SpellDamage meets BlogEngine.net

Finally, I’ve integrated BlogEngine.net with SpellDamage. This gives me the capability of treating the homepage of spelldamage as my blog and get all those cool blog services like pings, social buttons, etc…

It wasn’t really all that hard, blogengine.net is setup quite nicely for integration. Although I did have some problems with jQuery which has caused me to hold back some features that I would have liked to release now (post comments, tabbed sidebar widgets, etc). I’ll be working to resolve those issues and get them up.

I’m not quite happy with the front page design. It’s too big, so I’ll be working on streamlining it some more… and adding some more polish to various UI parts. I’m also not really happy with the sidebar, partially due to the jQuery troubles and partially because I had to scrap some graphics I had planned for it. That will definitely be changing in the somewhat near future.

One big change is how I reworked the site navigation. It’s now grouped by functionality. The navigation bar has the following links: Home Browse Calculate Compare Leaderboards & Contact. When you hover your mouse over Browse, Calculate, or Leadersboard a small popup will appear allowing you to choose between Mage, Warlock, or Priest. Hopefully this navigation is intuitive, as now you choose what you want to do, and with which class. If you have any problems, let me know.

A loss I had to take in the nuts are the articles I’ve already written. I’ve got them all backed up to Word docs, but the entire article system I had before is gone. Now, those cached backlinks and pages in Google are wasted… I’ll have to work on getting them back again. Oh well… the loss is worth it I think.

I’ll be writing some articles, and making some videos about my journey of merging SpellDamage and BlogEngine.net.

Minor Upgrades: 06/03

Today I made a minor upgrade to spelldamage. It’s primarily a code maintenance release, but the upside is that you should see the error page less often (if you even saw it at all). According to my logs, quite a few of my visitors were being directed to the error page for various reasons.

Hopefully this release makes spelldamage so stable you never see the error page. But if you do, please let me know.

Thanks!

Very big changes coming to SpellDamage

In case you missed this post, “SpellDamage to Focus on Cloth Casters“, go read it. Basically, it says that Druids aren’t coming soon anymore. Sorry Druids, Shaman, and Paladins. Perhaps someday I’ll get to you.

So, the big changes. Yes, I’m reworking spelldamage again. I don’t want to write articles, and I don’t want the homepage to focus so intently on articles. So, I’ve rewritten the homepage (and a large portion of everything else too). Read this post, “Big rework coming soon“. It goes over a bit of what coming.

SpellDamage:Discovery is Live, and Druids are Next

Quick update here, SpellDamage:Discovery is live… check it out www.spelldamage.com. Watch this video to see the new features in action.

All you Druid players out there will be happy to know that Druids are the next class to be implemented in SpellDamage… in the next release. Check the under development page to keep informed.

SpellDamage 2.0, It’s Getting Close!

Alright everyone, SpellDamage 2.0 is very close now. I’m just finishing up the Priest calculator, should be done by the end of the weekend. After that, I just polish the site until my host has finished setting up ASP.NET 3.5.

So what’s coming? Here’s a quick review of whats new:

• Spell Database – Probably the single most important update. Now that I have an accurate database of the spells for each class, I can provide calculations to every level range. Yes, that’s right, you 29 twinks out there can now use SpellDamage too! I’ve even developed some back end tools to help me keep the spell data current (in case Blizzard changes things).
• Full Level Range Calculated – I know I mentioned it above, but it’s worth making it into it’s own bullet. The entire level range, 1-70, can now be calculated.
• US, EU, and Korea Support – Well, actually I’m not sure about the Korea support, but 2.0 fully supports the European WoW players! If you happen to know a Korean character/realm, test it out when 2.0 comes out, let me know how it works.
• Tabbed UI – The tabbed UI saves tons of screen real-estate, which frees the site up to better display the calculation results. It also helps a ton to keep everything clean and organized. It’s a billion times better than the current UI, and it’s AJAX’d so it’s nice and fast switching between tabs. To top it off, if the tabs are in the way, you can hide them!
• Top <class> – Each class has a Top <class> page that lets you show off! The data is filterable so you can see who’s truly top of their class. For example, the Top Mages page by default shows the mages who have the top mana, hp, spell damage, etc… with no filters. You can begin applying filters to it, such as level range, realm, battlegroup, etc… If you wanted to see only the 20-29 mages in the vindication battlegroup, you can!
• Article System - There’ll be an article system in 2.0, where I’ll write articles about class balance, theorycrafting, and anything else I feel like!
• LINQ - Actually, this is a feature of ASP.NET 3.5, but LINQ has allowed me to be extremely productive with the little free time I have. The auto-generated classes right from the SQL database top the cake!
• WoWArmory Data – I’m pulling a bit more armory data than before, and storing more of it as well. This supports the Top <class> pages.
• And more…

Hope you all enjoy SpellDamage 2.0 as much as I like developing it!

