Allow Addons and UI Alterations, or a modification-free interface?

Written by: Olivia Grace (@oliviadgrace) | December 10, 2012 10:54 am

55 Comments

Addons and UI Alterations, or a modification-free interface?

Planetside 2 recently announced that they would not be permitting any modifications to their standard UI, an attitude that is echoed by Guild Wars 2. World of Warcraft, conversely, has always had a far more permissive attitude towards UI modifications.

But which is the better approach? Standardized interfaces certainly make for more stable gameplay, the developers have designed the interface around the game, its changes and capabilities, while a third party, although likely very competent, will never have quite the level of information available to an in-house team. As regular players of World of Warcraft will no doubt recall, patches or expansions navigated with addons can cause huge problems with gameplay.

What’s more, given that addon authors are often, though not always, creating and maintaining their addons for no profit, other parts of their life can get in the way of regular updates. What’s more, addon authors can sometimes lose interest in the game altogether. It’s a dangerous game indeed to rely too heavily on one addon, such as many players did on addons such as WoW’s Carbonite.

But on the plus side, isn’t it a good thing for players to be able to play the way they want to? If you’re a regular player of Guild Wars 2, or of Planetside 2, do you wish you could modify your interface? What would you change?

Do you think it’s best to allow addons, or for developers to keep control of a game’s interface?

Allow Addons and UI Alterations, or a modification-free interface?

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http://twitter.com/aG_Deilwynna Johan Bärtzner

when i play wow, i dont use any ui addons, i use addons like DBM, Recount and atlasloot and such. blizzards own ui is quite good for tanking imo
http://www.facebook.com/andelormon David Scott

It really depends. If the UI options in the game are good enough then there is no need to get additional add -ons. Which over all lowers your own lag too.
Emilio Jacinto

With customization, it gives more options to players. However, due to having access to api, it is probably a big risk for the game knowing that it will be very hard to control those private modifications.

On the otherhand, Planetside 2 told the users to not to use any alteration to the client also proves that they cant control users from doing so.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=746703671 Michael Boyd

I think mods and add-ons are fine as long as they don’t ruin the experience of the other players.

I think a lot of the newer games coming out should take into consideration the types of add-ons and mods that are popular, like damage/combat meters and movable UI elements, and have those kind of things built into the game if they aren’t going to allow third parties to do it.

I like that I can modify my WoW UI pretty much any way I feel, it gives me a sense of personalization that makes me feel unique, my own special snowflake.
http://twitter.com/wordcipro matt cipriano

I think UI mods should be allowed by all games as long as it strictly is a cosmetic tool. If I ever became bored with wow, I would make an entirely new UI, and it would enhance the experience for awhile. That little addition of UI mods just allows a player to personalize his or her game.
- http://twitter.com/oliviadgrace Olivia Grace
  
  Yeah, I have wasted many, many, many hours on WoW playing with my UI.. xD
Brandon Petrie

Not only do addons allow for customization, but they promote a feeling that the players have a hand in development of the game. I am on a dev team for a WoW addon used in the RP community. I feel like I have a hand in how the game develops by working on the addon. I also see addons fostering community, as it takes both users and devs to keep them going. It is my belief that UI customization and other addons are one of the reasons WoW is so successful.
http://www.facebook.com/brian.sperduto.1 Brian Sperduto

I like mods and customization a lot, but the problem with WoW was all the “Necessary” addons. I like if the addons add fun functionality or pure customization, but not functionality that feels it should have been there to begin with.
http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Alvino/1094406295 John Alvino

UI mods are only good if the regular UI is crap and doesn’t give you enough infomation. In the case of GW2 I feel everything you need to know is presented very clearly.
BigH001

It depends on a lot of things.

The first one is will allowing addons stunt the continued design and improvement of the UI/game by the developers?
I found Lord of the Rings Online to be a big offender of this when they first started allowing addons. There were tons of features players had been asking for since day one, and usually the response was “Not enough time, not enough money”. So opening up addons was a good thing, because it allowed a lot of smaller design changes to be player made, but it also gave them an excuse to pass off needed UI improvements, big things which really should be coming from the developer. I’ve seen this in WoW too. For example WoW’s auction House interface sucks. But instead of the devs improving it, you get an addon to fix it.

