Add-On War Analysis — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:03] It's been almost a year since Blizzard declared war on add-ons. We had a full year of drama and community in fighting {slash} discussion before Midnight launched. And when it finally arrived, many things were great. Many things were

[00:17] broken was because Blizzard had to rush to replace all the things we needed and loved like our cool down manager, DPS meters, and boss alerts. Every class in the game was pruned and largely simplified for this new add-on-less

[00:32] So, if all that happened, then why does the race to world first look like this? The war on add-ons is over and a lot of people are actually now saying that, well, the add-ons won. That's not the only thing we have today.

[00:47] them are quite funny, a growing problem in housing, and an interview with Holly about World of Warcraft's future. So, welcome back of Warcraft's future. So, welcome back to the news. Let's get stuck in.

[01:01] first was absolutely incredible. The secret phase reveal will go down in history and that it happened on Easter Sunday is kind of hilarious. But, if you were watching the Lurker fight, you probably saw a lot of things you really

[01:14] shouldn't have like this memory game helper. You see, Lurker shows marks in a certain order and players have got to stand in the right order. Now, the thing is on mythic difficulty, she splits players up and she shows them only parts

[01:28] different segments of players are supposed to communicate with each other to get the full answer. That's really hard to do in the time constraints. So, both Echo and Liquid made custom add-ons to display the pattern on everyone's

[01:44] screen. And given the design intent, it looks like some serious cheating. But, it's actually a simple display. Players type what they see and the add-on picks that up to draw the image. So, it's not an auto solver or anything

[01:57] like that. And because of that, Blizzard gave them the thumbs up for it. Now, I won't say it makes the fight a whole lot easier, but it is an add-on that solves easier, but it is an add-on that solves the memory part of a memory game.

[02:10] So, for counting score, I'm going to say Blizzard zero, add-ons one. Just that only one of the losses and probably the least important. Look at almost any raiders UI in the race and you'll see something that Blizzard explicitly said

[02:23] something that Blizzard explicitly said they wanted gone. And that is these text dropped a huge post on the UI development Discord and one of the points was on simplifying names. Their stance is that learning spell names is

[02:36] part of the game play, not renaming them. Now, an important role in this fight is to hold these light crystals. So, the player responsible has a massive bar in their screen telling them to check the

[02:48] crystal. And it goes away once the crystal is picked up. And that means it is now Blizzard zero, add-ons two. And it's not just a race thing, either. On Lura, the memory game is called Death's Dirge, but

[03:02] memory game is called Death's Dirge, but on most UIs, it's just called Marks. Not really flavorful. Echo and Liquid both have on-screen text timers with instructions, rather than spell names. And the thing is you can do that, too,

[03:15] because now it's a feature of Big Wigs. So, let's update the tally. That's Blizzard zero, add-ons three. And it keeps going. Recently, Mini CC got an update allowing it to track allies cool downs. Now, it's not perfect. It

[03:30] actually uses a chain of loopholes and different conditions to figure out when a spell was used, but the end result is the same thing. Most friendly cool downs the same thing. Most friendly cool downs are visible only if you use an add-on.

[03:42] That means the add-on gives you an advantage. One of the coolest parts of software engineering is working around constraints and coming up with crazy ways to make something work. The developer absolutely did that, and I do

[03:54] think that that is like pretty awesome. So, you know, thumbs up to the dev. But, let's keep going because then there's X Win Tools and Blizzy Interrupts, which both function as interrupt trackers. And that means that is now Blizzard zero

[04:08] this because it means add-ons still provide a ton of competitive advantage. But, the only difference now is that accessing that competitive advantage is a hell of a lot more complicated than it used to be because of all the changes

[04:23] Blizzard made to essentially the things add-ons can access. So, it essentially seems that Blizzard have effectively, well, completely and utterly lost the war on add-ons. It seems they've wasted tons of effort and

[04:37] tons of time, and they've ended up in a situation where many of the same competitive advantages can be gained by players, just that it's way more fiddly and complicated to access that competitive advantage. And that does

[04:50] competitive advantage. And that does seem like the opposite of their intent. enough? Enough to say put Ian on an aircraft carrier with a banner behind him saying "Mission accomplished." You see, in our guild, very few of us use

