World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King [3.7.x]
 

It's been a very long time since I have released anything on vB.org and felt I should do something again for the crew here. This time, it's a style that I've recently finished for my World of Warcraft Guild for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion release.

Unfortunately, I'm not the best on downsizing images so the style is abit big, therefore I cannot simply attach the download to this post. The download link will be at the bottom of the thread here, it is hosted on my own server that I also host my guild's website on, I know that's probably not a huge consolation for those afraid of maliciousness on the web, but it's the best I can do for you guys right now.

Assistance Requested:
Because of my lack of graphics downsizing ability I've provided the buildfiles in PNG format so that someone better than me can make the graphics work better and keep the transparencies looking good can post the fixt files, if you choose to do this I would be greatly appreciative. As it is it's close to 4 megs downloaded when the site is first loaded. If the users are using a cache on their browsers and you have your board set to not force an image reload then the hit won't be too bad, but it's still pretty heavy, so feel free to adjust the images so that the hit won't be as bad. If someone can get the images to be smaller filesize and still keep a good appearance with the style I am willing to negotiate a donation for the use of the fixed images.

What's Provided:
The theme backgrounds and CSS stylings are provided, along with the buildfiles. I have also provided dark matte vb original icons, and modified buttons that fit the theme. All of these are provided in a quick access folder that resides under the images directory so that there is no mixup with your other styles.

Very simple installation:

1. Upload all the folders and their contents within the "Upload" directory to your forums directory keeping the tree intact.
2. Login to your AdminCP and upload a new style and import the Wrath-style.xml from the archive.
3. Load your forums and change the style to "Wrath".

Done.

Misc. Information:
This style is compatible with VbAdvanced CMPS, see attached images.

I would suggest that if you have made any template changes in another style that you want to keep to make this style a child of the style with the template changes.

I have tested this on 3 boards, however you use this style at your own risk. Support is will not be given as I simply do not have the time anymore, I am releasing this to the community at large because I feel there might be a want for it prior to Wrath of the Lich King Releasing.

This style was designed for a screen resolution of 1024x768 or better, and is only compatible with CSS 2.0 compliant browsers such as Firefox 3 or IE 7. I recommend using Firefox personally. This style will not render properly (the two arthas images and the page footer (the ice block) will not show up at all) if using an older browser, but it will not break the forums for those users that are behind the standards in the tests I have done thus far.

If you find a problem with the style where it will not validate, I will do my best to fix and update, but that's as far as my support of this style goes as it validates for XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS 2.1 on my boards and again, I simply don't have the time to dedicate to full support of the style for everyone.

As folks requested PSD format for the build files I have included both PNG and PSD format files for those that want them. When exporting to the final format make sure to export as a PNG and keep the same file names. I have split the archives so that you only download what you want.

Awesome looking style! Thanks for taking the time to put this together :)
:up:

Glad you like it, I see you put it to good use already :D. If you use PNG32 for the logo I've found that the transparencies look much better, also if you matte it with black or dark grey you'll lose the white jaggies.

How'd the install go?

What Font/Layer style (Blending Options) is used in your logo? With them being in png format and not in psd, figuring it out is sorta tough :O

The install was easy, everything is working just great! Only adjustment I have made so far was bringing the forum table inside of the side graphics. Roughly 70% instead of 90% was enough.

Yes I did. :D ...and thanks for the suggestion! :) I was wondering, is there any way you could post or include buttons for the "Thanks" and "Top Poster" addons? I think the Top Poster addon has a "Nominate" button.

It was very smooth. I found that adding the site url in front of the paths to the images to fully qualify them keeps them from breaking. The only real issues I have had were mostly on my end with the thing you mentioned about the jaggies and missing buttons from addons I have installed.

Thanks again for posting this skin. I'm very pleased with it. :D

Jim

PS. I see you're from Fredericksburg! Good to see we are neighbors. :) Feel free to stop by TalkVirginia anytime. :)

The font is Morpheus, common font for WoW related items and is in the free domain, pop Google you'll find it. I'll provide it in the update though. The PNGs were done in Fireworks as I find that FW is much better for web graphics than Photoshop. That and I cannot stand the PS layout personally. There are two different versions for the PNGs, one in the "buildfile" folder that is the fully layered and setup images, and the ones in the main theme directory. The ones in the theme directory are flattened bitmaps that use PNG to keep the high transparency effects but lose the layering which adds to filesize.

You can via the "button.png" file in the "buildfiles" folder included in the archive. Just unlock and copy one of the other text layers and paste it then change the text.

Excellent, love it when an install runs fairly smooth. I did notice on your site that the vBexperience was having issues for you. The "level" folder needs to be copied from your main "misc" folder to the one located within the "styles/wrath/misc" folder for the images to work, that should fix your postbit.

I'll check it out, and I've actually moved again down to Williamsburg, just haven't updated my profile here :D.

Question to the rest of the crew, would it seriously be better for you guys to have the buildfiles in PSD format instead of PNG? If so I'll repackage the buildfiles to be in PSD format.

That is absolutely stunning...

all i can say is..
S I C K
:D

nice work

I've been trying to learn Photoshop, so PSD would work well for me. I knew Fireworks several moons ago.

Btw, My guildies love the new skin! :)

Jim

I would love you forever!!

Excellent style I love it. How do you modify the guild bank link for the armory?

