Addons in Classic WoW

[Staysafe]

I'm not sure on the specific terminology, but I've recently spoken to some addon developers that have made Vanilla addons over the last several years. It appears as if Blizzard potentially has the capacity to close some of the API's or pathways that allow addons to interact with the game. Do you think they should do this to help preserve some of the 'difficulty' or mystique or Classic WoW? Or do you think they should allow pretty much everything, as they do now for retail WoW?

[Frolk]

If they allow stuff from current then should also allow stuff that used to be, like spammable Decurse on spesific group/classes.

They should keep it how it is in retail, spammable decurse macro will make easy raiding even easier.

[Soisoisoi]

Blizzard broke addons and such back in Vanilla (or shortly after, I don't remember exactly) too, not sure what "difficulty" or "mystique" you're talking about exactly, nor the allowing of "everything" that retail does now considering that they fixed a lot of stuff as I just mentioned, but I doubt they'll allow much of the old stuff that they've since fixed, because that would make it even easier than it's already going to be.

I mean, don't you remember the original healbot? It wasn't a grid-like frame that it is now, it was a list that put the lowest health at the top so you could just click it and didn't even have to move your mouse. Or as Frolk above said, same thing for Decursive, spam click one box to dispel the raid.

Edit: Or even better: If they don't change the API, we'll have an influx of everyone using the old "Swifty" macros for Warriors Charging in combat, if not worse things. (cba to type it out)

[yunito]

Blizzard broke addons and such back in Vanilla (or shortly after, I don't remember exactly) too, not sure what "difficulty" or "mystique" you're talking about exactly, nor the allowing of "everything" that retail does now considering that they fixed a lot of stuff as I just mentioned, but I doubt they'll allow much of the old stuff that they've since fixed, because that would make it even easier than it's already going to be.

I mean, don't you remember the original healbot? It wasn't a grid-like frame that it is now, it was a list that put the lowest health at the top so you could just click it and didn't even have to move your mouse. Or as Frolk above said, same thing for Decursive, spam click one box to dispel the raid.

man that was the easy life for healers back then

[Soisoisoi]

man that was the easy life for healers back then

To be fair (more because someone will come and try and correct me ), it was smarter to click a box or two down to reduce the chance of being heal sniped, and they also had to wait on the 5 second rule or risk running OOM!

[Necrotyk]

The more they change it from the original WoW the less people will likely want to play it. People want vanilla. Period

[Nitros14]

I mean, they broke decursive in vanilla.

So you could have decursive, or not have decursive and could still call it vanilla.

[Echocho]

I'm not sure on the specific terminology, but I've recently spoken to some addon developers that have made Vanilla addons over the last several years. It appears as if Blizzard potentially has the capacity to close some of the API's or pathways that allow addons to interact with the game. Do you think they should do this to help preserve some of the 'difficulty' or mystique or Classic WoW? Or do you think they should allow pretty much everything, as they do now for retail WoW?

It's the other way round. The vanilla API was brokenly open and allowed you to do pretty much anything you wanted, over the years Blizzard have restricted it more and more and finally in Legion it's in a good place. I think it would be insanity to not use the modern API since there are so many exploits and bugs in the vanilla version.

[Storfan]

I'm not sure on the specific terminology, but I've recently spoken to some addon developers that have made Vanilla addons over the last several years. It appears as if Blizzard potentially has the capacity to close some of the API's or pathways that allow addons to interact with the game. Do you think they should do this to help preserve some of the 'difficulty' or mystique or Classic WoW? Or do you think they should allow pretty much everything, as they do now for retail WoW?

As Embriel already pointed out. The vanilla API is extremely open and allows you to do a great many things that trivializes the game compared to the current API. As some others pointed out, healbot and decursive were a testament to that. On a personal level, I love the open vanilla API as you can create alot of fun macros. The latests information coming out (Forbes article) suggest the game will be run in the current client on current gamecode but with functions backported, which means we probably wont get the open vanilla API but the more strict current one.

On the other hand, with current API you get "Start attack" and other nifty little things that required some damn well creative macros and actionbar-magic setups to work in vanilla.

