A mysterious patch for World of Warcraft is already being tested by Blizzard. Fans are already worried – is there a restriction on addons coming?
When Blizzard declared war on addons in World of Warcraft a few days ago, there was a lot of unrest. What does this mean for tools like ‘Deadly Boss Mods’ or ‘WeakAuras’? Shortly thereafter, there was reassurance that this was a process that would still take some time. However, a forthcoming patch has now surfaced, raising some concerns.
What has been found? Dataminers have discovered within the Battle.net network that Blizzard has brought up an internal server for World of Warcraft. This is already testing an upcoming patch. However, not the major update 11.2, but the patch after that – namely 11.2.5. And that provides a lot of incentive for speculation.
What is being tested? Since the entire patch 11.2.5 is still encrypted, not much can be said about the exact details. However, there are already some well-founded speculations that at least hint at what Blizzard is testing internally.
Patch 11.2.5 could currently be used as a ‘testing ground’ for housing. After all, there was a major preview of housing a few weeks ago, where some content creators could get a closer look at the upcoming feature. Blizzard has also admitted that they were inspired by WildStar.
A second possibility is that Blizzard is now beginning to implement the ‘threatened’ restriction for addons. Because over the course of the coming months and years, the developers want to integrate more and more features into their own interface, and then gradually prohibit addons from accessing data, such as the combat log or the cooldowns of group members. This is supposed to create a better World of Warcraft for everyone.
The idea behind it is that getting started in World of Warcraft should be easier, and that the game provides all the information one wants by default. At the same time, there should be fewer opportunities for addons to simply calculate how a character must act to achieve the best results in a boss fight.
What Blizzard is actually testing here, we will probably only find out in weeks or even months. Because before patch 11.2.5 even comes close to being released, we will first have patch 11.1.7 and the major update 11.2 – and little is known about 11.2 so far.
Until then, you can take a look at the 10 best MMORPGs currently available.
