First Look at TradeSkillMaster 2.0 - First Impression w/Screenshots

      Sapu94, the lead developer for TradeSkillMaster, recently Tweeted "Exhausted, but it's finally over :D" They've been working on a ground up rework of the TSM addon for a long time and let a few of us take a sneak peek to work out any kinks and refine the user experience. Rather than just a boring walkthrough, I wanted to give y'all a first-person view of my experience, so here's a journal-of-sorts from my first day of testing. More thorough guides and videos will come later once I know the in's and out's, but for know, sit back and enjoy! (If you're just here for pictures, that's ok, just scroll down a bit)

The tweet that will go down in history!  :P

Initial Thoughts 6/16

1:00PM

     I haven’t received my code to activate yet from Sapu,  so after installing everything, “/TSM” doesn’t work. I was hoping that looting gold from my mailbox would cheer me up and to my surprise, I was able to see the new TSM mailing addition. It’s just a neat little tab at the bottom of the mailbox that pops up a replacement mailbox interface, kind of like Postal, or how TSM_Mailing was trying to be but just...wasn’t. Remember way back in the day when you would use TSM Auctioning here and there, but you’d mainly use Auctioneer for everything AH related, and then somewhere along the line you switched full time to TSM? Well, this is going to do that to Postal. I don’t remember exactly when the shift over to TSM happened for me, when it comes to auctioning, but in a different arena, this small mailbox window actually did something pretty significant.

     Before now, TSM has been a suite of programs; you’ve got TSM_Auctioning, and TSM_Crafting, there’s TSM_Mailing and TSM_Wharehousing. On curse.com, when downloading all the programs, it seems like you’re clicking for days. But now, with this silly little mailing window, the last bastion of Blizzard’s UI is gone and replaced by a single program and whatever fully-customizable color scheme you want.

I like the Windows 95 colors. So sue me.

     In short,  with TSM 2.0, I suddenly see TradeSkillMaster as a full service UI improvement and not a piece-by-piece replacement, which from a marketing standpoint could be very important if other people agree. I don’t have much else to explore at the moment, other than this window and some excited tweets from fellow bloggers, but if they fulfilled the potential they were initially trying to go for with Mailing, I can't wait to see what they did with everything else.

1:40 PM

 I got my code to activate! After a quick /reload and /TSM,  a few things start going through my head

•  Toby, get down. I’ll take outside to go potty in a little bit.
• Uhhh, there…aren’t categories anymore? Ok.
• Oh, Cool. Just changed the naming system: Parent Group. Sub Group. That’ll be easier for new people. Groovy.
• Toby, get down!
• What the heck is an operation?
• Why can’t I set price points?!
• Oh, I set prices with operations. That just seems like an awkward name though, that I would personally rename as “Group Strategy” or something along those lines. Strategy and Operation are close enough in meaning but strategy is more self-explanatory, in my opinion. Also, people who play the auction house like to consider themselves master strategists. This is made by programmers though, so, meh.
• Oh, I set everything with operations. Hmmm. And they’re separate entities. Wow. That deserves a break in the list. Also, Toby is eating my leg. Brb.

My basic recommended catch-all posting operation...I think. 

     Alrighty, we’re back from a lovely walk in the 150 degree Texas heat. I just want to say that this program is neat, albeit a little intimidating at this point. I’ll spend some time working at it and talking with the other guys to put some guides together, but I think it’s pretty clear that this is not the old TSM with a pretty new cover on it. They did a ground up restructuring of the program. Categories have changed, and operations have been introduced. This alone is enough to completely change how AH goblins think about auctioning. While it's similar to what we've been doing in the past, setting things up this way will have some interesting effects, (for instance, if you use TheUndermineJournal GE Market Median for pricing, you don't need individual groups for your items anymore I'm told...and there was much rejoicing)

     If you were to introduce TSM to a new person and ask them what they thought was awkward or difficult to learn, it’s not that those things have been removed, it’s that 2.0 program has been built so that those processes don’t have to be dealt with. At this point I haven’t done enough testing to legitimately say if TSM 2.0 is good or bad, but I can say that the developers have put a lot of thought and experience in.

6:45 PM

     Against the recommendation of the developers, I didn’t delete all of my groups before transferring, and I’m feeling the pinch. I have posted a total of 200 gold worth of auctions today. Honestly though, I don’t care. The program looks fantastic and really, I haven’t found any reason why I’d ever want to uninstall this and go back. I may not know how to use this yet, but once I do, dang it, it’ll be AWESOME! The Auctioning Window is more robust, the Accounting window has a few features it's been been missing, and everything, even this early on, is just...better. Time to bite the bullet, delete absolutely everything from before, and start fresh. Wish me luck!

     If you want more of my ramblings, Follow me on Twitter, but for now, I’ll just leave you with some screenshots as teasers. Enjoy!

(Note: Most of these are not the default color combination, but my personal favorite, a "Windows 95" theme, lol. I'll put some of the default in at the end. Also, these windows are subject to change, of course.)

Pictures:
Crafting

Blacksmithing/Easy Smart-Group creation

Group window

Combined Crafting Queue (Larger than in WoW)

Auctioning

 Seperate Posting Tab w/Selectable posting groups up front and cancel/reset option

 Improved Quick Posting Screen

Fantastic Destroying Screen

Vendor Search, the only thing I used Auctioneer for

Accounting

A usable summary! Hazaa!

Who's got two thumbs and likes graphs?!  This guy  ^ ^

Standard Color Theme-Goblineer by Sterling

     And that's all folks, hope you enjoyed the preview! Follow me on Twitter for more updates or subscribe here on the right hand side. I'll be putting out guides as soon as I can, but until then, just remember that if you're struggling to make gold, there isn't a secret or magic wand, all you have to do is

Search. Craft. Post.
Every Day.