Hey Jim question for ya, what are you using as the main page to your guild site? I'd like to set up something similar but not sure what to start with.

Actually nevermind on this question, I have it covered. :)

The link itself is in the header template.

Change: to

That is vB Advanced CMPS. It can be found here: http://www.vbadvanced.com/products.p...fo&productid=4

It is was I use as well and is very easy to setup. It is a free addition, but the other products there are not.

Looks really good installing this style now!

Love it!!!

Just some quick questions though.

How do i change the name "The Astral Order" to the name f my guild and can the guild bank be easily changed to display another link to something like arcade?? Thank you very much for this!!!

Thank you Cloudrunner, that's exactly what I've been looking for I'm glad I came across this site today.

soothius, you have to modify the logo.png graphic to reflect your guild name. You'll need a program like gimp or photoshop to modify it. Make sure you do it with a transparent background, otherwise it'll look odd.

As for the link to guild bank, as Cloudrunner helpfully pointed out it's just an a href link in one of the headers when you edit the style. You can edit it to be whatever you want.

In the buildfiles folder is a .png file you can edit to be whatever name you want. As was stated you need gimp, photoshop or fireworks to do this. Of the three gimp is free.

After you edit that file you'll need to export the resulting image as a PNG (I suggest PNG32 with a dark matte to keep the transparencies nice and pretty) into the folder /images/styles/wrath/misc/backgrounds/ keeping the original file name.

In the Wrath style in your admincp, choose all style options and then in the header template block is the link, you can change the link and/or name of that to be whatever. The limitation is the characters in the link. Too many characters and your text will over-run the blue and gold iced background.

Thank you for the PSD files Cloudrunner!

best wow skin ive seen yet!

I'm just using the vbAdvanced portal. Nothing special. :)

So cool!
How to make transparent style like this? ^^

Judicious use of semi-transparent 10x10 pixel gradient images for BG and CSS 2.0.

Hey dude im having problems with the logo Please help here is the link


http://gamerswastelands.co.za/index.php?styleid=22

Verify that you saved your logo.png as:

a) a png file named: logo.png (lowercase)
b) it is located in: images/styles/wrath/backgrounds/logo.png

The reason I ask is that when I goto: http://gamerswastelands.co.za/images...ounds/logo.png it comes up 404. ie, no image file named logo.png on the server at that address.

yeah i re-installed the Images sorry about that i just removed the whole logo.png and it worked :D we will check later once we finished the new logo

Once again thanks again it is a great theme :D

pitty there isnt alot of games

I'm what you call a WoW Addict/+++++/Slut/Elitist. It's the only game I've played for any significant amount of time as it's the only one that catches my attention for extended periods (weeks at a time) unlike most other RPG/FPS games. The only game coming out soon that is gonna cut into my WoW time is Spore. Perhaps later Diablo III, but that's it.

Thank you...this style is absolutely hot! Just one thing if you don't mind - I know you're not supporting the style, but can you make a blank button so I can make a "post thanks" button? No disrespect to the Post Thank you creator but uh, that button doesnt look too hot with the rest of this lush skin...

*editing because I don't wanna offend anyone*

If you download either the PNG or the PSD buildfiles you'll find a file there named button.png or button.psd (depending on the archive you download). With that you'll be able to create any button you need. You'll need the font named "Morpheus" from the public space to keep the same look as the other buttons as well, google should assist in the location of the true type font.

This is hands down the best WoW theme I have seen - once I get the logo done I am making it active for my guild!

Thank you so very much for a great theme!

Also what changes do we need to make for this for vb 3.7.3?

Not seeing a Quick Reply button

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great!
Thanks for this style!
I've other buttonsand Icon for my forum.

Users are noticing that this skin seems to run a bit chunky in IE and not as much in Firefox.

Any idea why that may be?

As I'm not yet running 3.7.3 on my site I'm not sure just yet. Once I update I'll post a redo.

Double check your image folders in the style options. Make sure it's pointing to the right folder: images/styles/wrath/buttons

As well, make sure that the image file uploaded properly, I'd try uploading that directory again just to be certain.

If the user is using IE6 or less it's going to look nasty as 6 is not fully CSS2.0 compliant. Beyond that I would need to know what specific browser/OS combination is being used and a better description (such as a screenshot) than "chunky". If you are talking about file size and time to load all the images, I've already addressed that when I posted the theme. If you are running this theme you will need to make sure that you are not forcing a reload everytime a page loads via your vBulletin options, and the users *should* be caching their images anyway, otherwise it will reload close to 4 megs of images each page load.

Great info - one question. How do I make sure that I am not forcing a reload everytime a page loads via your vBulletin options? Where is this setting in the Options? I can't seem to find it.

Thanks again!

vB AdminCP -> Options -> Cookies and HTTP Header Options ->

Send Internet Explorer 7 Compatibility Header -> YES
Add No-Cache HTTP Headers -> NO

why are there no download files?

If there aren't going to be any files available for download, shouldn't this thread be deleted?

Why are you unable to read?

If you aren't going to read anything that is posted, shouldn't you be removed from the userlist?

It's these posts that are the reason I don't click the "supported" check on anything I release anymore.

Perhaps if one learned to read, one would see there are download files available, the problem being that they are larger than 2 megs a piece which precludes me from being able to host the files here on vbulletin.org.