Deus Vox Encounters (DXE) is a very complex addon that even in its original form consisted of many things people might find interesting. In these past couple of years I have been building on top of these foundations, adding useful functions from other addons and implementing unique ideas that sometimes are and other times aren’t connected to the specific enivronment we play on at Twinstar be it the functionality of encounters, game’s client or even the game or the community players are part of.

In this article I shall try to write down most of characteristic features (the original and the brand new) of the DXE addon that are either important or make DXE different from other addons such as DBM or BigWigs.

Contents

  1. Timer bars
  2. Boss’ defeat
  3. Encounter timekeeping
  4. Multi-purpose encounter panel
  5. Dungeon & Raid modules
  6. Battleground modules
  7. PvP mechanics
  8. Individual encounter settings
  9. Sound system
  10. Text-coloring system
  11. Boss message filters
  12. Automatic whispers
  13. Chat commands
  14. Other features

Timer bars

Timer bars of both DBM and DXE are similar in principal but even here you can see couple of differences.

The most important being that each bar has its own individual color. The color and the icon are the most important aspect to recognize the bar. Having each bar a different color makes a huge difference. DXE has individual settings of the font type and font size for the timer text because the timer text is the next important aspect.

Boss’ defeat

(DBM)

  • Only local chat notification.

(original DXE)

  • After defeating the boss it would play the victory melody (which could have been chosen by the player).

(new DXE)

  • The first DXE version I made had at least a function that a Raid Warning text would announce the boss’ defeat based on the same principals as other alerts that were in the addon present at the time.
  • In version 3.0 I added a special Defeat frame inspired by the Legion’s version but this one was golden and I included the boss’ portraits from the Dungeon Journal. In my view the animation of the alert gives more pleasure from defeating the boss.

  • Also there is an option to capture a screenshot after killing the boss or after killing the boss in a record speed kill automatically.

Encounter timekeeping

(DBM)

  • Shows a record kill timer among other encounter timers.
  • As a part of boss’ defeat text a fight length information is included in the text.

(original DXE)

  • As a part of the original DXE pane there is a timer that shows the current encounter length with precision of hundredths of a second.

(new DXE)

  • Implements keeping and displaying of the fastest kills of the given boss encounter on given difficulty (Normal / Heroic) and raid size (5-Player / 10-Player / 25-Player) and the time difference compared to the curent fight’s length.
  • Achieved times are available when the encounter is loaded on the Pane and in the addon’s Options under each encounter’s Speed kills tab.

Multi-purpose encounter panel

(original DXE)

Apart from what’s already been mentioned the encounter Pane also displays:

  • Boss’ health bars (current HP in % with their names)
  • Boss’ energy (should the encounter require it)

(new DXE)

A part of followed unit’s names might be the raid markers that are places on them.

More types of bars have been added to display things such as:

  • Temporary health bars – are displayed only for a short period of time, usually for a specific npc / player (mostly adds).
  • Specific counters – display the counter of a followed quantity (e.g. a number of adds left to kill during the Ragnaros’ intermission phase).

  • Phase markers – Mark the HealthBars of bosses on places where an important phase change or other event that’s based on % of HP takes place.

  • Pull button – To keep the person from having to use a pull macro all the time or having to write the same chat command for pull in x-amount of seconds I added a button with an icon of hourglass on the Pane that after clicking it with a left mouse button triggers a pre-set pull timer and after clicking it with right mouse button a predefined  menu of other pull and break timers is offered all of which can be set in advance.

Dungeon & Raid modules

(original DXE)

Contains modules for all Cataclysm raiding content:

  • patch 4.0.3
    • The Bastion of Twilight
    • Blackwing Descent
    • Throne of the Four Winds
    • Baradin Hold – Argaloth
  • patch 4.2.0 – Rage of the Firelands
    • Firelands
    • Baradin Hold – Occu’thar
  • patch 4.3.0 – Hour of Twilight
    • Dragon Soul
    • Baradin Hold – Alizabal

(new DXE)

Adds to the existing modules equally complex modules for other Cataclysm dungeons:

  • patch 4.0.3 (9 modules)

Blackrock Caverns, Grim Batol, Halls of Origination, Lost City of the Tol’vir, Shadowfang Keep, The Deadmines, The Stonecore, The Vortex Pinnacle & Throne of the Tides.

  • patch 4.1 – Rise of the Zandalari dungeons (2 modules)

Zul’Gurub & Zul’Aman

  • patch 4.3.0 – Hour of Twilight (3 modules)

End Time, Well of Eternity & Hour of Twilight

Battleground modules

(original DXE)

Does not include any PvP content.

