Custom Premade Groups Feature Available at Level 50, Ajour, WowUp

[Lumy]

Shadowlands Beta - Custom Premade Groups Feature Available at Level 50
In Shadowlands Beta, the custom Premade Groups feature becomes available at Level 50. This change is probably aimed at stopping new accounts from advertising services that break Blizzard's ToS. Thanks to MrGM for noticing this!

Ajour - WoW Addon Manager
Ajour is a new World of Warcraft Addon Manager focused on performance and simplicity. The app manages your addons for both Retail and Classic WoW by fetching updates from both CurseForge and TukUI.

Ajour is available on macOS and Windows, but it can also work on Linux if installed from source.

WowUp - WoW Addon Manager
Another new World of Warcraft Addon Manager that we wanted to highlight is WowUp, available for download on Windows.

Manage
Manage your addons across all your clients from all popular sources. Supporting Curse, WowInterface, TukUI, and GitHub.

Multiple Clients
Includes support for all World of Warcraft clients, installed in whatever folder you choose. Includes support for Retail, Classic, PTRs, and Beta.

Easy
Automatic addon detection makes it easy to get started. You can also use the simple search feature to find any new addons to install quickly.

Discover
Find and search for new addons across multiple addon providers for quick and easy install.

[SinR]

Nice, maybe we'll see a fuckton less "WTS M15 CARRIES" that never actually get banned

[Lucetia]

Nice, maybe we'll see a fuckton less "WTS M15 CARRIES" that never actually get banned

You might see less, but a lot of that spam is also on 120's atm too so this won't change much of anything. It'll weed out a few that are level 1, but that's about it.

This change will suck for those who want to try and find groups for certain quests while leveling or if they were wanting to group and stuff.

There has got to be better ways of handling it though. I would say after X amount of reports, but then that just causes them to hop onto another account (likely stolen or new account with boosted toon). It would also introduce the problem of getting people banned just because people mass reported them.

[finnachta]

How about, and I know this might be a bit of a stretch, they actually invest in a anti-spam system? It's not that difficult to just do simple regex based filtering. Literally a junior dev could get a basic filter created.

[Tziva]

The group finder change is so punishing to leveling characters for probably marginal help on the bullshit listings (when they could instead actually take efforts to combat advertising specifically targeted at the advertising). Look, I pug a lot, and I hate those "groups" clogging up the group finder to excessive levels but I also use the group finder all the time below the cap, for rares/events/activities/achievements,etc. Just today I used it several times on characters that will probably end up in the 30-40 range post squish, for accessing a rare spawn NPC, getting help on a Legion invasion, and searching for the mad merchant. I've also used it on low levels to find a stable group to spam dungeons with or complete special achievements. 50 is way too high of a restriction; that's the equivalent of 120!

It's just especially obnoxious since it would be so easy to target advertisement by, like, targeting advertising keywords. Or restrict it for super low level characters. Or both! WHY NOT BOTH.

It's been a long time since Blizzard has done something I was genuinely surly over, but this is one of them. So fucking dumb.

[Sorshen]

It's a pretty bad way to go about Group Finder for sure.

[SinR]

I'm pretty sure Blizzard does nothing about my Right Click > Report for Advertising

[Kazlehoff]

Cursebreaker is better than both those addons listed.

[kevincuomo]

Use a third party addon instead of Overworf.. its going to have ads and the company is garbage.

[Alayea]

I've been using Ajour for awhile now and been enjoying it. All I've ever been interested in is a quick and stable means of just checking for addon updates without the bloat; this manager does just that. (If you desire more than that, then yes you will have to look elsewhere.)

On to the premade group nerf: It's bullocks. There are plenty of legit players who use it below max level, and all this inelegant change does is throw sub-120s (eventually sub-50s) under the bus for a dubious-at-best gain. I sincerely believe better ways exist, but unfortunately corporate doesn't care enough to go the extra mile. Sure is going to suck for people who are attempting the Herald of the Titans achievement, for example.

[BetrayedOf52]

Use a third party addon instead of Overworf.. its going to have ads and the company is garbage.

The whole world has ads, but why is it garbage?

[CrawlFromThePit]

I see a bunch of comments talking about Blizzard not doing the right thing with Premade Group Finder, and corporate not caring and there HAS to be a better way... but why is no one talking about the real problem? The players. These disgusting fucking little shits who don't want to play the game correctly, buying freaking carries instead of having integrity and playing the right way. Why are people never talking about how pathetic these players are and why is blizzard not permanently removing them from the game to teach them to man up and stop being cancerous?

These carry groups exist because there's a demand. There should not be a demand. Players should want to play, not sit there not playing and getting carried. The real problem is people wanting to not play in a video games. If they don't want to play then why are they even allowed in the game?

[alucardtnuoc]

These carry groups exist because there's a demand. There should not be a demand. Players should want to play, not sit there not playing and getting carried. The real problem is people wanting to not play in a video games. If they don't want to play then why are they even allowed in the game?

They do want to play. but not that content so they do other content they enjoy and use the money made from other means to pay for a carry so they can go back to what they enjoy doing.

Would you be fine if the carries were free? It's exactly the same result if people do it for free.

As long as it's not against the rules set by Blizzard, who are you to tell people that X Y or Z is the "right" way to play a game?

