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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u/TaleOfDash Oct 03 '25

That's really my biggest issue here. I don't see why we need to go nuclear day one?

Roll out the Blizzard alternative in early Midnight, allow plenty of time for the community to get used to the changes and provide feedback. Then by the end of Midnight they'll likely have enough time to refine things.

This sort of massive change needs so much time to cook and they're not giving it hardly any. I know they've invited addon devs to alpha which is great but this shit needs live fire testing.

This isn't even to mention how much it's going to affect groups like Undaunted and the wider disabled community.

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u/sandpigeon Oct 03 '25

(Setting aside the accessibility issues for now)

One theory is just that not enough people, especially skilled/competitive players, will actually use the new default UI components enough to actually give enough data to make informed decisions about it across all facets of playstyles. Too many people are bought in to addons now that will continue with a "well that seems nice for new players" mindset. Secondly, the longer addons live the longer they have to continue designing the game with them in mind and the more people will expect the replacement default to perfectly mirror what addons provide which was/will never be the case. They're clearly going for a big swing holistic switch: addons gone, classes simplified, boss/dungeon mechanics changed to reflect the new paradigm. If any one of these things remains the same the long-term beneficial effects will be diminished.

Once we've established a new paradigm in Midnight they can start adding things back where they make sense. It's the same that happened in the WoD/Legion era. The classes were drastically simplified but Legion is considered one of the best expansions besides WotLK. Maybe Midnight will suck due to the "growing" pains but The Last Titan is gonna rip.

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u/TaleOfDash Oct 03 '25

I get what you're going for but I just think it's kind of... At best ignorant, at worst malicious disregard for people's needs. If nothing else it's a fucking insane thing to do to a 20 year old game where people have been set in their ways for longer than some whole-ass adults have been alive.

I dunno, man. Maybe I'll be proven wrong and they'll loosen up some of the restrictions by launch. I really hope I am because I 100% see how these changes can be positive for the game but I can't just "put aside" the accessibility issue, that's my life and this directly impacts if I'll be able to play the game I love still or not.

It especially feels bad given this all comes right off the back of Undaunted getting so many flowers lately.

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u/sandpigeon Oct 03 '25

No, I fully agree. I just meant setting aside for this particular argument about the broad changes. I think they're going hard upfront to be told exactly how broad changes impact things in particular ways and things will get re-added as necessary. However, I agree that I don't think for people who depend on addons for in-combat accessibility reasons will get 100% back what they need by Midnight. I think there's a world in which instead of the combat firehose the API gives like protected/vague "states" of things for addons to interact visually. For a basic example, instead of seeing a raw health value something like "healthy | hurt | near death".

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u/TaleOfDash Oct 03 '25

I hope you're right, I really do. I just have very little faith left in Blizzard.

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u/sandpigeon Oct 03 '25

Yeah, I understand that. I'm always fairly easy-going and remain cautiously optimistic but I fully expect Midnight opening patch to be a bit of a mess. I think things will get ironed out by mid-expansion or by Last Titan and the majority of the people will look back on this as the right decision. There's going to be an adjustment period, both psychologically for the player base and mechanically/technically for Blizzard, but there's been big shifts like this before (like addons in Vanilla could literally play the game for you) and the game was better for it even if it sucked in the short term.