MMOs and Addons

[fairymore]

I played WoW for a while and then i started playing several other MMORPGs. One thing that always bothered me above all is that no other popular MMO that i have played has offered the kind of Addons i found with WoW.

In all honesty the fans that made custom addons were actually responsible for me playing for so long. I noticed this when big patch days would come and all the addons would need to be updated, and for me that felt incredibly uncomfortable. No dominos to organize by spell bars, no Atlasloot, etc.

So anyways after WoW i moved on to several other MMOs like Aion, Rift, Lotro, Champions online, and many more and what i keep seeing is no other MMO which has been so open to a variety of addons like WoW was.

Why is that?

[Jinivus]

Not enough demand, if you're a programmer why make a program for 1 million when you can do it for 10 million.
Then there's the obvious one, more people playing, more people making addons originally for personal use.

[Dakara]

Honestly, it's one thing I despise about WOW.

Addons went from cool little additions to virtually a necessity.

[Edge-]

Not enough demand, if you're a programmer why make a program for 1 million when you can do it for 10 million.
Then there's the obvious one, more people playing, more people making addons originally for personal use.

I wouldn't say lack of demand, but your second point is much more on the money.

Other than that, addons can cause a lot of problems in gaming. WoW has had its fair share of issues with addons that did things like make 3d markers in the world for things to avoid ect. (mod during ICC, forget the name), prevented players from going AFK in BG's by constantly swapping trinkets and a number of other things. It's more work to allow for addons and there are a lot of risks when you allow them, so most developers would much rather either not allow you to mess with the UI and force you to deal with it, or allow some UI customization and incorporate desired features in.

[Butterland]

Honestly, it's one thing I despise about WOW.

Addons went from cool little additions to virtually a necessity.

Not at all... all top arena players play without addons.
I know plenty of top raiders who also go without addons.

Addons help but they are not a necessity...

[schir2]

You mean awesome addons that pretty much play the game for you, making content that should actually be somewhat difficult easy?

Wouldn't it be awesome if you fought a boss and had to rely on reaction time rather than a mod giving you a timer and a warning anything bad was happening.

[fairymore]

Addons help but they are not a necessity...

I've heard about all the addons that actually help you win, which in my opinion are bad. The most popular and tolerated is DBM if you ask me.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, there is a whole other world to addons. Addons i remember turned my whispers into this IM kind of thing so each person i whispered had their own little window and i could use smiley faces and what not. Plus i remember the addon "MyRoleplay" which allowed you to write out descriptions and stories for your character that other players could see. I even remember one addon that allowed you to create items that you could interact with, Gryphon something it was called. I touched a book and my screen turned red slowly, it was cool.
These kind of fun things can really change your opinion on a game, like i said on patch days when i didnt have all these cool tools with me the game lost a lot of value in my eyes. I can only imagine how popular other games would be if they had these kinds of fun addons.

[Mormolyce]

I don't know how those arena players do it. I've always tried to play with the least amount of addons possible but... that's still quite a few :S

[Butterland]

I've heard about all the addons that actually help you win, which in my opinion are bad. The most popular and tolerated is DBM if you ask me.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, there is a whole other world to addons. Addons i remember turned my whispers into this IM kind of thing so each person i whispered had their own little window and i could use smiley faces and what not. Plus i remember the addon "MyRoleplay" which allowed you to write out descriptions and stories for your character that other players could see. I even remember one addon that allowed you to create items that you could interact with, Gryphon something it was called. I touched a book and my screen turned red slowly, it was cool.
These kind of fun things can really change your opinion on a game, like i said on patch days when i didnt have all these cool tools with me the game lost a lot of value in my eyes. I can only imagine how popular other games would be if they had these kinds of fun addons.

DBM was only ever a requirement for dumb casual guilds because their players suck so much that you wipe over and over if they don't have it.

I don't raid much anymore (LFR) but I used to be all over the hardmodes/heroic modes from Ulduar to ICC. I didn't feel the need to use DBM. Once you know a fight, it's pretty simple to know when to move, when to stop casting, etc. The fights themselves generally have a warning in the form of the boss doing some specific action (moving out of reach, casting, being untargettable, etc.), an NPC talking and... almost everytime... a big warning appearing on your screen (such as when Deathwing shoots his bolts).

The game is very simple in Normal and DBM is completely unnecessary in Heroic where nobody fails on stupid stuff; You wipe because you need top notch coordination AND cooldown management AND add control AND DPS output, all with sub-optimal gear until you have heroic on farm... nobody fails because they didn't move out of the fire because they didn't have DBM.

---------- Post added 2012-02-13 at 01:15 AM ----------

I don't know how those arena players do it. I've always tried to play with the least amount of addons possible but... that's still quite a few :S

Outside of cosmetic addons for unit frames, the only Addons that are useful for PvP are Gladius (can be recreated via a script), GladiatorlosSA which yells when key abilities are used (kind of overpowered, but I take a pride in not using it) and general cooldown trackers (like afflicted UI) which can also be recreated via a script.

[Fencers]

Why is that?

World of Warcraft is both immensely popular and very old. Those are the actual logical reasons.

Also it's worth noting that a lot of the initial addons that are now "standard" in WoW were usability tweaks that the original game lacked. As newer games released many of those "standards" just become part of the UI by default. Such as scalable hot bars or transparency settings on menus in Rift. You couldn't do either of those without addons in WoW. In Rift, you can do them without addons.

Case in point: I went back to Warcraft after taking a break for years. And of course I had no addons installed. I was shocked how poor the WoW UI is without addons. Esp. when the 3 MMOs I was playing in the that 2 year break from WoW had many features by default that weren't addons.

[Achaman]

only addon i tend to use is atlasloot

[Cts53]

I personally view about 95% of the addons out there as crap. It takes away from the thing you are playing, the GAME. If they change the look of the UI, or some fluff tidbit, then fine. Other than that? No~~~~~ thank you.

[Zyzzyx]

I haven't found a need for addons in most games. Most just don't need them. Many don't make it easy in the first place.

I use addons in WoW because the default is utter crap. Sure, some games share that problem, but for the most part I'm ok with it.

Many also cause the game to have to build around the addons. It's a trade off. Without recount and DBM, bosses might even be very different.

Basically, I think the developers would like to control their game, rather than addons control it for them.

[ComputerNerd]

The ability to modify the UI in such a way is a huge admission that their default is simply not good enough for a good portion of their player base.
Limitations to customisation are an assumption that it is fine as it is.

Huge criticisms for example of the UI in skyrim which in the PC version is ripped straight from the console version.
Lots of calls out for the ability to mod that.

[Hulari]

I don't think AddOnss are a necessity but I think they're welcomed.

I designed and developed UIs in wow for a good 5 years and it is probably one of the only reasons I played the game for so long. I'd spend weeks coding, fine tuning or completely changing parts of my UI because I could and I enjoyed it. I hated AddOns that made the game easier, I didn't like using damage meters or threat meters for the most part, I did some here and there, but I always preferred to change how the UI looked, nothing else.

I think most games should come with a way to change, re-size and move elements of the original UI around. A huge gripe I had with SW:TOR was that I wasn't able to move, hide or change the size of any parts of the UI and it had way too much clutter. Most of the UIs I designed were minimal so that I could focus on encounters and the actual game world I was playing it whilst showing information that was essential to an encounter.