I’ll begin this by saying that I’m one of the many new players in World of Warcraft. I’ve been playing MMO’s since before WoW was first released and even played for a short time (less than a year) when it was first released. That being said, after talking to family and friends who played I thought I would step back into the game and see what 20 years had brought to the table. I’ve found an enjoyable story line, surrounded by many unique challenges. In the past 6 months or so I’ve learned to play the game and how to enjoy content which includes both raiding and mythic dungeons. Lately, I’ve heard interviews where the idea of removing the functionality combat addons has been discussed. The first reason given is that needing addons to perform well in different content sets the bar too high for new players causing them to not want to play. I think this is an incorrect premise and well it may mean you have to add outside helpers to the base UI in order to play well, I don’t see it as a barrier to entry. First, these addons are free, so no extra cost is involved. Secondly, they are readily available. They are very useful, and rather than detracting from game play they actually make things easier. Removing addons without adding this exact functionality to the game you would be handicapping all players. More experienced players would no doubt develop work arounds for these handicaps. but these would be more awkward, harder to learn, and there would be much less access to them. Right now, I can download an addon, watch a 20 - 30-minute video on YouTube showing the setup, and be up and running in less than an hour. On the other hand, as a new player I may not have access to the clever work arounds created by long time players. I may quickly be overwhelmed by the learning curve in order to play in multi-person content. I believe that removing the ability of addons to perform tasks will truly be the barrier to new players enjoying the game fully. If this is really intended to help players have a better experience than instead of blocking existing addons, create your version of these tools. Instead of removing the competition outperform them. Add tools to the base UI that perform as well or better and people will gravitate to them naturally. And as your player base moves addons will slowly fade. Who wants to work on developing something no one is using?
Please at least think about it and don’t make things harder on Us, the player base, especially those of us who are newer to the game.