(new DXE)

Implements mechanics, warnings, timers and other functions for all battleground that are available in Cataclysm:

  • Capture the flag
    • Warsong Gulch
    • Twin Peaks
  • Resource Race
    • Arathi Basin
    • Eye of the Storm
    • The Battle for Gilneas
    • Alterac Valley
    • Isle of Conquest
  • Warfare
    • Strand of the Ancients

PvP mechanics

Score Frame – Replaces the default Blizzard score that is shown in battlegrounds.

Usually it displays the relevant score with a timer in the midle which is counting down the most important thing in a given battlegrounds in a given moment. You can gen more information about it here.

Individual encounter settings

Each and every timer and warning has (unlike DBM where you can only turn them on or off) its own settings such as:

(original DXE)

  • Main color – the color of the timer’s bar / the warning’s text color
  • Flash color – secondary color while the timer is flashing when it’s about to run out of time (can be turned off so no flashing occurs)
  • Sound – when the warning is shown / when the timer bar is transitioning from the Top Stack
  • Flashtime – a time at which the timer bar transitions from the Top Stack (usually 5 seconds before the end)
  • Audio countdown – timer will count down the last 5 seconds using syntetic voice out loud.
  • Flash screen – when the warning is shown / the timer transitions from the Top Stack the screen flashes (usefull for important warnings)
  • Counter – a number counter in parentheses are added to the warning / timer text which tells the player how many times it’s been activated (useful when people decide who might for example kick the 2nd and 4th spell and who shall kick the 3rd and 5th).

(new DXE)

  • Audio countdown – thanks to the new set of synthetic voice recordings you can choose different voices for different countdowns.
  • Emphasize warning – the warning is redirected to a special Emphasis frame (see below)
  • Emphasize timer – timer is always shown in a special stack at the Emphasis anchor, again see below).
  • Stacks – for warning that are limited by the number of stacks this limit can now be set by the player (in reaction to Firelands spells where every player is used to deal with different amount of stacks).

A part of individual settings is also an option to Test the look of a given timer or warning so the player can see how they look when they set it up and didn’t have to wait for the boss encounter.

Sound system

(original DXE)

  • Individual association of a sound to each warning or timer.
  • Sound settings for boss’ defeat (VICTORY)
  • Sounds that can be chosen come from the SharedMedia library of sounds.

(new DXE)

  • More customizable sound source that allow adding your own sounds:
    • using URL to the WoW folder
    • using SoundKitID (can be found on WowHeadu database of sounds)
  • You can set a global audio channel for sounds to play in:
    • Sound Effects – standard audio channel
    • Master – sounds are played even if the sound effects are disabled  (using CTRL+S).
    • Music – audio channel for music.
    • Ambiance – audio channel for ambient sounds
  • Suport for alternative sound packs and countdowns:
    • for boss timers
    • for Pull timers
    • for LFG timers
  • Settings for more system sounds
    • VICTORY_RAID – defeating the boss in a raiding instance.
    • VICTORY_PARTY – defeating the boss in a 5-man dungeon.
    • WIPE – speaks for itself
    • COUNTDOWN_TICK – when a single digit tics in a grand “battleground-style” countdown.
    • COUNTDOWN_GO – when the grand “battleground-style” countdown ends.
    • ROLE_CHECK – when the role check poll is triggered.
    • LFG_READY_CHECK – when the Random Dungeon Finder / Random Hour of Twilight finds a group for the player.
    • RBG_READY_CHECK – when the Random Battleground invites the player to the battleground.

 Text-coloring system

(original DXE)

  • Colors the names of player by their respective class in warnings and timers and also colors the phrase ‘YOU’.

(new DXE)

  • Completely reworks the text coloring mechanics using the custom phrases and regular expressions with the goal to make the text more readable for the player to indentify the phrases in a longer text.

Boss message filters

(original DXE)

  • Allows you to hide all the boss emotes. These sometimes announce boss’ ability.

(new DXE)

  • Allows you to hide:
    • Boss Emote Frame – Specific boss messages which allows you to keep some of your favorite emotes and hider others.
    • Raid Warning Frame – There are certain automatic raid warnings that DXE produces for people who don’t use DXE. These are redundant for the people with DXE and so DXE filters the raid warning messages and hides them.

Automatic whispers

(original DXE)

  • If somebody whispers you during the boss encounter a set of information about the fight is sent back (similar to DBM)
  • After the fight the players are also notified about the defeat or the wipe.