The Countdown Begins! SpellDamage 2.0 Draws Closer

Well, since Microsoft decided to finally release ASP.NET 3.5, my host has notified me that they’d like to test the update for a couple weeks. For me, and SpellDamage 2.0, this means the countdown has begun. I’m working as hard as I can to make sure SpellDamage 2.0 is ready once my host has ASP.NET 3.5 operational.

So, who cares? What does SpellDamage 2.0 bring to the table? Well, I’ll be making a few more videos to show it off, but in the mean time, check these out:

First, just a general preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fkdFrqWU24
Then a preview of the Top Mages feature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avY6xQcb8RI

edit: New preview video, showing the “Tally” feature in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOz1aznOuLM 

Also, SpellDamage 2.0 has changed a bit cosmetically since those videos were made. I’m streamlining the CSS to make the page load faster, and make it easier to maintain.

Anyway, more to come… back to work!

Mage Calculator is Complete

Well, the SpellDamage 2.0 Mage damage calculator is complete. I’ve decided once I’ve finished the Warlock calculator, written some articles, and polished the site up a bit more, I’ll release the new SpellDamage. I just can’t stand having that old one online, it’s so crappy compared to the new one.

So, if things go well, I should be able to launch the new SpellDamage by December 1st. After launch, I’ll work on more articles and the other class calculators (and top score pages).  Very exciting times… so much goodness in the next release, I can’t wait to show it to you!

Progress is Bliss!

Just a quick update on my progress with SpellDamage 2.0. Everything is coming along great and I plan to have the basic mage calculator done perhaps this week and have the plumbing done on some more advanced calculations.

Then, it’s polish time. I’ll take some rounds through the site to run error checks, take the code through it’s paces and find out what I like and dislike… and make repairs.

After that, depending on my mood, I’ll either release spelldamage 2.0 with Mage only, or get crack’n on adding more classes. Because, basically at that point, everything is done. It’d only be a matter of adding the spell data into the spell store and then some basic coding to get them into each class’s calculator.

Today I added a new feature. You’ll be able to add/remove spells from the calculation results. If you only want to perform the calculation on a few select spells, you’ll be able to in the next version of SpellDamage.

Stay tuned for more!

Mage Fixes, Additions, & Minor Site Changes

I’ve just uploaded the latest build of SpellDamage.com. It’s primarily for Mages, but there are some overall site changes that affect all classes too.

Changes include:
- Fireball, Pyroblast, and Frostbolt coefficients corrected (I hope)
- Fireball DoT coefficient & modifiers corrected
- Arcane Missiles rank 10 used instead of rank 11 since it’s not available yet
- Added Tier 5 2 piece set bonus support
- Added Arcane Blast with 1, 2, and 3 cast buffs
- Renamed Arcane Power check box to AP (to make it shorter is all)
- Minor graphics updates
- Removed in-calculation text link advertisements
- Removed banner advertisement that appeared directly below header (to the right of character name)
- Removed some unnecessary menu items (advertise and downloads)

Upcoming Mage Changes

Update: Sorry, Winter’s Chill talent won’t be taken into account at this time as calculations are simply baseline right now. Crit isn’t being taken into account for calculations, but will be in the future. Sorry for any mis-communications. 

Thanks to Zaldinar in the mage forums, I’ve been informed of some calculation errors in the site. I’ll be working on them over the next few days. Sorry for the delays, I’ve been swamped with marriage coordination and work.

Upcoming changes include:

• Fireball, Pyroblast, Frostbolt, and Fireball DoT coefficient fixes – it’s currently calculating about .015 off (except Fireball DoT is way off)
• Arcane Missiles is calculating at rank 11, which isn’t really available yet. I’ll be changing it to rank 10.
• Winter’s Chill – I’ll be taking that into account
• Tier 5 -piece set bonus to Arcane Blast will be added

Lot’s of fixes coming and after that I’ll be getting priests online as soon as I can.