The end of many addons in World of Warcraft is approaching. Blizzard explains in detail why this must happen right now.
The beta of World of Warcraft Midnight has started and one of the biggest and most controversial changes ever in Azeroth is coming to the game. Blizzard has launched a campaign against addons and maintains a clear stance: all interface addons that provide a gameplay advantage will no longer be functional in the future. This primarily affects powerful addons like WeakAuras.
Parts of the WoW community are extremely skeptical and hope for a change of mind from the developers. However, the Game Director explains why such a revision must take place – and why now is the right time.
What has the Game Director done? The design philosophy and plans behind the “fight against addons” have been disseminated over the past months through various interviews and videos. It has been difficult for the community to get a comprehensive picture of the topic. This led to many misunderstandings and confusion. The Game Director of WoW, Ion Hazzikostas, then explained in a lengthy post on the official WoW site exactly why this step is now being taken, what the plans are, and why waiting is not an option.
Why isn’t Blizzard waiting for good solutions?
Many in the community welcome the step, but would have preferred more time. Because Blizzard’s solutions, such as the “official” damage meter and some of the other new assistance options, are not yet functioning perfectly. The clear wish: Only when Blizzard’s offerings are nearly perfect should addons be disabled.
On the one hand, Blizzard is confident that they can offer most of the internal features at the launch of Midnight, but on the other hand, the Game Director sees another aspect: If this step is not taken now, the whole process would have to be postponed by years – likely at least until the next addon “The Last Titan.”
Since the developers set the goal of implementing these changes by Midnight, they were also able to develop all the content of the expansion in accordance with these adjustments. All dungeons and raids with all their mechanics were developed with the knowledge that many addons would no longer exist. Therefore, some abilities have more time to evade or effects are clearly recognizable. The entire difficulty is adjusted so that there are no addons that can drastically simplify mechanics. Hazzikostas stated:
In the end, we had to decide whether we wanted to design our content around powerful addons for a few more years, which would make it impossible to satisfy our entire community, or whether we wanted to move forward now and find solutions within this new paradigm. That’s why the disarmament of addons comes with Midnight. The team is determined to support the community in every possible way, adjust the logic behind the restrictions, and provide new access points for addon developers to make this transition successful.
The problem with cosmetic addons
Another problem is that many providers of cosmetic addons, such as ElvUI, have already announced that they will not follow these steps according to the current status. This caused unrest in the community: why are cosmetic addons restricted if the goal is only to prevent addons that provide clear gameplay advantages?
Blizzard wants to allow as many visual customization options as before, but this may require extensive work from some addon developers. Because until now, addon creators had extreme freedom in how they structured their addons – including cosmetic ones. Some of these seemingly purely cosmetic addons rely on data that will no longer be available in the future, even if it is not immediately obvious:
The countless authors who have created addons for WoW over the years have each chosen countless different approaches to structuring their code. This means that two addons providing nearly identical functionality to players can be very differently built behind the scenes and thus very differently affected by the changes in Midnight. Some addons may and will function without issues in Midnight, but they have not yet been updated by their authors. The required work can be very simple or quite complex.
Even though this summary was not able to address all criticisms and questions of the player base, we now have a significantly better overall picture of what the developers are trying to achieve and why Midnight is the perfect moment for it. Whether it works out as envisioned by the WoW team will likely be seen in a few months, as that is when the release of the new expansion is.