(new DXE)

  • People can whisper to a person that uses DXE a phrase “dxestatus” or “dxes” and if he doesn’t have the function disabled they shall receive information about which bosses are alive in the instance and which are already dead and which boss the player is currently fighting. The report also includes the difficulty on which the boss has been defeated.
    This function also works outside of the boss encounter if the player is inside the raiding instance or the boss module’s been activated and player is dead outside of the instance. These reports are filtered from the player himself. Therefore he’s not bothered with it and you can find out about the raid’s progress without telling him about it.

Chat commands

(original DXE)

  • /dxe proximity – Shows / hides the radar for checking the distances between players.

(new DXE)

  • /dxe range number or /dxe distance number – shows the randar (same as proximity) + all three commands can specify the distance
  • /dxe pull number – Triggers a pull timer for a given amount of seconds (same as DBM)
  • /dxe break number – Triggers a break timer for a given amount of minutes (same as DBM)
  • /dxe leave – Leaves the party / raid (useful when there is no other way to leave)
  • /dxe disband – For raid leaders so they can disband the raid quickly if need be.
  • /dxe ress – Accepts the received resurection (useful when the resurrection dialog doesn’t show up).
  • /dxe repop – Releases spirit (useful when the You died dialog doesn’t show up).

Other features

RDF Invite timer – Adds a special timer right under the RDF invitation dialog and displays:

  • how much time is left to accept the invitation,
  • how many people have already accepted the invitation (even if the player himself/herself hasn’t accepted yet),
  • plays RDF invitation sound even when the player has game sounds turned off using CTRL+S,
  • displays countdown until the teleport to dungeon occurs (2 seconds) which is useful if you don’t want to get teleported you simply jump or start falling during the time the timer runs out.

Role Check features

  • Displays (only to the player’s chat) the name of the person who initiated the Role Check.
  • Automatically selects the role coresponding to the player’s talents.
  • If the player has already selected their role it automatically confirms the Role Check for them (they won’t even see the dialog).
  • When the player swiches to a different talent tree the role is automatically changed.
  • Upon initiating the Role Check the ROLE_CHECK sound is played (you can play it back or disable it by setting it to “None” at Sounds > Sound Label / Sound File association).

Battleground-style Pull Countdown – Grand countdown in a battleground / arena style.

A part of this countdown is an option to filter the Raid Warning countdown messages that on one hand visually impacts the Grand countdown and on the other plays a Raid Warning sound that overlaps the Grand countdown ticks and the combination is annoying.

Automatic Cinematics Skipping – This mechanism allows you to automatically skip the cinematic that you’ve already seen at least once or you can set it up so you won’t ever see it or that it never skips for a given cinematic Given that DXE deals with dungeons and raids the feature only takes care of these cinematics (even though the game contains more of them):

  • Throne of the Tides – Ozumat flees
  • Firelands – Sulfuron Span
  • Dragon Soul – Ultraxion defeated, Spine of Deathwing pull, Spine of Deathwing defeated, Madness of Deathwing defeated

In case of pre-rendered cinematics (so called movies) which can be seen for example in Dragon Soul you can play them back using Options in DXE wherever and whenever.

AutoGossip – In the Dragon Soul raid (and in other instances as well) there are many dialog windows that has to be confirmed, many npcs to talk to so that the things move on. Sooner or later the player might get bored confirming everything and might wish things were easier which is the purpose of this module. It automatically selects any pre-set gossip that can be found in raids and dungeons. The most common example is talking to Kalecgos after killing Hagara to move on with the role-play. With AutoGossip you only need to right-click the NPC once and it’s done. More extreme example might be the enabling of robot at Chimaeron in the raid Blackwing Descent where you need to select 5 gossips until the robot is enabled. With this module you only need to right-click once and everything is confirmed automatically. Of course there are gossips in Dragon Soul that pull bosses but these consist of confirming a separated dialog on top of the gossip so you can’t pull the boss accidentally by clicking on an NPC.

Reload StaticDialog Fix – Sometimes when you reload UI when the character’s dead you won’t see the dialog to “Release Spirit” or to accept the resurrection. Thanks to this UI fix you can forget all about it and don’t have to turn off you game just to get to the cemetery or to accept the resurrection from a friend.

Cinematics While Dead Fix – When the cinematic is triggered while the player’s character is dead the CinematicsFrame won’t display which makes it impossible for the player to skip the cinematc and they have to wait until it ends. Reload won’t help you here either because it will take place only after the cinematic and if you relog the game will send you to the cemetery. This fix removes this problem and the CinematicsFrame behaves as though the player is alive.

Hide Blizzard Boss Frames – Hide the default Blizzard boss frames that are displayed on the side during the boss encounter. Often enough people don’t make use of them and the frames only obstruct the UI.