Important distinction that I personally didn’t keep in mind. Ta.
The auto-kick one is a bot, I’m not sure if it is also an add-on. I think of add-on as anything that you add onto the game that isn’t what the game comes with. I don’t know if Blizzard puts third-party bot programs under the umbrella of “add-on” or not.
AddOns (sometimes called addons , add-ons , or mods ) are collections of Lua code that augment, modify, or replace World of Warcraft 's default. Addons vary greatly in scope and size — they may display information not presented at all by the default UI, add functionality to the default UI (e.g. additional buttons you can press to do things), modify the default UI’s appearance (e.g. by changing colors or positions of UI elements) without changing its functionality, or even replace the default UI entirely.
From Wowpedia.
2 Likes
Not at all, you essentially set triggers (often in specific ways or combinations) to prompt a visual.
For a boss mechanic that could simply be a) you are in combat b) combat started at X time c) ability occurs Y time into the fight d) warning wants to be 5s before ability
Therefore your WA will simply end up being Y -5s after combat show warning.
Combat is a trigger in game you can already see, and then all it really is a timer/stopwatch which is also a game function. The visual is simply thoae two triggers fulfilling and representing information (instead of say the stopwatch beep).
Obviously highly simplified of how most work, but that information is all within the game.
Taunt swaps? Does tank have X debuff at Y stacks? Yes/no.
Do you have X debuff? Warning to move out etc
Same with DBM.
It’s all already available information simply portrayed in a different way.
It’s automated only to the degree that Blizzard already automates that information.
2 Likes
who knows, they could change functionality of AH some too to try and mitigate the problem. Before announcing some form of clarification to that change. I still think part of the reason it’s unclear is because of the update being 2 weeks ago, but we haven’t gotten any sort of updates to the game to back up this change.
Then again it’s Blizzard we’re still talking about here, so they can be unpredictable at times.
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What a succinct explanation! I was just going to /like. I have more appreciation for your post than a /like though. So thank you!
In fact we could even say: Combat is triggered by player discretion. Then, once the add-on reads this player input, it’s simple math, as you explained so well.
Was a better explanation for it. I have never even looked at the add-on, yet now I feel like I totally see your point.
I don’t like this, personally. An add-on triggering when a debuff is applied (a de-buff that no player controls the application of (kind of)) reads of automation to me… Mayhaps the add-on reads the players decision to use the Taunt spell, then continues with similar math you provided? Iunno. Pedantic 
Overall, much appreciation. Was worth more than a like.
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Not sure if someone mentioned this, but an illegal addon is one that breaks the game interface to show you the mechanics. like one that will show you exactly when certain skills are going to spawn so you can avoid those areas and never get hit by stuff.
This screams DBM to me. Unless that add-on somehow works similar to the discussion that Haavi and I are having, that is.
Edit: If it’s not already half obvious to everyone, I’m no PvEer (for a long time, anyway), so please forgive my PvE add-on ignorance
DBM warns you about upcoming skills that are about to happen, it does not show you exactly where that skill will hit before the skill even goes off.
thats not an addon.
That article has been that way since right after the first MB wave. Same wording, everything. It’s just a PSA to report AH bots and the edit was probably fixing formatting.
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One click/input must equal one GCD action is how they usually put it.
If anything is automated/chain macro’d too far it becomes an illegal sort.
Blizzard is intentionally vague on describing what does and does not break the rules, so that is likely to be as clear as it’s ever going to get.
Makes it harder for people trying to cheat to get away with it.
That’s not an addon…
That looks to me like an unclear revision of the knowledge base article. The EULA states that blizzard at its sole discretion allows the use of certain third party interfaces. That’s addons that use Blizzards Lua based API that go in the Addons folder.
The confusion lies in the fact that some refer to game mods as “addons”. I think what is meant here is illegal bottling software. I’ll point out the confusion on the MVP Discord to see if someone can update the article to be clearer
5 Likes
A for lack of better term, Hack.
What’s the MVP Discord about?
Addons can only do what Blizzard has given them to do.
If an addon does something Blizzard doesn’t like they will either
(a) contact the addon author and ask them not to do that
(b) stop the addon from loading via a banlist sent out to wow clients
(c ) alter the Lua API in a way that breaks the addon.
They don’t go after the player using the addon. Making this system of repeating a player for using an “illegal addon” complete nonsense to me
It’s a discord server run by the Customer Support team for us MVPS to report stuff in
Wouldn’t options A and B both still leave a door open to privatized addons? If there was something too intrusive that they’d need to shut down a public addon, it would only be logical that they’d also alter the API to prevent others from abusing it.