BuddiesScoutForever

Some of WoW Forever's NPCs won't stand still. Gordo shuffles up and down the road to Brill, Hogger roams the gnoll camps, Old Murk-Eye wanders the coast, and you can spend ten minutes running in circles looking for one of them.

Buddies Scout Forever is Waze for wandering NPCs. When anyone running it talks to one of them, targets it, points at it or sees its nameplate, everyone else running it gets a star on their map where it was. If it's one you need and you're close, a window asks whether you want to go there.

It's the little brother of Buddies Quest Forever. It works on its own, and with Buddies Quest Forever installed it knows exactly which NPCs your route needs next and takes on your theme. Buddies don't let buddies get lost.

Beta: it only knows what players see, so it gets better the more of you run it. Bring your friends.

How It Works

• Spotting: talk to a watched NPC (or open its quest or vendor window), target it, point at it with the mouse or see its nameplate, and Scout notes where you are. Out of the box it watches the wandering quest NPCs and roaming mobs on Buddies Quest Forever's routes, 43 of them, from Gordo and Hogger to Riptear, Old Murk-Eye, Gammerita and Krom'Grul. Add any NPC you like: target it and type /bsf add. You'll share where you see them, and other players share them too once they add them, so ask your party or guild to add them as well.
• Sharing: sightings go to your party or raid, your guild, and a hidden chat channel (BuddiesScoutForever) that reaches everyone running Scout on your side of the realm. The channel stays out of your chat windows. When you log in or enter a zone, Scout asks for news there, and players who know of a sighting in that zone from the last 15 minutes pass it on.
• Your maps: a gold star on your world map and minimap where each NPC was last seen, fading over 15 minutes. Point at it to see who saw them and how long ago. Alongside a fresh sighting, your world map also shows that NPC's earlier sightings from the past two weeks as small faint marks, so you can see where they usually walk.

The Popup

When a sighting comes in for an NPC you need, from the last 5 minutes and within 500 yards, a window asks: "Gordo spotted 189 yds west (1 min ago, by Kat). Navigate there?"

• Navigate points you at them. The waypoint moves when someone sees them again. It stops when you find them (talk to them, or target them dead if they're a mob), when you type /bsf stop, or when nobody has seen them for 15 minutes.
• Not now keeps that NPC quiet for 5 minutes. Don't ask for them never asks about them again (/bsf unmute brings them back).
• It never pops up in combat (it waits until you're out), and never in a dungeon. A sound and a flash of the game's icon tell you it's there. It closes by itself after a minute.

Who it asks about (only NPCs Scout watches: the 43 built in, and any you've added):

• With Buddies Quest Forever: one your next 25 stops need, with the stop and how far ahead it is ("Coming up on your route (3 stops ahead): Accept Gordo's Task").
• Always: one a quest in your log needs (or that you can now hand in to), one who gives a quest at your level that you haven't done, or one on your own watch list.

Better with Buddies Quest Forever

Install both and they work together (Buddies Quest Forever 0.9.85 or later):

• The route's arrow finds them: when the stop you're on is a wandering NPC, the arrow heads straight for a sighting from the last 5 minutes instead of the nearest point of their path, and the tracker shows who spotted them and when. No popup: you're already on your way.
• Scout detour: for an NPC a few stops ahead, Navigate puts a Scout detour on the tracker. The arrow follows them as they're seen again, and your route picks up again once you've found them. Click the line to skip it.
• Your theme: the popup is Buddies Quest Forever's own window in whichever theme you picked (Buddies, Buddies Classic, Alliance, Horde, Vanilla, Halloween, Scroll or Skyborne), and the map pins and chat lines take its colours.

On its own, Scout uses the game's own popup, and Navigate sets a TomTom waypoint if you have TomTom, or the game's own map pin.

What It Shares

Scout sends two kinds of messages, to your party or raid, your guild and the hidden channel (anyone running Scout on your realm and side can read the channel):

• A sighting: the NPC's name, the zone, the spot on the map where you were standing when you saw them, how long ago, and whether you talked to them or just saw them. When Scout passes on a sighting it heard from someone else, it carries their name.
• A zone ask: when you log in or enter a zone, the zone's name, asking for sightings there. So other Scout players can see which zone you're in when you arrive.

The game puts your character name on every addon message, so other players see "by Kat". Nothing else is sent, and nothing goes to any website: sightings only travel between players running Scout. /bsf share turns all of it off (you stop sending sightings and asking, but still see everyone else's), and /bsf channel leaves the hidden channel (party, raid and guild only).

Commands

/bsf (or /scout) status, fresh sightings and your watch list · /bsf add watch your target (or /bsf add <name>) · /bsf remove <name> · /bsf mute <name> / /bsf unmute <name> · /bsf go <name> navigate to their latest sighting · /bsf stop · /bsf range <yards> how close a sighting must be to ask (500) · /bsf share, channel, ask, sound, pins turn each on or off · /bsf list · /bsf test a made-up sighting near you, to see the popup · /bsf clear forget every sighting

Updates

New wandering NPCs are added as Buddies Quest Forever's routes grow, and come with each new version. Update from CurseForge.