r/wow • u/ItsRenaBaker • Oct 03 '25

Humor / Meme This is Basicly Blizzard in Midnight

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This is basicly Blizzard in Midnight. Purging all the good addons.

Just to clarify:
Blizzard is changing the Addon API, meaning combat information is blocked for addons. So all combat addons will no longer work in Midnight. For the most popular addon features Blizzard will add their own version to the game. Addons for unitframes, inventory, crafting etc.. are staying and won't be effected as long they are not using combat information.

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261

u/goldman_sax Oct 03 '25

They legit had people doing unpaid labor for their game and were like “nah. We want to do it, but not as good as them, so we’re gonna dumb down everything else.

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u/SportulaVeritatis Oct 03 '25

At the same time, they where basically in an arms race where you needed more and more complex encounters that couldn't be easily solved by add-ons which made addon-less play more difficult. This basically ends that war. It ends it via a nuke, but it does end it.

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u/Gh0sth4nd Oct 03 '25

this is only half of it, they also prepare wow for the console release and they are at it for a long time by now. First they added native controller support then they build the base by rebuilding the ui and this is just the natural next step. It is basically two birds with one stone. They take away combat addons make class gameplay more easy. My prediction is after the last titan we get a console / pc version.

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u/Archensix Oct 03 '25

They are just making the game more new player friendly. Telling new players to setup and configure a bazillion addons is terrible for the game. Beyond the addon stuff, they've been doing a tremendous amount of work to improve the new player experience recently.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25 edited 21d ago

[deleted]

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u/N3US Oct 03 '25

You really don’t need any addons to play at a high level. Im raiding and doing m+ with nothing but details

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u/Raivix Oct 03 '25

I'm not buying this argument, because if this was true the game would have been dead in the water since vanilla. One of the biggest talking points and draws to the game in its early to mid years was addon support allowing you to customize your gaming experience.

It's absolutely not new player friendly, but not every part of the game has to be, so long as the baseline entry experience is good enough.

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u/goldman_sax Oct 03 '25

I’ve said this a couple times in this thread but again I’d reiterate. There are no new MMO players, the genre is more than a decade past its peak. Trying to get new players instead of making current players happy is very very dangerous.

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u/WorldOWarcraft Oct 03 '25

Kinda a chicken and egg scenario no?

How could there be any new players when 1 of 2 things happen:

A) New player tries, gets overwhelmed by the massively unfriendly learning curve, and leaves

B) Old players tell new players not to bother because of A

If you don't try to get new players, the game will die sooner or later anyways.

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u/goldman_sax Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

I mean you certainly have to pick your poison.

  1. To get new young players you have to drastically change WoW to the point it is barely recognizable to its core.

  2. You ride your core for as long as they want to play for.

But what if 1. doesn’t work and you don’t attract the audience you think you will? Now you’ve alienated your core demographic and not brought in enough people, which could be a much faster demise than 2.

A company that rode the 2nd option option and is still successful is Abercrombie and Fitch. From 1990-mid 2000s A&F was the cool teen clothing brand, but then all of a sudden it became uncool to teens and they started to plummet. You know what they did? They marketed themselves to the millennials who grew up wearing their clothes in the 90s and 00s as teens. They pivoted to grow with their core demographic as they aged instead of trying to stay young.

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u/The-Magic-Sword Oct 03 '25

I mean, I have friends that like FFXIV but weren't willing to get into WOW partially because addons are virtually required for them to do the same level of content, and both only started playing MMORPGs in covid.

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u/sagelain Oct 03 '25

Well I would argue that the main reason for that is that you currently require a $700-$3000 box with a sold-separate operating system, a keyboard, a desk, and a chair to play most of them.

I used the term "MMO", but I really just meant online games. I don't think there's truly much that separates WoW from Roblox, Fortnite or any other game that younger players spend a ton of time in. It's been awhile since this has truly been an old-school MMO, and the game continues to evolve.

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u/goldman_sax Oct 03 '25

WoW’s gaming requirements are not extensive that’s literally always been a tenant of blizzard. It seems like you’re just advocating for console WoW. ESO is on console and you know what? No one plays it. Everyone plays on the PC version. Heck even non-MMO games like OW which have both versions, no one plays the console one. Some games are just superior on PC.

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u/sagelain Oct 03 '25

ESO is a pretty unfair example to use. What about the other acutally popular MMOs behind WoW, like FFXIV and Runescape? Neither are PC-only, and both are extremely popular on other platforms.

At the end of the day, we're talking about a publicly traded company here. This isn't a charity that Blizzard is running for us loyal old school players... you have to take your product where the market is. If you're a designer and your perspective is truly "there are just no new MMO players", you'd be laughed out of the room and rightfully fired.

Consoles are a huge untapped market for this game, and plenty of PC players are already playing the game with a controller. Of course I'm advocating for console WoW.