The second is if the addons have so much freedom or are so powerful that the game developers start designing their content with addons in mind. Something like Deadly Boss Mod in WoW maybe. While it’s not absolutely needed for a fight, it makes the fight so much easier that it’s basically required. And Looking at some of the fight designs it seems pretty plain to me that the content designers are expecting people to have it.

And the third, and most important on, is are addons actually needed. Some games are so well thought out and so well designed, that addons aren’t really needed. Rift (back when I played it at least) was a pretty good example for me. The UI had the functions I wanted already, so even when they did open up their addon support I didn’t change anything. In fact the only “addon” I ever used in Rift was the DPS overlay thing (it was an external program which read your combat log and had a java overlay, so it might not have been a true addon). But something like Rift functioned so well natively that I didn’t need to change anything, where a game like WoW… the interface is so bad and so limited that I have a really hard time playing it without addons.

I prefer not using addons when I can, since as you said, patch day always suck. And if the game (cough cough LoTRO) doesn’t have an automatic addon updater (“Curse” etc) then it’s always a major pain to update. So when I can I try to limit what I use. But some games need it to be close to functional for me.
Noctover

One day other MMO devs will realise World of Warcrafts long-lived success is highly accredited to the addon support it has.

At the end of the day, i’ve been using the same set of core addons since TBC, creators have come and gone but the popular, core addons like Recount for example, will ALWAYS be around, if the original creator decides to stop supporting it, someone else will.

Can you imagine WoW without Addon support and truly state it would still be the game it is today, or even no.1 in the MMO market without such support? Would Blizzard have made there down damage meter? I doubt it.

Blizzard did a great job of creating a framewire set of rules to base addon support around and within that limitation told the community to knock themselves out, and it was the best decision they ever made.
- http://twitter.com/oliviadgrace Olivia Grace
  
  I definitely agree that WoW needs addons, I’m encouraged that they’re importing some addon-type functionality (eg. certain DBM-style elements, and PvP addon LoseControl) into the default interface.
  - Noctover
    
    Agreed, no doubt with Addons you have to find a stable bunch and not over do it, theres a trick to getting a good set of addons that work together and dont cause instability, so the more addons Blizzard see the potential in and incorperate into the game the better .
    
    This is another way addon support really helps, it gives Blizzard the ability to see what the players want in the game, whats popular and THEN they can dedicate resources to making a high quality in-built version, and not before .
- 7BitBrian
  
  You realize that you basically just said that Blizzard’s game cannot stand on it’s own, and that it’s not popular because it’s a good game but because the players make it easier and make it into a good game right?
  
  IMO that’s wrong, if you need third party developers/players to make your game worth playing then something is wrong, go back to the drawing board and re-release it the right way.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    The question for the game developer is do you open up your game UI to the community or keep it a closed system. A critical decision every game developer makes.
    
    Part of the magic of WoW was opening up the UI to the community. The community did some amazing, groundbreaking, controversial UI designs. But again, it was the playerbased who decided which UI add on were successful. Part of the fun of WoW is the tweaking and customization of your character to get the very best performance.
    
    Guild Wars 2 strength is you generally don’t worry about the UI. The UI is mostly fixed and the player-base leaves the UI decisions to Arenanet. I find with GW2 I’m into collecting the experiences, not trying to create a high competitive character.
  - Noctover
    
    Ermmmm, no, and yes. World of Warcraft is a competent game, and would stand up on its own, but it wouldn’t have lasted as long as it has nor been as popular without the modding community.
    
    Lets look at Half-Life, similar story, Half-Life was GOTY for YEARS because it was so modable, it was the reason for Counter-Strike and so many other mods that PROLONGED the longevity of Half-Life and made that game the legend that it is today, without being modable, Half-Life would have died out within 2 years, yet that game as a single player experience stood up on its own perfectly fine.
    
    This with WoW is no different, everyone wants different things, different features, different customization. No MMO dev in the history of the business now or in the future can cater for them all, but allowing people to MOD a game and create unique ideas of what individuals do want makes this a reality.
    
    By doing this, the option is there for those who want it, if you don’t want it good news, Blizzard didn’t spend resources making it, if you do want it, well you go and get it, and it was voluntarily made by an intelligent individual who CHOSE to make it.
    
