add ons in gw2

[Keosen]

It would be nice to have unitframes addons at least.
Entirely aesthetic addons like bar textures, fonts, colors, movable objects etc won't bother anyone i guess, too bad they won't be available.

[draykorinee]

You really like hyperbole dont you?

Used to it from anet and gw2 forum community i guess. The point originally was that it gives you this huge benefit to stomp other people, they dont they mainly affect QoL. People have already said they want to resize the ui because it doesnt suit them, I've said I'd like an auction house add on to properly track my sales etc. I do however concede its unlikely and really just QoL issues but not everyone agrees that add ons are bad or uneccassary.

[Fencers]

I submit AVR as exhibit

Not much of a problem. Blizz had the ability to deactivate the function.

Players are clever, yes. Noted.

Like it or not the addons do impact game development. How much of that impact lands on the pro or con side of the final tally is totally subjective.

Yes, of course they do impact game development. Would not suggest otherwise.

The pros & cons of addons as a feature are actually not subjective. Your [in the royal sense] personal opinion of addons is subjective- that isn't too important or worth discussing. Honestly.

Sounds like the developers use the addon as a failsafe for their own shortcoming<snips>

I see no problem here. Crowd sourcing is a potentially huge resource. "A failsafe for one's shortcomings" seems terribly narrow and foolish in light of the cost effective resource provided.

With or without addons, no game is developed or designed to account for everything. Especially in regards to emergent &/or live game environment. That is impossible. Flatly.

Hmmm? I can think of a few situations off the top of my head: the rogue poison swap where automating the swap with macro/addons led them to break the functionality rather then let it continue, decursive (of course), <snip>

Still don't see these as a problem. Addon functionality can be shut off. Merely an API issue.

Encounters can be readjusted with data uniquely provided by the player base's expectation of the interface and encounter. Seems super valuable to me as a developer.

Also a lot of what is being talked about here is World of Warcraft specific stuff. This is not necessarily awesome. Many MMOs allow addons w/o these "issues" popping up.

Besides, your definition of the problem is somewhat problematic, "negatively impact games to any equal or greater degree..." calls for a bit of a judgement call.

I would disagree. It is the lesser to deny features in total.

That is, an attitude that for virtually every task, the key is not to "get better", it's "get the right addon and it's easy". <snip>

Kind of a personal call, no?

Anyone is free to use addons or ignore them. If one does not desire a so-called "easy" experience-- don't use 'em!

As has been observed elsewhere, a key consideration in much of these decisions seems to be the desire to work towards eSports. <snip>

Well, some Esport games allow modification currently. Don't see a problem that can't be handled by a smart script of some kind.

Also this gets into an issue of corrupted game design when setting up an aspect of a game for PVP/Esports which has an impact on non-PVP/Esports.

[Deleted]

Used to it from anet and gw2 forum community i guess. The point originally was that it gives you this huge benefit to stomp other people, they dont they mainly affect QoL. People have already said they want to resize the ui because it doesnt suit them, I've said I'd like an auction house add on to properly track my sales etc. I do however concede its unlikely and really just QoL issues but not everyone agrees that add ons are bad or uneccassary.

there are options to resize the UI already (may not have been activated in beta but they are there).

[Pavlovich]

And you're missing the point if you think that. There's no reason for addons if the UI is well designed. I believe everyone should be using the same UI anyways. No advantage for anyone (and that is what addons are for in WoW, something to give an advantage that the game doesn't give you naturally).

Do you complain if someone has a bigger TV than you, because they have an advantage in viewing pleasure? That's what we're talking about here, tweaking the UI for our personal tastes.

...
Most people who bother to come to these forums and ask for features they want generally want a game that best suits their needs. They want a game that they will be comfortable playing for a long time. And then comes the local lynch mob and hangs them. Every time. While chanting "it's not WoW, go away" to the point where mods often have to tell them to stop, just like in this thread, and every other thread on this subject.
...

Warning, slippery slope argument in coming: Now you are being silly on purpose. People play games differently, some have small screens some have big screens, some even plan on playing with a gamepad from the couch on TV. Being able to move and resize the UI elements around to fit your play style is about as reasonable as asking for key binds or are you going to tell that because there are only ten buttons they are not needed either?

Thats like someone with photographic memory complaining that normal people are allowed to look at things twice.