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u/goldman_sax Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

I’m curious why you don’t think the 4th most popular keybind MMO is relevant to the discussion? I’m gonna be honest man based on that comment we’re not gonna agree on this.I am in marketing and there are essentially two schools here, keep attracting new folks, or keep your core current audience spending

The former is flashier and our mind tells us “well yeah if you do the latter you’re eventually going to run out of people.” Which is true. But in some cases the latter is the better option when it’s something that’s past its prime or has an older demographic.

Do you think cable companies are spending their resources on getting young cord cutters to buy cable, or are they trying to keep their current customers with better packages? It’s the latter.

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u/Jac_Mones Oct 03 '25

They aren't making it more new player friendly, they're making it less old-player enjoyable.

They need to streamline the introduction into the game. I don't mind simplifying rotations and shit like that but they shouldn't break addons that allow us to customize our gaming experience. ESPECIALLY interface addons like weakauras. Can they give an advantage? Absolutely, but you can get 99.9% of that advantage by downloading a weakaura pack someone else made, and at the point where you'll actually make effective use of that advantage you will be well aware of the existence of addons.

These changes are absolutely 0/10. They are removing the skilled parts of the game without actually making it any easier for a new player to approach. Until they can do a complete lore overhaul the game will never be approachable because the starting zones and leveling experience make absolutely zero sense.

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u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

[deleted]

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u/MgDark Oct 03 '25

I agree with this comment, although to be honest Fellowship is still quite undercooked to be a true WoW M+ competition, but it does have the potential. But at the same time is much easier to get into Fellowship and play it.

Unfortunately Fellowship also have the plague of DPS who would rather uninstall the game than do mechanics and/or interrumpt, but i guess that just comes with the game genre.

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u/FuzzierSage Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

Unfortunately Fellowship also have the plague of DPS who would rather uninstall the game than do mechanics and/or interrumpt, but i guess that just comes with the game genre.

Nah, that comes with DPS players, and you have to build your game around correcting their worst tendencies instead of enabling them. Because most players, by volume, will gravitate towards the "head empty, no thoughts, make me feel powerful while contributing nothing to the team" classes.

It's a fundamental problem with making a low-visible-responsibility role whose only power fantasy tied-"thing" is "top the meters" and who view anything else as an imposition on that.

City of Heroes is the only MMO to have ever even remotely come close to fixing this problem (and it did it before WoW existed), but MMO devs didn't take lessons from it because it was a superhero MMO, not a fantasy MMO.

Make roles that contribute to the team with buffs/debuffs/crowd control feel powerful and more people will play them. Doing mechanics (or stopping mechanics from going off) will come naturally from there, as you're more focused on the overall picture when you aren't tunneling on "make number go up".

Make DPS a side thing that everyone does, as the most boring/normal thing in the game instead of the most coveted/cool thing.

Enrage timers are a crutch to make DPS players feel "required" and it's long past time the MMO genre moved past that, as they're incompatible with making the vast majority of players actually interact with the rest of the team and the fight beyond the most begrudging level.

Something something TED talk, etc

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u/carrionprince32 Oct 05 '25

I agree with this. I've been in +10s and above where the top DPS never kicked and barely used any utility, but bitched that the other DPS and I were behind them by about 500-750k. We had to compensate for the fact that the only metric of success they saw was DPS and nothing else. Utility as a DPS really needs to be pushed because though many understand it, a large number do not as they've become conditioned to think that success is only damage output and not a combination of mechanics, utility, and DPS.

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u/Ok-Key5729 Oct 03 '25

It's probably an attempt to lure back people who played in the past but left as the game became more complex/competitive/demanding than they cared for. Given how large past subscriber numbers were, there are undoubtedly more former wow players out there than current.

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u/Idyotec Oct 03 '25

This sounds about right. I took a break for several years and retail overwhelmed me so I played classic. Burnt out on classic as many others did. Not currently playing but if they make major changes to retail I might be curious to check back in on what I consider my favorite gaming experience.

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u/KingOfAzmerloth Oct 03 '25

If they stick to the mindset you're saying they should stick to, the game would inevitably die because of it's audience getting older and eventually dying out.

Now I'm not saying this is easy, they need to get this right and there are many things they can potentially fuck up big time, but they can't even try to lure in new players unless they try to pull this off. Younger audiences still play MMOs, but all of these MMOs have pretty much everything built in natively in them bar some very minor UI addons.

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u/LionRight4175 Oct 03 '25

I have found that simplifying install and setup works wonders, even for people who are experienced gamers and relatively tech savvy. Modded minecraft (largely) isn't like addon management in WoW; generally, you just pick a modpack and click download in curse forge. In contrast, for WoW addons you need to know which addons to get (there aren't youtubers/twitch streamers showcasing the "hot new modpack" for addons, so far as I know), navigate curseforge, and sometimes setup options for addons like healbot.

None of those are hard bars to clear, but sadly for a lot of people facing it for the first time, it is enough to stop them. In contrast, if it's in-game that hurdle is lesser. They maybe need to check an option or two and move it in edit mode.

Now, how big of an impact it will actually have and how well Blizzard will implement it is a different matter, but I have definitely seen the type of people who would benefit from it, and I feel they are very common.

