Hi there. I’m a returning player, looking for some help with front end setup. I’m trying to play on a MacBook Pro running OS 10.14.4 (Mojave). The last time I played consistently I was using a slightly older MacBook which has since been stolen. On that machine, I was using Warlock and I really liked it, but there was significant difficulty in getting it set up. Once I did however, the game ran fine and I was able to save my macros, highlight strings and scripts without too many issues. There was some significant bugginess but I was usually able to work around this and ran the game fine for years.
On the new machine, I haven’t yet been able to get a FE setup that makes the game seem like something I want to pay for again. I’m not a computer programmer and am pretty ignorant when it comes to the ins and outs of software. I’m looking for some information and opinions regarding the best way to run the game with the FE features I’m looking for. Below is a list of some of the stuff I’ve tried, and the issues I’ve had:
Warlock2 (older version): This is front end that I’ve used the most and historically had the most luck with. I installed warlock from a backup I had from my previous machine, which is probably a version I downloaded somewhere around 2012. I’m able to access the game, load my scripts, and set macros. However, none of my settings save when I close the app, with exception of my window layout and fonts. Can’t figure out how to get them to persist. Also, trying to set column fonts causes the app to crash.
Warlock (downloaded most recent version, 2016?): App won’t run at all, getting dialog saying it’s not compatible.
Avalon: App runs, and I’m able to access the game. Doesn’t seem to be a way to add windows like assess, active spells, etc. Lack of meters is a negative, as I really got used to them in warlock. Floating windows are not my favorite.
Outlander: App runs, and I’m able to access the game. However, trying to move/resize the windows is for some reason insanely difficult. Not sure if I’m doing something wrong. I usually have to try anywhere from 10-20 times to get the little resize arrows to appear. Trying to mess with other settings has caused seemingly random crashes. For these reasons, I haven’t explored this app too much.
Frostbite (latest version, 2019): For my current machine, this app is so far my favorite. From what I’ve gleaned, it’s being given the most attention development-wise. It’s got meters (though I wish I could change the colors), buttons, nice graphical displays. The possibility of using the automapper is definitely intriguing, but since I was using warlock before it’s not really the most important feature for me. Game runs fine, and the windows seem to be nicely customizable. As far as I remember, this FE hasn’t crashed on me yet. However, there are some minor things I would like to do which I’m not sure are supported yet. One is an assess window. I’m not sure if there is a way to add this, but since I relied on this window so much for combat when I played DR in the past, I just don’t want to live without it. The second is stupidly minor, but it would be nice if in the EXP window, the skills that were recently filled could be highlighted. Right now it’s showing me little plus signs which I guess is fine, but harder to look at a glance. Not exactly a dealbreaker, but it would be nice if this were changeable/customizable somehow. That assess window though...if someone could tell me how to get something like that to work in this FE I’d be very grateful and would probably feel good about diving in to DR again.
I haven’t gone too far with trying to script with any of these, as I’d like to make sure the visuals and windows are working in a way that makes sense for me before I waste any more time. I’m pretty clueless about the plugins like YASSE and LICH, and not sure if I really need them. I did some minor scripting before in warlock with the travel.cmd script and some other ones I made for my buffs and other repetitive actions. Not too psyched about learning a new scripting language—it would be nice if there was a way I could use or convert my old .cmd scripts to work with Frostbite.
I’ve also considered just breaking down and buying a cheap windows machine to run Genie or Stormfront, or doing something to try to run windows on my Mac. Not an ideal solution, especially considering that from what I’ve gathered, Genie isn’t available/preferred anymore?
Thanks for any help you can give!
