'New' Vanilla Add-Ons Might Ruin It?

[Cempa]

Wouldn't a flurry of add ons meant to address the inconveniences actually go against a 'real' Vanilla experience?

While I realize as a player I can always choose NOT to use said add on, but could developers come up with a Vanilla bundle that has ONLY add ons that actually existed back then?

[Micronetic]

Wouldn't a flurry of add ons meant to address the inconveniences actually go against a 'real' Vanilla experience?

While I realize as a player I can always choose NOT to use said add on, but could developers come up with a Vanilla bundle that has ONLY add ons that actually existed back then?

There are Vanilla Add-On Bundles, some private Servers got them for download but we will have to check out which client version we will get.

[Flarelaine]

Wouldn't a flurry of add ons meant to address the inconveniences actually go against a 'real' Vanilla experience?

While I realize as a player I can always choose NOT to use said add on, but could developers come up with a Vanilla bundle that has ONLY add ons that actually existed back then?

The question is whether Blizzard takes the effort to restrict addons. If an addon can do what some people are missing from Vanilla, there will be an addon for that. And that may in turn make it into baseline. Many of the QoL features added over the years started as addons that first became ubiquitous, then mandatory, before Blizzard baked them into the client.

[ls-]

So you're suggesting no 3rd party addons and only addon bundle released by Blizz, right? If that's the case, you're better off asking them to revamp vanilla UI and disable addons entirely.

[Charge me Doctor]

I would prefer them to go further and break most of vanilla addons, that allowed scripting.

Also they shouldn't make modern addons work in classic, like the ones PS players use

[Deleted]

Wouldn't a flurry of add ons meant to address the inconveniences actually go against a 'real' Vanilla experience?

Whay? Decurse addon was part of the vanilla experience, its like complaining that peopel will use wowhead insted of trhottbott (spelling) to help them in questing.

[Charge me Doctor]

Whay? Decurse addon was part of the vanilla experience, its like complaining that peopel will use wowhead insted of trhottbott (spelling) to help them in questing.

Well shit like range finder didn't ever exist in classic, fairly sure that power auras and fucking grid also wasn't existing there. While decursive was a "vanilla experience", but it deteriorated from raid experience heavily

[Cempa]

So you're suggesting no 3rd party addons and only addon bundle released by Blizz, right? If that's the case, you're better off asking them to revamp vanilla UI and disable addons entirely.

Indeed, that is what I am suggesting .. I mean if Blizz is going to go through all that effort of recreating a vanilla experience with modern code (so most likely an older look to the game), why not -during design phase- allow for all vanilla add ons WHILE banning all new add ons?

KTM / Decurse and others all pre-bundled by Blizz ..

I mean we know exactly which add ons existed, we know which ones players used so do that?

I would absolutely have my Vanilla experience ruined, if the game felt like live with crappier graphics and animation .. I want the inconvenience as well as the social feel of Vanilla .. I

[Sibylline]

I hope they restrict all addons so everyone's on the same playing field and you don't have to get 999999999 addons just because you're gimping yourself otherwise.

[Hunterwep]

Vanilla had addons, and they were even more convenient than the ones we have now.

- We had a Quest Helper also, bit like the integrated one Blizzard has, as a matter of fact I think Blizzard copied that Add-On
- We had CT_Raid assist, that came with an emergency monitor, putting the one with lowest hp on top, so you had to heal "one location"
- We had Decursive, a smart dispell Add-On, that searched for people with a debuff and dispelled them for you, no thinking needed

Probably more but these are the ones I remember out of the top of my head.

[Forogil]

Vanilla had addons, and they were even more convenient than the ones we have now.

But far from all Vanilla players used them - especially at the start; that cluelessness was part of the Vanilla experience and I don't see how it can be recreated.

[ls-]

why not -during design phase- allow for all vanilla add ons WHILE banning all new add ons?

Because it's impossible, it's just easier to disable all addons and redesign entire UI in this case.

[raynesque]

Addons was a huge part of my gameplay back then, since I came from a game that had heavy UI modding to begin with.

Whether people knew about them or not, they know about them NOW; and if blizzard would keep an open addon API, modern addons will be adapted to work for wow: classic.

Since I don't want to lose the ability to 'uniqify' my UI, which again is a huge fun factor of playing wow for me, I'd rather them have update the API to current standards, with perhaps allowing things like Decurse still, but restricting it to the current 'anti-cheat' design philosophy.

I would like my Ace and WeakAuras, just from a homogeneous aesthetic point of view.

If Blizzard just keeps the old engine and addon API, people will end up botting the world first KT kill. (somewhat an exaggeration) But that's how utterly broken potentially everything was. We were just a tad ignorant when it came to addon dev back then.

So when it comes to choice, I can only see either a closed source UI or a modern (for classic adjusted) API.

[raynesque]

Addons were a huge part of my gameplay back then, since I came from a game that had heavy UI modding to begin with.

Whether people knew about them or not, they know about them NOW; and if blizzard would keep an open addon API, modern addons will be adapted to work for wow: classic.