[05:04] any combat add-ons. Not intentionally either, it just sort of happened. Most of them broke at launch, and so far most of us haven't really felt the need to timers are not perfect,

[05:16] but they do the job by and large. The cool down manager does need a lot of work, but it's enough to get by with. You see, now we've actually seen the and it is obvious that the bit where Blizzard have done the work

[05:29] that's where I do have to hand it to Blizzard's developers. As an example, whenever someone is targeted, everyone can see it clearly. Like with say Leryssa's arrows or the dragon's dread breath. There are no complicated things

[05:43] to organize, and the mechanics resolve slowly enough that we haven't struggled. important casts are now marked by the game and they're slow enough that you can see them and react to them and you don't feel like you have to sift through

[05:57] five trillion cast bars all at the same time. It's not an accident that Mythic plus tens are substantially easier than ever before. Blizzard have simplified and slowed down the game very intentionally. It's all to

[06:10] make World of Warcraft more approachable. But there is another angle to it. And that is defeating add-ons in a bit of a different way. You see, advantage and that's something Blizzard does not want. But outside of the very

[06:24] top end, that advantage doesn't really feel necessary. And if it doesn't feel necessary, well, then jumping through all the hoops to get it going doesn't the game and succeed in your goals without add-ons, then why bother going

[06:39] out of your way to download a big complicated setup? So, my gut tells me complicated setup? So, my gut tells me that this war isn't quite as one-sided would suggest. But when we'll really find out is if

[06:52] Blizzard starts shipping more restrictions in patch 12.0.5 or if they're actually happy with where we've landed here. Let me know what your guild's experience has been. But with that said, got to talk about that

[07:04] update. 12.1.5 will be one of the most legendary patches of all time and I hope it is a sign of what to come. You see, when the patch drops, you'll be able to choose how you sheathe your weapons.

[07:19] Biggest patch of all time. You can put them on your hip, on your back. You can even hide them and dual wielders can even choose them independently. So, it actually looks like the new transmog system has more going on than we first

[07:33] interview months ago that Blizzard are working on personalization and customization as one of their next big things. But it's a huge project with loads of technical stuff behind it. Now, obviously, given the technical

[07:47] impossibility of blue tattoos, something might be up, and we've still eyes. But, there's a parallel here with transmog. They rebuilt that system, and suddenly, we've got loads of sheathing options. So, they can do these things,

[08:02] but only when they take their time. And it's with that context that we now And it's with that context that we now go to Holly's recent interview. Cuz if thought, "Look at all that there." I'm here again. "Why is my human sitting

[08:15] here with no customizations?" Well, seems Blizzard are actually committing seems Blizzard are actually committing to something here. official WoW community Discord, and we got some real good stuff out of it. When

[08:28] she was asked about what she'd do if she could wave a magic wand and just have it all done, her answer was actually more customization. That shows where her priorities are, but also where she's probably

[08:40] the most frustrated with limitations. And she gave a few examples that I think betray that further. High five emotes. High five emotes made to match player heights, as in the heights of your different characters.

[08:53] How do you high five another character when that character could be a gnome and one of the toughest things, hair and beards, which naturally led to one of WoW's biggest issues, hair under hats. Obviously, she didn't

[09:08] make specific time-bound promises, but she made it clear that it's something working on a long-term customization revamp, that is almost guaranteed to be part of it, just like how this transmog revamp has finally let us sheath how we

[09:23] Sounds like a euphemism, so let's move swiftly on to the next thing. talked about a housing roadmap being in the works. She reiterated that social system changes are coming to the game, and that she thinks of World of Warcraft

[09:36] and that she thinks of World of Warcraft as a, quote, third place. Honestly, I societies tend to be the most lacking in big developed countries, and I think Warcraft to focus on. So, thumbs up to that one. And by that, she means a place

[09:50] or a people to truly build community and hang out. That's fantastic. She talked about two other major things as well, class identity and WoW's future world. No promises, of course, but she made clear where they're heading. They're

[10:04] trying to get race and class fantasies to feel important again, but she didn't say how. And on the topic of the world, they are trying to focus on building it they are trying to focus on building it up instead of just expanding it. She

