I have a serious question I’d like to hear an answer to.
Why is WoW Forever using the same API restrictions as retail?
Let me just go over my assumption really quickly to see if we’re all on the same page.
- Addons made fight mechanics easier.
- Fights had to become more complex due to reason #1
- Addons were restricted after 20 years so fights could be made less complex.
Assuming I have all of that correct, and we’re talking about WoW Forever, which is vanilla WoW levels of complexity, meaning boss fights aren’t super complex, and a lot are simply ‘tank and spank’. Why is the API restrictions for addons in this game? I have my opinion, which it is because this engine is basically retail, and it’s less work to change it, but maybe I’m wrong.
My situation:
After playing the beta for a week, I finally decided to give addons a go. Not very many, just four. One of the four is “Forever Auras”, which is basically WeakAuras.
After not having WeakAuras for the last 7 months in retail, IT FELT SO FREAKING AMAZING to have it again, where I can customize my UI.
What was one of the first things I wanted to do? Make a special cool looking ‘spell alert’ for Clearcasting.
Why? The Cooldown manager only lets you have square icons, the same icons you see on your action bars. Lots of people like this. I DO NOT. I like spell alerts in the style of the ones you (Blizzard) added back in Wrath or Cata, that are special, class themed graphics. In other words I don’t want to be notified of buffs and procs by little square tiles. In this case, I wanted some green energy-type graphic on either side of my character, kind of like giant ( )'s
Well, I CAN create such a aura, but the problem is, IT DOESN’T SHOW IN COMBAT because of these API restriction.
But the default UI (yours) does show.
So clearly you don’t have a probably with me seeing a Clearcasting buff notification in combat. You just don’t me to see a cool graphic that I make or use.
This is LAME.
If this is just horizontal progression, and your philosophy for WoW moving forward, is boss fights shouldn’t require a PHD to figure out, why are these API restrictions in the game reducing my level of customization that I’ve enjoyed for 20+ years.
This sucks guys.
I accepted this for retail, because frankly I had no choice, but for a game that is literally vanilla in complexity, this is not needed.
I just want to have cool spell alerts guys! That’s it! Why can’t I have this??
You know what? This WHOLE SITUATION, could be solved if you let us use local image files in Cooldown Manager, in addition to the in-game icons. Then I could just set it up in CDM, and choose “Custom” and navigate to some cool PNG I found or made, and problem solved.
Not everyone likes boring, bland, same-sized, no flavor, square tiles/icons.