    Its a simple fact, games that have been highly modable last longer than those that do not.
http://www.facebook.com/fredrik.gardsio Fredrik Fronken Gardsiö

As long as the addons are properly screened (which does add some work), i feel that they are a needed part of an MMO that wants to stay alive for a long time. Having played WoW for many years, there have been lots and lots of times when i’ve grown bored of the UI, and spent an evening installing addons and just tweaking everything to my liking, which for me was a great part of the gaming experience.

Addons is one thing i sorely miss within Gw2, sure, the UI is good, but there are alot of things that keep bugging me about it, and lots of things i think they could’ve done better when it comes to how the UI interacts with gameplay, so i feel that Addons would be a great addition to the game in the long run, because as in WoW, the basic UI starts to feel out of date and the little annoyances keep growing over time.

So i really want ArenaNET to change their stance on the whole Addon thing, atleast implement some real customization.
http://profile.yahoo.com/7MPGC5FCQJZGFKICKCMALR3AYY Eric

I think RIFT did it best, made their own UI totally customization, no need for add-ons.

I really didn’t even use add-ons for wow anyway, not even for healing (mouse-over macros ftw), the only ones I had were Gatherer, some DPS meter, and DBM.
- http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm
  
  Templates are fine, but i rather just make my UI have my own look to it than use the default one. I only use WoW’s default Actionbar frames blizzard cause of the gryphons on the sides look cool and match my theme.
Demi_God

With Planetside Mods simply break the game.

A few people have stated cosmetic mods should be allowed. One could argue a mod that shows enemy snipers in bright yellow, support bright pink, light assault bright blue, and heavy assault as bright red would be a completely cosmetic feature. Distinguishing foe/type at a distance is pretty huge in planetside.

There certainly could be purely personal cosmetic addons allowed. But it would be infinitely harder to keep the non-cosmetic ones out once mods of any kind were allowed in.

Plus there is the whole issue of how Planetside makes it’s money as F2P, and some of it is selling cosmetic.
http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen” Jenkins

As far as add-ons go I’m pretty glad that games like Guild wars 2 and planetside 2 aren’t allowing them. After playing WoW for several years and raiding a ton, it frustrated me that majority of the players could no longer function or fight bosses as soon as their add-ons broke. They were so used to having an add-on tell them when to dodge, when a boss is using certain abilities, when to use their own abilities, and when and how to heal, that I felt like I was the only one who actually knew how to play the game without them(of course there were others who knew how, but that’s just how I felt at the time.) And while I do realize that some add-ons are mainly just to display things such as dps/hps etc. I don’t like the idea of having the game play for you basically.I feel that player skill and the ability to progress through hard content should be determined by group coordination and ones individual skill and knowledge of their class. As well as the ability to learn and adapt to situations.

I played WoW for 6+ years, and raided for majority of them. Never used a single add on, but was constantly asked to tank dungeons and raids because I was good at it. Not trying to hype myself up by any means, but just saying that the standard tools given to you are usually enough to play, and play well, as long as those tools are designed well. It basically comes down to 3 things.
-Reading and learning new abilities mechanics and understand how they work
-Applying it to your current situation, class or fight
-Practicing it individually and with teammates to work on improving and knowing what to look out for.
I feel like if you’re too lazy to do these three things then you shouldn’t be able to download an add on to instantly win or make it easier for you. Again, not saying all players who use add-ons are lazy, there are exceptionally skilled players out there who still choose to use add ons. I’m mainly speaking about the ones who don’t take the time to learn how to play, but I digress. I think a lot of my views come from playing RPG’s for a while and being content with using the tools I was given. So coming into MMO’s I’ve pretty much held the same mentality.

As far as being able to customize your UI. I don’t think it’s necessary in games like GW2. I think they have a pretty clean sleek UI that fits in well with their game and general art style. Not to mention that being able to actually see certain monster animations plays a crucial role in dungeons or harder boss fights, so putting your action bar in the middle of the screen won’t necessarily help in that situation. In other games I don’t mind it as much though. In games like WoW or Rift where you do have a ton of abilities in most cases, being able to manage your UI does help a ton as far as organizing those stacks of skills given to you. I could even see the need for this in Planetside 2 as well, so I don’t really have anything against it in those games.
- http://twitter.com/oliviadgrace Olivia Grace
  
  You’re right, your gaming background almost certainly has a huge impact on anyone’s stance on this, like I said, as WoW’s my main game, I get frustrated when I can’t change things around in others!
- http://twitter.com/cosmic_kirby CosmicKirby
  
  I could definitely play without add-ons in WoW, but having my entire UI and Inventory get swapped around and beaten with an ugly stick over a single night kinda kills my enthusiasm for re-training my eyes on a whim, even if it would only take a short time to actually do so.
  
