Forever Scribe

Supported versions

All development targets WoW: Forever.

BLib is optional. With it, Scribe's occasional output goes to BLib's addon chat tab instead of competing with conversation in the main window. Without it, output goes to the default frame and nothing else differs. BLib is detected, never assumed.

1.2.1 — first public release

A passive recorder. It watches the quests, NPCs, items, drop tables, vendor stock and world nodes you encounter, and writes them to a file. There is no window, no minimap button and no settings, and it changes nothing about how you play.

Forever has no addon database and cannot have one yet: the Encounter Journal does not load, item data stays encrypted until an item first drops somewhere in the world, and a good share of the quests in the starting zones are Forever's own, above ID 90000, with no data anywhere because nobody has seen them. That database can only be built by people playing and writing down what they find. This addon does the writing down.

Notable in this build:

• The reagent bag is scanned too. The item scan walked bags 0 to 4, which was every bag there was when that loop was written. There is a fifth equipped slot now, and everything in it was being skipped.
• A quest's objectives can arrive before their names do. The client fills objective text in over several frames, so a record written at the first event captured the holes rather than the text. Records are completed when the text actually lands.
• What you click in the world is recorded, with a position — herb nodes, veins, chests and other clickables, which no existing database has for Forever's own content.
• Every part of it runs inside a protected call. A recorder should never be the reason a quest turn-in breaks.

The part that needs you

The data sits in a file on your computer, and it only becomes a database anybody can use if that file is shared. Type /scribe and it will tell you where the file is. There is no automatic upload and there never will be — addons cannot reach the internet, and you should be suspicious of any that claim otherwise.

The file contains records and map coordinates, your realm, faction, client build, locale and the date. It contains no character name, no account details, no gold, no chat and nothing about what you did. It is plain text; read it before you send it.

Known issue on the Forever beta

The beta sometimes hands an addon nothing when it loads, and your recorded data appears to have vanished. This is a client bug affecting many addons, not this one — the file on disk is written correctly, and the loss happens on the next write after a failed read. Copying the file out occasionally protects against it; sharing it protects against it permanently.

Before publication

Development history, kept for reference. None of these were released publicly.

• 1.2.0 — a quest's objectives can arrive before their names do
• 1.1.1 — send output to BLib's addon tab when there is one
• 1.1.0 — record what you clicked in the world, and where
• 1.0.0 — passively record quest, NPC, item and loot data