Bringing addons into the default UI
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 11th 2008 at 6:00PM
It's not the first time they've "stolen" addon functionality, and it definitely won't be the last. And while a few reports are coming in from the PTR, it remains to be seen whether this change will actually replace more complicated addons (my guess is no, considering how simple Blizzard's timer looks).
But expect more of this in the patches to come-- everyone heard that Blizzard wants to implement a threatmeter into the default UI, and a "DamageMeters" type of tool would likely be appropriate for the default UI as well. Blizzard has always had the luxury of a great and hardworking addon community, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them start taking advantage of that luxury more often.
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Add-Ons
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Scoottie Feb 11th 2008 6:23PM
Hopefully Blizz does a better job this time, because when they tried to make SCT part of the default UI they failed and made the people that use SCT even more happy that it was still being made.
Rudolphe Feb 11th 2008 6:37PM
Wow this is almost a double post... look at the one below it.
Baluki Feb 11th 2008 7:11PM
Hmm...not bad. Doesn't look like it's going to offer a new way to list the totems though.
Oh, and...THREE YEARS AND THIS IS THE BEST THEY CAN DO?!?
EM Feb 11th 2008 7:57PM
A threat meter would be wunderbar because as much as I love Omen, it's usefulness is limited in PUGs where not everybody has it... it's always that one caster without it who always steals agro.
And regarding the shaman totem timers, does anybody know if they act as buttons, too? Can you click a timer to case the relevant totem?
georgeasmith Feb 11th 2008 8:10PM
according to the 2.4PTR notes you will be able to dispel totems by right clicking on them.
PeeWee Feb 11th 2008 8:08PM
*sigh*
Yes, I remember the utter FAIL that is the "Floating Combat Text". Today I use Parrot, and I've tried others. And they are all, every single one of them, faaaar superior to Blizzard's utter crap.
It's strange. Some coder working for free can come up with better stuff than a multi-million (billion?) dollar company cannot.
Blizzard - You should HIRE these guys!
Chris Anthony Feb 12th 2008 9:59AM
"It's strange. Some coder working for free can come up with better stuff than a multi-million (billion?) dollar company [can]."
It's not strange at all. Blizzard's developers have to answer to half a dozen different departments, each of whom has a separate idea about what the functionality should be ("Bob, I like your idea for the floating combat text, but some of our users are color-blind, and they won't appreciate the multi-colored text blending into the background; reduce it to primary colors, mmkay?"); they have a user base that's simultaneously much, much broader and much, much less responsive; and the responses they do get tend to be along the lines of "X feature sucks, it should be like Y addon" (or "X feature sucks because Blizz stole Y addon") instead of actual constructive criticism. Addon developers, by contrast, have the luxury of a user base that's specifically interested in what they're working on, and they don't have to report to anybody except the users, and that only if they happen to feel like it.
That, and players tend to ignore the mods they don't like in favor of the mods they do like; whereas it's hard, if not impossible, to ignore features of the default UI (without using mods to cover them up!).
So, no, it's not strange at all that a coder working for free can produce features that you like, whereas Blizzard is going to be hit or miss as far as you're concerned.
RogueJedi86 Feb 11th 2008 8:25PM
They're bringing an addon or 2 I use into the default UI with 2.4. I use FriendData to add notes for people on my friend's list. Lo and behold, this was in the Patch Notes:
* The friends list now has a notes field per friend. Click on the note icon to add a note for a particular friend.
Another addon outdated.
Also, the BagSpace plug-ins for Titan and FuBar were outdated with:
* There is now a UI option to display free bag space. When turned on, your backpack will display the total number of free spaces available in all your bags.
Chris Feb 11th 2008 9:15PM
Pretty weak attempt.
While the timers of the totem mods are one of the key features, they have forgotten the more important feature of providing clickable totem bars. Thus not wasting about 20 action bar buttons for the various totems.
But that's ok. If we keep our fingers crossed, maybe we can get earthshield tracker built in with WotLK. Nothing makes more sense then building in a mod for one-third of the shields for one-third of the talent trees for a single class who is also the least played class in the game.
Jack Spicer Feb 12th 2008 1:19AM
If you're having trouble with too many totems in your action bar, you should really consider making [modifier:alt] and [modifier:shift] macros.
I think people forget that Blizzard is thinking about all users when they add features into the default UI. Not everyone has powerful PCs and laptops to play this on, and to add a resource hogging feature into the game is just not something they'll do lightly.
Add-ons can be as resource hogging or sloppy as they want as long as they get the job done. They can also be littered with bugs.
Matdredalia Feb 12th 2008 1:53AM
One of the first things Blizzard ever "stole" was, in my opinion, MonkeyQuest. They took the idea of showing your quests to you outside of the quest window, and butchered it.
Blizzard has, on occasion, implemented things that were helpful and wonderful from the AddOns community, but unfortunately, they always seem to attempt to make these features "light weight" and in turn, they screw up what made them great.
Years later, I'm still using MonkeyQuest, even though it hasn't been updated in eons. Blizz's quest tracker is pure crap and I can't stand it.
Frankly, they can take advantage of the AddOn creators all they like -- because they never seem to get it quite right. And because of that, the AddOns will keep coming, and players will keep using them and worshiping their developers with Internet Stardom. Or, at least...I do, heh.
deiwos_negative Feb 16th 2008 9:51AM
Blizzard 'stole' plenty of things before the Quest Tracker, which is rather recent. Opening the loot window under the cursor? Buff timers? Auto cast-on-self without a target? Raid frames? Hunter pet auto-dash/dive? These are just a few things that came long before the quest tracker.
Would you rather prefer to require addons for each of these? Is not having to target yourself to cast buffs or heals on yourself too buggy now that it's implemented into the default UI? A large number of addons over the years have been to fix flaws or add essential things to the UI, which Blizzard have noticed and fixed. Sure some things have worked better than others when integrated, but don't think your opinion on them are the be all end all. I personally -hate- what SCT has become these days and love the integrated combat text to death. You'll notice there's also a checkbox to turn them off if you don't like them. So, do so and continue using what you prefer rather than complaining that Blizzard are stealing everyone's ideas.
Lucas Feb 12th 2008 6:01AM
Great. Work on some crappy totem timer that no one cares about or needs because the people it would help already have better ones, and ignore ANY both of our two other specs that are broken.
turkeyspit Feb 12th 2008 10:31AM
I'm still waiting for my "Interaction not displayed because of AddOn" messages to disappear.
Papadoc Feb 13th 2008 11:37AM
As far as addons go, the diversity of 10 million people means that Blizzard can not make everyone happy all of the time. For everyone that complains about an addon that didn't get integrated into the UI very well there are 10 times as many that are thankful for it.
You can please some people all of the time and you can please all people some of the time but you can't please all people all of the time.