  As far as the conversation at large… In my opinion, Add-ons do enough good in the hands of players that I relate to and with that I prefer to have them in. Yes, people can abuse them, yes they can cause problems, but I haven’t seen these happen nearly often enough or observed enough large scale problems (like the complete BG queue) to condemn them.
  
  That being said, it takes a considerable effort from both the community and the developer to properly allow them to flourish, especially in an MMO. Players and their actions in MMO do have a value to players, (compare and contrast with Mods in FPS games like CS:GO which has no progression) and anything that threatens to devalue this is a major concern for the fun factor and well being.
  
  Valve has gone on record practically bragging about how fortunate they are that they can somehow still allow cosmetic mods to exist and yet they can generate a massive profit from the purely cosmetic shops of Dota2 and TF2, so obviously mods would prove troublesome for smaller developers.
  
  I can forgive Arenanet for their policy, for one I don’t feel their game needs them, because I don’t feel they are big enough to properly control that situation in the same way Blizzard and Valve can. But overall I would say that add-ons and mods are a pretty major draw in the games I purchase and play.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  I would say the players that required the least amount of addon was tanks. As long as you know when to taunt, tanks don’t really need many timers.
Krzysztof Kotarba

WoW w/o any addons would be almost unbeatable for some people who use addons for everything like rotation, DBM, CC information all that crap…
I like UI customization, in GW2 I would change size and move some stuff around thats all. I like minimalistic UI.
- http://twitter.com/oliviadgrace Olivia Grace
  
  I would love to make some changes, purely cosmetic, to the GW2 UI…
  - HartsHope
    
    Absolutely!!! The interface is the first filter through which we experience our games and when players can make the UI felt more comfortable in our hands, we enjoy the game more.
    
    GW2′s interface is clumsy and stiff and awkward. And how the heck would any player get an advantage over another by being able to move the skillbar or add a nice skin to the target frame? makes zero sense. WoW’s policy on addons has created so much interest in the game.. players love to customize their UI like they do their car or their locker or their bedroom. It reinforces the player’s personal connection with the game… im all for advanced UI customization that is closely regulated by the game developers.
http://twitter.com/Zedris Zedris

addons all the way
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kyle-Eggers/100000868131517 Kyle Eggers

I played WoW for a little over six year, and at first I thought that addons were great, but as continued to use them I noticed that they really take away from the game play and handicap you as player. I played EQ for about four and raided in it, and when I started raiding in WoW I found it stupid that some guilds required you to have this or that add on or they wouldn’t allow you to raid. I did use Omen, and DBM to name a few addons, but i never had more then 5 or 6 going at once. When a patch did come in and break the addons then many people just could not play the game because they had become so dependent on the addons. They would pull too much threat or not move when they needed to, and all the people I played with were not stupid, they had just forgot what the game was like without the addons.
After I left WoW, I refused to use addons in Rift (the game I moved to), and found a guild that promoted not using addons. I did like how in Rift you could rearrange the UI completely, but one thing that always bothered me about Rift was the macro using which was obscene. Part of playing WoW or Rift more me was to see how I max my DPS, not have a macro do it for me.
I now am playing GW2 and really I don’t even think about the interface, which is how every game or MMO really should be. Sure i have a gaming keyboard and mouse that i will graph most of my buttons to. But GW2 is like Skyrim in that the interface isn’t in the way.
I have been playing PS2 also but I feel that it is the same way I don’t think about the interface most of the time I don’t even notice that it is there, and that is great!
So I believe that addons are bad in most if not games, and just really handicap the player. Since they aren’t needed to play any game, they therefore are not needed at all. If you are using addons and stop you will find yourself becoming a better player (the guilds that get world first on raids don’t use DBM because it isn’t up to date when they are running the raids), I don’t mind UI’s that are clunky letting player rearrange it. But what all developers should aim for is UI that isn’t there, or that feels like so much of the game that the player never notices it. I really feel that GW2 and PS2 have done that.
- 7BitBrian
  
