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WoW: QuestHelper and Carbonite

QuantumLo0p

QuantumLo0p

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 28, 2006
992
30
U.S.A.
The kids want me to install QuestHelper or Carbonite. After checking on them I decided to hold off because there seems to be some debate whether or not they contain key loggers or other malware.

Has anyone heard anything, good or bad, about either of these add ons?

Any other recommendations for quest assistance?
 
Neither can log your keys. Well aside from what you type in game of course (post character selection screen). The only trojans sometimes come in the form of executables that come with the .zip files. However you'd have to be on a Windows box and also run them in order for them to do anything.

You'll be fine.
 
Carbonite is over-featured and baffling. It may well be useful but I don't care to read through pages of microscopic text just to get the thing configured properly.

QuestHelper is fairly straightforward with few options, and will speed up your questing time by a ridiculous amount. I use it in tandem with QuestGuru, which has an incredibly handy quest history tab that tracks completed and abandoned quests.

I also use an addon called LightHeaded that displays in-game quest tips for those times when I'm beating my head against a wall trying to finish something. It's pretty much cheating, but it has also saved me a fair amount of frustration.
 
Bimmi said:
QuestHelper is fairly straightforward with few options, and will speed up your questing time by a ridiculous amount. I use it in tandem with QuestGuru, which has an incredibly handy quest history tab that tracks completed and abandoned quests.

I also use an addon called LightHeaded that displays in-game quest tips for those times when I'm beating my head against a wall trying to finish something. It's pretty much cheating, but it has also saved me a fair amount of frustration.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I do.
 
QuantumLo0p said:
The kids want me to install QuestHelper or Carbonite. After checking on them I decided to hold off because there seems to be some debate whether or not they contain key loggers or other malware.

Has anyone heard anything, good or bad, about either of these add ons?

Any other recommendations for quest assistance?
Click to expand...

I use Carbonite and have never had any issues with it.

Always manually install your addons in the interface addon folder. Who knows what the automatic installers are loading on your computer.
 
Bimmi said:
Carbonite is over-featured and baffling. It may well be useful but I don't care to read through pages of microscopic text just to get the thing configured properly.
Click to expand...

What's there to setup ? Just move your windows to where you want them. How can you lose by having all the quest givers in a zone show up on the main map.

- Shows you the map details even if you haven't explored a zone
- Shows you all the resource spawn locations (ore, herbs, etc) in a zone
- Shows all the mailboxes, flight masters, etc in a zone
- Shows the location of all the quest givers in a zone.
- If your friends are running Carbonite, it shows you their location and what quest they are on
- Warns when an enemy is near
- Directs you on the map where to go on a quest and shows distance and time.
- Many other features and now it's even free (used to be subscription based)
 
Showing the questgivers does sound like an awesome feature, but I disliked the way Carbonite takes over the interface and litters the screen with data. It was also kind of buggy and ill-behaved for me.

I like to keep things simple wherever possible, so QuestHelper's the one for me. Maybe I'll give Carbonite another shot someday, but I doubt it'll be anytime soon.
 
Bimmi said:
Showing the questgivers does sound like an awesome feature, but I disliked the way Carbonite takes over the interface and litters the screen with data. It was also kind of buggy and ill-behaved for me.

I like to keep things simple wherever possible, so QuestHelper's the one for me. Maybe I'll give Carbonite another shot someday, but I doubt it'll be anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Use what works best for you but everyone I know who was using Questhelper has switched to Carbonite :).
 
Plutonius said:
...Always manually install your addons in the interface addon folder. Who knows what the automatic installers are loading on your computer.
Click to expand...

Great idea! I will also be sure to scan the downloads and use a checksum if they supply it.
 
Seems like it changes WOW to some sort of on-the-rails linear follow-the-dots game.

Plutonius said:
What's there to setup ? Just move your windows to where you want them. How can you lose by having all the quest givers in a zone show up on the main map.

- Shows you the map details even if you haven't explored a zone
- Shows you all the resource spawn locations (ore, herbs, etc) in a zone
- Shows all the mailboxes, flight masters, etc in a zone
- Shows the location of all the quest givers in a zone.
- If your friends are running Carbonite, it shows you their location and what quest they are on
- Warns when an enemy is near
- Directs you on the map where to go on a quest and shows distance and time.
- Many other features and now it's even free (used to be subscription based)
Click to expand...
 
Plutonius said:
What's there to setup ? Just move your windows to where you want them. How can you lose by having all the quest givers in a zone show up on the main map.

- Shows you the map details even if you haven't explored a zone
- Shows you all the resource spawn locations (ore, herbs, etc) in a zone
- Shows all the mailboxes, flight masters, etc in a zone
- Shows the location of all the quest givers in a zone.
- If your friends are running Carbonite, it shows you their location and what quest they are on
- Warns when an enemy is near
- Directs you on the map where to go on a quest and shows distance and time.
- Many other features and now it's even free (used to be subscription based)
Click to expand...

A few more questions:
Is www.carboniteaddon.com the site to download from? (I want to be careful to not download from a bad site.)
Whether I decide to use either Carbonite or QuestHelper, do they uninstall cleanly?
Will any quest add-ons get my account banned?

Thanks to all for the great advice!
 
