Addons have been a big part of WoW since the beginning. But it is time for us to look into its negative impacts.
- For hardcores
The recent WF races are no longer just a competition of game skills, but also a competition of which guild can write best codes and addons. RWF is in game and irl gold sink. It is working a full time job instead of a playing a game.
It is not surprising at all that more and more hardcore raiding guilds stopped or disbanded. And this trend will continue.
- For casuals
I have to agree some streamers have said already: raiding is too hard. It is already hard to find people, form a group and organize a raid for casuals. Then the raids are significantly harder and harder over the years. It is just not fun for casual raiding.
One of the big reason is the addon. Ion said in recently interview, Blizzard has to make the encounters harder and harder, because combat addons are more and more intelligent. This is just a vicious circle.
- For Blizzard
Players shall not be dependant on third party addons to play a game. Basic addons like UI customization, damage meter, coord, should be integrated in the game itself.
Blizzard’s decision to add voice chat, UI, mouse over, M+ rating, item level, etc. is a good direction. But it is not enough. We need more basic functions included in default settings.
And the removal of combat addons like DBM will certainly make encounter design more creative.
- For everyone
Nobody loves to download, upgrade, set their addons all the time on every computer he plays WoW. It is just a hassel and it shold not be necessary.
The recent Overwolf and WoWup issue shows again how messy third parties are, from curse to twitch to wowup to overwolf to whatever in the future. Players don’t deserve this.
- For addon developers
It is great that you make a career and money from making useful addons. But for the greater good of the game and players, this has to stop.
In sum, Blizzard, it is time to improve wow default settings and ban ALL addons.