  Back in Wrath, the last time I played WoW seriously enough to raid, my Guild was one of those Guilds that ‘required’ you to have certain mods. They were of the opinion that stuff just couldn’t be done without them. So I lied to them, told them I had the addons, and main tanked all the way through Lich King. After we downed him I told them all the truth, they kicked me out of the guild………… In the end it was my laugh though because with their new main tank, that used addons, it took them another almost 2 months to down LK again.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Lol, not sure when DBM got the feature that allows you to check who has the mod installed.
    
    BTW, I never had a problem with the tank not having DBM. They really don’t need it, as long as they can track when to taunt.
Dennis Schmidt

I am also an add-on, mod addict. I think it affects MMOs in three very important ways:
1. It lets players enjoy the game they way like it
2. It fosters a fan-based community by inviting players to extend the game, players have great appreciation and excitement for a game they are actually contributing to
3. It helps the developer see beyond their own limited design perspective by seeing outside people modify the game experience and potentially incorporate good ideas into the core of the game

Addons, however as Olivia mentioned, does essentially eliminate any consideration of that game as an e-sport since there are uneven playing fields between competitors.
http://www.facebook.com/rasmus.nielsen.75491 Rasmus Nielsen

I think it depends on the game, in WoW’s case it makes sense, it doesn’t for all games.
http://twitter.com/DeadnCold DeadnCold

I am pro-addon.

I think that what most players who dislike them, who say they aren’t needed(especially reading the post in this thread from those who don’t) don’t realize is that not everyone has the skill level they do. They think “I don’t need them so no one should need them”. They never think to ask themselves if all those players that refuse to play when their addons are broken can actually play without them.

Yes addons can make the skilled players lazy but they can also be an extremely important asset to those who just don’t have the level of skill or situational awareness to play the game at that level.

It’s great if you can play the game and raid hard modes or reach top tier PvP without them, I envy your skill, but players of all different skill levels play and enjoy these games. Take WoW for example, it has an extremely varied player base, everyone from grandmas who have never gamed before to pro gamers play. How many of those 10 million people do you think could take on even a normal mode raid without an addon? If WoW banned addons right now how many could still play it?

Games that don’t allow addons are really just needlessly restricting themselves and alienating a potentially sizable number of prospective players.

It’s one of the reasons I haven’t gotten into GW2 as much as I want to. I love the game, the game style and game play are amazing but the simple fact that I can’t re-arrange the order of the core weapon spells/skills on my hotbar makes it very hard for me to adjust to playing the game. If they allowed even that much customization or let an addon make it possible then AN would have a lot more of my money.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=657152563 facebook-657152563

I’m an addon whore. Just flat out. I play world of warcraft and I love the ability to be able to customize the UI to how it fits me while I play this game. For an example, with the default ui, I had a cluster%$^& of a mess. Even when trying to keep it clean and organized.
Also I use Lore’s ui setup (except I still use grid, not vuhdoo), as well as other addons from everything to NPC scan, to healbot. Now having said that, on patch day when “all the addons break” I don’t have an issue with it, because I just disable all addons and putz around for a bit (if really needed, which lately hasn’t happened yet).
http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.ericson.39 Jonathan Ericson

I am not anti-addon. I do love certain addons that I have for WoW and such, however I recognize the rights of the game owners to forbid players to alter a game without their consent. Perhaps they do it for ease of operation as you the example you gave of how patches can render a game unplayable, or maybe they have a certain experience designed into the game that they believe will be altered if tampered with. What I’m saying is if they want their game to play a specific way, with a specific look, with specific sounds, and don’t want our input at all….Well, it’s their right.
http://www.facebook.com/ThHailStorm MrRabbit Tatoo

I’m pro-addon and I play a lot of Guild Wars 2, the default UI is good but….. you just inspired me to create an add-on for Guild Wars 2 my beautiful muse.

