successful fix as far as I can see), and I'm sorry for the inconvenience.