This might seem small, but it makes raiding significantly easier when a strategy that formerly relied on careful group placement can be reduced to “everyone spread out”.
During Vanilla, there wasn’t a raider in the world that had raid frames with range detection. When TBC came out, the API was changed and making addons like this was easier/possible. In hindsight - yes there were unknown loopholes in the 1.12 client API, but if you ask me, these weren’t meant to be a part of the game.
Well, I remember pacing out 30 yds by where my spells went out of range. 
I’m just saying, it’s different when your raid frames highlight for you who’s in range, as oppose to you having no clue which health bars are out of range before you click on it
Well yeah. But we moved ourselves to groups that ensured we knew who was in range. I guess I’m down for removing ranging, but I’m not that concerned about it. In Vanilla there were range finders which would check targets and update. They were just super clunky.
Aye, this is how it should be
However, when raid frames highlight range detection then it’s less punishing when someone makes a positioning mistake
True, but by the same token, there’s no “Everyone move 10 yds from each other” nonsense in Classic.
I think there was an addon for that in vanilla, but if not, that can kind of be bundled into what I’m trying to say about raid frames. There’s a lot of GUI crutches that make people play better without actually being better
Same addons. You would give it a spell to use for ranging, and it would scan everyone on a button push. Then you’d watch your target change rapidly for a second or two.
Okay, and how is that at odds with what I just said?
You were responding to where (one post removed) I’d said there was an addon for 30yds. I was saying it was the same addon whether its 10 or 30, but 10 isn’t necessary in Classic.
I think you might be missing what I’m saying. There’s a difference between what was intended and what was possible. I wouldn’t really categorize it as clever use of mechanics, because the API was so vulnerable that you could practically bot with it. Nobody had addons like these, and in 2006, it wasn’t intended by Blizzard for people to make addons like these because they trivialize certain mechanics
We had addons for range-finding in Vanilla. They were just clunky and visible, instead of mild shading. We’d use them to test people’s range positioning before a boss fight like Shazzrah or Geddon. (Garr you had to run into place if you were the rear wall.
Blizzard probably considers this not an issue given it can be replicated by an addon.
During Vanilla, there wasn’t a raider in the world that had raid frames with range detection. When TBC came out, the API was changed and making addons like this was easier/possible. In hindsight - yes there were unknown loopholes in the 1.12 client API, but if you ask me, these weren’t meant to be a part of the game.
Not raid frames. We had an addon that would target everyone in the raid in turn and cast/cancel on each to see which ones started. Then everyone would cluster on their healer. Like I said, clunky.
Yeah, I know, and that’s my point. The solution to do this in the 1.12 isn’t just some simple one line addition “Me.IsInRange(Player)”, the addon has to cache results on every known player in a rather unusual and counter intuitive way, it’s not what the encounter designers intended (or at least I would assume so)
I remember this being a mechanic in some fights, and we definitely used an add-on for it. It was a circle graphic on the screen that would fill up slowly in green-yellow-red fashion to let you know when you were too close to others. The range could be adjusted in the settings. I believe we used it twice in AQ40- Princess Huhu, and maybe C’thun? Memory fails…
Edit: The addon I refer to was dynamic, and did not need anything to be clicked or “checked.” It simply kept track of everyone’s ranges on its own, somehow, similar to how old dps addons created and monitored a separate chat channel to display dps metering.
Organizing raids is one thing but you can’t effectively heal a BG without range detection without wasting precious time.
I used perfectraid add-on in vanilla and it faded out those not in range for me when I played AV on my priest.
lol…I had to find something compact because the game’s raid UI almost totally took up my screen.