[Tziva]

I see a bunch of comments talking about Blizzard not doing the right thing with Premade Group Finder, and corporate not caring and there HAS to be a better way... but why is no one talking about the real problem? The players. These disgusting fucking little shits who don't want to play the game correctly, buying freaking carries instead of having integrity and playing the right way. Why are people never talking about how pathetic these players are and why is blizzard not permanently removing them from the game to teach them to man up and stop being cancerous?

These carry groups exist because there's a demand. There should not be a demand. Players should want to play, not sit there not playing and getting carried. The real problem is people wanting to not play in a video games. If they don't want to play then why are they even allowed in the game?

Because addressing advertisement in the group finder is actually possible through various methods, while convincing the entire gaming community not to sell or buy boosts is not.

And frankly, even if it wasn't a matter of being pragmatic (although that certainly is the reason people should focus on the group finder changes), I personally do not give a fuck if someone wants to buy a carry, I just don't want bullshit fake groups making up half the results of the group finder. Someone privately buying a boost from a guild or discord group doesn't negatively affect me in any way whatsoever. The prolific abundance of sale runs making it difficult for me to find real groups does, so I'd rather the actual damaging aspect be addressed.

[Lei]

The group finder thing really sucks. Carry sellers just gonna invest into either buying boosts from blizz or multiboxing them to max (especially now that leveling can be done in 4-6 hours and servers are getting merged so less booster chars are required for full coverage). Basically only the normal people will get screwed.

[CrawlFromThePit]

They do want to play. but not that content so they do other content they enjoy and use the money made from other means to pay for a carry so they can go back to what they enjoy doing.

Would you be fine if the carries were free? It's exactly the same result if people do it for free.

As long as it's not against the rules set by Blizzard, who are you to tell people that X Y or Z is the "right" way to play a game?

No I wouldn't be fine. I don't care if it's 100m gold or half a freaking copper. The act of being in a game to not play the game is a level of pathetic my brain cannot compute.

I'm someone with integrity and respect for the work that goes into a game. My opinion is objectively more valid than that of someone who makes the conscious decision of login into a game they don't want to play, literally by definition.
Why do you think Blizzard is trying to put an end to this? They're changing the feature and there's already a way to report this to make it stop. They know it's pathetic, they know it's not good for the game or community. You're not gonna sell me this overused and often wrong who are you to tell people that X Y or Z is the "right" way to play a game? You have it in your own sentence, "way to play a game". Getting carried is not playing, by definition you're sitting in the back not playing while others play for you. So if they're not playing, this can't be called a "way to play a game". Therefore I'm not asking them to play a certain way, I'm just asking them to play. If they don't want to play then they should just log off and do whatever else they enjoy enough to actually do.

They don't want to play, they want the reward without playing. That's disgusting and should not be allowed or enabled in any way shape or form.
It's more important to destroy this regressive attitude than to support low lvl grouping, there's basically no content in the game that requires pre-made grouping while lvling. Most people who lvl in a group are with friends and never use premade group finder.

[Deadlyangel]

Nice to see, that as soon as they said "OverWolf will be the new home for curse Addons" many ppl around the world start developing an alternative as soon as they can.

Nobody want that useless software (OverWolf) installed in their pc... First OverWolf tried to spread his vir..software with Logitech driver now with Warcraft addons, nobody want (or need) it XD

[Twdft]

You might see less, but a lot of that spam is also on 120's atm too so this won't change much of anything. It'll weed out a few that are level 1, but that's about it.

This change will suck for those who want to try and find groups for certain quests while leveling or if they were wanting to group and stuff.

It will weed out the real money boost seller and will do nothing for actual players wanting to sell boosts for gold. Which is fine IMO.

That said, you are absolutely right that we need the group finder below 50 for legitimate reasons. Making it available only for 50+ is nonsense.

[Onikaroshi]

Nice to see, that as soon as they said "OverWolf will be the new home for curse Addons" many ppl around the world start developing an alternative as soon as they can.

Nobody want that useless software (OverWolf) installed in their pc... First OverWolf tried to spread his vir..software with Logitech driver now with Warcraft addons, nobody want (or need) it XD

I honestly have no qualms with Overwolf, but the fact that these ones pull from tukui seals the deal for me.

[Somarlane]

The group finder change is so punishing to leveling characters for probably marginal help on the bullshit listings (when they could instead actually take efforts to combat advertising specifically targeted at the advertising). Look, I pug a lot, and I hate those "groups" clogging up the group finder to excessive levels but I also use the group finder all the time below the cap, for rares/events/activities/achievements,etc. Just today I used it several times on characters that will probably end up in the 30-40 range post squish, for accessing a rare spawn NPC, getting help on a Legion invasion, and searching for the mad merchant. I've also used it on low levels to find a stable group to spam dungeons with or complete special achievements. 50 is way too high of a restriction; that's the equivalent of 120!

It's just especially obnoxious since it would be so easy to target advertisement by, like, targeting advertising keywords. Or restrict it for super low level characters. Or both! WHY NOT BOTH.

It's been a long time since Blizzard has done something I was genuinely surly over, but this is one of them. So fucking dumb.

This. BadBoy: Spam Blocker & Reporter is an add-on (with some community crowd-sourcing) that for several years has successfully blocked a lot of spam in public chat. Whenever someone asks for a must-have list of WoW addons, BadBoy is on my list (along with great plug-ins that will also block whispers and do other miscellanea) every time. If an add-on can do it, how much better should Blizzard be able to do it considering it is their own game? Talk about curing cancer with a shotgun.