I use addons.
Not many mind you, but I do use a few. If the functions that I wanted were built into the game I would happily not use any at all, but such is life. I don’t use them to make the game more automated, I use them to make it more fun.
I use Auctioneer. Yes I could sit down with a ledger and plot the average prices of the items I commonly buy or sell, but it would be a time consuming chore that would greatly decrease the fun I have playing. I can do math and I can keep records, but that’s not why I play Wow.
I use Possesions and WhoHas. I play alts. Lots of alts. Logging into 10 different banks to find that stack of knothide leather I saved for a rainy day is a bit of a waste of time. Once again I could keep a ledger, but I play Wow to have fun not to do paperwork.
I use X-pearl unit frames. Well I kind of do. I use it only on my priest and only for raid frames. If Blizzard gave me the option of resizing and controlling the transparency of the standard ones I would not bother. I kind of like to be able to see through my raid frames and make them smaller, all the better to see things like lava waves and void circles. Situational awareness FTW.
I have Omen’s threat meter. I use it for raiding, but honestly if I am hitting feign death on its cooldown there is no way I am going to out threat the tank. None. If I had to do without it I would, but it is a nice visual on those occasions that I do need it. Lately that has mostly been when leveling a new pet.
I have Recount. Then again it is disabled across all my characters unless I am pounding on a target dummy. I use it as a tool to test out different gear selections and shot rotations not as a way to show off.
I have Deadly Boss Mods. It has been a required addon in every raid guild I have ever been in. I think the reason for that is that a lot of the boss fights are gimmick fights. In fact, I think Blizzard has designed some fights with boss mods in mind. Otherwise the “special attack of doom” for any particular boss would be more random and less of a timed event.
I use Cartographer. Mostly because once again I can adjust the transparency of my map. For the longest time I had a mod that just put a set of “here you are” coordinates under my mini map. Then the clock came and I got rid of it (yes I know I can turn it off, but I like the feature).
Lastly I also use Questhelper. I did not use any mod of any kind as I leveled my first character to the level cap (70 at the time). Nor did I use one on my second for that matter. That first 70 is sitting retired in the lower city tavern now, and I run Alliance side. My first time from 70 to 80 I did not use anything, preferring to read the quests and get involved in the story lines.
Now however we come back to my alts. I have run through the same low level content so many damn times that I have begun to hate it. If Blizzard could come up with another option for folks with multiple level capped toons to start at a higher level (without going Death Knight) I would be all for it. For now however I am just interested in leveling my way through tired old content as efficently as possible.
I don’t consider that to be cheating, I have beaten every one of those quests before. Several times. I have done it using databases like wowhead and wowwiki and a notebook.
Ok, that part of my little rant is over.
If you have not yet read the posts Gevlon put up about this subject head on over to the Greedy Goblin and check out Gevlons post about Blizzards decision to ban the request for donations (or outright fees) from use by addon developers. He has written several good posts on this subject lately. The rest of this will make more sense that way.
Go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back.
Back? good.
While I agree with him about cheating being a bad thing that is really not what this is about.
It is about money pure and simple. Blizzard does not want any other entity to receive profits from their service. I understand and agree with this. It is their product and they should be allowed to claim the profits from their work. The again so should the addon developers.
What I would suggest from strictly a business standpoint is that Blizzard tap into this market themselves. Not with in game donation spam of any type but by giving the developers other options.
Option one: (already in place) Make your addon, don’t violate the eula with its functions, and give it away for free.
Option two: Create a Blizzard approved addon store. Those who want to charge are free for downloading their addon are able to do so, but only through that store. A portion of the profits get to go to Blizzard.
Option three: The freelance addon writer creates an addon and sells the rights to it to Blizzard. It gets marketed in the Blizzard store from option two and Voila everyone gets to make money.
If the addon is good enough that people are willing to pay money for it as opposed to using a free version then both the developer and Blizzard profit from this. If it not then the developer can either lower the price, give it for free, or rewrite it so that it is more appealing. Make a good product, get paid. Make a product no one wants, don’t get paid. I think overall it would improve the game.
At no time would this encourage cheating, since all addons both then and now are monitored for eula violations and shut down if needed.
I see this less as an issue of cheating and more of an issue of Blizzard failing to cash in on a market that is standing there waiting to give them money.
Lastly to those who would say “But then Blizzard is allowing you to pay real world money for an in game advantage, they said they would never do that!” I have but three words for you.
Filed under: World of Warcraft |
Dechion's Place 
I feel like a “Blizzard App Store” very likely won’t happen. They seem to have a fairly staunch attitude against limiting functionality available to us by charging for it. I see the Recruit-A-Friend more as incentivizing than charging.
Recruit a friend is merely annoying since it just give fast XP until lvl60, so has no effect on the endgame.
The problem with such store is that a LuA addon is easily copyable. Blizzard would have to code the addon functionality into the game and activate only to the payers. Could work business-wise.
I agree that the recruit a friend program is not really effecting endgame. I was using it to illistrate the point that Blizzard has already shown that they do not consider speed leveling through an area to be a devaluation of their content.
As far as the addon store goes I will steal (and promptly screw up)a quote from Star Trek “I’m a mechanic, not a computer programmer”. I don’t know how the coding and such would have to be set up in order to work, but I do theink that the business model would work.
@Gevlon actually now that I think about it Recruit a friend does (in my opinion) devalue a portion of the game.
One of the wonderful things about Wow is that there is so much you can do. waht about those out there who’s game is speedleveling? No addons, no help from high level mains or friends, just hitting the ground running at level 1 and seeing how fast they can ding 80?
Not saying that people are forced to use it, or even that speedleveling for its own sake is all that common, just pointing out that the end game (which we both enjoy) is not the only game.