Really? My minimap add on affects my player skills? My auction house mod affects esports? My action bar add ons effect you somhow. Seriously dont be so naive as to pigeon hole add ons in to some ridiculous OP benefit that only the select few use. Add ons offer a huge variety of benefits that are mainly QoL I cant think of many that outright boost your performance.

This, this, this, and this.

[drigoly]

Tweaking the ai would mean that you would be able to resize every part of it seperatly, so buffs/debuffs could be shown bigger on the screen and that's a clear advantage in pvp. Nonetheless, this discussion is pointless, Arenanet has already said that the engine wasn't built around supporting addons, so they most probably will never come and that's a very good thing in my opinion. But there should deffinatly be a separate castbar for makros, nothing that involves combat abylities, i just want a /dance, a /lol, a /facepalm and a /spit makro

[draykorinee]

I cant see how everyone having the option to resize a debuff or buff would give people an advantage when you can all do it. And you really want a spit macro?

[Deleted]

There's really no need for Add-Ons in Guild Wars 2.

^This

Besides, they have been super receptive and already implemented a lot of features players requested from one Beta Weekend to the other, which is impressive.

I've heard that you will be able to "Skin" the UI to your liking (don't know if it's true, would appreciate if anyone could confirm it). But no Add-Ons, thankfully!

Add-Ons were a disaster in WoW. I'm not having fun playing numbers or having some program tell me what to do in PvE, and Add-Ons like Proximo/Gladius are even worse...they give such an advantage in Arena, it's ridiculous.

[Keosen]

There's really no need for Add-Ons in Guild Wars 2.

Entirely objective opinion.
I don't like the font, the textures and the position of my bars so for me it would be nice to be allowed to tweak them or the option to make an addon that will do the job instead of ANet.

[Deleted]

Dislike addon's.

Prefer it when they are not even an option IMO anyway.

[Falkenburg]

...
Not much of a problem. Blizz had the ability to deactivate the function.

Players are clever, yes. Noted.
...

Well, some Esport games allow modification currently. Don't see a problem that can't be handled by a smart script of some kind.

Also this gets into an issue of corrupted game design when setting up an aspect of a game for PVP/Esports which has an impact on non-PVP/Esports.

Precisely: there is a problem, it's just one that some people think can be easily handled. ArenaNet disagrees. It's a problem they don't want to have to deal with, and I agree with them. Some people don't. They are free to vote with their wallets it would seem.

It's really quite unclear to me why people have this expectation that they should be able to alter this product.

Can you change the UI in God of War? In Street Fighter IV? In Starcraft? That last one is actually a crux question: Starcraft is played at very high levels of competition, what level of modification to the UI is possible in that? (Outside of non-standard game modes, it seems not a lot.)

In the end, it all comes down to a simple question: is there actually a significant market fraction that would not buy the game because it lacks mods? Remember, allowing the player base to mod the game has an initial and ongoing cost to the developer, as even Fencers above notes, it requires staying abreast of developments and applying periodic fixes.

Which means additional personnel. Which means costs.

Is there any real evidence that these costs would be justified? Considering the interest in keeping the game focused on skill and situational awareness, what premium comes from allowing people to change the playing experience?

Meh. In all honesty, I simply don't care enough about this topic to continue much with the discussion, which is sort-of my point above. I simply don't think that there is much of a population that would buy GW2 but for the ability to tweak the UI. I'm getting the game because I love the look of it, and $60 (or whatever) for a game of this size and scope seems like great value for money.

[Fencers]

Precisely: there is a problem, it's just one that some people think can be easily handled. ArenaNet disagrees. It's a problem they don't want to have to deal with, and I agree with them. Some people don't. They are free to vote with their wallets it would seem.

Oh I agree it is Anet's decision to allow or disallow addons as they see fit.

It's pretty clear that addons will never be part of the Guild Wars franchise to even a small degree as in other MMOs. So it is less fruitful to speak on what Guild Wars & Arena.net desire for their product w/r/t addons- we know already. In the absolute.

The more interesting and worthy discussion is what addons bring to a game as a feature set to the end user. And in a wider sense, what/how that compares to the design of other games.

That we can talk about reasonably.


[Personally speaking, I am not much of an addon user in any game. Don't see much value they would have in GW2. UI modification is a different aspect from addons and another subject entirely.]