Since I don't want to lose the ability to 'uniqify' my UI, which again is a huge fun factor of playing wow for me, I'd rather have them update the API to current standards, with perhaps allowing things like Decurse still, but restricting it to the current 'anti-cheat' design philosophy.

I would like my Ace and WeakAuras, just from a homogeneous aesthetic point of view.

If Blizzard just keeps the old engine and addon API, people will end up botting the world first KT kill. (somewhat an exaggeration) But that's how utterly broken potentially everything was. We were just a tad ignorant when it came to addon dev back then.

So when it comes to choice, I can only see either a closed source UI or a modern (for classic adjusted) API.

[Kuntantee]

"Addons" are client code using APIs exposed by Blizzard. There is not a distinction, in terms of programming, between two addons using the same set of function so long as these functions are present in both Vanilla and Legion API. They can provide a subset of Legion API to reflect the nature of Vanilla (e.g., you do not need World Quest API), but restricting APIs for the sake of restricting is dumb.

There is unlikely to be a special restriction to make game less convenient, let me tell you.

[Gaidax]

Well shit like range finder didn't ever exist in classic, fairly sure that power auras and fucking grid also wasn't existing there. While decursive was a "vanilla experience", but it deteriorated from raid experience heavily

This is 100% false, range finder existed in Classic. I used it on C'thun. It was simplistic, but it was there.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZlwnu8FQE0 - notice the green dot that turns to yellow/red as you get near players. You had to stay away so you won't chain the eye beam thing and gib the raid, it did double damage on each next jump.

As a matter of fact - Vanilla addons were pretty damn functional, addons you see now have a lot to do with years of evolution and discovery, I am pretty sure much can be recreated in Vanilla, but just like in that vid... what do you really need there? You got your boss mods addon, there was a damage and threat meter, you could get addon that changes raid/group ui, you could track buffs/debuffs.

You did not have WeakAuras, but I am sure that was more to do with a fact it wasn't made yet and not that it was impossible to make.

As a matter of fact API opened to addons was liberal than what it is nowadays, you could do shit like rotation bots, smart healing and so on with macros, because for example targeting people and casting spells was enabled for addons. They locked it away sometime after AQ and before Naxx, because it got out of hand.

[Charge me Doctor]

This is 100% false, range finder existed in Classic. I used it on C'thun. It was simplistic, but it was there.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZlwnu8FQE0 - notice the green dot that turns to yellow/red as you get near players. You had to stay away so you won't chain the eye beam thing and gib the raid, it did double damage on each next jump.

that's not what i meant, you had no ability to tell if certain player in your raid is actually in range of your abilities, it became available in TBC. Before that you had to manually target and attempt to cast to tell if someone is in range. That's why it was very important to spread your healers around

[anveena]

No thanks. Vanilla had addons so classic should as well. You can simply not use them if you think it is going to ruin your experience.

[Gaidax]

that's not what i meant, you had no ability to tell if certain player in your raid is actually in range of your abilities, it became available in TBC. Before that you had to manually target and attempt to cast to tell if someone is in range. That's why it was very important to spread your healers around

This is also false

CT Raid assist had Emergency Monitor that showed most injured people within your range, you could spot heal them no problem. I played hpaladin in Vanilla, you were absolutely 100% aware of who was in range and who was not.

Heck you even had smart heal macros that automatically picked up lowest HP raid member in range and healed him with downranked heal to match missing HP. It was THAT powerful - you can't have it now. And the fun part is that you could mindlessly spam that macro and actually do pretty damn good healing.


Here is the example of healer with Emergency Monitor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46yJL8eFxaQ

Notice when he gets to the stomach only people with him are shown there.


Ranged damage dealers also had a simple range meter that showed whether you are in range of your target or not. As for spreading healers, well it's a thing today too you know, simply because you want to make sure all the potential areas are covered, not because you don't know who is where. I did not play a healer since early TBC, but that did not change there, you spread healers out to ensure that everyone gets healed because area exceeds clumped healers healing range, obviously.

TLDR: Range tracking was a thing in Vanilla in all shapes and kinds really.

[Deleted]

This is 100% false, range finder existed in Classic. I used it on C'thun. It was simplistic, but it was there.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZlwnu8FQE0 - notice the green dot that turns to yellow/red as you get near players. You had to stay away so you won't chain the eye beam thing and gib the raid, it did double damage on each next jump.

As a matter of fact - Vanilla addons were pretty damn functional, addons you see now have a lot to do with years of evolution and discovery, I am pretty sure much can be recreated in Vanilla, but just like in that vid... what do you really need there? You got your boss mods addon, there was a damage and threat meter, you could get addon that changes raid/group ui, you could track buffs/debuffs.

You did not have WeakAuras, but I am sure that was more to do with a fact it wasn't made yet and not that it was impossible to make.

As a matter of fact API opened to addons was liberal than what it is nowadays, you could do shit like rotation bots, smart healing and so on with macros, because for example targeting people and casting spells was enabled for addons. They locked it away sometime after AQ and before Naxx, because it got out of hand.

PowerAuras was WeakAuras.