We've all been there and done that. You accept an escort quest with a "catch"--for instance, a druid that falls asleep on you periodically, or a goblin that faints--and you have to react to this event by blowing a horn at the druid, or splashing some water on the goblin. To make things even more fun, the quest is timed, so if you don't react to the event in a timely manner, you might fail it.
BUT the darn NPC is lollygagging around behind you so that you sometimes can't see him, and the only warning you get that the druid is about to start to hibernate on you (or the goblin faint) again is an emote and a quote in the chat box. If you don't notice it, you continue running and the next thing you hear is the Dreaded Gong of Quest Failure.
This newly-hatched addon will hopefully help with that problem. When the quest NPC emotes, or speaks, you will get a warning DING sound, and a big red message will appear on your screen, alerting you that an event to which you must respond has occurred, hopefully in time for you to blow your horn or douse the NPC with water from the canteen. If the NPC has an emote or line that they speak when they are attacked, the alert will also ding then as well.
As more quests come to my attention, I will add them, so feel free to post recommendations, preferably with a link to the quest on WoWHead or Thottbot or Zam.com. I especially need recommendations for Horde escort quests to add, since I haven't played a Horde toon in years and am unfamiliar with those quests.
KNOWN ISSUES:
1) Sometimes if the NPC has a quote they say right as you accept the quest, sometimes the alert will be triggered. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, we're still trying to figure out why, but it might have something to do with the quote being registered before the quest log update is registered, in which case there is nothing we can do about it without making the code a lot more complex.
2) If more than 20 seconds passes between the time the alert gets triggered and the time you respond to it, you may see the alert a second time if the NPC has an emote or quote after it's over. For instance:
Kerlonian Evershade suddenly falls asleep...
Kerlonian Evershade says: Oh, I am so tired...
DING
<you blow the horn>
Kerlonian Evershade wakes up!
The addon is set to only trigger once ever 20 seconds, so if you blow the horn and get the "response" emote within 20 seconds of the first alert, you will be fine. But if more than 20 seconds passes before you get the second emote, you will see the alert again.
3) If your NPC has random little "flavor" quotes or emotes s/he says along the way, it will trigger the alert, since the addon looks for speech or emotes from the NPC, so you may occasionally get a false alarm. Therefore, be careful to double-check before using items such as Kerlonian Evershade's horn, or Ringo's canteen, as you might find they are on cooldown when you truly do need them.
4) If your NPC has a quote or emote when entering combat, you will be alerted. However, if they silently charge into battle without saying anything, you will not be alerted, so you still have to pay attention to what your NPC is doing.
5) If you happen to be walking past the quest NPC when an event happens--EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT ON THE QUEST--you will see the alert.
I have only been able to test this on "The Sleeper Has Awakened" as I have no toons of the appropriate level who haven't already done the other quests. Feedback is very welcome, thank you.
A huge THANK YOU goes out to Akryn, who actually wrote the code. I can't script, I just added the quest information and will continue to maintain and update it as quests come to my attention.
06-24-09, 07:59 PM
