Could WoW players function without addons?

[Soulebreaker-hyjal]

I use some for accessibility, so no, not really.

[Calphricham-skywall (Calphricham)]

Yes, I’ve never downloaded an addon before and don’t really need to.

[Caylynda-arathor]

Today, I couldn’t play without addons. When I first joined WoW, late in OG classic, I played without addons until I joined a raiding guild in Wrath, very early on. I was invited due to healing one of the guild’s tanks in several heroic dungeons and they liked my healing. I knew this was a huge “step up” so I researched addons and started using them. Up until that point, just questing and doing heroic dungeons, I didn’t need them. I suspect it would be similar today. Higher level content is designed assuming people use addons. You can play the base game without them.

[Kentaurus-turalyon (Kentaurus)]

I could, but addons make my in-game life a lot easier, so I would rather not play without them.

[Encephalon-wyrmrest-accord]

Could I play WoW without addons? Maybe, yeah.

Would I find it as fun in some cases? No.

There are also non-content addons, like TRP, which are almost necessary for RPers to have these days. I’d rather not return to my XIV days of having to build a carrd for each individual character and post a link to it somewhere just to have even my OOC do’s and dont’s available for others to check.

I also don’t get the mindset of addons being wholesale bad awful to use. If people don’t want to utilize any, that’s fine and their prerogative! But it always feels like they can’t just go about their own business being addon-free, and always have to ask “could YOU survive without them?” or demand addons be wholesale killed off. It’s weird behavior.

[Sendryn-sentinels]

@Twily-stormrage

An old question but it should be brought up now and then.

It really doesn’t need to be.

@Twily-stormrage

I will not count Discord( or the olden days of vent and teamspeak) even though it is an addon

… it’s literally not.

@Twily-stormrage

I think the game would be better and more interesting if they took away addons, and the adventure journal

So you want everyone to hate their UI and have no way to look at what’s new, upcoming, gear drops or boss mechanics because… why?

[Darknessgodd-goldrinn (Darknessgodd)]

i could and i’m proud of it… but i doubt the rest can

[Sinjii-wyrmrest-accord]

Losing TotalRolePlay would be a big damper on my fun.

Edit: I do like that Blizzard is adding more modern UI elements into the game that I’ve been using addons for. Such as the new mouseover UI. I haven’t messed around with it yet because I started leveling this Warlock and literally haven’t logged onto another character. But, it seems like it could replace Clique for me. I’m super into the idea of just replacing most of my addons with the base game like that.

[Sedaria-gorefiend]

The implementation of the new cast bar and click casting for healing made my last two addons (Quartz and Clique) obsolete. I am now add-on free. I use about six for Classic, but one of them is cosmetic (Quartz) and 3 of them are database related (Atlas). The only things that significantly effect gameplay are Questie and Clique.

The slow but steady modernization and ease of use of the UI the last few years is a MAJOR overlooked positive in Blizzard’s favor.

[Kanduur-moon-guard]

I have functioned without addons for basically my entire WoW career

[Twily-stormrage]

@Sendryn-sentinels

So you want everyone to hate their UI and have no way to look at what’s new, upcoming, gear drops or boss mechanics because… why?

It was that way for years and it was more fun being surprised.

@Sendryn-sentinels

… it’s literally not.

Discord is an addon.

@Sendryn-sentinels

It really doesn’t need to be.

I disagree, I think the game would be better without them and Blizzard just implemented the good ones into the game themselves.

[Kennie-malganis]

Yeah, sure. The game would be worse off, but we’d function.

[Surreally-moon-guard]

@Twily-stormrage

I will not count Discord( or the olden days of vent and teamspeak) even though it is an addon because it does give you an advantage over those who do not use it.

Might as well, and count those who keep notebooks next to them as having an addon, too.

[Mythosaur-frostwolf]

hate to say this but the reasons players went with vent and discord is due to how bad the og voice chat was

[Mythosaur-frostwolf]

i had to keep a notepad of vent codes back in the day lol

[Sendryn-sentinels]

@Twily-stormrage

It was that way for years

Wrong.

@Twily-stormrage

Discord is an addon.

Extremely wrong.

@Twily-stormrage

I disagree

That’s fine, but my game isn’t better without my custom UI. My UI doesn’t affect your gameplay and my UI makes the game easier for me to see.

@Twily-stormrage

Blizzard just implemented the good ones into the game themselves.

Wrong once again. They half baked it and it’s nowhere near what I need or want.

[Twily-stormrage]

@Sendryn-sentinels

Extremely wrong.

Discord is a program that works outside the game and allows you to easily communicate with others. That is an addon.

[Sendryn-sentinels]

@Twily-stormrage

Discord is a program that works outside the game

Which means it’s not an addon. Learn what an addon is.

AddOns (sometimes called addons , add-ons , or mods ) are collections of Lua/XML code that augment, modify, or replace World of Warcraft 's default user interface.

[Quenya-shadow-council (Quenya)]

Yes, but why would I?

Like asking if people can function without a tv remote. You can, but why?

[Zilvestram-aegwynn]

I think addons are directly detrimental to pvp.

Anything that tells you what to do, and when to do it, is basically compensating for lack of playerskill, the opposite of what pvp is about.