I’m working on a “siege aid” addon for Guild Wars 2 right now, seriously… I will replace your cursor for a different cursor that show the maximum range of siege weaponry, oh my god i’m awesome!
theunwarshed

i’m pro customizable UI, but anti add on/mod that isn’t “optional”, and when i say “optional” i mean anything that gives a player a game play advantage (even in the slightest) becomes de facto “mandatory”.
Joseph Winn

A good UI with some customization works best. Basically, if you get the UI right then you don’t need a lot of mods. I find the heavy mods in WoW to be ridiculous and just looking at my old screens of WoW now, I feel like I’m staring at a spreadsheet program. It’s just bleh.
http://profile.yahoo.com/YSVAPKVBUPTX6YS3W2DLPOBNN4 AlokP

The people who say addons aren’t needed in WoW are being inefficient at best, stubbornly bad at worst. The most important addons in a game like WoW are ones which organize information in a different way to make it clearer. Sure, on an add-based fight where the boss casts something important, you can /focus the boss to see his cast bar in the default UI. But that’s inefficient. Not using grid+clique or Vuhdo for healing at best costs you a lot of macro slots to make mouseover macros, and at worst cuts your efficiency in half as you click to target, then hit your spell, even if keybound.

To WoW’s credit, over the years they’ve added a lot of things to ease this. Just the ability to move your character frame to the center of your screen if you wanted helps a lot. The new loss-of-control UI, the poweraura-esque animations added in Cataclysm, all the boss emotes before major abilities – all these mean you can probably play the game without addons now (well after the ‘too-late’ mark to get rid of them).

I would love to have a way to look at the UI differently in GW2. But if I could make a huge poweraura for Blindness on me or Retaliation on my target, with numerical countdowns, the game would be much easier, and you’d have to design the game, on average, harder – which is where I think a lot of these games which don’t want to allow addons fear to tread.
RBHgamer

Olivia, I don’t play wow (except what was free) but i do play as much GW2 as u play wow. And I don’t find any problems with the UI at all. haven’t even thought, “dam, why do they do that?”

The UI in skyrim was a disaster, (at least for the PC) and kept me from playing as much as I did in Oblivion, so I agree that a bad UI could be a deal breaker. I say in summation that a good UI to begin with is critical and only customization can save it if it sucks. (btw finished playing skyrim before they allowed all the mods, should revisit)
Ren Heavens

Would never play an MMO that didn’t allow it personally.
Shagral

Though my UI in WoW is heavily customized and I put a lot of time and effort in it (maybe even consider myself addon-junke), ultimately I think ui addons are bad for games.
First, there’s addon management tedium, having to “prepare” a game before you play it.
Second, relying on addons cuts a significant portion of casual players, who are just unwilling to dabble in this addon pre-game thing.
Third, relying on addons just makes devs look lazy, they are basically outsourcing the UI development and testing to the community. Having options is nice, but not when the standard UI is just unbearable.
Fourth, I really see a game as a complete product, and I want to play it the way its creators wanted me to. I don’t want my enjoyment of the game depend on 3rd party. And I want to know that everyone else playing is looking through the same UI.
Fifth, UI shouldn’t get in the way of gameplay. WoW’s endgame relies so heavily on addons, that the game looks like a cockpit of an interceptor, rather than an RPG. Instead of actually showing you what happens it tells you what happens through addons. Best UI is no UI, and WoW’s addon extravaganza just shows how bad the game is at telegraphing what’s going on.
dylan frim

Maybe If world of warcraft didn’t have such a shitty UI. It doesn’t take a genuis to figure out that WoW’s outdated UI was bad to begin with.
Tomi Turku

For me personally, the old WoW UI (pre-WotLK) needed mods and I like how SWtOR did it, where you could customize the UI pretty much completely with the tools provided by the developer without any need for addons. In Guild Wars 2 however, I haven’t had any reason to even want to customize the UI. So it all depends on how solid the UI is in the first place; all classes in a game will work with the same UI without customization if the UI is versatile enough. Then again, that’s just my point of view and I know some people want to be in total control of how their game looks.
http://twitter.com/justQQing Brian Day

to bright
Justin Masters

addons add a new level to the game although i dont boycott games that don’t allow them. I think it would really improve gw2 if there was some more customization allowed with addons.
http://twitter.com/YggyD YggyD

