Avian Gamers Network

Hello,
I was told by a lot of players to download this program for WoW. I didn't know if it was in any way cheating in the game which in the end make blizzard delete my account.

Is it ok to install (Does Blizzard accept it and know its ok for players to use?)

Does it come with Spyware or any other crap you don't want?

And last, will it screw up my game play at all (make it go slower, freeze up, ect.)

Note: I tried looking on the blizzard forums but didn't get anywher.

Whip!

The official Cosmos found at www.cosmosui.org is 99,9% sure (heh, there is always a probability that the servers get hacked...)

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Flyoc,
Farm with attitude.

As far as i can tell it causes no extra lag or problems, Spyware i don;t think so, not 100% sure though i hear if you want to be 100% safe you need to take it aprt peice by piece and review what you neeed and don;t and delete the stuff you will not use

Actually if you want to be 100% sure, download and install cosmos manually without running any executable. I don't think Blizzard would allow their own UI to be able to hack your account.

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Flyoc,
Farm with attitude.

At the beginning there was a small thing in there (the team said "as a proof of concept") that could influence your character behaviour, i.e. execute emotes without player input in certain situations. They have since taken it out.
Blizzard has so far given no statement concerning Cosmos, but they have given the community the tools to change the UI, so they cannot ban your account completely because of using a changed UI. However, whenever you complain about something to a GM their first advice is to uninstall Cosmos (or any other UI Mod).
Also it seems that Cosmos uses up a fair bit of memory, so it might slow down the game for you if you run on a machine with small memory.

My 2c,

Edward

Good stuff, all.



To expand on what ME said:

First off, LUA is the language used to make a customized UI - apparently it's similar to XML. Second, the WoW client can compile LUA on the fly and at one point during beta, it was also able to read compiled code (I believe the compiled LUA code was smaller and may have been a little more efficient in terms of execution).

The concern was that if compiled LUA was supported by the WoW client, people could release UIs and those who used them could not be assured there was no malicious code (such as not being able to attack certain PCs or forced emotes as ME mentioned) in the UI. Blizzard discontinued their support of compiled LUA once Cosmos demonstrated this and now will only process uncompiled LUA code, giving users the opportunity to look at each line of code before they choose to install it.

Incidentally, there were a few wingnuts who really flew off the handle once this embedded code was discovered. So if you hear someone ranting about how you shouldn't trust Cosmos, back away from the crazy person and call the guys in white coats.

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Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

I just play the game right out the barrell, no Cosmos, no Thottbot, just good old UBER me.... hehe

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SW:TOR - Mantison Gunslinger, Ironmant Trooper, Manni Jedi Knight
WoW - Dalaran - Manni 85 Mage, Ironmant 83 Warrior, Mantison 80 Hunter
SWG - Chilastra Retired Mantison, Commando / TKA Master aka Trogdor !!!!

Me too. I would like to try it, but am happy so far with my WOW experience and gameplay. No need to risk screwing it up.

Good question!

Blizzard wanted people to experiment with the UI, that is why the supported the UI Mod crowd by giving them a forum to organize and learn from each other. Blizzard supports UI mods, they just can not guarantee them because the are not programmed by blizzard and they have a potential to break as the game changes. Many developers participated in these mods, some features made it into the game, and others were prased by soem devs.

The Cosmos and other teams have worked with Blizzard in that the teams find ways to manipulate the game, and then blizzard makes a judgment call weather to block such manipulation or to keep it. Over the beta and release, several features have come and gone. This is because Blizzard in either intentionally or accidentally blocking the functionality to some features. (auto cast spells for example)

Result is, in my opinion, a UI mod that is not cheating. It is just a bigger GUI and a few systems that reorganize the existing game data.

• Everyone could break out a calculator and compute a mission level based on its color and your character level…. But who wants to do that… Cosmos does it for us.
  
• Everyone can loot, but cosmos lets you shift+click to loot all.
  
• Everyone can compute their DPS, but cosmos does this for you.
  
• Everyone can keep a notepad of their quests, Cosmos keeps and updates one on your HUD
  
• Everyone can memorize the buffs and guess how long they will last, Cosmos displays all that data in a much better format.

Add map notes, better chat features, Health/Mana/Cooldown call-outs and the ability to modify the GUI… and you get the same game just better.

Absolutely, Cyrus. And if you act now, you can get this all for just $19.95!

Sorry - couldn't refuse infomercial mode there...

One of the biggest boons to my gameplay provided by Cosmos are all the handy-dandy tool bars. All my Seals are along the right-hand side, all my direct damage stuff and one main heal are in the standard toolbar and things like my invulnerability, party member invulnerability, LOH and Cleanse are on the left hand side of the window. The pop-up tool bar has more rarely used things or casual use things such as smelting and cooking.

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Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

Playing without Cosmos at low levels is different that at high levels. The best feature is the addition of up to 4 extra bars to load spells into. When you have 2 bars worth of spells that you use regularly, it's not practical during a fight to switch back and forth between bars. Plus, even if it's not vital, it's convenient. I have the bar space to drag down my food so I dont' have to open my inv every time I want to eat and drink.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

Thank you all for replying.

I feel much better now and I have downloaded it. I like it alot and I still have to play around with it. I can't seem to get "Loot All" to work. I'm sure I will figure it out. Thanks again!

Whip!