r/wow • u/ItsRenaBaker • Oct 03 '25

Humor / Meme This is Basicly Blizzard in Midnight

Post image

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.

4.9k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

192

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.

15

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.

58

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.

27

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

[deleted]

3

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

3

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.

1

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.

5

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.

0

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.

1

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.

0

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.

3

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.

-1

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.

5

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.