Addons are a high and low road scenario. On one side, what I call the high road, it can pretty up and enhance the base game UI that can honestly be a little big and clunky. It can also help keep track of things like buffs and debuffs that are other wise way to small and off to the side to noticed as easily as they should be. On the low side it can make the game to easy and give to much information that takes away from the skill and design of the game. WoW has taken both roads many times, but it usually gets pulled back somewhere in the middle MOST of the time when one goes way to high or low. So honestly as long as a MMO keeps on top of it and doesn’t let it run wild addons are perfectly fine.
sheduur

I am pro mods. They can really add another layer to the game and make the player feel more comfortable with the game since he has to look at this part of the game all the time. This however also creates more maintenance for the devs. Something that I am sure many of them want to avoid. This is why you dont see alot of mmos with really good modding support.

To me its totally fine if the mods are cosmetic or minor gameplay enhancements. Powerauras comes to mind here. This is the perfect example of a mod that shouldnt even be just a mod anymore but a core component of any modern MMO. Some may say this gets rid of the “skill” of tracking your debuffs. But to me this is just adding to the gameplay experience since glueing your eyes to a tiny buff window is simply just distracting from the rest of the game.

Ultimately the decision lies on the side of the developer and from a financial standpoint the answer might be an easy one. I am sure that most devs happily skip on this and only add some options later on when players complain about it too much.
http://twitter.com/chumppi Riku Marttinen

Depends on the game… very highly. Something like PS2? I don’t think so. But regular MMORPG games like WOW/GW2/SWTOR definitely. You don’t want to be looking at an shitty UI for the rest of your time in-game.
http://twitter.com/NaamahNeko Anna

I have to say I’m mixed. On the one hand, I could never play my WoW without my RP add ons. And I do stop playing each patch until those are updated. I also find myself wishing there was a TRP2 for SWTOR or GW2.

On the other I am distinctly opposed to the way add ons have essentially become mandatory in WoW. The devs have said, many many times, that they design encounters based on the assumption you are using DBM and that you’ll track your progress with Recount. I hope they can keep that out of five man content, but who knows, I haven’t done challenge modes this expansion. At -best-, that makes it inaccessible to newbies. But in general, I’m simply against the idea that I -need- to do homework to play your game (separate from the desire to -want- to be a better raider so I look up boss vids). Beyond that, what happens in an expansion, say, Pandaria, that starts strong, but for various reasons bleeds subscribers, and more importantly, the mod community over the course of time? Do those fights now become inaccessible to everyone? I dare call the PvE community of WoW “substantial”, and that’s a lot of people who depend on add ons to play a game. They used to be extras, but they’ve become part of the foundation, and that’s territory I can’t say I’m comfortable with.
Evilevi501

Custom UI should be a basic function for all MMOs. Like Olivia said, with 4 90s I have 4 different set ups though I do expect it will be a day or so between patches when they sometimes “break”.

As far as add ons giving one an advantage, obviously it it does, it’s functionality is better than the basic UI and any competitor worth his salt would have it installed.

One can argue with no UI changes, that wouldn’t be an issue others can argue with a little research and downloading from one of the many popular UI sites, it also would be an issue.
http://www.facebook.com/david.robertson.7505 David Robertson

My son is colorblind and literally can not tell the diff between Conglomerate and Vanu on the map.

They did a very bad job of choosing the colors. For colorblind people, they can discern the difference if the saturation is different, but bad game designers will have different hue with the same brightness, making all look the same.With a customized UI, people with atypical vision can load skins that fix the faulty UI design to restore its intended function.It’s not about gaining an advantage, but making the product accessible and usable.
http://www.facebook.com/lpeace.88 Leo Lamphier

I like making a UI for my self and think if a game is going to say you can’t have any that they should build it in to the game itself. Like wow I hate that mini map it the to right corner so I have an add-on that lets me move it to a place that I like it. I also use a unit frame add-on a view port add-on bartender a threat tracker and recount. I enjoy making a new UI every so now and then. I redid it in wrath and at the start of cata and just before mists.
http://www.facebook.com/karrgo Mike Karr

I would say or PS2, lack of addons is ok… that being said in mmo’s how information is provided is very important…. so i would say in most things yes addons are a wonderful think but ultimately unnecessary for things like PS2 or a MOBA style game

Allow Addons and UI Alterations, or a modification-free interface?

Addons and UI Alterations, or a modification-free interface?

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