Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone!

I’m a new developer on the WuvOverlay project, and I’d like to share some new features with you all.

I’ve been using WuvOverlay for a while now. It’s amazing – it’s small, unobtrusive, but quite informative.

If you’ve never used it before, it consists of a circular display representing objectives on the WvW map. You can open multiple windows, have the map change as you change maps in-game, see RI timers, and have the system voice announce objective changes.

My favorite feature is that it can speak when an objective changes hands. However, it previously used colors to describe teams, and always uses the given name for objectives, so it says things like “Green has taken Arah’s Hope” or “Blue has taken Dawn’s Eyrie”. I usually don’t remember which name goes to which tower/camp on which borderlands, so I have to look at the overlay to see what flipped. I usually get the colors down pretty early in the week, but at the start I have no idea who is what color, so I have to check that too.

The overlay is open source, so I wrote some modifications to add options for it to:

1. use cardinal directions in borderlands
2. use world names instead of colors
3. say the name of the map after the objective
4. change the system voice used

I don’t think I’m the only one who prefers cardinal directions, so I wanted to share. The original author graciously added me as a developer to the project, and my changes have been published to the official repository. You can download it here.

Cardinal Directions

The cardinal directions option has three choices: Proper Names, Cardinal Directions (in Borderlands), and Cardinal Directions (in Borderlands, except keeps). I play with the last option, because I never really see anyone say “East Keep” or “Central Keep”, but the option is there if you do. With the Cardinal Directions (in Borderlands) option, the overlay says “<team> has taken North-West Camp” or “<team> has taken North-East Tower”. With Cardinal Directions (in Borderlands, except keeps), the overlay refers to the keeps simply as “Garrison”, “Hills”, and “Bay”, leaving off the given name.

World Names

The world names option has two choices: colors, and names. Pretty simple: colors says team colors, names says world names. With world names enabled, the overlay says “Gate of Madness has taken <objective>” or “Darkhaven has taken <objective>”.

Speak Map Names

The speak map names option lets you choose whether the overlay will say the name of the map the objective is on when speaking changes. By default, it speaks the name if more than one map is open (Auto). It can also be set to Always or Never. It uses the name chosen by the “Spoken World Names” option, so either “in Red Borderlands” or “in Ehmry Bay Borderlands” (or “in Eternal Battlegrounds”, regardless of world names option).

There is also an option to set the system voice to use when speaking announcements.

Let me know what you think!

The overlay is distributed under the Apache License 2.0. Source code is available on CodePlex.

Note: If you had already been using the overlay, my update might have broken it for you. The signing certificate has changed (because the original expired), so you may need to re-install the application instead of updating automatically. Sorry about that, can’t be helped.

I’ve been using WuvOverlay for a bit now and really enjoy it. Excited for the recent mods you’ve made. Thanks for your time and work!

Any chance of a future feature to add the option of turning on timer countdowns around the exterior of the WuvOverlay “minimap” so that we can simply glance at it without hovering over the objective? Also, I’m not sure if it’s just me but I usually have to manually select the WuvOverlay “minimap” before hover timers will appear – then click back on anything in GW2 to resume control of the game. And is there an option to remove the white square background so that it’s just a 100% opaque “minimap”? Or just a white outline around the outer edges of the “minimap” to help it stand out without the white background?

Akeldama.4738:

I’ve been using WuvOverlay for a bit now and really enjoy it. Excited for the recent mods you’ve made. Thanks for your time and work!

Thanks!

Akeldama.4738:

Any chance of a future feature to add the option of turning on timer countdowns around the exterior of the WuvOverlay “minimap” so that we can simply glance at it without hovering over the objective? Also, I’m not sure if it’s just me but I usually have to manually select the WuvOverlay “minimap” before hover timers will appear – then click back on anything in GW2 to resume control of the game. And is there an option to remove the white square background so that it’s just a 100% opaque “minimap”? Or just a white outline around the outer edges of the “minimap” to help it stand out without the white background?

There are yellow lines around objectives that have RI. Three bars means 1.5+ minutes, 2 means between 1.5 minutes and 30 seconds, one means less than 30 seconds.

You can disable the white background and make the overlay click-through by pressing F8 (need to press it twice the first time).

Check out http://wuvoverlay.codeplex.com/documentation for more details and pictures.

cant get f8 to work any ideas?

also if you can make a section blink if it gets white swords that would be amazing.

thetoothpick.4028:

There are yellow lines around objectives that have RI. Three bars means 1.5+ minutes, 2 means between 1.5 minutes and 30 seconds, one means less than 30 seconds.

You can disable the white background and make the overlay click-through by pressing F8 (need to press it twice the first time).

