paw·ned² is a tool for editing team builds and both types of Guild Wars templates. Its German version was released on March 28th and an English version was created because the original tool gained popularity among German players. Recently some English-speaking players started using the German version without actually speaking German just to use the unique features and up-to-date skill descriptions.
Most of the new features can be found when editing team builds. In paw·ned², team build characters can also have Equipment Templates, a name, a brief description and attributes assigned to them. When using attributes paw·ned² will calculate the effects of primary attributes while hovering over skills, e.g. Weapon Spell duration, Fast Casting and Expertise. To use all these features with your guild mates, we added the ability to connect to our server. Due to all the new features, we had to create a server software and set up a server for paw·ned². The paw·ned² server cannot be accessed via Team Builder but you can connect to any Team Builder server to at least use the skill descriptions from paw·ned²'s databases which are included for both modes, PvP and PvE. paw·ned² can connect to more than one channel and more than one Team Builder server. Nonetheless, there are other reasons to have your guild use paw·ned²: All your channels stay password protected for one week and the current build is saved on the server for this time.
paw·ned² has a tabbed multi-document system so that you can open as many files as your system resources can handle. This can be a lot because paw·ned² only needs little system resources and has short start-up times because it's a real Windows application. It does not need any additional software so you can put it on a flash drive and use it anywhere you like. Being a Windows application also means that it will require Wine to run on a Linux system. paw·ned² can be run with any Wine version starting from 0.9 except 1.1.24.
To always have your templates and team builds at a glance, there is a browser included. It looks like the Windows Explorer but is optimized for Guild Wars: It has profession-specific file icons as well as a preview feature for all supported file types including Guild Wars templates, Team Builder files and paw·ned²'s own file format PWND. It will automatically find your Guild Wars template folder in most cases, but you can specify any path you want and import or copy files from other folders as well. paw·ned² automatically finds Team Builder's folder to import and copy files. It can read the old and new GTB format and also write the new one.
After some time, you will find a lot of details, for example the feature that allows you to automatically upload team build screenshots to ImageShack and the overlay icons for Enchantments, Hexes, Weapon Spells and Assassin combo skills.
To keep the application up to date, there are two types of auto updaters included: One for the application and one for the skill databases. The latter can be extended by community-created databases as well. paw·ned²'s databases are CSV files which are supported by most spreadsheet applications such as Excel. Both updaters do not need administrator rights. There is a MotD system included which will keep you informed about updates each time you connect to our server.
System requirements:
- Windows: Windows 2000 or newer (compatible with Windows XP x64 and Windows 7)
- Linux: Wine 0.9 or newer
- Mouse with mouse wheel
- 10 Megabytes of free disk space
For those who are curious about the name: It is a German abbreviation but is pronounced English. The “²” is pronounced just like “two”. The “·” is not pronounced but splits the word into two syllables. The long form of the abbreviation means something like “Plus+ application for template management, editing and creation“ in English. Plus+ refers to an application of which paw·ned² was meant to be a part of. That application was a status tracker for displaying titles, money and location of a character to other people. The information were automatically received from the memory which caused ArenaNet to not allow that application. paw·ned², which does not interact with Guild Wars in any way, was then released as a stand-alone application.
paw·ned² had a forerunner called paw·ned which was only an Equipment Template editor. paw·ned² was created almost from scratch with only the Template reading and writing functions taken from its forerunner.
Additionally, I'd have to learn Objective C.