[Lucky_]

I'm not asking for anything to be banned. I'm just advocating that they keep the game the way it is. If they added the ability to move UI elements around, I wouldn't like it because it marginalizes the skills of peripheral vision and, to an extent, situational awareness. It wouldn't be the end of the world to me but I wouldn't be in favor of it.

Okay. Removed, excluded, axed, trimmed, streamlined (my personal favorite), left out, killed...

Pick the name you like the most. The meat of the argument remains the same: you have a desire to reduce overall game functionality for everyone, because a condition specific to you enables you to compensate for reduced functionality more so then other people.

I can understand this point of view. It's a very humane and honest one, and I respect the fact that you're man (woman?) enough to admit it openly. I also emphasize that I disagree with this point of view as well. But you certainly have a right to it just as much as I have a right to mine.

[Pavlovich]

...
Can you change the UI in God of War? In Street Fighter IV? In Starcraft? That last one is actually a crux question: Starcraft is played at very high levels of competition, what level of modification to the UI is possible in that? (Outside of non-standard game modes, it seems <snip>.)

In the end, it all comes down to a simple question: is there actually a significant market fraction that would not buy the game because it lacks mods? Remember, allowing the player base to mod the game has an initial and ongoing cost to the developer, as even Fencers above notes, it requires staying abreast of developments and applying periodic fixes.
...

An interesting point regarding those other games, but there's one difference. Those other games are not MMOs. They have set game modes and that's it. In an MMO there are lots of different activities, different players certain mixes of those activities, and thus different aspects of the UI gain or lose importance.

As for mods being a deal-breaker, I don't believe anyone has suggested they would or would not buy the game depending on the availability of mods. I certainly have not.

[Osprey39]

Entirely objective opinion.
I don't like the font, the textures and the position of my bars so for me it would be nice to be allowed to tweak them or the option to make an addon that will do the job instead of ANet.

You need to look up the definition of 'want' and 'need'

---------- Post added 2012-08-05 at 03:25 PM ----------

Okay. Removed, excluded, axed, trimmed, streamlined (my personal favorite), left out, killed...

Pick the name you like the most. The meat of the argument remains the same: you have a desire to reduce overall game functionality for everyone, because a condition specific to you enables you to compensate for reduced functionality more so then other people.

I can understand this point of view. It's a very humane and honest one, and I respect the fact that you're man (woman?) enough to admit it openly. I also emphasize that I disagree with this point of view as well. But you certainly have a right to it just as much as I have a right to mine.

Yeah, lol, I'm a guy and yes, you have a right to disagree with me. I have no problem with you doing so as long as we can have a civil discussion about it (which we are.)

[Deleted]

arena net can easily add needed UI comfort functions via patches, you dont need addons for that.

i think the qol issues is used as an excuse for people who want addons to make the game easier in an aspect for them.

[Karizee]

It's really quite unclear to me why people have this expectation that they should be able to alter this product.

Especially since the developers have clearly stated it's one of the Basic. Core. Design. Philosophies. for the player to play the game, not the UI.
Confusing really how people fail to grasp that

[Deleted]

A couple of people have brought up the fact that addons make the game less accessible for new players, and I would like to add that I think that addons especially make the game less accessible for people watching streams. If someone has never even played the game before then the fact that every streamer is using a different custom interface and list of addons will definitely make it more challenging for them to start understanding how the game works.

Client-side addons don't really exist in any other multiplayer games except mmo's, maybe it's time to see if mmo's can do without them as well?

[Lucky_]

arena net can easily add needed UI comfort functions via patches, you dont need addons for that.

i think the qol issues is used as an excuse for people who want addons to make the game easier in an aspect for them.

And I know I just want the QoL issues sort out because I like enjoying playing my games, rather then spend time fighting against the interface spoiling my fun.

Because in many cases people asking for quality of life improvements want... quality of life improvements. Shocking!

---------- Post added 2012-08-05 at 11:19 PM ----------

Client-side addons don't really exist in any other multiplayer games except mmo's, maybe it's time to see if mmo's can do without them as well?

Tyres don't exist in vehicles in which tyres don't touch the ground directly. Maybe it's time to see if these can make it without tyres as well? Surely, the sore behinds and spine problems of the times of old horse carriages are a small sacrifice for such a magnificent "improvement"?

Or maybe we can understand that massive devolution to the crappy experiences of the past are not the way forward?

[Deleted]

No there wont be add-ons but I would like to see a personal dps meter atleast.