Check out http://wuvoverlay.codeplex.com/documentation for more details and pictures.

I do like the yellow lines, though it’s sometimes nice to see whether something JUST flipped (for times when audio can’t be used) versus 2 minutes ago (granted there’s gonna be a communication delay anyways). A thin yellow line per minute might achieve this, though I could see that being a little difficult to fit graphically. Not complaining though – still love it! I’ll see if I can get F8 it behave properly; probably something on my end.

Rangerdeity.5847:

also if you can make a section blink if it gets white swords that would be amazing.

I don’t know of any apps or websites that are capable of communicating white swords (during times they are in the game, unlike during this current swordless event). I might be wrong on that capability as I haven’t used Millenium and the like in awhile. Would be sweet though.

The API doesn’t have hooks to find out if something is being attacked, so it would be impossible to find out if something had white swords or not.

Of course, this doesn’t matter anymore anyway.

Rangerdeity.5847:

cant get f8 to work any ideas?

That’s strange, you’re pressing it twice the first time?

If it still doesn’t work, what version of Windows are you running? Also, 32-bit or 64-bit?

Rangerdeity.5847:

also if you can make a section blink if it gets white swords that would be amazing.

Sorry, the API doesn’t let us see the white swords when an objective gets contested, so I can’t include that in the overlay. Wish I could.

Akeldama.4738:

I do like the yellow lines, though it’s sometimes nice to see whether something JUST flipped (for times when audio can’t be used) versus 2 minutes ago (granted there’s gonna be a communication delay anyways). A thin yellow line per minute might achieve this, though I could see that being a little difficult to fit graphically. Not complaining though – still love it! I’ll see if I can get F8 it behave properly; probably something on my end.

I should definitely experiment to find a more intuitive way to show the RI timers with just visual cues – I’m thinking 5 yellow bars instead of 3, one for each minute, and possibly have the lines shrink as that minute progresses. I’ll see if I can get that working.

If F8 still isn’t working for you either, what version of Windows are you running? Also, 32-bit or 64-bit?

Thanks for your feedback!

I run Windows 8.1 64-bit.
I’ve gotten the F8 click-through to function, but in order to see timers via mouse-hover it still seems that I must have the app selected (clicked either from Windows tray, or by not F8’ing and clicking the minimap directly). Once F8 is pressed and it becomes click-though there doesn’t seem to be a way of hover-mousing to see the timers until the app is selected again. Might just be me.

The other app that I usually use in conjunction with WuvOverlay is GW2BattleSupport for its 3D timers, but that app is overdue for an update and is having stability issues. Otherwise I wouldn’t mind the 3 yellow lines at all.

Really really digging the new voice notification feature when on the fly – works great!

This is great, thanks.

At first I had performance issues when I had this enabled, but a bit of a search and I found that having Windows Aero disabled (I was using Windows 7 basic theme) could cause problems with overlays. Switched to an Aero themeand it’s as smooth as anything, so give it a try if you get stuttering or fps drops.

I have been using this overlay for the past week and I love it, thanks! I have also run into the issue with F8 not working but never on the first time I launch the application. I am running on win 7 64 ultimate. The first time I launch it everything works perfectly, but if I close the application/guild wars 2 and relaunch it the f8 key does nothing (I have to restart my PC for it to work again). I have tried running different windows themes, disabling my teamspeak 3 overlay but to no avail.

Other than the f8 problem this little overlay is simply amazing, again thanks!

Fubbles.1586:

I have been using this overlay for the past week and I love it, thanks! I have also run into the issue with F8 not working but never on the first time I launch the application. I am running on win 7 64 ultimate. The first time I launch it everything works perfectly, but if I close the application/guild wars 2 and relaunch it the f8 key does nothing (I have to restart my PC for it to work again). I have tried running different windows themes, disabling my teamspeak 3 overlay but to no avail.

Other than the f8 problem this little overlay is simply amazing, again thanks!

Glad you like it!

How are you closing the application?

There are two ways, you can close the last window, or quit. I haven’t tested it extensively, but there’s been some buggyness with the “closing the last window” method, so if that’s what you’ve been doing, try using the “quit” option instead.

Heck I would be happy, if on pressing the hotkey for the map, would Auto open the map either for the borderland, or whole WvW map at max, not just a small area to zoom out. (And have the option to default how it opens up.)