[10:16] they're getting tired of slapping new islands onto the map. I think we're getting tired of that, too. So, overall, it sounds like Holly is uh direction of catering to every type of player, but there's perhaps one type of

[10:32] player they should really stop catering to. of drama with the limited Pringles mount collab. I can barely believe those are

[10:44] words coming out of my mouth and this is a part of my job. I'm talking about the ridiculous, how silly, but hey, it's the modern world. And unfortunately for you scalpers, this kind of thing has happened again. Xbox partnered with

[10:58] Coca-Cola on a range of promotional Fanta cans, and they've made two mistakes. Mistake one was giving Zultath the red strawberry one instead of the That's not really relevant here because mistake two was limiting the codes.

[11:13] There are only around 40,000 of each WoW reward, and they're all split up across a 17-week-long promotional period. It's only just started, and the mount is already on eBay for 50 bucks. Now, the thing is, we

[11:27] post later. It's not going to be as crazy as the Pringles Mount situation, but limiting codes like this is adding frustration to an otherwise fun collab.

[11:39] And it's quite obviously giving scalpers an opportunity to come in and basically ruin the fun for all of us. That's not the end of the weird collabs cuz they've partnered with Lodge to make a cast iron skillet.

[11:51] So, I think we have to accept it. Wow, really is a boomer game. I don't know about you, but I've hit the age where if I was able to get a World of Warcraft themed Dyson vacuum cleaner, I'd be thrilled. Same goes for the

[12:03] skillet, and that's why they sold out almost immediately. Interestingly, not does come with a code for the Cinder Kitten, which is a cheap pet that's been in the WoW store for years. Basically, people, me included, just wanted a

[12:17] skillet with the WoW logo on it that looked really cool. I get it, and apparently Lodge is a reliable brand, as well. Now, last I checked, they were sold out. So, all I can say is

[12:29] lads, get more iron and get casting, seriously. We need these. I want to buy them, please. Well, that said, I now go to the most reliable part of the Warcraft news, which is how unreliable WoW has been.

[12:44] which is how unreliable WoW has been. It's time for bug watch. first. At rank six of the Delver's Journey, you can buy bonus keys. Now, there's a little quibble, which is that it seems they didn't upgrade it to work

[12:57] with the new key shard system, because people were basically just sending their undercoins into the abyss. Still aided. Now, it didn't take long to fix, but people are reporting that they still have not got their lost keys back. So,

[13:10] that's a bit silly. Time walking gear was broken, as well, but in a bit of a minor way. While leveling, it was dropping gear higher than you can wear. That's fixed now, thankfully. But, in going to max level, last week's mythic

[13:24] as it turned out. That's because the Void Emissary summoned from the Xal'atath effects was despawning, leaving people very confused. Now, players have noticed a whole lot more. Though some of these will certainly be

[13:39] lower priority for Blizzard. As an example, The War Within is a little bit broken. Delves don't reliably drop Radiant Echo, so if you fancied going to do that achievement hunt, maybe hold off on that. And the same goes for crafting.

[13:53] You still need Valor Stones to craft some things, but there's no way of getting Valor Stones because they've been deleted from the game. Not ideal, but compared to our last bug, it's a minor issue. And that last bug is

[14:06] the loot bug. Yes, the loot bug. You see, after an apparent fix 2 weeks ago, the forums are still full of people complaining that they are locked to specific loot slots. And they they just keep on doing delves. They keep on

[14:21] getting shoulders. Shoulders for days. A bag full of shoulders. And they keep on playing. And basically, if this has impacted you, your character's almost a bit bricked. And that does mean that like your

[14:37] Warcraft is kind of broken, which does seem like Hopefully Blizzard takes that seriously and maybe gives delves better loot

[14:49] current WoW news. Where we're looking into the future though is, well, quite released, it's basically time to settle into the groove of playing the game for the announcements. And on that front, I am expecting news very soon

[15:05] indeed, so keep an eye out. And in the meantime, you maybe will want to get an alt leveled. And if you do want that, we have a guide to do it in anywhere from 2 to 5 hours. And my own method, which is not between 2 and 5 hours, but does get

[15:20] progress on your alt. So, check it out here.