[ls-]

I'm not sure on the specific terminology, but I've recently spoken to some addon developers that have made Vanilla addons over the last several years. It appears as if Blizzard potentially has the capacity to close some of the API's or pathways that allow addons to interact with the game. Do you think they should do this to help preserve some of the 'difficulty' or mystique or Classic WoW? Or do you think they should allow pretty much everything, as they do now for retail WoW?

Eh what? It's the other way around, Vanilla addons could do MUCH more. API we have now is severely limited in comparison.

[strifemon]

Edit: Or even better: If they don't change the API, we'll have an influx of everyone using the old "Swifty" macros for Warriors Charging in combat, if not worse things. (cba to type it out)

Its not about macros, its about bloodrage putting you out of combat on cancellation wich was fixed later in vanilla IIRC

[Storfan]

Its not about macros, its about bloodrage putting you out of combat on cancellation wich was fixed later in vanilla IIRC

That is correct. It was a bug not related to the API or macro-usage. You could reproduce it by simply clicking off bloodrage. No need to macros and calls to the API.

[Echocho]

On the other hand, with current API you get "Start attack" and other nifty little things that required some damn well creative macros and actionbar-magic setups to work in vanilla.

/startattack is the single greatest thing to be implemented in the last 10 years imo

[s8mpurye]

It would be really surprising if we don't have the current API.

While yes, there was some functionality that was more open ended in vanilla, such as automating casting, there was alot that was also limited. Threat and damage were not something accessible from the server. Damage seemed to be hit/miss for accuracy based on how many people were syncing the addon together, and threat was just a ball park range. When 3.0 launched we got access to just ask the server, "yo whats the damage/threat on this current mob". Damage came in 2.0, but threat came in 3.0.

There could be a best of both worlds, but the choice that makes the most sense is to simply use the live versions API. That way when people think of creative new ways to game the system, it gets solved on both games. Blizz disabled tracking position in raids, and addon devs realized nameplates are great for drawing on when you cant access a players location, then nameplates became a more protected entity.

I'm not sure to the extent of API changes through the years beyond these, many of our QoL advancements could also be based on things like ACE lib being in a much better state than it was 10 years ago.

- - - Updated - - -

/startattack is the single greatest thing to be implemented in the last 10 years imo

There was a macro in 1.12, maybe earlier, that simulated this. It was effectively

if slot x is not toggled, toggle slot x. You also had to have auto attack bound somewhere on your bars though.

[Echocho]

There was a macro in 1.12, maybe earlier, that simulated this. It was effectively
if slot x is not toggled, toggle slot x. You also had to have auto attack bound somewhere on your bars though.

Yeah I've wrote an addon for it that looked for the attack ability anywhere on your bars and clicked it if it wasn't active so I could just use /run Attack() in a macro. You can do a lot of things with the original vanilla client if you know how to write code and addons but it's not exactly intuitive for those that don't

[Staysafe]

Eh what? It's the other way around, Vanilla addons could do MUCH more. API we have now is severely limited in comparison.

My mistake, my understanding was that is was the other way around, with Vanilla being much more limited!

[ls-]

My mistake, my understanding was that is was the other way around, with Vanilla being much more limited!

Let's put it this way, back in the day with enough determination you could write a sanctioned semi-auto (was done and was publicly available in form of various 1button UIs) or full-auto (to my knowledge no one risked or just cba to publish it on big addon sites back in the day) rotation bot.

Whereas now you'll have to rely on 3rd party tools to either remove API protection or press buttons for you.

[Chain Chungus]

So are the "purists" going to run the default UI with no addons? Because you aren't really playing the true and pure vanilla if you install even a single addon.

[gkai]

The more they change it from the original WoW the less people will likely want to play it. People want vanilla. Period

You want vanilla. Don't generalize what people want based on what you want.

[Storfan]

So are the "purists" going to run the default UI with no addons? Because you aren't really playing the true and pure vanilla if you install even a single addon.

Thats a stupid statement. Addons were a major part of vanilla from the very start.