I just wish that it could work in full-screen mode, via Overwolf or something. Windowed and Windows Fullscreen modes don’t play well with my machine.

thetoothpick.4028:

Fubbles.1586:

I have been using this overlay for the past week and I love it, thanks! I have also run into the issue with F8 not working but never on the first time I launch the application. I am running on win 7 64 ultimate. The first time I launch it everything works perfectly, but if I close the application/guild wars 2 and relaunch it the f8 key does nothing (I have to restart my PC for it to work again). I have tried running different windows themes, disabling my teamspeak 3 overlay but to no avail.

Other than the f8 problem this little overlay is simply amazing, again thanks!

Glad you like it!

How are you closing the application?

There are two ways, you can close the last window, or quit. I haven’t tested it extensively, but there’s been some buggyness with the “closing the last window” method, so if that’s what you’ve been doing, try using the “quit” option instead.

I actually started to just kill the process in task manager now and that completely eliminated any problems I was having with f8 not working. Thanks for responding

On a different note do you have any plans to expand on the overlay at all? Would love to see the upgrades on a given structure/camp if this is possible. I love the RI timers and overall feel and functionality of the overlay and I think being able to see upgrades would be absolutely amazing.

Good afternoon, this is Finality from Blackgate. I just wanted to chime in here. This is really a great overlay that is non-intrusive for us one-monitor commanders. I would recommend any field commanders to utilize it!

Mishi.7058:

Heck I would be happy, if on pressing the hotkey for the map, would Auto open the map either for the borderland, or whole WvW map at max, not just a small area to zoom out. (And have the option to default how it opens up.)

Are you talking about the in-game map? If so, this overlay can’t modify how the game displays the map, it just displays a window on top of it.

InfamousBrad.5879:

I just wish that it could work in full-screen mode, via Overwolf or something. Windowed and Windows Fullscreen modes don’t play well with my machine.

That would basically require a full-rewrite for the Overwolf framework, which I unfortunately don’t have time for. That’s strange though, windowed fullscreen works much better than normal fullscreen on my machine.

Fubbles.1586:

On a different note do you have any plans to expand on the overlay at all? Would love to see the upgrades on a given structure/camp if this is possible. I love the RI timers and overall feel and functionality of the overlay and I think being able to see upgrades would be absolutely amazing.

That would be amazing, I agree, but the GW2 WvW api doesn’t publish upgrade status – only the current owner, basically. Other websites keep track of upgrades via player input, but I don’t think they have public APIs that I could use.

I do plan on adding new features, though. Currently on my radar:

• Remember your current server, not the matchup. Currently you can select your matchup by server, but it only remembers the matchup – this change would always load your server, regardless of which tier it is in currently. This is actually done, I just need to test it a bit before I release it.
• Time owned. Would display how long an objective has been held (or “?” for things that haven’t been flipped since the overlay started).
• Guild names and tags in popups. The overlay currently displays “Claimed by guild” in the popup, this addition would display the actual guild name and tag instead.
• A settings window. The popup menu is getting pretty unwieldy, so I’m in the process of implementing a settings window.
• Way in the future: conditional windows. Imagine having a main map that displays your current map, then a second smaller map that displays your home BL only when you’re not there, so you can keep an eye on it.

thetoothpick.4028:

Mishi.7058:

Heck I would be happy, if on pressing the hotkey for the map, would Auto open the map either for the borderland, or whole WvW map at max, not just a small area to zoom out. (And have the option to default how it opens up.)

Are you talking about the in-game map? If so, this overlay can’t modify how the game displays the map, it just displays a window on top of it.

InfamousBrad.5879:

I just wish that it could work in full-screen mode, via Overwolf or something. Windowed and Windows Fullscreen modes don’t play well with my machine.

That would basically require a full-rewrite for the Overwolf framework, which I unfortunately don’t have time for. That’s strange though, windowed fullscreen works much better than normal fullscreen on my machine.

Yes the in game map, and it was a suggestion which Anet could modify their map on, which would allow players more control, and functionality of maps easily while in WvW.

I’ve been using it for two weeks now. Great app, very helpful.

New improvements!

Since I last updated here:

• Now stores and loads the world ID when chosen, instead of the matchup ID.
• Labeled matchups by region and tier, and sorted them accordingly.
• Display guild names and tags when a structure is claimed.
• Switched to the new Objective and Match APIs (v2).
• Show time held for all objectives.
• Show RI timers and time held for objectives flipped before the application launched.
• Preliminary support for Heart of Thorns / Desert Borderlands.

Note that the latest version should mostly support the new Desert Borderlands (i.e. it shouldn’t break). Since some things are subject to change in the API between now and launch, I may need to push an update soon after HoT launches to fix some ID mappings.

If upgrading from a recent version, you may need to reselect the map in order for it to show the current timers.

If you haven’t tried it out yet, give it a shot and let me know what you think!