QuantumLo0p said:
A few more questions:
Is www.carboniteaddon.com the site to download from? (I want to be careful to not download from a bad site.)
Whether I decide to use either Carbonite or QuestHelper, do they uninstall cleanly?
Will any quest add-ons get my account banned?

Thanks to all for the great advice!
Click to expand...

That's the site to download Carbonite from and it will not get your account banned. Like I mentioned earlier, manually install all add-ons by dragging them to your interface add-on folder.

To remove / delete Carbonite and most other add-ons, just drag the folder in question from the interface add-ons folder to the trash.

Some other add-ons you might think about are

- healbot or one of the other healing add-ons (if you have a healer)
- decursive
- deadly boss mods
 
I'd go with Carbonite, now that it is free. It's a much more useful and powerful addon than QuestHelper, and more efficiently coded as well.

As far as taking over your UI, it doesn't unless you turn on the options for it to do so (it can replace your minimap if you choose to, but you can also have it a secondary window that you can turn off/on at well). It does replace your main map, but it's a vastly superior map anyway, so I don't see the problem with that.

It has numerous other features that are useful, mostly to do with map tagging. Tagging quest givers, resource nodes, flight masters, inns, etc on your map. All filterable of course. Notification when an enemy is nearby, or when an ally running Carbonite is as well (so if you see a friend doing the same quest as you, you can team up). The Warehouse is nice if you don't use inventory mods (it shows you items that all your characters collectively have).

As far as the quest help that it gives, it colours in areas on the map that the quest can be completed at (So if it's a mob that spawns, it shows the entire area that it can spawn within, highlighted).

Carbonite is a lot more than just a quest addon, but it can be as much or as little as you want, it's highly configurable. One of the best made addons I've come across (likely due to it being paid for a while).
 
I plan to try QuestHelper but first I am giving Carbonite a test drive.

Am I correct in assuming if I broadcast my position to other Carbonite users that an enemy Carbonite user will see me in the Punk display?!

Not a big deal, just that it could be a tool for the Horde to use against the Alliance and me!.
 
QuantumLo0p said:
I plan to try QuestHelper but first I am giving Carbonite a test drive.

Am I correct in assuming if I broadcast my position to other Carbonite users that an enemy Carbonite user will see me in the Punk display?!

Not a big deal, just that it could be a tool for the Horde to use against the Alliance and me!.
Click to expand...

I don't believe so. You can also turn off the broadcasting if you want.

I haven't yet past near an enemy without the warning going off which leads me to believe that it triggers off of any enemy showing up within a certain range.

It's pretty humorous when you quest on the ground below Dalaran :).
 
Both are incredible memory hogs. Carbonite is the better of the two but it helps if you turn off a lot of the unneeded features.

That said, there's really no need for either these days. I used Carbonite in the first week of expansion when so many people were also leveling to 80. But now? Meh.
 
I was a long time Quest Helper user, but when Carbonite went "free" I took a look. At first I did not like it but now I prefer it over QH for 2 reasons.

1. Maps can be set to display all known harvestable items. You don't go have to find them first for them to show up on the map.
2. When you click on an item, say in a recipe, the warehouse will show you all of those items, all your characters hold, and where they are- on them, in bank, in mail. This is most outstanding if you have 5 or 6 active toons and/or you are unorganized as I am and have stuff scattered all over among them.
 
Huntn said:
I was a long time Quest Helper user, but when Carbonite went "free" I took a look. At first I did not like it but now I prefer it over QH for 2 reasons.

1. Maps can be set to display all known harvestable items. You don't go have to find them first for them to show up on the map.
2. When you click on an item, say in a recipe, the warehouse will show you all of those items, all of your characters hold, and where they are- on them, in bank, in mail. This is most outstanding if you have 5 or 6 active toons and/or you are unorganized as I am and have stuff scattered all over among them.
Click to expand...

Displaying items is huge. Yeah, some people don't like it but looking for items is not what the kids and, [ahem] I want to spend our time on. We like the groups, the fights and the battles.

Thanks for the rundown on the warehouse. I knew it displayed what I had in possession but wasn't aware of all the other details. I just glanced over the intro info so I know I missed a lot of good info. I will fully read it the next time I log in.

Next I need to find any old posts on professions. If I don't have any luck I may start another thread.

This is fun..:)
 
I forgot to mention, when you look at the map in Carbonite, it designates the location of all of your active quests so you can easily see what other quests you are close to and if you click on a quest objective in the quest tracker it shows you an arrow and distance to the objective in your main interface.

http://www.carboniteaddon.com/
 
QuantumLo0p said:
I can't seem to get Carbonite to display resources; ore, herbs, etc-

Any tips?
Click to expand...

on all the maps, you have a ? button along with the + and - buttons. Click on the ? button and you will get a screen showing all the things that can show on the map. Click on the one you want then return to the map.

i.e. to show all the quest givers, click on the map ? button and click on quest on the following screen. To show all the ore, click on the map ? button, click on gatherer (or something like that) and then click on ore.

Note: You might have to initially load the carbonite gatherer database (one of the options)
 
Semi-off-topic: I hear a lot about certain add-ons being resource hogs, but how does this specifically effect game performance?
 
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