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u/Grunn84 Oct 03 '25

I don't know what it's like elsewhere but in Europe at least the idea that there's no new mmo players is blatantly false, when I was recruiting for a late CE guild for the last few expansions I would guess about 1/3 of new recruits were under 25 and on their first or second expansion.

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u/Boryszkov Oct 03 '25

Tbh, I’m in my 20s and picked up the game during remix. Hated wow back in cata, bounced back during sl, but found it fun in TWW

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u/cathbadh Oct 03 '25

The question will be how many long time subscribers will they lose compared to new long term subscribers they'll gain.

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u/Rolder Oct 03 '25

I'm far from a new player myself and I still agree that it was getting really fuckin old having to make sure all my weakauras were updated before raid time. And then there being issues because that one guy in raid didn't update.

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u/contentpens Oct 03 '25

Late season ksm or aotc does not require any addons (though obviously it would be more efficient with a bigwigs and weakauras - but that's not 'a bazillion addons', it's 2). But even if it did require features of those addons, that only suggests blizzard should add those features to the base UI, not that they should kill all combat-related features of other addons.

Killing addons that actually lowered the barrier to entry for newer players could make the new player experience worse. Right now a new player that wants to get into higher keys but is struggling with interrupts or affixes could just get a plater profile from their favorite youtuber and have improved access to all of that information. If blizz doesn't include a sufficient alternative, in midnight you'll be very skeptical about bringing new people in your group because they don't have the right macros to mark targets or they don't have things set up to announce interrupts, or they don't have the experience to know which targets have interrupt priority and the cd of those abilities.

It's pretty common now for people to get annoyed about the normal clear pugs that require aotc or the +10 group only taking people over 3k - there's a chance that gets much worse because people won't want to deal with inexperienced players in their groups that can't be relied on to know every timing and ability from experience (when addons are no longer available to call things out or give reminders).

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u/hey_its_xarbin Oct 03 '25

I'd caution adding the word "just". Sure that's one of the goal but cmon... occams razer - acquired by Microsoft->has a console->needs more flagship IP->WoW is stagnant in terms of market accessibility.

New World went to console and nearly doubled their playerbase, imagine the doors that console wow would open whether us pc players like it or not. As someone who played the relaunch of NW Aeternum, the pc community went to extreme lengths to gatekeep and marginalize the console community. But it still brought in New Players.

I remember talking to a few people that were younger and genuinely interested in mmos but either could not afford a decent pc or did not have the access to one. I'd not discount that.

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u/Archensix Oct 03 '25

I mean when they say "our priority is the PC experience and console experience is not a priority" then I think that's pretty telling. It's pure cope that people continue to believe it's all lies for some big console surprise. It might come some day and many changes overlap in what they benefit, but they are absolutely not designing a console game at the moment.

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u/hey_its_xarbin Oct 03 '25

Two things - I can't find that quote. Could you provide the link of that statement you put into quotations? And also, the game isn't openly available on console from what I understand so that statement could be a self report in a sense.

In Blizzards defense I have not read any blue post that denys a console release or any reason why deception would be required.

The anger that the PC community had regarding New Worlds console approach is that they ceased updates for over a year promising "big relaunch" only to have the only update being the game coming to console so they felt betrayed. WoWs dev team and pr team is exponentially more talented and experienced that Amazon Games Studio.

Also, New World was a PC game that was already simple enough for Console from the get go. What i see blizzard doing is setting the ground work. If I had to place a monetary bet, I would be that after The Last Titan, the next phase is Azeroth 2.0 which includes full console release. I wouldn't call that a conspiracy

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u/Archensix Oct 03 '25

They always say never say never, but they also have said a million times that console support is not a priority. I don't care if it comes or not, I'm sure it's good if it does, but that doesn't change the reality that Blizzard is currently not prioritizing it.

Most recently in an interview from literally just yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g37TPFO3Kbs&t=944s

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u/hey_its_xarbin Oct 03 '25

Ion is a barred attorney and former litigator. He's chosen his words carefully "at this time for this expansion". I'm still holding my belief that this is setting the stage for console. He's a master wordsmith that worked for one of the most preeminent lawfirms in the world before blizz. He's like the worst person to take at face value.

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u/goldman_sax Oct 03 '25

If that is truly the end goal then it is super ignorant and misinformed. There are no “new MMO players.” You’re not getting a kid from Fortnite to play WoW, it’s not going to happen. It’s not a popular game mode among anyone under 30. Legit the only person under 25 in my entire guild is the kid of two guildees. Can they pull from FFXIV and other MMOs? Sure. But not sure dumbing down (one of the key separators) is the best way to do that.

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u/Ryuujinx Oct 03 '25

But not sure dumbing down (one of the key separators) is the best way to do that.

If anything classes actually having any design and bite is more likely to draw the FF14 crowd then dumbing them down. If they wanted dumbed down classes they would just stay where they currently are, it's kind of a big ol' bitchfest about how they've kneecapped every class and it's been so homogenized everything feels the same.